Union Iron Works was founded in 1742 by William Allen, a Philadelphia Supreme Court justice, and Joseph Turner, a sea captain, after they purchased this bloomery forge as part of 10,849 acres for the manufacture of iron. The forge was an essential part of Union Iron Works, first producing farm implements and other items needed by settlers. In its early years, Indians regularly raided Union Forge for supplies, and families living at the superintendent's quarters, now known as Solitude House, hid in false-wall tunnels beneath the house to avoid detection. From 1747 to 1750, repeated uprisings by squatters led to the destruction of Union Forge and the furnace now under Spruce Run Reservoir, until superintendent Col. John Hackett, after appealing to Trenton, New Jersey, eventually quelled the disturbances. Hackett was succeeded by Robert Taylor, an emigrant from Ireland who arrived in 1755 and became superintendent in 1775 after earlier serving as a bookkeeper with Union Iron Works. During the Revolutionary War, Taylor produced cannonballs here for George Washington's army, especially for the battles of New Brunswick and Trenton, and sent wagons by night to avoid detection by the British, since discovery by the King's army meant death by hanging for treason. The bloomery had a stone chimney and smelted iron by removing impurities to make pig iron and wrought iron, with air entering through pipes called tuyeres, naturally or by bellows. In this process, charcoal and iron ore were prepared, the bloomery was preheated with burning charcoal, iron ore was introduced through the top, charcoal reduced iron oxides to metallic iron, and the resulting small iron particles fell to the bottom while molten slag was reheated and hammered out, producing pure wrought iron or bar iron. These ruins are identified as the surviving remains of what is called the beginning of the 13th oldest company in world history.