Brady township, Mapleton borough

Brady Township's Glass Sand

Did you know? Sandstone of superior quality for making glass came from Rocky Ridge in Brady Township. In 1854 Ulrey, King and Company began quarrying sandstone for glass, shipping the crude stone to Pittsburgh, where, after it was reduced, the sand was found to be of superior quality.

Mr. King of Pittsburgh and Elliott Robley and D. H. Foster of Brady then experimented with crushing the stone at the quarry itself. A machine driven by steam power was finally devised and successfully set to work in 1857.

The township also had an iron furnace. Mill Creek Furnace, built in 1838, employed about one hundred and twenty men when fully operated, and more than forty houses were built in Brady for its workers. Its ore was chiefly brought from Franklin Township by canal and later by railroad, and nearly all its metal was taken to Barree Forge. Its first firm failed in 1842, and later owners ran it until 1857, when the remaining stock was placed in the hands of trustees, and the business closed up in March 1858. The Huntingdon Journal of November 25, 1857, had already put it in one word among its short items, "Busted," naming the owners as Irvin, Green and Company.

E. A. Green and Company put the furnace back in blast in 1863, but it blew out after six years. The sources differ on the firm's name: J. Simpson Africa's 1883 county history gives E. A. Green, while a Bellefonte court report reprinted in the Huntingdon Journal of May 27, 1874, gives E. H. Green. That report, going by the testimony, says the firm was formed in 1863 and became insolvent in 1869. The Globe of Huntingdon advertised a public sale at the furnace for March 12, 1870, offering horses, wagons, and ore bank and furnace tools. The furnace was still idle when Africa's history appeared in 1883, and the history says that since the furnace stopped, quarrying and crushing sandstone for glass had been the principal industry of the township.

The glass sand plants at Mapleton, across the river from Brady Township, came together under the Pennsylvania Glass Sand Company. The sources do not agree on its start date. A 1991 National Park Service inventory of the county's historic engineering and industrial sites and the 1966 Mapleton Centennial history both say 1902. U.S. Silica, which the company later merged into, dates the company to 1894 in its own history. A 1918 state report says a company of that name controlled the glass sand plants in the Juniata Valley in 1899.

The inventory places the company's Keystone plant north of the river, in Brady Township, and dates it to 1923 and 1924.

Checked and confirmed. Confirmed 2026-10-30 against the sources listed: every factual sentence was tied to a word-for-word passage in its source. Where sources disagreed on a number, the number was left out, with one exception: the company's early dates, 1894, 1899 and 1902, are each shown with their source. The company paragraphs were added and checked on 2026-11-01. The Brady Township location of the Keystone plant rests on the 1991 inventory alone, and a 1918 state report lists a Keystone works at Mapleton in 1914, so whether that was the same plant stays open. No deed or charter for the company has been checked. On 2026-11-01 the furnace's dates of 1857, 1858 and 1863 were read on the printed page of the 1883 history, and the newspaper items of 1857, 1870, 1874 and 1879 were read on their page images. The March 1858 closing rests on that history alone among the sources read. A sheriff's sale notice of 1879 uses E. A. Green, as the history does, but which name is right stays open. The 1869 insolvency comes from testimony in a suit whose jury could not agree. No source read gives the day the furnace last blew out.

Sources

Checked 2026-10-30 · County histories and primary sources, read in full

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