Administrative Information

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Preferred Citation

Tredegar Iron Works. Minutes, 1876-1879. Accession 33052, Business records collection, The Library of Virginia, Richmond, Virginia.

Acquisition Information

Lent for copying by Dennis Hallerman, United Virginia Bank Archives, Richmond, Va., 11 June 1987.

Biographical/Historical Information

Tredegar Iron Works was chartered in 1837 in Richmond, Virginia, to produce high-quality iron products. In 1848 Joseph R. Anderson purchased the company and developed it into one of the most important and largest iron making factories in Virginia and the Confederacy. The company produced horseshoes, munitions, and railroad products, along with owning several furnaces and timber lots. During the Civil War, Tredegar produced artillery pieces, cannons, shot, and weapons for the Confederacy, including the iron plates for the CSS Virginia (Merrimac). After the war the company continued to grow and supplied iron bridges, rails, and spikes to rebuild the southern railroads.

As iron gave way to steel in the 1870s and 1880s, Tredegar found it did not have the capital necessary to make the production conversion. Tredegar continued to make iron products, producing munition for the Spanish American War, World War I, and World War II. Spikes, horseshoes, rail fastenings, and car wheels were constant sellers and led to expanded facilities. In 1957 the company sold its Richmond plant to the Albemarle Paper Manufacturing Company, and moved some of its rolling mill equipment to Chesterfield County, Virginia. In 1986 operation of the rolling mill in Chesterfield County was discontinued and the machinery was sold to the Cleveland Track Material in Cleveland, Ohio. In 2003 the Tredegar National Civil War Center Foundation was created to operate a museum on the original site of the foundry in Richmond, Virginia.

Joseph Reid Anderson (1813-1892), was the youngest of nine children of William and Anna Thomas Anderson of Botetourt County, Virginia. He graduated West Point in 1836 and worked as an engineer in Virginia. He married Sally Archer in 1837, daughter of Dr. Robert and Frances Williamson Archer. By 1841, he had acquired an interest in the Tredegar Iron Works in Richmond which supplied iron products to railroads and the U.S. government, and he became owner of the company in 1848. When the South seceded, Anderson offered his services to the Confederate Government as an infantry officer and was commissioned a brigadier-general in September 1861, serving meritoriously in North Carolina and Virginia. After being wounded at the battle of Frazier's Farm in 1862, Anderson resigned in mid-July to return to Tredegar Iron Works where his talent was needed more than on the battlefield. The company operated throughout the war, but after the surrender of Richmond, the U.S. government confiscated Tredegar Iron Works. Upon Anderson's request to President Johnson for a pardon in the fall of 1865, the Works were returned to him. Anderson continued to head Tredegar Iron Works and remained active in state, city, and local affairs until his death in 1892.

Scope and Content Information

Minutes of meetings of the bondholders cover the period October 25, 1876, to March 4, 1879.