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On Saturday, December the 4th 2010, Hopewell Furnace National Historic Site held its annual Iron Plantation Christmas. Today the furnace was quiet prior to the Christmas Holidays. However, during Christmas when the furnace was operating in the nineteenth century, Christmas was just another work day. Hopewell Village was a small self-sustaining village in colonial times which was built around a cold-blast, charcoal-burning iron furnace. The community life was in some respects similar to that of the small feudal manors of medieval Europe and was largely self-sustaining. Little had changed of the village from colonial times up through most of the nineteenth century.

It takes a vision to preserve historic sites, towns, villages, like the Rockefellers of Williamsburg, or Electra Havermeyer Webb of Shelburne Museum, or the Flynts of Deerfield. Because of their vision, many towns have been saved from the eminent destruction of their existence.