Colonial Iron Furnace

Matt sent this piece about an early Colonial iron furnace found near the James River in Virginia that is thought to date to 1619. He asked if I could provide some context for this find.

This venture was an offshoot of the original Jamestown colony, the first successful British colony in North America, that was established in 1607. For nearly a century, the British had been reading about the gold and silver looted from the Americas by the Spanish conquistadores and many of the early Jamestown settlers thought this was their chance. John Smith writes of the problems he had getting these treasure hunters to work building shelter and growing food.

As there was no gold, the colonists had to return to reality and were able to establish a largely agricultural economy, where they could feed themselves and make money by raising and exporting an addictive herb, tobacco. They did have some industrial endeavors, though. A glassworks was established at Jamestown. Near the National Park Service’s reconstruction of the original James fort, they also have built a glassworks, and tourists can see workers in period costume blowing glass bottles.

The colonists also soon saw that there was iron ore nearby, largely deposited in wetlands in nodules known as bog iron. They used this bog iron from the earliest years of the colony and the recently discovered furnace was apparently one built to take advantage of terrestrial deposits found further from the fort. The colony was soon shipping ingots of pig iron back to England.

As the story says, this iron smelting operation was destroyed during a revolt by the Powhatan Indians in 1622. About 300 of the 1,400 colonists were killed in the revolt, led by the chief Opechancanough, whose improbable life story I discussed in a post last spring.

The most important recent development in studies of the Jamestown colony was the discovery of the original fort location by archaeologist Bill Kelso in the mid-1990s. It was long thought to have eroded off into the James River. Kelso has a new book out about his findings. This has been issued just in time for the celebration by the state of Virginia of the 400th anniversary of the founding of the colony.