Cloverdale Furnace

Robert Harvey established an agricultural and industrial complex here about 1790 that processed iron ore. The operation, known as Cloverdale Furnace, expanded in the 19th century under the ownership of John Tayloe III. About 150 enslaved African Americans worked here, many in highly skilled positions. A second Cloverdale Furnace, built eight miles northeast of here in the 1840s, was also largely operated by enslaved workers. The furnace supplied high-quality gun metal to the Tredegar ironworks in Richmond during the 1840s and 1850s, but production lagged during the Civil War. Union Brig. Gen. William W. Averell's cavalry burned Cloverdale in June 1864.