Cold Spring Foundry

Just south of downtown Cold Spring is a placid wooded area that was once the site of the "deep breathing ... furnaces, and the sullen, monotonous pulsations of trip hammers"* of the well-known West Point Foundry. The foundry, which began operations in 1817 and continued through the 1880s (other industrial firms occupied the premises through the mid-20th century), was the "most extensive and complete of the iron works of the United States."* The site was chosen as one of four federally-subsidized foundry sites by President Madison in 1812 and the first director was Gouverneur Kemble, a resident of Cold Spring.