FISKARS 1649 – 360 years of Finnish industrial history

Fiskars 1649
Fiskars 1649
Orijärvi copper mine and surroundings in the 1870s.
On the right below: Cross-section of Orijärvi copper mine in
1826. Fiskars already owned three quarters of the estate in
1740.
master builders, two fine craftsmen, three sawyers,
32 mill workers, four charcoal burners, one cabin
boy and three boatmen, with names such as Clas
Pira, Michel Gilliam, Noe Tillman, Hinrich Pira,
Anders Erman, Jean Pouse, Gottfrid Pouse and
Jean Dardanell. In 1740, the population of Fiskars
was 115, and the ironworks mill became the most
popular in the parish.
In 1748, work began on building the Viapori
(now Suomenlinna) island fortress off Helsinki,
and this boosted economic and cultural activity on
the southern coast of Finland. Sweden-Finland’s
merchant shipping increased on the Baltic and
elsewhere. The first Finnish merchant vessel sailed
from Turku to Spain in 1732. In Europe, it was
the Age of the Enlightenment. The Industrial
Revolution was just beginning in Britain. The
invention of the steam engine opened up totally new
vistas for supplying the power needed for industry.
Coke was replacing charcoal in iron-making, and
in England iron-making was being revolutionized
in both quantity and quality, partly providing the
economic foundation for the British Empire.
In the 1750s, Fiskars acquired new owners from
Sweden, Finlay and Jennings. Jennings soon gave up
his share, but Finlay continued and started refining
copper, too, since copper ore had been discovered in
the Orijärvi area of Kisko. The Fiskars coppersmiths
were still forging skilfully crafted utensils in the
19th century, despite the fact that by then the mine
only yielded small quantities of ore.
Finlay’s ownership of the ironworks terminated
in bankruptcy in 1771. Following a brief hiatus,
a merchant from Stockholm, Bengt Magnus
Björkman, purchased both the Fiskars and the
Antskog ironworks. Björkman came from an
old family of ironworks owners, and owned a
large number of ironworks and farms in Sweden.
Björkman himself did not move to Finland.
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