Valentines and Thomas: Ironmasters of Central Pennsylvania. Phase III Archaeological Data Recovery. The Valentine Iron Ore Washing Plant (36Ce526), Proposed Benner Commerce Business Park 82–Acre Parcel Benner Township, Centre County, Pennsylvania by Gary F. Coppock (review)

It's not what you find, it's what you find out.

—David Hurst Thomas

Gary Coppock's technical monograph on the history and archaeology of the Valentines and Thomas Foundry, and specifically of the ore washing plant, is a great example of the back-and-forth interplay between history and archaeology, and the ways each discipline informs the other. The volume, and the archaeological and historical research on which it rests, were produced as part of the Centre County Industrial Development Corporation's (CCIDC) efforts to comply with federal and state historic preservation laws and regulations. In professional parlance, it's what is known as heritage or cultural resource management (CRM). Since the 1980s the overwhelming bulk of American archaeological and historical research has come from CRM. This effort to help publically funded and permitted projects lie more gently on the historic landscape has produced some of the best and most exhaustive historical and archaeological research. As I noted in a 2016 Pennsylvania Heritage article on the fiftieth anniversary of the National Historic Preservation Act, many millions of public dollars have been poured into archaeological and historical research ahead of infrastructure projects across the United States. The result has been more and better archaeology and public history by orders of magnitude than the work accomplished in the preceding eight decades of the twentieth century. There's no doubt about that. The problem is (as noted in this book review) nobody knows it! Coppock's volume and the project that produced it are excellent examples of some of the very best of that work, and also illustrate two of its persistent problems.

This monograph is substantial (544 pages with the appendices). It contains an extensive historical context ranging from the general (a clear and very readable description of nineteenth-century iron-making) to the particular (a company history and the documentation of ore washing technology). The focus of the context is the ironworks operated by the Thomas and Valentine families in Centre and Clinton counties. These charcoal- and later coke-fired works operated for over a century (1815 to 1922), and the company played an important role in the technological evolution of iron-making in Pennsylvania. The context sets the stage for the description and interpretation of the archaeological investigation of the remains of an ore washing plant located near the company's Lindsay Coates Tract ore beds. The plant, operated by Henry Valentine from ca. 1887 to 1898, utilized the machine called the log washer, which had been invented by his father, Abraham S. Valentine, in 1842. Water for the ore washing process was obtained from deep wells that were drilled using technology adopted from the nascent oil industry, also developed in part in Pennsylvania in the mid-nineteenth century. By freeing the ore washers from the need for close proximity to a stream, the invention made it possible to site the facilities close to the ore sources wherever they might be found. Thus, the report documents and interprets the specifics of one of the most transformative technologies in the history of the American iron industry.

The archaeological excavation encompassed a roughly half-acre area that exposed the masonry foundations and related features of the plant. These included the outlines of the plant's four interconnected sections, external features such as platforms and narrow-gauge rail lines, and the likely locations of the boilers and engines. More than two hundred artifacts were collected, including tools, hardware, and machinery parts. This last category included...