Beggs-Weaver House (Union Forge, Buffalo Forge)

Since the early nineteenth century, this has been an important iron forge site. Thomas Beggs built a two-room house and a forge here. William Weaver and Thomas Mayberry purchased it and expanded the forging operation (Weaver subsequently dissolved his partnership with Mayberry). By the mid-nineteenth century the complex included mills, blacksmith shops, a post office, and rows of dwellings for Weaver's enslaved workforce. Very little is left. The main house is sited on the side of a hill with a high stone foundation serving as the ground floor. The two rooms to the southwest of the house are a later addition, and the Gothic Revival-trimmed dormers were added in the 1850s. In the late nineteenth century, a frame section was added to the rear of the house and a brick kitchen was built on the southwest. Notable outbuildings include two brick slave houses at the rear of the house, a stone kitchen to the south, and the ruins of a mill and store to the west. The iron forge operation has been the subject of a PBS documentary and a book, Bonds of Iron (1993), by Charles Dew.