730 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



vided " the petitioners improve the art to any good and reason- 

 able perfection within two years from the date of this act." They 

 do not appear to have done this, or to have continued the business 

 of making steel. 



In 1740 the Connecticut Legislature granted to Messrs. Fitch, 

 Walker & Wyllys " the sole privilege of making steel for the 

 term of fifteen years upon this condition, that they should in the 

 space of two years make half a ton of steel " ; this condition not 

 having been complied with, the privilege was extended to 1744, 

 before which time Aaron Eliot and Ichabod Miller certified that 

 more than half a ton of steel had been made at the furnace in 

 Symsbury. 



Some time before 1750 a steel-furnace was in operation at 

 Killingworth, in Middlesex County, Connecticut. This furnace 

 (says Swank) was owned by Aaron Eliot, and in it he succeeded, 

 in 1761, in converting into good steel a bar of iron, made in a 

 blomary fire from magnetic sand, by his father, the Eev. Jared 

 Eliot. 



Mr. Swank quotes from Mr. Hoadly a petition presented to 

 the Legislature of Connecticut in May, 1772, by Aaron Eliot, in 

 which the petitioner recites that his capital " has not been large 

 enough to supply himself with a sufficient stock to carry on his 

 business, & has, therefore, hitherto been obliged to procure his 

 stock of iron from New York on cred', and pay for the same in his 

 steel, when made, at the moderate price of 56 per ton [$186.66f, 

 the being equal to $3.33^], from whence it has been again pur- 

 chased in this Colony at the price of 75 and 80 per ton ; and, for 

 several years past, almost the whole supply of steel in this Colony 

 has been from New York, of the manufacture of your memorialist, 

 at the af ores d enormous advance/' He accordingly begs for a loan 

 of 500 from the public treasury for three years without interest ; 

 this, he says, would " save large sums of money within this Colony, 

 which is annually paid to New York for the steel manufactured 

 in this Colony/' 



Eliot's prayer was granted, and in 1775 the loan was renewed for 

 two years longer. It appears from returns made by the Colonial 

 Governors in 1750, in conformity with the Act of Parliament, that 

 Massachusetts, Connecticut, and New Jersey had each one steel- 

 furnace, and Pennsylvania two; both of these were in Phila- 

 delphia, owned by William Branson and Stephen Paschal, re- 

 spectively. Branson stated in regard to his steel that " the sort 

 he made, which was blistered steel, ten tons would be ten years 

 in selling." Paschal's furnace was built in the year 1747, on a 

 lot at the northwest corner of Eighth and Walnut Streets ; this 

 furnace in 1787 was owned by Nancarrow & Matlock, when it 

 was visited in that year by General Washington, and said to have 



