MARYLAND GEOLOGICAL SURVEY 219 



cording to Johnston 1 " miners employed in the ore pit on Iron Hill, 

 came upon one of the galleries made by the Welsh miners, and dis- 

 covered a rude shovel and pick and a small tallow candle, the wick 

 of which was made of flaxen yarn. The candle, though probably 

 a century old, was in a good state of preservation, but the shovel and 

 pick were so badly rusted that the former could be readily picked 

 to pieces with the thumb and finger." 



Although these deposits of iron ore have been found in various 

 portions of the county it seems probable that only a very small 

 amount of the ore used in the various iron-works which were for- 

 merly of so great importance in Cecil county was found in the neigh- 

 borhood of the furnaces. The records so far as they are known indi- 

 cate that most of the ore was shipped by water to the Cecil county 

 furnaces from deposits in Harford, Baltimore, and Anne Arundel 

 counties. 



The iron-working industry in the county is now practically a thing 

 of the past, owing to the complete change in methods of working ore 

 and to the discovery of richer deposits elsewhere. It is of interest, 

 however, to bring together a few of the facts which have been gleaned 

 regarding the industry which reduced the raw mineral wealth of the 

 State to manufactured products that aided greatly in the building up 

 of the community. Few new facts have come to light in recent years 

 and the following review has been drawn almost entirely from the 

 papers of Alexander, Johnston, Swank, "Whitely, and Keyser. 2 



The earliest record which we have of any iron work within the 

 county is contained in a deed dated 1716, which conveyed the iron- 

 works located near the " main falls of North East " from Robert 

 Dutton to Richard Bennett, This mill was probably the forerunner 



1 History of Cecil County, Elkton, 1881, p. 168. 



2 Alexander, "Report on the Manufacture of Iron; addressed to the Governor of 

 Maryland," Annapolis 1840. 



Johnston, "History of Cecil County," Elkton, 1881. 



Swank, "American Iron Industry from its beginning in 1619 to 1886," Min. Re- 

 sources U. S., 1886 pp. 23-38. 



Keyser, " The Iron Industry," Maryland. Its Resources, Industries and Institu- 

 tions, 1893, pp. 100-112. 



