[Returning to Spotswood, as reported in Dodson, and in Spotswood's own letters:]
Spotswood mentioned mining in three ways, iron as a public endeavor, silver (or precious metals) as a private endeavor, and iron as a private endeavor. These three separate lines of thought have been confused and the history of Virginia has suffered as a result. The three threads of thought above occurred in the sequence given and the thought of iron as a private venture did not even occur until 1716 to 1717, and even then it was many years before it became a reality.
Very shortly after Spotswood arrived as the Lt. Governor in Virginia in 1710, he and William Byrd discussed a proposed iron project. Both men were young and both were involved in the colonial government. Byrd was described as the richest man in Virginia, so Spotswood was anxious to meet him. Byrd was anxious to meet Spotswood, as he had a proposal to make to Spotswood.
Byrd owned land on the James River, near the future site of Richmond, which contained iron ore. The ore had appeared to be so good that a furnace to smelt iron had been built there to extract the iron. This was in 1622 (I repeat, 1622, 88 years before Spotswood came to Virginia). Almost one-third of the residents of Virginia were involved in this endeavor. The fire had been lit in the furnace and the project was launched. Then Indians attacked and killed every European except two children who escaped. The furnace was destroyed. There were no further attempts to smelt iron at this site.
The Byrd family came into possession of this property and William Byrd had in mind that another attempt to smelt iron could be made. He did not have the money to finance it even though he was said to be the richest man in Virginia. Actually Byrd was land poor, having much more land than money. The shortage of money was due to his having taken on his father-in-law's debts when the father-in-law died. The debts were much more than Byrd had suspected.
The proposal that Byrd made to Spotswood was that he, Byrd, would transfer the iron assets to the colony, if the colony would raise an iron furnace, and if the colony would give Byrd a job in the endeavor. The salary from this would help his financial position greatly. In this way he proposed to turn the asset of iron which he owned into a cash return without requiring him to lay out a large sum of money.
Spotswood was convinced that it was a good idea for a variety of reasons. Spotswood proposed to finance it by having it done at the expense of the colony. Therefore, he made a proposal to the House of Burgesses to consider the matter. And he wrote a letter to the Board of Trade to tell them what he was doing.
(25 Oct 01)
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