Robert Coleman (1748-1825)
Iron Founder & Iron-Producing Pioneer, of the Cornwall Furnace etc., Pennsylvania
He was born and brought up at Castlefin in Ireland's Co. Donegal. At the age of sixteen in 1764, he arrived in Philadelphia with two letters of introduction and three guineas. He went on to become the most successful iron-master of Lancaster County, Pennsylvania, supplying the Continental Army with cannons during the Revolution. Coleman was certainly among the wealthiest men in Pennsylvania by the time he died in 1825, but he was not (as has been claimed) the first millionaire in Pennsylvania, that lofty title belongs to William Bingham. In addition to the furnaces, he served as a Member of Legislature, a Delegate to State Convention which ratified the U.S. Constitution and he was an Associate Justice of Lancaster Co. In 1773, he married Ann, daughter of another major iron founder, James Old, and they were the parents of fourteen children, two of whom died in infancy and six of whom died without issue. The iron business was ultimately continued through the progeny of their youngest son, Thomas.
