History & local legend
Alliance Furnace stood beside Jacobs Creek in Fayette County, where William Turnbull and Peter Marmie established an ironworks in 1789. The furnace ceased operating in 1802, but its ruined stack remained the setting for a story about hunting dogs heard crying on clear autumn nights.
One version concerns an owner who gambled away the money needed to feed his dogs and led them into the furnace. Another names Marmie and connects the act with the failing ironworks: he supposedly drove his pack up the charging ramp and into the fire, then followed them himself.
Workers once used the charging ramp to load materials into the furnace from above. In the legend, it becomes the path taken by the man and his dogs into the fire.
Sources
- The Shadowlands, Banning / Alliance Furnace, gambler variant and the dogs heard on autumn nights
- ExplorePAHistory, Jacobs Creek Furnace Ruins, ironmaster and pack variant, 1789 construction and 1802 closure
- Myron B. Sharp and William H. Thomas, A Guide to the Old Stone Blast Furnaces in Western Pennsylvania, Part III, Fayette County
- Generic1139, 2013 geotagged photograph taken beside the ruined stack
