Rockaway history (Morristown, Dover, Boonton: manufactured, transportation, land)

[gamecockmom]

I am doing a family history, and was told that my grandfather worked in a steel mill beginning in 1913 in Rockaway. I have not been able to find anything to verify this, and it is possible it may have been some other kind of factory or mill. Does anyone have any information on this?

[Honeycrisp]

Would try the Rockaway Borough or Rockaway Township Public Libraries. Another thought w/b the Rockaway Historical Society, if they don't have the info you're seeking, they may be able to direct you where you can find it.

[ottomobeale]

Wharton had a steel mill.
Rockaway had mines.

[gamecockmom]

Thanks for the info. He was probably in Wharton. At least that is a start for my search.

[njkate]

Hibernia as noted in below article is part Of Rockaway:

In the years following the Revolution, Morris County was a leader in the iron ore industry, a fact made possible by the abundance of iron ore, timber to fuel the forges, and swiftly flowing streams to provide power. By 1880 Morris was the third county in the nation in the amount of iron ore mined, with 568,420 tons.

To process the iron ore, works and mills were built at several locations, including Morristown, Boonton and Dover. It was in Morristown that the steam boiler and some of the machinery for the Savannah, the first steamship to cross the Atlantic Ocean, and parts of the first American locomotive were manufactured and the telegraph perfected by Samuel F. B. Morse and Alfred Vail. The old barn in which the two men conducted their experiments and sent the first message " A patient waiter is no loser ", is still standing.

The Morris iron dynasty faced ruin, when in 1882 the iron industry discovered that iron ore could almost literally be picked off the surface in the Meabi region near Lake Superior. The Dickerson mine became one of the most prominent of the 1880's after giving up more than one million tons of iron ore. Another famous mine, Hurdtown, closed down in 1898 after shafts had been sunk more than 2,600 feet into the earth in search of the elusive ore. Some of the last mines in Hibernia closed in 1913.

As the population grew and the methods of transportation improved, industries sprang up throughout the county, many of them using the iron ore as raw materials for their finished products. Boonton's iron processors gained fame from nail production; Wharton attracted the tremendous foundry of the Replogle Steel Company, which closed in 1919; Kenvil, the giant Powder Company of California, later the Hercules Powder Company, and Dover, an extensive plant for making mine equipment.

Morris County Web Site - History - The Land Past and Present

http://uk.geocities.com/cokebreeze/replogle/ History on the Replogle Steel Mill in Wharton