Hi,
The "Chesapeake was world's third largest producer
of iron in the 18th
C..." idea was something that they told me when I
first come to work in
Virginia (18 months ago).... indeed I think they
mentioned it at the job
interview, as if it were a well known fact. This is
a published source
for that statement:
This paper also reproduces the export data from
Bining, i.e. that the
around 60,000 tons of pig iron was sent from the
Chesapeake to Britain
between 1730 and 1755.
Cheers,
Evelyne
I think that most of my information came from a
book by A C Bining,
British
Regulation of the Colonial Iron Industry. It provides data on exports,
but
some one needs to collect all the data and make an
estimate for
American
production.
Studies have been made of the pre-Revolutionary industry
in
several states, but I do not think any one has
drawn all this
together.
The American industry appears only to have begun to
take off about
1720,
though there were a few earlier ironworks. Before that America was
almost
entirely dependent on Britain. I know of some research which will
be
undertaken into the trade in manufactured iron, but
it will be a while
before it is complete, yet alone published. The trade data is
available for
each colony (or group of them), but only aggregate
figures have been
published.
Evelyn Godfrey's statement about manufacture in
America was too strong.
The
prohibition (in 1750) was designed to limit its
expansion, and was
probably
not in practice enforced. I suspect that the attempt to rank
countries
in
order of size of production is rash. I have never
seen any estimate of
the
size of the industry in France, Germany or Italy;
all had a significant
iron
industry and they were far closer to being
self-sufficient than
Britain.
The population of France was bigger than that of
Britain and its iron
industry may have been too. We notice the Russian and Swedish
industries,
because they were heavily export-orientated, as was
that of Virginia
and
Maryland, whereas the industry in New England and
Pennsylvania was much
less
concerned with export.
Peter King
49, Stourbridge Road,
Hagley,
Stourbridge
West Midlands
DY9 0QS
01562-720368
-----Original Message-----
Of
James Brothers
Sent: 25
January 2007 00:52
To: Peter
King
Subject:
Re: American pre-Revolution iron production
There is
ample evidence that the colonies were producing about as
much
iron as England right up to the time of the
Revolution. English
production,
due to the adoption of coke as a fuel, takes off in
the last quarter of
the
1700s and England is the leading producer of iron
by 1800.
It was not
all shipped back to England, most of it stayed in the
colonies.
The Chesapeake industry was geared toward export.
But even so there
was
enough demand for local cast iron products that
Alexander Spotswood
build a
foundry (double air furnace) at Massaponnax around
1732. A total of 16
blast
furnaces were running at one time or another during
the 1700s in
Virginia.
While Issac Zane started out shipping iron to
England, he found it much
more
profitable to sell locally, or ship to
Philadelphia. Almost all of the
iron
produced in Pennsylvania, NY, and NJ was consumed
locally. And we are
talking thousands of tons. Peter King has been able
to trace a bit
over
7,000 tons of iron from colonial furnaces to
Britain during the 1st
half of
the 1700s. But that is a small fraction of American
production.
I wrote my
MA on this. If you want lots of data, I can send you
more.
James
Brothers, RPA
On Jan 24,
2007, at 17:06, Torbert, Barton wrote:
Thanks for
the reply.
So once
war was declared all the production would have stayed
in-country. So you seem to be saying that
there was significant
American
production available no matter how it was previously
accounted
for.
Where was
the ore coming from for the iron production in the
Chesapeake
region?
Bart
-----Original Message-----
Behalf Of
Evelyne
Godfrey
Sent:
Wednesday, January 24, 2007 2:42 PM
Subject:
Re: Falling Creek IW side question
Hi,
I think
that the situation so long as the American colonies were
under
British
control was that colonists were banned from keeping or
selling
locally
produced iron; cast iron was just being produced in
America, and
it all had
to be shipped straight to Britain where it could be
taxed and
some of it
perhaps sold back to the colonists. This was one of the
points of
contention at the time of the Revolution. Of course by
then,
colonists
were regularly flouting the laws and casting cannons and
all
sorts to
use against the British Army.
Supposedly
by the mid-18th century, the Chesapeake region (Maryland
and
Virginia)
had been the worlds third biggest iron producer, after
Russia
and
Sweden, but colonial iron would have counted as "British"
production
rather
than "American" per se.
The
English settlers from Jamestown, who built that blast furnace
at
Falling
Creek just twelve years after arriving, were presumably
being
pushed by
the Virginia Company back in London to establish some
sort of
profitable
industry as soon as possible... they had started out
looking
for gold
of course, and when that didn't pan out as it were, they
decided to
go after the iron ore. Even though work at Falling Creek
came
to an
abrupt end with the massacre of 1622, iron remained
Virginia's
second big
'cash crop', alongside tobacco, up until the late 18th
C, and
the blast
furnaces were organised according to the plantation
system,
just like
the tobacco growing, i.e. with slave labour (sadly,
slaves
continued
to make up the bulk of the workforce in the Virginia
iron
industry
right up until 1864).
cheers,
Evelyne
This
discussion brings up a side question.
What was
the iron production in pre-Revolutionary America? The
question
is relative to the Americans ability to provide war needs
from
native
sources.
Bart
-------------- Original message
----------------------
The
precursors of the furnaces are more likely to be Welsh
rather
than
English,
from such
counties as Carmarthenshire, Glamorgan and Gwent.
Yours
Steve Gray
-----
Original Message -----
From:
Peter King
Sent:
Tuesday, January 23, 2007 10:08 AM
Subject:
Re: Falling Creek IW
The
precursors of the furnace would inevitably be English. I
cannot
think of
evidence
from 1620s or earlier, but later English furnaces had
systems
for
draining
water from below the furnace, but I think the
foundations
would
have
been in
stone. However, at that period, timber-framing of
buildings
was
still
common in
England, with lath and plaster between the timbers. It
is
thus
quite
possible
that other parts of the furnace buildings would be of
timber,
not to
mention
the waterwheel.
The
traditional view is that furnaces went into blast in the
autumn
and
blew
until the
early summer. While this was not invariably done in
places
where
the
water-supply was good enough, it almost
certainly has an element
of
truth in
it.
I would
have expected May to be the anticipated end of the first
blast, not
its
start. On
the other hand, if the furnace was in blast at the time
of
the
massacre,
I would expect it still to be (or have been) there and
full
of
its
large
charge.
This is of
course all speculation.
Peter
King
49,
Stourbridge Road,
Hagley,
Stourbridge
West
Midlands
DY9
0QS
01562-720368
-----Original Message-----
Behalf
Of
James
Brothers
Sent: 23
January 2007 02:47
To: Peter
King
Subject:
Falling Creek IW
Lyle
Browning, the Falling Creek IW archaeologist, has proposed
a
number
of
possible
explanations for the timbers recently discovered at the
site.
While
much of
the equipment at an ironworks (e.g. wheel, bellows,
anvil,
and
hammer)
rested on
substantial timber structures, is there evidence
elsewhere
for
heavy
wood
foundations for blast furnaces? Or is this more likely to
be
part of
the
wheel
support/foundation or some other part of the water power
system? Or
is
there
another possibility that hasn't been thought of yet? If
Winchester
Cathedral
could be built on a raft, why not a blast furnace?
James
Brothers, RPA
