Daily AncestorCharcoal burner
A charcoal burner made charcoal by slowly burning stacked wood under a covering of earth, mainly to fuel iron furnaces.
Before coke replaced it, charcoal was the fuel of iron furnaces and forges. A charcoal burner stacked wood into a large mound, covered it with earth and let it smolder for days, tending it day and night.
Charcoal burners lived near iron plantations in Pennsylvania, New Jersey, New England and elsewhere. They were sometimes called colliers, which can confuse with coal miners.
As seen in a recordIron furnace records and the 1850 to 1870 census
Peter Shultz, 40, Collier, Penn.
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Daily Ancestor. "Charcoal burner." Dictionary of Old Record Words. https://dailyancestor.com/dictionary/occupations/charcoal-burner. Last checked 2026-10-01.