A re-visit to Bulls Bridge which is just south of kent reveiled something we never saw before: a 1/2 ton salamander. Just going off of some pictures form the "historic Iron mines" website
http://www.historicironmines.com/ny/has ... clever.htm we noticed that this was indeed a good find. What CTmike and I picture is that there was some type of equiptment failure such as bellows or the steam engine, or there was an extremly cold winter (like what had happened in Roxbury one year). From some unknown event the furnace cooled resulting in the iron and slag to form a solid mass at the bottom of the furnace. This clogged up at least one of the two iron spickets, never being able to be opened again. The workers broke out the spicket from the brick constructed inner wall, which was still attached to a portion of the salamander. It was then just simply rolled down the hill into the river's edge. The remains of the furnace as they stand now have all four spickets intact, so it must had been replaced.
The slamander with spicket is about the size of a big block chevy engine and more than twice its weight. The pipe is 2 inches thick with an inside diameter of 6 inches. Intrestingly, the 2 inch wall is not solid but incompases another 11/2 inch diameter pipe coiled within it. This we guess is for cooling the molten iron just enough so as to not melt the iron pipe.
We had to wade across a fast section of the river to see this and so we didn't bring the camera. We will get a picture to post on the site when we go by it again.
I'm trying to find some information on the site. Kent furnaces and Roxbury furnaces (Shepaug Spathic Iron and Steel Company) are easy to find, but only very small traces of information can be found about the furnace south of Bull's Bridge. It is easily accessable and near a highly frequented area, yet just covered with enough flora to make it unnoticable to most people.