We have spent some looking into the activities of Alexander Spotswood. In this note, I will look at activities specifically in the field of iron.
Iron is said to have been the principal activity whereby Spotswood aimed to establish his financial independence. This is false. Land to be used for agricultural and naval stores was his initial and major objective. He approached iron in a tentative way.
Let's look at the schedule by which he did move to establish both his land and iron empires. We will see that the iron came after the land. First, we will look at the schedule on the iron. According to his story, about the start of 1718 he was approached by Sir Richard and others in England to search out iron ore. And he tells us that he did set his Germans to work looking for the ore. I have no proof, but I suspect the Germans were already aware that iron was in the area. In fact, they probably discovered it. It appears that it took the encouragement and support from England to turn the venture into a serious activity, but still not the major activity. Spotswood said that only upwards of sixty pounds was spent on the work, so it must be classified as the development of the mines. This agrees with the testimony of Jacob Holtzclaw and J. Justus Albrecht, who said that they worked at mining and quarrying, and that the work ended in December of 1718. At this time, Spotswood knew he had iron ore, but he had lost his support from England and the Germans had left.
It took Spotswood a while to seek partners, money, and people to build the furnace. As a consequence, the Mine Tract was not patented until 1720. Probably little or no work had been done on the furnace before then, as Spotswood was not inclined to spend money on projects where the title was not clear. The title or patent for the land probably was issued about the time that construction of the furnace began. In 1721, trial runs may have occurred at the furnace. Production might be said to have started in 1722, but regular and consistent operation was probably not achieved until 1723. Let's look at some of the evidence for this time table.
The earliest record of an iron furnace comes from Hugh Jones. The Rev. Jones lived in Virginia from 1717 to 1722, when he returned to England. In 1724, he published a book in London which is believed to be based on his experiences in Virginia ending in 1722. He wrote, speaking of the furnace,
"This iron has been proved to be good, and, it is thought, will come at as cheap a rate as any imported from other places; so that 'tis to be hoped Colonel Spotswood's works will in a small time prove very advantageous to Great Britain . . ."
Thus the furnace was reported to be in production in 1722, though the observer seems to imply the work was in a beginning state. The future tense is used to describe the hopes.
(04 Oct 00)
We gratefully acknowledge the work of John Blankenbaker who published over 2,500 Germanna History Notes via the Germanna-L@rootsweb.com email list from 1997 to 2008. We are equally thankful to George Durman (Sgt. George) for hosting the list and republishing the notes via rootsweb.com.