Democratic Sentinel, Volume 16, Number 5, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 19 February 1892 — Decline In Iron Industry of Massachusetts. [ARTICLE]

Decline In Iron Industry of Massachusetts.

The effect on the iron industry of New England of the high duties on'iron ore, pig and scrap iron is well summarized by Mr. Horace P. Tobey, of the Lemont Nail Works, in the New England Almanac for 1892. Through nearly two and a half centuries, with their wonderful changes, Massachusetts always held, down to 18W, noticeable prominence as an iron manufacturing State. Of her condition

at about that time, Mr. Swank, authoi of “Iron In All Ages," says: “Nearly all the bloomary and refinery Jorges and old style furnaces of New England have long disappeared, and in their stead have grown reproductive iron Industrie* of almost endless variety and vast extent, employing large numbers of skilled mechanics and adding greatly to the productive wealth of the country. The rolling mills, machine shops, hardware establishments, nail and tack factories, foundries and other iron enterprises oi New England, together with a few steel works and modern blast furnaces (nearly all of the latter still using charcoal, however,) form to-day a striking Contrast to the bog ore and other bloomaffies, not much larger than a blacksmith’s fire, and the small charcoal furnaces and chimney-corner nail factories of the last century.” But in 1880 the iron industries oi Massachusetts, strong in the possession of the experience of two and a half centuries and of trained mechanics in whose families iron-working had become hereditary, began strangely enough tc decline. In 1880 there were forty-one rolling mills in New England, of which twentyfive were in Massachusetts. In 1891 there were but twenty-one active rolling mills in New England, of which ten were in Massachusetts. In 1880 there were twelve cut nail factories in Massachusetts; in 1891 there w'ere but two in operation. In 1880 there were reported ns produced in Massachusetts 116,846 tons oi rolled iron; in 1887 only 45,853 tons; and several mills have retired since that date. In 1880 the United States census reports ennumeratod 217 puddling furnaces in New England, of which 191 were in Massachusetts. In 1890 and 1891 there was not, as the writer thinks, a ton of pig iron puddled New England, and certainly very little if any. In 1887 there were 30,683 tons of steel rails made in Massachusetts; in 1890 none. Such has been the effect of maintaining tiie high duties on crude iron.