Paddock’s history of iron industry fascinates listeners

SALISBURY — It’s certainly not a new story, but the Scoville Memorial Library meeting room was filled to capacity on April 16 for a talk by amateur historian Richard Paddock on the iron industry in Salisbury. After some minor computer programs that delayed the 2 p.m. start time, Paddock launched into some tales about the Barnum and Richardson Company and why it bought a facility in Chicago. The reason: They had an arrangement with the railroad there.The Lime Rock company was making railroad car wheels in the mid-19th century, and with interests not just in Chicago but in West Virginia and Rochester, N.Y., they were the largest maker of railroad car wheels in the world.They had a money-back guarantee, too, although “I have never heard of any significant cash-in” on that guarantee, Paddock said.Advertisements from the time pointed out the virutes of Salisbury iron — especially its resistance to cracking.“That’s a virtue in a car wheel, believe me,” Paddock said.Ore was the big draw It took a while for the Salisbury area to get settled, Paddock said. “Look at the pattern of settlement. Settlers came up the navigable rivers. They settled where they could get to.”Salisbury was incorporated in 1741. “Think about going from Salisbury to Hartford then.”Nobody came to Salisbury because of the abundant farmland, he continued. In fact, the main push into what is now the Northwest Corner came from the Hudson Valley in the form of Robert Livingstone, who secured several land grants from the colonial governor of New York in the 1680s.“Livingstone thought he owned everything between the Hudson and the Housatonic,” said Paddock. “But he missed Ore Hill somehow.”The iron era really got started when the area was finally surveyed in 1728, and iron ore was discovered at Lakeville’s Ore Hill (in 1734).Why was this discovery exciting? Because colonial life depended on the use of things such as nails — which had to be imported from England.It wasn’t very cost-efficient, importing “things that are heavy but need to be cheap,” Paddock pointed out. “The transportation cost drove prices up.”Also crucial were the existence of mills. “You don’t eat if you can’t grind your grain.”And that required parts ... iron parts.The existing metal industry, such as it was, was concentrated in two places — Saugus, Mass., and coastal Connecticut. The iron was of inferior quality.Salisbury was in many ways ideal for iron production — it had the lime necessary for iron production, it had wood for fuel, and hills and running water meant there was a power supply.By 1734 speculators moved in. Paddock said that many of the land grantees had no particular interest in the remote and forested area, and were easily talked out of their lands.Thomas Lamb bought lots and water privileges in the Salisbury area. “About the only one he didn’t get was Twin Lakes.”Lamb had a forge going in Lime Rock, along the Salmon Kill, in 1734. It was really called a “bloomery” — a process that compacts the iron ore into a ball. Manually.“You beat it with a hammer and mix in the lime, which lowers the melting temperature” of unwanted elements.Hence the term “wrought iron.”The Iron PrincePaddock also spoke of the iron industry in East Canaan. Samuel Forbes, “The Iron Prince,” who at age 14 began working at Richard Seymour’s bloomery forge on the Blackberry River in 1743, was a memorable character. Paddock related one tale:“When he got married, he threw a rope over the house. ‘Whichever one of us pulls the other over the roof runs the house.’”To complete the gesture, Forbes then threw his end back over the roof and told his wife that they should (and would) pull together instead.Too romantic to be true?“If it isn’t true, it should be,” said Paddock.Forbes pushed the technical aspects of iron making, inventing a device for making ribbons of iron out of the bloom in order to make nails.This was so effective that nail-making became a cottage industry. “Farmers got the nail rods on consignment and had their teenage sons make nails — which took the testosterone out of them.”The Connecticut iron industry became so successful that the English passed a protectionist law aimed at forcing the colonies to buy imported nails.“But they couldn’t find East Canaan,” said Paddock, and the businesses continued to thrive.Perhaps Forbes’ most significant innovation was the standardization of parts for iron production. Up to that point (around 1770) the size of a mill stone was largely governed by the size of whatever rock was handy. By creating a standard size, replacing worn parts — and starting new ventures — became simpler.Paddock noted that Forbes was friends with Eli Whitney of New Haven, who in addition to inventing the cotton gin also supplied the fledgling federal government with muskets that had interchangeable parts. “It’s quite possible Forbes planted that seed,” Paddock said.Plenty of pigsPaddock then described the development of the pig iron process, which was more efficient and produced a better product. “You could get a lot more iron in a day,” he said, comparing a bloomery’s output of 300 to 600 pounds per day to the Mount Riga facility, which was the least efficient of the blast furnaces producing pig iron, at four tons per day.The furnace in Lakeville produced 11 tons per day.Which came in handy for Richard Smith, who acquired the Lakeville furnace as payment of a bad debt.The American revolution began, and Smith, who Paddock described as apolitical although local legend says he was a British supporter, left Lakeville for the duration, waiting it out in France.But the furnace was seized by the rebel government and the period in which Lakeville is described as “The Arsenal of the Revolution” began. Hundreds of cannons, cannonballs and what Paddock called “the classic round bomb with a fuse” were produced.Seeking a ‘Salisbury cannon’Some 850 cannons were made for the Revolutionary War.Historians have been trying to identify a “Salisbury cannon” for years. Paddock said it was a difficult if not impossible task, because the weapons had no identifying marks.“The Colonial government didn’t want the British to know where they were coming from.”An attempt has been made to see if a “cannon DNA” can be established. “It was all made from the same ore, from one hill, at the same furnace, by the same crew. Maybe there is some constituent unique to Lakeville.”X-ray spectroanalysis has not revealed anything, but Paddock said he did notice one thing in going over the results.“There is a little bit of silver. Now, don’t go out to your lot and start digging.”The Salisbury cannons were prized because “guns made elsewhere were unreliable, prone to bursting.“There is no tale of a Salisbury gun failing in combat.”