James Irvin was the ironmaster of Centre Furnace and the benefactor whose gift of 200 acres led to the establishment in Centre County of the Farmers’ High School of Pennsylvania, the future Penn State University.
Irvin was born in Linden Hall in 1800. In 1822, he married Juliann Gregg, daughter of Andrew Gregg, the county’s first representative to Congress as a U.S. representative and senator. By 1825, Irvin had assumed a position of wealth as a grist mill owner, grain dealer, and general store keeper. He built a stately stone mansion, still standing, on Spring Creek in Oak Hall.
In 1830, Irvin and his father John purchased an interest in Centre Furnace from the sons of Samuel Miles, who with John Patton was the co-founder of Centre Furnace in 1791. By 1851, after various transfers of ownership, Centre Furnace was owned one-third by James Irvin and one third by Moses Thompson. The other one-third was owned by John McCoy and James Harris Linn.
In 1832, Irvin was appointed major general of the 10th Division, Pennsylvania Militia (Centre, Huntingdon, Clearfield, and Mifflin counties). In 1840, he was elected to the U.S. Congress as a Whig, and he served two terms (1841-45). In 1847, the Whig Party nominated Irvin for governor of Pennsylvania, but he lost the election.
Meanwhile, Irvin was accumulating wealth in the iron-making and manufacturing. By 1854, he had ownership interests in ten blast furnaces, forges, and rolling mills: Centre, Martha, Julian, Mill Creek, Hecla, Monroe, Washington, and Hopewell furnaces, and Milesburg and Mercer iron works. His other ventures included the Bald Eagle and Spring Creek Navigation Company, the Bald Eagle Railroad Company, and several county turnpikes.
In 1846, he and Moses Thompson rebuilt Centre Furnace, a cold-blast furnace, into a hot-blast furnace that more efficiently smelt iron ore.
Despite his defeat as a gubernatorial candidate, Irvin remained influential in state politics, and he wanted to bring a “farm school” to Centre County. In 1851, he became a delegate to the founding convention of the Pennsylvania State Agricultural Society. The Society had two goals: to become a powerful statewide organization advancing the interests of Pennsylvania farmers, and to bring a scientifically based agricultural college into being.
On February 22, 1855, when Governor James Pollock signed the legislative act establishing the Farmers’ High School of Pennsylvania, Irvin immediately proposed Centre County as the school’s location. That same day, Irvin wrote to the executive committee of the state agricultural society, offering 200 to 250 acres of free land as a site for the school – an offer later reduced to 200 acres. The agricultural society passed his letter on the new board of trustees of the Farmers’ High School.
In his letter, Irvin noted the value of school to the state at large and to “the particular district in which it shall be established.” He continued: “I therefore desire its location in Centre County – if we would add dignity to labor, if we would have it held in honor by the community, we must associate it with Science, and if we would lessen the expense of acquiring Scientific Knowledge so as to being the cost within the means of the farming community, we must connect its acquisition with manual labor.”
At least eight counties were vying for the Farmers’ High School. The trustees’ site-selection committee visited each county. When the trustees visited Centre Furnace on June 26, 1855, they viewed three 200-acre farms offered by Irvin. On September 12, 1855, after much debate, the trustees voted in favor of a motion by Frederick Watts to accept “the proposition of General James Irvin” that would “best promote the interests of the institution.”
Irvin had sweetened his proposal with an offer to sell to the trustees 200 acres of adjoining land for $12,000. Along with Andrew Curtin and Hugh McAllister, Irvin also guaranteed a donation of $10,000 raised by the citizens of Centre and Huntingdon counties.
Construction of a barn and College Building (later Old Main) began in 1856. Irvin’s deed conveying his original 200-acre site to the school was recorded at the Centre County Recorder of Deeds office on August 4, 1857. Three months later, Irvin conveyed the deed to the adjoining 200 acres, which were split into tracts of 100 acres east of the original parcel and 100 on the west side.
For all his wealth, Irvin remained a public-spirited citizen. Historian Sylvester K. Stevens described him as “the highest type of industrial leader in the days before the Civil War; a man prominent in public service, optimistic and enthusiastic in support of progressive economic experiments, keen in the conduct of business affairs, and generous to a fault.”
In 1855, when he made his offer of land to the Farmers’ High School, Irvin was at the peak of his power, wealth, and influence. Then his wife, Juliann, died on July 4, 1856. And the Panic of 1857, a nationwide economic depression, decimated the Pennsylvania iron industry and with it most of Irvin’s wealth.
Irvin married Mary A. Curtin in 1859 and moved to Philadelphia, where he managed an iron store. In 1861, Naval Secretary Gideon Welles appointed him storekeeper of the Philadelphia Naval Yard. He returned to Centre County and died at Hecla on November 28, 1862. He is buried at Union Cemetery.
Roger Williams
Sources:
Irvin, James (Gen.), Penn State University vertical files, Eberly Family Special Collections Library, No. 0003.
Moses Thompson and James Irvin, Penn State Remembers, Chronicler, Penn State Room, Central Library, October 1950.
Alfred Decker Keator, Director State Library and Museum, letter to Willard P. Lewis, Penn State Librarian, July 2, 1943.
Lee, J. Marvin (ed.), “Owners of Centre Furnace Lands,” unsigned manuscript, Centre County Heritage, 1976-1985.
Linn, John Blair, “History of Centre and Clinton Counties. Philadelphia: J.B. Lippincott & Co. 1883.
Macneal, Douglas, “A Center Furnace Mansion Birthday Party,” (based on a paper by Leon Stout and Michael Bezilla), Centre County Heritage, Spring 1988, Vol. 25, No. 1.
“Oak Hall Historic District,” National Register of Historic Places Nomination Form, June 1, 1979.
Stevens, Sylvester K. (1927), revised and expanded by Philip S. Klein (1985), The Centre Furnace Story: A Return to Our Roots. State College: Centre County Historical Society.
Williams, Roger, Frederick Watts and the Founding of Penn State. University Park: The Pennsylvania State University Press, 2001.
Williams, Roger, “Siting the Farmers’ High School and Acquiring Its Land,” Mansion Notes, Spring 2024.
First Published: July 31, 2024
Last Modified: November 1, 2024