Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 38.djvu/163

Rh were erected in the Province of Massachusetts Bay, in what is now the town of Saugus, a suburb of the city of Lynn, about ten miles northeast of Boston. Their owners, "The Company of Undertakers for the Iron-works," were granted a number of special privileges, among which was the monopoly of the manufacture for twenty-one years. The works appear to have been commenced late in the year 1643 or in the beginning of 1644, and were nearly completed in 1645, as on the 14th day of May in that year the General Court passed a "Resolve," declaring that "ye iron-works is very successful (both in ye richness of ye ore and ye goodness of ye iron)," and that "ye furnace is built, with that which belongeth to it, . . . and some tuns of so we iron cast . . . in readiness for ye forge." On the 14th of October of that year the General Court granted still further privileges on the condition "that the inhabitants of this jurisdiction be furnished with barr iron of all sorts for their use, not exceeding twentye pounds per tunn," and that the land already granted be used "for the building and seting up of six forges, or furnaces, and not bloomaries onely," and the company was confirmed in the right to the free use of all materials "for making or moulding any manner of gunnes, potts, and all other cast-iron ware."

On the 6th of May, 1646, Richard Leader, the general agent of the company, purchased "some of the country's gunnes to melt over at the foundery." This statement seems to justify the belief that there may have been a reverberatory furnace in this "foundery," as such furnaces were well known in Europe at that date, and castings of all sorts were made from metal melted in them; but it is certain that, at the same period, castings were frequently made from iron taken direct from the blast-furnace, and we know that scrap cast iron can be melted in a blast-furnace without difficulty. The cupola furnace, for remelting "pig iron" and scrap cast iron, was not invented until 1790, and, consequently, we are sure that it was not employed in the "foundery" at Lynn in 1646. Hence it is evident that the "gunnes" purchased must have been remelted in the "blast-furnace," or in a reverberatory furnace, although we have no decisive evidence of the employment of the latter type of furnace.

It is certain that at Lynn, in the Province of Massachusetts Bay, was cast, in the year 1645, the first piece of hollow ware made in America—"a small iron pot capable of containing about one quart." This pioneer of all American-made castings was in existence in 1844, but recent efforts to ascertain its whereabouts have been unsuccessful. The works at Lynn appear to have been very prosperous for a number of years; but after a time they