Born in Stockport in Lancashire, England. Prominent landowner and ore mine owner. Married to Katherine Hoskins in 1745 in Oxted, Surry, in England. He bought Furnace Hills to mine ore and had his slaves work the mine. Legend has it that he became enamored with a Black slave servant girl but grew angry when her sweetheart, Sam, garnered her attention. Master had Sam thrown into the iron furnace and then bricked up the girl in an oven while she was still alive. During renovations of his home, Avondale, in the 1930s, the oven was opened and a human skeleton was found in there. His spirt doesn't rest easy though as his bones rose three times from his grave on his plantation for no apparent reason. He was then interred in concentrated ground at the Church of the Ascention Burial Grounds under a large stone slab. However, the stone cracked. It is told that his ghost sits on a grey horse that spouts fire from its nostrils and is sometimes accompanied by three glowing imps. His ghost is also seen at Avondale and appears to be riding a black horse or walking through the woods to his former home. He is known as the Ghost of Furnace Hills.

Born in Stockport in Lancashire, England. Prominent landowner and ore mine owner. Married to Katherine Hoskins in 1745 in Oxted, Surry, in England. He bought Furnace Hills to mine ore and had his slaves work the mine. Legend has it that he became enamored with a Black slave servant girl but grew angry when her sweetheart, Sam, garnered her attention. Master had Sam thrown into the iron furnace and then bricked up the girl in an oven while she was still alive. During renovations of his home, Avondale, in the 1930s, the oven was opened and a human skeleton was found in there. His spirt doesn't rest easy though as his bones rose three times from his grave on his plantation for no apparent reason. He was then interred in concentrated ground at the Church of the Ascention Burial Grounds under a large stone slab. However, the stone cracked. It is told that his ghost sits on a grey horse that spouts fire from its nostrils and is sometimes accompanied by three glowing imps. His ghost is also seen at Avondale and appears to be riding a black horse or walking through the woods to his former home. He is known as the Ghost of Furnace Hills.