[TheForge] Making Charcoal

[newenglandforge at aol.com]

Hi Mike,
You are of course correct, the notes on the iron works did not make it correctly thru his Spell Check I would guess.  The site is presently being dated Circa 1640-50, and the excavation being done by an historian who is writing a book about these small outlaw ironworks that apparently dotted the countryside in pre revolutionary New England.  
As a member of the AISI we helped rebuild the Saugus Iron Works in the mid 1960's and with the aid of over 200 volunteers, gathered bog iron and sea shells (purchased the charcoal) to be used in a fairly lame attempt to make iron for the bicentennial in 1976.  There were dozens of projects lined up to be made from that first heat of iron, and the yield was just enough to make one small trade axe - was fun though!
Mike Schermerhorn


-----Original Message-----
From: Mike Spencer <mspencer at tallships.ca>
To: theforge <theforge at mailman.qth.net>
Sent: Sun, Feb 21, 2016 1:54 pm
Subject: [TheForge]  Re: Making Charcoal


> They are currently exploring what appears to be a late 15th/early
> 16th Century iron foundry, about 20 miles southwest of Boston.

Our Boston?  Leftpondian Boston?  Do you have a pointer to further
info about that?

The earliest North American ironworks I know about was Saugus, circa
1649.  AIUI, there's some evidence of an abortive & failed attempt in
Virginia a few years earlier.

So Henry VIII was still just the crown prince, Chris Columbus was
bumbling about in the Caribbean, the Massachusetts Bay Colony hadn't
been thought of yet and there was an ironworks in southeastern Mass?

Where do I learn more?

-- 
Michael Spencer                  Nova Scotia, Canada       .~. 
                                                           /V\ 
mspencer at tallships.ca                                     /( )\
http://home.tallships.ca/mspencer/                        ^^-^^

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