Appalachian History

Nannie Kelly Wright (1856-1946) was probably the only woman ironmaster in America's history. Wright was the daughter of the famous riverboat commodore Washington Honshell, who helped form Cincinnati's White Collar packet line. She was said to be the second richest woman in the world during the early 1900's.

Wright hadn’t set out to become an ironmaster; she married into the business. In 1879 she wed Lindsey Kelly, who was serving one of two terms as an Ohio representative. His father, William Dollarhide Kelly, was an ironmaster, banker and farmer. In 1842, the elder Kelly had leased Etna Furnace, and in 1851, the Lagrange Furnace. By 1849, W.D. owned the land that is now owned by the Ohio Iron and Coal Company, and the Ironton railroad. In 1862 W.D. bought a five-year lease on the Centre Furnace at Superior, OH, and Lindsey took over its management the following year.

By 1891, Centre Furnace and the other Kelly holdings in real estate and finance were in distress. From 1894 to 1897 the iron industry in this country was practically at a standstill and stocks were worth about 15 to 20 cents on the dollar. Buyers at that price were scarce. Centre Furnace went into receivership.

Nannie Wright, a close observer of political and financial affairs, reasoned an upward trend was due. She paid the taxes and in 1899, using her own money, she bid on the furnace and 12,000 surrounding acres at auction, for $19,950.

Wright learned the iron business, renovated the furnace and the company houses provided for the employees, and began hiring workers when many were out of work. She conducted regular property inspections and made regular weekly trips to Cincinnati. Many times she would go down to the furnace and work along side the men. It was often rumored that when she worked down at the furnace, she dressed as a male (she denied this). Centre Furnace was one of the first companies to produce and ship iron by rail during the Spanish American War.

Wright's business interests revolved around Centre Furnace and the Kelly Nail & Iron Co. of Ironton. She served as director of the latter institution for years and was also financially interested in the Belfont Iron Works, Ironton Engine Co., and Ironton, Huntington, Cincinnati and Catlettsburg banks.

Nannie and Lindsey had only one child, a son named Lindsey. The younger Lindsey had rheumatism, and as a child had spent time in Texas hoping for some sort of relief. He died in Cincinnati in 1904, only 20 years old. Lindsey had died the year before. The distraught widow began to travel frequently, and left the iron business in other hands for awhile.

She set out on her first world tour in 1898, took another in 1906 and a third in 1913. In all she crossed the Atlantic 14 times in years when it was the unusual rather than the ordinary. In London she was presented to the Court of St. James during the reign of Edward VII.

In 1906 Wright sold Centre Furnace to the Superior Portland Cement Co. In 1908, Nannie, age 55, married D. Gregory Wright, age 34. They divorced in 1919. During these years, Wright kept her stocks in Centre Furnace and other family holdings, but in 1923 she decided to sell many of them. She invested the profits but lost her home and most of her wealth in the stock market crash of 1929.

Despite such great losses, Wright was able to lead a comfortable life. She moved into the Marting Hotel in Ironton and by selling off such personal assets as jewelry and art managed to support herself until her death on September 12, 1946.


sources: Profiles of Ohio Women, 1803-2003, by Jacqueline Jones Royster, Ohio University Press, 2003
Nannie Kelly Wright, compiled and edited by Virginia S. Bryant, Lawrence County Historical Society, 1989
www.lawrencecountyohio.com/biographies/stories/WrightNannie.htm
www.lawrencecountyohio.com/families/k_p/kelly.htm
www.fs.fed.us/r9/wayne/success_stories/center_furnace.pdf



Nannie+Kelly+Wright Ironton+OH Lindsey+Kelly Centre+Furnace iron+furnaces appalachia appalachian+history appalachian+mountains+history

Los Angeles, February 6, 1934
Editor Tribune: Sixty years have passed since the writer answered an advertisement in the columns of The Tribune's honored predecessor, The Ironton Register, resulting in his employment as a boy in the Register office. That was on February 6, 1874. I remained in the service of the Register twenty-seven years, until moving to Chicago.

What changes have come about in sixty years?

Then, the "Old Brick" school in Ironton was standing, on the Kingsbury site. The high school had one teacher, and afterward two. Part of the time, its principal was also the school superintendent. Superintendents changed frequently. Saul Wood and Jos. Le Sage were successively long time janitors. They suffered more devilment from the kids than did the school heads.

"East Ironton" then had a few scattered houses not many blocks ("squares" we called them) beyond Adams Street. The direction is now known as south because of the confusing diagonal position of Ironton on the map. The Deaconess Hospital was then the W. D. Kelly home, and the grounds included a deer park with a fine herd.

"Kelly's Graveyard" was the principal cemetery. Processions marched all the way to that hallowed spot on "Decoration" days, headed by the Silver Cornet Band. I remember when beautiful Woodland, where so many now sleep, was laid out. When "Big Etna" furnace was built, it cost more than a million dollars and sold at auction for ten thousand.

Every church now standing in Ironton was built in my time, as well as some that have been razed. So every school building up to the Ironton High School. So probably three-fourths of the business places of every kind. The occasional launchings of steamboats and other large river craft built by Mike Wise above Vernon Street, were gala occasions and beautiful sights.

I remember when Emerson McMillin, then a young school teacher and later one of the eminent and wealthy men of the nation, labored in laying the first gas mains in Ironton and assisted in the installation of the gas works, becoming the company's secretary. That was in 1867. My father was the town's first gas fitter.

When palatial river packets like the Fleetwood and Bostona arrived at the Ironton wharf from Cincinnati each morning on schedule time. When a railroad on one side of the river or the other was a far-off dream. When the Scioto Valley railroad came to town following the high pressure exerted by its promoters to secure the franchise through the streets. When the Iron Railroad sold for $500,000.

When the Ironton Plow factory followed by Henry's mill, was where the Crystal Ice factory is now. When Park Avenue was Olive street and when "Cory's tunnel" was blasted through the hill.

I recall the great occasions of county fairs in the fair grounds out by the "iron bridge." The bridge which I understand is now an antique in the hands of Henry Ford. I vaguely remember when my grandfather, James Amlin, was postmaster at Ironton in wartime. When a big fire below the railroad on Second destroyed the Register office and Wright's drug store.

I retain distinct impressions of some local incidents of the Civil War, although too young to realize all it meant. I remember the deep sorrow when President Lincoln was assassinated.

In my boyhood, the block bounded by Fifth, Sixth, Washington and Adams was the "Dempsey field," and circus tents were pitched there. In winter, a pond in the field and extending across Washington Street furnished good skating. Storms creek when firmly frozen and Ebert's pond were larger centers for the sport.


F. B. Lawton.

Ironton Sunday Tribune, February 18, 1934, Sunday, Page 8.

source: www.lawrencecountyohio.com/ironton/stories/lawton.htm


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