Royal Blake owned or was part owner in what today is called the Forest Dale Iron Works. The fifty-foot stone chimney still stands, one of the seven wonders of Vermont, although as late as the 1950s it was dynamited for road construction materials. Part of it was destroyed, including parts of the bridge section, though the chimney is still in restoration process and still stands. The arch-way doors showing where the pig iron once streamed out of this chimney like molten lava, once the bellows was put to this blast furnace, last fired in 1865, the last year of the Civil War, when it switched from charcoal to coal. Local residents of Forest Dale and Goshen also used the coal as their source of heat.

The Blake house in the 1850 U.S. Census for Forest Dale lists the following people: Royal Blake, 57, Iron Foundry, $40,000, Vermont Eleanor R. Blake, 41, Vermont Abba B Blake, 21, f, Vermont Eleanor E. Blake, 18, f. Samuel Blodgett, 74, miller Hannah Blodgett, 64 Hannah Carroll, 27, f. Patrick Hawkins, 16, m, clerk, Ireland; James Murry, 21, m, laborer, Ireland; William Mayanity, m, laborer, Vermont Francis Mero, 16, f, black, Vermont Andrew Mero, 12, m, black. Andrew was in the Civil War, Mass 54th Colored Infantry.

Living next door to Blake in dwelling 1205 is Edward Sherman, 41, m, Iron Foundry, Vermont. In this household are Edward Sherman, 41, Vermont Lucia M. Sherman, 42, Rhode Island Harriet Ellsworth, 12, f., Conn. Edward Ellsworth, 13, m, Conn. Amelia Hays, 16, f, mulatto, "Rio Janeiro."

Sources

Brandon, Vermont: 1761-1961, publ by Town of Brandon © 1962

U.S. Census, 1855

http://vermontcivilwar.org