I would like to respond to Jaime Brothers hypothesis that a Colonial American charcoal iron furnace in Virginia that operated between 1771 - 1779 may have failed due to the use of titaniferrous ores. Having successfully operated an experimental bloomery furnace, hand-pumped with a bellows, and utilizing Virginia bog ores with TiO2 as one of the microconstituents (that passed unreacted in the form of anatase into the slag) I would suggest that the answer may lie elsewhere in a more historical context.
I find it highly unlikely that any iron master could have not realized problems with an ore source within the first year of operation rather than going out of business due to "bad ore" after eight years. It is much more likely that problems with other raw materials, namely available timberlands for coaling and difficulties due to water-power fluctuations (e.g. drought, hard winters) could also be the predicates for ruining an iron business. If inexpertly managed a Colonial charcoal blast furnace could be out of blast for significant portions of a year due to the formation of salamanders (e.g. furnace blockages) that would necessitate re-building.
Iron furnaces in the Colonial American South relied mostly on the labor of African American slaves. The operations of these furnaces were among the largest and most complex industrial activities of their times. These were either solely owned or partnerships organized such that individual owners could be bankrupted and subsequently jailed if the business failed. The decade of the 1770's was highly disruptive to the American Iron Industry, particularly in the South, due to the non-importation acts and the onset of the American Revolution. The market for iron from Virginia was dominated with the trade with Great Britain. Virginia and the other southern American Colonies did not have the large urban centers that existed in the northern Colonies. The American Colonies suffered from hyper-inflation due to dropping off British sterling as a medium of exchange and going into a system of thirteen individual currencies - one in each American colony. At a time of war, with regiments being formed of a "citizen army", even skilled slaves may have had to work the fields rather than operate a furnace with a diminishing market. Tens of thousands of slaves fled their owners and joined the British Army's Ethiopian Regiment due to the proclamation of Virginia's last Colonial Governor, Lord Dunmore, in 1775, when he fled down the James River razing the town of Norfolk in the process.
In returning to Mr. Brothers materials-technology question, I think the answer can only be answered concretely by locating the site and finding slag samples from a reliable archaeological context and submitting it for analysis.
Dr. Gordon has written the book on American Iron. Perhaps he might comment on both the technological and historical possibilities.
Cheers!
Dave Harvey
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