78 PROCEEDINGS OF UNITED STATES NATIONAL MUSEUM. [1885. 



A part of the funds liberally contributed in England about the same 

 time for a college at Henrico, for the education of native and colonial 

 youth, was appropriated by the treasurer. Sir Edwin Sandys, to the 

 erection of iron works, in the expectation of deriving a revenue from 

 that source. Works for smelting the ore were erected in 1619 on Fall- 

 ing Creek, a tributary of James River, in Chesterfield County, about 

 seven miles below the city of Manchester. Most sanguine hopes of 

 profit from this undertaking were cherished. 



Three of the master workmen having died, a re enforcement of twenty 

 experienced hands was sent over in 1621, accompanied by Mr. John 

 Berkeley and his son Maurice, as skillful persons to superintend the 

 operations. A mine of the brown iron ore in the neighborhood was 

 opened and found to yield "reasonably good iron."* But the jealousy 

 and enmity of the native inhabitauts had unfortunately been aroused. 

 In an hour of fancied security, when all suspicions of hostility had been 

 lulled by the friendly protestations of the Indians, on the morning of 

 Friday, March 22, 1622, a general attack was made by the savages upon 

 the settlements in the colony, and 347 persons slain. Of those engaged 

 at the iron works at Falling Creek all perished save a boy and girl, 

 who fled to the bushes for safety.t 



The iron works being demolished, so great was the discouragement 

 consequent that a long period elai)sed before the useful manufacture 

 was again attempted in Virginia. A writer from the colony in 3649 

 published that " an iron work erected would be as good as a silver 

 mine." I 



The exportation of iron from the colony was forbidden by an act of 

 the assembly in 1662, on penalty of ten pounds of tobacco for every 

 pound of iron exported, and the prohibition was renewed in 1682. 



Col. William Byrd, the first of the name and family in Virginia, ob- 

 tained, April 20, 1687, a grant of 1,800 acres in Henrico County, on 

 the south side of James River, within the limits of which was included 

 the site of the fated iron-works on Falling Creek. On the 29th of 

 October, 1696, he obtained a patent for 5,644 acres lying contiguous 

 thereto, giving as a reason for such action, in a note prefixed to his 

 record of his landed possessions, that " there having been iron-works 

 on Falling Creek in the time of the company, and Colonel Byrd having 

 an intention to carry them on, and foreseeing that abundance of wood 

 might be necessary for so great a work, he took up a large tract," &c., 

 as above. He died on the 4th day of December, 1704* and it is not 

 known that either he or bis son and heir, of the same name and title, 

 ever instituted any further steps towards the revival of the works at 

 Falling Creek, as apparently projected. § 



* Beverley's History of Virginia. 



t Stith, Book IV, p. 218 ; Bishop's Americcaii Manufactures, I, pp. 468-469. 

 t A Perfect Description of Virginia, London, 1649, Force, vol. ii, No. 8. 

 §, MS. Deed-Book of AVilliam Byrd. 



