Alpina

Alpina
Village/settlement absorbed and taken over by the Pine Camp expansion in the early 1940's. Alpina is not far from Indian Lake.

A hot-blast (and could be operated as a cold-blast) charcoal furnace for iron manufacture was there, built in 1846 or 1848 by Swiss investors but later owned by Zebulon Benton and his wife (Caroline, a daughter of Joseph Bonaparte). The furnace was probably about thirty feet high, making iron from red hematite ore mined from the Indian Lake and Kearney mines or magnetite from Jayville. The old furnace has now partially collapsed in present times.



A sawmill was also built there, and may have had more success then the iron furnace. The iron furnace suffered from lack of ores to process and the distances that existing ores had to be transported from (in the winters the ore would have had to be dragged on sledges by oxen, for example).

A dam was built near Alpina, and some houses were there also. Zebulon Benton lived in Alpina for awhile, though his wife soon left the failing venture.

Many more current pictures of the kiln furnace can be found on this page Fort Drum

Lost Villages