The Benton Foundry Story

For longer than any of us can remember, the Benton Foundry, once Harrington Foundry, has been associated with the business, industry, and economy of northern Columbia County. Its job offerings drew many of our families to this area, and kept here many of those whose parents and grandparents had settled earlier. Today, 2003, having weathered booms and declines alike, it remains the prominent company in the Benton Area.

Busy as ever in its 150-year history, the Benton Foundry has managed to stay competitive without layoffs. It has done so through courting a variety of customers in 34 states (and some foreign countries) with some 9,000 different products, ranging from pump housings, to parts for boat engines, to weight-lifting equipment, to furnace doors. It has also worked steadily to modernize its operation with electronics, computerization, and robotics. But it has continued to rely on its people. Installing new electric furnaces in July 1991, the Benton Foundry eventually expanded its workforce to some 270 persons, continuing to grow and compete during a time when most foundries are folding. Pennsylvania ranked first in the nation in the foundry business in the early 1900s, but by 2000 had declined to seventh. This decline is not seen at Benton.

Beginnings

Today's Benton Foundry, according to a 1958 account by Leona Harrington Savage, had its beginning in a small foundry established just after the Civil War by Newton Harrington. Born in 1834, one of a long line of Harringtons who immigrated to America from England and settled first in New England and later in the Wyoming Valley, Newton Harrington served in the Civil War before returning to work for a year in a foundry at Harveyville. He then built a 20- by 50-foot foundry in Sugarloaf Township at what is now known as Tri-Mills, directly across the creek from the present Benton Foundry. This business stood on a 500-acre tract purchased by Newton's father, Jacob Harrington, which extended as far south as the stone house on Red Rock Road, now the Lehet property.

At that time, the Coles Creek area was known as Sugarloaf. It was densely forested and sleds and teams of oxen were common. The new foundry originally made sled shoes and plows, the latter gaining some notoriety as the Harrington plow. In 1882 a sawmill was built near the foundry to cut shingles and parts for the Harrington plow.

Eventually, Newton's son Herbert, succeeding his father in the business, built a foundry across present-day route 487 where Benton Foundry now stands. At first it contained just a molding room where the cupola for melting iron stood. Melted iron was carried to the molds by two men using ladles with a long handle on each side; when cooled, the iron was polished for sale.

Soon afterward, Herbert Harrington built a wood shop for making patterns and pieces for the Harrington plow; the building also housed finished castings. Later he built a circular sawmill and shingle mill for custom sawing. With Jamison City came a call for brake shoes on the log trains that negotiated switchbacks on the surrounding hills. Domestic products of the time included pancake griddles, laths and a stand on which families could fit their shoes for mending, and dinner bells.

War Years

Roy, Alfred, and Stanley Harrington worked in the foundry as young men, and under the partnership of Alfred and Stanley the plant moved toward one of its peak periods, beginning state and national production. With the US entering World War II, the Harrington Foundry produced as many as 2500 75-millimeter shells per day, as well as stove tops for the Army and Navy. For the home front it was producing gears for the New Holland bailer, electric irons for the Procter Electric Company, and stoker parts for Koal King coal stokers. During the 1940s, the foundry not only made parts, but sold King Koal stokers and installed them throughout an area from Harrisburg to Scranton. The Harrington Foundry made all the manhole covers in Bloomsburg.

The business of this time called for a large payroll, averaging 70 but running as high as 120. It led to some $250,000. of expansion, including a new concrete building for brass, aluminum, and bronze casting work; rebuilding of the old foundry to include a wood shop, core room, machine shop, and blasting room; and adding modernized machinery of a rapidly-changing industry. With the shift of ownership from the Harringtons to the Halls in 1958, this emphasis on modernization continued.