AMERICAN INDUSTRIES SINCE COLUMBUS. 323 



beat out the long bars. The liners are paid 30s. a ton, the ham- 

 mer-men 23s. del. per ton that is to say, both together, 2 13s. del. 

 The laborers are generally composed partly of negroes (slaves), 

 partly of servants from Germany or Ireland bought for a term of 

 years. . . . For four months in summer, when the heat is the 

 most oppressive, all labor is suspended at the furnaces and 

 forges." 



About 1732 Colonel Spotswood erected some air-furnaces at a 

 place called Massaponux, in Virginia, and used them " to melt his 

 sow iron, in order to cast it into sundry utensils, such as backs for 

 chimneys, andirons, fenders, plates for hearths, pots, mortars, 

 rollers for gardeners, skillets, boxes for cart-wheels, and many 

 other things. And, being cast from the sow iron, are much bet- 

 ter than those which come from England, which are cast imme- 

 diately from the ore for the most part. . . . Here are two of these 

 air-furnaces in one room, that so in case one want repair the other 

 may work, they being exactly of the same structure." It is said 

 that in 17G0 about six hundred tons of iron were smelted in Spots- 

 wood's furnaces, most of which was sent to England. 



About 1750 Baron Henry William Stiegel came to Pennsyl- 

 vania from Germany, " with good recommendations and a great 

 deal of money." Soon after he purchased a tract of land in Lan- 

 caster County and laid out the town of Manheim ; here he built 

 a furnace, and named it after his wife, Elizabeth ; some time after- 

 ward he built another furnace at Schaeff erstown, Lebanon County, 

 and it was here that he cast stoves (made of six plates of iron), 

 which were among the first made in the country. The baron fully 

 appreciated the value of advertising, and on each of the stoves he 

 cast the following couplet : 



" Baron Stiegel ist der Mann, 

 Der die Ofen machen kann " 



which signifies, " Baron Stiegel is the man who knows how to 

 make stoves " ; but, notwithstanding his skill and enterprise, he 

 failed in his business. This result was due in a great degree to 

 the difficulty of making prompt collections, and to the general 

 stagnation of business due to the political complications with the 

 mother-country. Elizabeth Furnace finally came into the posses- 

 sion of Robert Coleman, who cast shot, shells, and cannon for the 

 Continental army. Some of the credits in his account with the 

 Government are decidedly interesting. On November 16, 1782, ap- 

 pears the following entry : " By cash, being the value of 42 Ger- 

 man prisoners of war, at 30 each, 1,200," and on June 14, 1783: 

 " By cash, being the value of 28 German prisoners of war, at 30 

 each, 840." 



During the Revolutionary War the manufacture of iron made 

 little technological progress. Such establishments as possessed 



