During the term of Thomas Jefferson, the Embargo Act of 1807 ended the importation of iron from England and Europe, and iron furnaces sprang up immediately in western Pennsylvania to supply pioneers and profit from high prices. More than 200 furnaces have been recorded in Pennsylvania, including three in this region: the Brighton at what is now Beaver Falls, the Homewood, and the Bassenheim Furnace in Butler County near Zelienople, owned by Count Detmar Basse, founder of that town. The Homewood Furnace was constructed on the Beaver River in 1857 in what is now Wayne Township, just south of Connoquenessing Creek near Rock Point. It had a capacity of five tons and produced pig iron and miscellaneous castings such as fireplace back-plates and flat irons. Its iron ore was handpicked from surrounding ground, and charcoal was made from trees growing abundantly along the river. The furnace operated for ten years until it was put out of blast in 1867 or 1868. When James Wood put the furnace into blast, he erected a sign reading Homewood Station, which later gave its name to the nearby railroad station. James Wood, born in New York City on December 17, 1789, was the son of a Quaker family. After working as a riverboat captain until 1835, he came to Pittsburgh at age forty-six and became an important figure in building the city. He first established a cotton mill at Third and Ferry Streets, but it was destroyed in the fire of 1845. Afterward he founded the Woods, Edwards and McKnight iron mill, one of the early mills that helped give Pittsburgh its distinctive character. He later went to Youngstown, Ohio, and built a blast furnace, the first west of the mountains to use coal as fuel. He also built rolling mills at the mouth of Saw Mill Run, and in 1860 he built four additional furnaces near Wheatland. Continuing to develop the iron industry, he purchased 200 acres in Wayne Township at the mouth of Connoquenessing Creek for additional iron facilities near the Homewood Furnace, along the south side of the creek and the eastern shore of the Beaver. He married Hannah Baldwin soon after settling in Pittsburgh and died on November 2, 1867.