AMERICAN INDUSTRIES SINCE COLUMBUS. 731 



been " the largest and best in America." Whitehead Humphreys, 

 who in 1770 was the owner of a steel-furnace on Seventh Street, 

 Philadelphia, and made steel for the Continental army, was 

 granted in 1786, by the Legislature of Pennsylvania, a loan of 300 

 for five years, to aid him in making steel from bar iron " as good 

 as in England." 



In 1777 Rhode Island "gave 60 per gross ton for good Ger- 

 man steel made within the State." * 



The Legislature of Massachusetts granted in 1778, to the Rev. 

 Daniel Little, " 450, to aid in erecting at Wells [in the District 

 of Maine] a building 35 X 25 feet, to be used in manufacturing 

 steel." f 



In 1787 the manufacture of steel was commenced in the town 

 of Easton, Massachusetts, by Eliphalet Leonard, and we are told 

 by Bishop that " the article was made in considerable amount, and 

 cheaper than imported steel." About 1797 steel was made at Can- 

 ton, in the same State, " from crude iron, by the German process." 

 Peter Townsend, the proprietor of the Sterling Iron Works, in New 

 York, made in 1776 the first steel produced in that province, and 

 his son, Peter Townsend, Jr., is said to have made, at the same 

 works, in 1810, steel " of as good quality for the manufacture of 

 edged tools as that made from Dannemora iron." 



Alexander Hamilton, in a report dated December 5, 1791, 

 says, " Steel is a branch which has already made considerable 

 progress, and it is ascertained that some new enterprises on a 

 more extensive scale have been lately set on foot." In the same 

 year Tench Coxe, in replying to Lord Sheffield's Observations on 

 the Commerce of the United States stated that " about one half of 

 the steel consumed in the United States is home-made, and new 

 furnaces are building at this moment." 



Swank states that " in 1805 there were two steel-furnaces in 

 Pennsylvania which produced annually one hundred and fifty 

 tons of steel. One of these was in Philadelphia County. In 1810 

 there was produced in the whole country nine hundred and 

 seventeen tons of steel, of which Pennsylvania produced five 

 hundred and thirty-one tons in five furnaces. . . . The remainder 

 was produced in Massachusetts, Rhode Island, New Jersey, Vir- 

 ginia, and South Carolina; each State having one furnace. In 

 1813 there was a steel-furnace at Pittsburgh, owned by Tuper 

 & McKowan, which was the first in that city." 



All the steel manufactured in 1 America prior to the year 1810 

 was produced either by what was called the " German method," 

 which was conducted in a "hearth" similar to that used for a 

 "blomary fire," or by the "cementation process." The "Ger- 



* Economic and Social History of New England, 1 620-1789, by W. B. Weeden. \ Ibid. 



