It is known that Spotswood was involved with the Bristol merchants. On 4 June 1723, Augustine Moore wrote to the owners of the Greyhound that a great number of slaves were expected from them (Isaac Hobhouse and his partners, merchants of Bristol) for Col. Spotswood. Two days later, Moore wrote that Spotswood had sent his sloop to Moore's landing with about 20 tons of iron to freight to Bristol. Apparently, the Captain of the Greyhound took about 10 tons of this. Moore implies that Spotswood had also shipped some iron to "the Londoners" this same year. It would have been advantageous for the Bristol adventurers to have participated with Spotswood in the iron furnace. It was an outlet for the slaves they wished to sell, and supplied them, on the return trip, with iron for ballast, a chargeable freight, and raw material for their Bristol operations.
The Bristol adventurers were willing to take risks. They are on record with a declared participation in one iron furnace in Virginia. On 27 May 1721, John King, Jeremy Innys, John Lewis, Samuel Jacob, Lionel Lyde, Walter King, John Templeman, and Samuel Dyke, most of whom are known to have lived in Bristol, gave a power of attorney to three Virginians, John Tayloe, John Lomas, and Philip Elway, to manage an ironworks. As a continuation of this in the next year, a property on the north side of the Rappahannock River was taken over. The Company purchased indentured servants and began mining and continued operations for about eight years. In February 1722 (NS), some of these servants were in the King George County Court on charges of unlawful assembly and other crimes.
Some of the investors in the Principio works in Maryland were from Bristol but this also included people not from Bristol. Joshua Gee was a partner in this business in 1728 and the balance of his account was £329. This iron was sent to London, Liverpool, and to Bristol.
The Lionel Lyde mentioned above as a partner in an ironworks was very active. He was from Bristol and traded with Virginia in both slaves and tobacco. He was also involved in the transport of felons to Maryland and Virginia. Some of the time he was a partner with Isaac Hobhouse in ship voyages. He had an interest in a glasshouse. He served as Sheriff, Mayor, and Alderman of the City of Bristol.
With the support of the merchants in England, pig iron (cast iron) came to be viewed as a material which could be imported to England. A few decades later, the Bristol iron merchants regretted this decision because the colonies had gone on to make finished iron products. There was an attempt to prohibit rolling and slitting mills in the Colonies on the grounds that this was a finishing operation; however, the business was too well entrenched to be suppressed.
(12 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.