Howell Works

Howell Works

Former type	Private
Industry	Mining and manufacturing
Founded	1822
Founder	James P. Allaire
Defunct	1850
Headquarters	United States
Products	Pig iron, cast iron products
Owner	James P. Allaire
Number of employees	400-600 (1836)

Howell Works (later the Howell Works Company) was a bog iron-based production facility for pig iron which was established in New Jersey in the early 19th century by American engineer and philanthropist James P. Allaire. It is notable as one of the earliest American examples of a company town.

Allaire purchased the Howell Works property to provide pig iron for his Allaire Iron Works in New York, which was at the time a leading manufacturer of marine steam engines. The Howell Works also manufactured its own lines of cast iron products. Allaire eventually transformed the Howell Works into an almost completely self-sufficient community, with its own housing and food supply for the workforce, its own post office, church, school and company store, even its own currency.

After bog iron was made redundant by the increasing availability of iron ore, Allaire closed the Howell Works and eventually retired there with his family. The property remained in private hands until being bequeathed to the state in 1941. Today, the Howell Works is a registered historic site known as Allaire Village.

James Peter Allaire founded his first company, a brass foundry, at 462 Cherry Street, New York, in 1804. In 1807, Allaire received an order from steamboat pioneer Robert Fulton for brass fittings for the North River Steamboat, the world's first commercially successful steam-powered vessel. Allaire subsequently became interested in marine steam engine technology, and in 1815 he established a plant in New York for the production of such engines, the Allaire Iron Works.