Independent Artisans

By 1730 New England colonists needed increasingly large amounts of iron for their expanding economy. Shipsmiths forged iron fastenings used in the vessels they built for the coastal and West Indian trades. The mariners who sailed these ships wanted large, strong iron anchors. Millwrights needed waterwheel axles and gudgeons, spindles, and numerous other iron components for gristmills, sawmills, fulling mills, and oil mills. Builders of the forges and furnaces that smelted and shaped iron products had to have iron hammerheads and forge plates. The pioneers on the frontier in New York and northern New England wanted massive iron kettles for boiling potash, usually the first cash crop they got off their newly cleared land. Everyone needed nails. Building a bloomery forge offered an adventurer in Connecticut’s Western Lands the easiest way to start making iron. One man could run a forge, although a helper made the work easier. The bloomery proprietor needed less capital than would be required for other types of ironworks. The region had plenty of easily developed water privileges of the right size to power a bloomery forge. Although it took skill and practice to make high-quality metal, a forge owner or hired hand could learn enough of the bloom smelting technique from an experienced smith within a few months to make serviceable metal. Iron of ordinary quality satisfied most people’s needs in the early days of the northwest. If the weather were bad, ore or fuel were unavailable, crops demanded attention, or the market of iron were slow, the proprietor could easily shut down his forge at short notice and restart it as soon as conditions improved. Although a bloomery forge could be part of an enterprise employing fifty or more hands, it could also be little more than a smithy in size and complexity. A farmer could accumulate enough money to build one. Alternatively, a number of individuals might take shares in a forge run by a single artisan. The proprietors of a mercantile business, or of grist or sawmills on the same or a nearby water privilege, could easily add a bloomery to their other enterprises.