West Point Foundry, with the encouragement of President James Madison, was established in 1817 by a group of military and business leaders in order to create a cannon foundry in the Hudson River Valley of NY in order to address the nation’s need for ordnance following the War of 1812.

New York merchant Gouverneur Kemble initiated the incorporation of the West Point Foundry Association alongside his younger brother William Kemble and other notable businessmen, engineers, and ordnance experts, including James Renwick, Sr. (Columbia College professor & engineer), Joseph Gardiner Swift (first to graduate from the United States Military Academy at West Point), and James Kirke Paulding (member of the Board of Naval Commissioners).

Gouverneur Kemble’s industrial venture was situated in a prime location in the Hudson River Valley. Directly opposite the United States Military Academy (USMA), West Point Foundry utilized easy access to the river for transportation and communication with a nearby dock in Foundry Cove. Margaret Brook (later changed to Foundry Brook) provided water-powered energy and the surrounding environment offered a wealth of natural resources, such as timber for charcoal, and many local iron mines, allowing the foundry to achieve peak productivity. The site was guarded by West Point, just across the Hudson River. As West Point Foundry grew it expanded from roughly 60 skilled engineers, craftsmen, and laborers to more than 400 in the first several decades. This resulted in the growth of the nearby town of Cold Spring, New York. The 1820s and 30s were a period of immense expansion for the foundry and Cold Spring became an industrial center for the region.


Views About the West Point Foundry by F. Wheeler


The Office at the West Point Foundry

West Point Foundry became a significant manufacturer of ordnance during the Civil War through the development and manufacturing of the Parrott gun (patented by Robert Parrott in 1861), a weapon that offered greater accuracy and range compared to other commonly used non-rifled ordnance. After the Union victory at Fort Pulaski in 1862, President Lincoln visited and inspected the foundry in June 1862 to observe the manufacturing of Parrott guns which prompted the Union army to rely primarily on this newfound technology. During the war 1400 people worked at the Foundry which produced 2000 cannon and 3 million shells. By the end of the war The fame of the foundry was such that Jules Verne used the Foundry as the contractor for the Columbiad, a spaceship-launching cannon, in his novel From the Earth to the Moon,


The West Point Iron Foundry at Cold Spring by the New York Stereoscopic Co.

It is interesting to note that artillery produced at the Foundry was tested by shooting it across the Hudson at the desolate slopes of Storm King Mountain. The area was swept for unexploded ordinance after some of it exploded during a 1999 fire.

West Point Foundry continued to be of national importance through the end of the Civil War, after which it transitioned into manufacturing heavy capital equipment, including steam engines, locomotives, pipes for the NYC water system, and machinery, and continued to do so for the next several decades. The foundry was purchased by J.B. and J.M. Cornell, who oversaw the ironworking process until filing for bankruptcy in 1911.

West Point Foundry, was made a National Historic Landmark in 2021, and is now administered by the nonprofit Scenic Hudson which is transforming the 90-acre site into an outdoor museum.

It is now known as the West Point Foundry Archeological Site. It is open to visitors year-round, free of charge.

Here is the link to the Foundry site:

West Point Foundry Preserve

Here is a link to a comprehensive article on the engineering aspects of the Foundry by The American Society of Mechanical Engineers:

https://www.asme.org/getmedia/29767c69-8e78-4c48-b5d6-e19b3cf5f668/asme-wpfp_-brochure.pdf

Regarding the photographer F. Wheeler, information on him can be found in the following link to a lot of letters auctioned at Hindman’s in June 2023:

https://hindmanauctions.com/auctions/1192-american-historical-ephemera-photography/lot/427

The letters are of Civil War soldier and photographer Orlando S. Goff, who apparently learned his photographic skills from Wheeler.