Though England had imported some iron from a North American colony in 1717, this came from Nevis and St. Christopher. If these locations seem obscure, they were not at the time. Great Britain did more trade with its Caribbean possessions than it did with the mainland Colonies. The first iron imported from a continental Colony was four tons in 1718. This came from either Maryland or Virginia.
A search on the web with the words, Principio , iron , furnace , gives a good story on the early iron making in Maryland. Principio was a "bloomery" before 1718, where limited quantities of bar or wrought iron were made. So Maryland claims to be the source of the first iron sent to England. (There was an early bloomery in Massachusetts and I do not know if it exported any iron to England.) Bloomeries were extremely limited in their output, about 100 pounds per day, and the Maryland people decided to convert their operation to a full-blown furnace for cast iron. This process did not go smoothly and there was a delay of several years. The one ton of bar in 1719 and the four tons of bar in 1720, from either Maryland or Virginia, were probably from the Maryland bloomery. The fifteen tons of bar iron in 1721 is less certain. William Byrd testified in 1720 before the Board of Trade that Spotswood could cast iron but he could not make bar iron.
William Byrd's testimony should be considered carefully. He may have wanted to establish that Virginia could smelt and cast iron, as he had large holdings of iron ore. This had the basis of the 1710 proposal to have the Colony of Virginia establish an iron furnace. He may have been trying to put Spotswood on a hot seat. The two men were not on the friendliest terms then.
The Table of Iron Imports to Great Britain does not clearly establish a time for the first production of cast iron in Virginia. There are some events which help to establish a time table for such iron production in Virginia.
In 1720 (NS), the Iron Mine Tract was patented. Its existence was well known to the public and there was no attempt to hide the physical tract, or the legal documents which transferred ownership from the King to Spotswood (indirectly through third parties). In this year William Byrd was testifying that Spotswood could cast iron but whether this "could" had a sense of the future in it is unknown. The suggestion of others is that Spotswood had commenced on the iron furnace, but that he had not been totally successful.
(10 Sep 04)
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.