The Forest Dale Iron Works was a blast furnace run in the mid-nineteenth century by Royal Blake. Blake once had up to 200 people working for him. Today, aside from this immense chimney, there is little left to remind one of the incredible blast furnace that was here, or the colliers from "Old Philadelphia" who once brought their horse and ox drawn wagons full of charcoal to this place.
Frederick Bacon had a banjo shop in Forest Dale, where he published his catalog until 1913. Whether he built banjos in this shop was debated by banjofiles everywhere, but an article published in Old Timey Music's October, 2010, clarified the speculation.
Bacon was a child prodigy banjo player. He wasn't satisfied by the quality of banjos, so he began the Bacon Banjo Company, in Forest Dale. Forest Dale is that part of Brandon that is on the "Road to Rochester" (Brandon Brook Road), today called Route 73.
Forest Dale was at one time such a bustling "metropolis" that Thomas Davenport, inventor of the first electric motor, thought this "town" was going to be the next Brandon, and moved there. In Forest Dale was the Forest Dale Iron Works, where Royal Blake was making pig iron found to be of best quality for Joseph Conant's famous wood stoves.
