The Hawley Kiln
The kiln was built in 1870 by a man named Albert Dyer. Mr. Dyer was building the kiln for a man named William O. Bassett, who in 1870 was Hawley’s most successful farmer. I don’t think at the time that Mr. Dyer thought he was building the most historical site in the Hawley State Forest. The kiln is also the oldest known flagstone charcoal kiln in New England.
The question is “Why was it called the Charcoal Kiln?” The word “kiln” is related to the word kitchen and is, in fact, a large heated chamber or oven made of brick or stone. The purpose of a kiln is to bake or dry wood. This process is called charring. What then is charcoal? Written like char-coal, we understand that wood has been charred to resemble coal. We see this in a fireplace when the wood is not completely burned. Charring takes place when air, particularly oxygen necessary for combustion, is excluded.
The kiln has three dimensions that are easy to remember, 25’ high. 25’ in diameter, and holds 25 cords of wood. Wood was carried in through the lower door and stacked as high as a man could reach. Loading was completed through a second higher door located on an embankment at the back of the kiln. After the fire was lit, iron doors sealed the openings. Burning was controlled by means of draft holes around the base which were plugged with bricks. Enough oxygen was allowed to keep a low burning fire that would remove the moisture and combustible gases, but not to burn the wood completely. The color of the smoke would indicate if the fire was the right temperature. Yellow smoke meant that the fire was about to burst into flames and needed to be damped down. The fire had to be watched every few hours, day and night, for the two days that it took for the wood to burn.
A tar like substance called creosote, obtained by the distillation of wood tar, blackens the inside walls of the kiln. At the end of two days, the charcoal is so brittle it can easily be broken into small pieces and shoveled out of the kiln. It may then be used in a fireplace, by the blacksmith for his forge or used for smelting or like copper. Charcoal burns with a slow, intense heat so a farmer like Mr. Bassett, who may have had several fireplaces in his house, would like to heat with charcoal instead of wood.
Coal and oil became more available by the end of the century so the life of this kiln as a charcoal producer was a short one, only thirty years. The kiln them became home to pigs and other livestock. In 1957 it was bought by the DEM and was restored to its original condition.
Throughout the years with the help of nature and vandals, the kiln was in desperate need of repair. Funding by the DEM at the urging of the Hawley Historical Commission and the Sons and Daughters of Hawley, work to restore the kiln got underway. Mr. Steve Striebel, a contractor, handled the work. Sonam Lama, a Tibetan stone mason, and Tenzin Norbu, helped with the newly restored kiln in 1993.
