1885.] PROCEEDINGS OF UNITED STATES NATIONAL MUSEUM. 79 



Governor Alexander Spottswoocl ajipears to have been the first to 

 break the spell of dormancy in the iron industry in Virginia, which he 

 did by the establishment of a smelting furnace on the Eappahannock 

 Eiver near the present site of Fredericksburg, and of a very complete 

 air-furnace at Massaponax, fifteen miles distant, on the same river, and 

 near the site of his settlement, Germauna. 



In an account-book (1726-'30) kept by Rev. Robert Rose, who was aii 

 agent for Governor Spottswood, there are numerous entries of fire 

 backs cast at Germanna which were sold by him. In 1732 there were 

 four furnaces operated on the Rappahannock, in one of which, Prin- 

 <5ipio furnace, Augustine, the father of George Washington, was largek 

 interested ; the ore used in it being supplied by him from his planta- 

 tion at Bridge's Creek, on the east side of the river.* 



The Falling Creek tract fell to the possession of Col. Archibald Cary 

 some time prior to the Revolutionary war. Upon it he erected his well- 

 known seat, the name of which became in the records of the period a 

 part and parcel of his personal designation as Archibald Cary, of 

 Ampthill. He erected new iron-works on Falling Creek. " He pur- 

 chased pigs of iron from Rappahannock, Patowmack, and Maryland. 

 Of these he made bar iron. The profits, however, were so small that 

 he abandoned his forge and converted his pond to the use of a grist- 

 mill about 1760. Nobody then knew of any iron mine convenient to 

 Falling Creek."t 



The writer visited Ampthill and Falling Creek in May, 1876. The 

 mansion was then in fair preservation. It is now owned by Mr. John 

 Watkins, of New York. 



Falling Creek is about a mile below Ampthill. Its waters still furnish 

 motive power to a grist-mill owned by Mr. H. Carrington Watkins, 

 and known as the Ampthill mill. The creek is but an insignificant riv- 

 ulet above the mill, but some twenty yards below it widens into a hand- 

 some little lake, and some quarter of a mile thence empties into James 

 River. 



About sixty yards from the mill, on the western bank of the creek 

 and nearing the river, the writer picked up several small pieces of 

 furnace-cinder, presumptive relics of the iron-works of 1622. The blufl" 

 adjacent and incumbent has, it is evident from repeated washings of 

 the soil, nearly covered the exact original site. 



On the opposite side of the creek, and to the east of the mill, is clearly 

 indicated the site of the forge of Archibald Cary. Here we found nu- 

 merous pieces of slag or cinder, some of them fully a hundred pounds 

 in weight, and an irregular area an acre or more in extent, covered 



* Iron-making and Coal-mining in Pennsylvania, by Col. James M. Swank, p. 11. 



t A marginal note in MS. on a copy of Stith's History of Virginia, Williamsburg, 

 1747, p. 218, which formerly belonged to Robert Boiling, of Chillowe, author of the 

 Boiling Memoirs. 



