Landscape Information
Located east of Copake, this former industrial site consists of approximately eighteen acres within the 5,000-acre Taconic State Park, near the New York–Massachusetts border. Its core spreads across partially cleared land in a valley at the base of the Taconic Ridge. Surrounded by forest and bisected by Bash Bish Brook, a three-mile gravel loop provides access throughout, traversing the brook, leading past several ore beds and ironwork buildings, and connecting to nearby mountain trails.
Industrialist Lemuel Pomeroy II established the business in 1845, utilizing the site’s natural resources that were ideal for iron production. In 1852 an internal rail loop was introduced, connecting with the New York and Harlem Railroad (now Harlem Valley River Trail). Furnace operations ceased in 1903, but remained active until 1923. Five years later, Taconic State Park was formed, and the State of New York acquired the site, utilizing it as a camping ground. Over time, several buildings were repurposed or demolished and, in the 1930s, the furnace partially disassembled. In 2008 Friends of Taconic State Park began rehabilitating remaining structures, including stabilizing the furnace and protecting it with a specialized, wooden-roofed structure.
Accessed from Route 344, a large ore bed (now flooded), the Gothic Revival Church of St. John in the Wilderness (Richard Upjohn, 1852), Pomeroy family cemetery (1851–1911) and mid-twentieth century cemetery, and vernacular workers’ housing (1850s–1860s) reside north of the brook. To its south, the blast furnace, related iron-production structures, and the Isaac Chesbrough House (1840s) meet a clearing studded with deciduous trees. The complex is nested within a forested landscape of deciduous (including maple, oak, pine, and beech) and coniferous trees, and an undergrowth of ferns.
The Copake Iron Works Historic District was listed in the National Register of Historic Places 2007 and is located within the Maurice D. Hinchey Hudson Valley National Heritage Area. The Church of St. John in the Wilderness was individually listed in 1995.
