Saugus Iron Works re-opens --- now with shoe-eating tree!

Miscellaneous and Personal Stuff I Must Share
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1.) At long last, the Saugus Iron Works has re-opened. This is the Oldest Iron Works in the American Colonies*, and it’s been closed for about a year while they refurbish it. Actually, it’s been quietly open for the past couple of weeks, but Friday they had the Official Ribbon-Cutting, and Saturday that had lots of things foing on. Here are some reports about it:

http://www.boston.com/travel/explorene/massachusetts/articles/2008/05/18/restored_iron_works_forges_saugus_history/

http://www.wickedlocal.com/saugus/news/x1191420055/Grand-reopening-of-Saugus-Iron-Works-is-this-weekend

http://www.wickedlocal.com/saugus/news/x1902439749/Schedule-of-events-at-Iron-Works-this-weekend
2.) We went both days. It was raining Friday and on Saturday morning, but it was worth it. We got an unnexpected meal on Friday, and saw flashy iron-pouring with lotsa sparks.

3.) On Saturday we got to see the rarely-opened IronMaster’s House. As I was coming back downstairs, MilliCal came hopping up on one shoe**. "What happened to your other shoe? I asked. “It’s stuck in the tree,” she answered. I was trying to figure out exactly what she’d done :confused: . It didn’t seem likely that she’d taken off her shoe with the ground all wet, and was throwing it into the trees. And the branches are too low for her to be trying to climb and getting it stuck. It turned out that she put her foot in the tight crotch of a tree, and it “grabbed” it. Since I was wearing both shoes, I could stand there and wrest it out.

4.) The iron-workers guild that was putting on the casting show (not part of the Parks crew – they were brought in for this event) had brought some sand-casting blanks, and invited people to carve their own molds for casting. We each engraved something (I made my monogram. Pepper Mill did a Cat and a Mouse, MilliCal made a sort of race car centaur – half race car, half person.) We’ve got them sitting on our Church Pew downstairs.

5.) We watched a Blacksmithing demonstration, picked up some herbs, saw a collection of miniature operating mtors, and took an abbreviated canoe trip around the newly-dredged river basin. A Fun Day. I’m pretty sure at least one other Doper was there for part of it.

*Not to be confused with the Oldest Iron Works in the colonies in Quincy, Mass. Or the Oldest Ironworks in the Colonies in New Jers.
** The foot with the green sock. She had a pink sock on the other foot. One of MiliCal’s personal fashion expressions is to wear a different colored sock on each foot. She does this deliberately, and it drives me nuts when I’m sorting and folding the laundry.

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We were at the ceremonies the night before, which included sample pours (a kick for this engineer) by this outfit, whom I have come to deeply admire. Our kids are much older than yours, but when they were that age, they got the same thrills too. But it’s even better for her now that the phragmites infestation is gone and the water is free-flowing again.

It always impresses me how much was known about metallurgy in the 17th century, even if it was based on trial and error. The basics of steelmaking are still the same, only the equipment has improved. The theoretical understanding, still being developed, came, like it so often does, from trying to explain why it works, not as the first step. We so often fail to understand that science and engineering are not sequential.

This was a huge undertaking at the time, and still would have been two centuries later. When the Iron Works was built, on the edge of the frickin’ wilderness, there were still only 4 like it in all of Europe. The surprising thing about the business isn’t that it went bankrupt but that it wasn’t picked up by another entrepreneur - perhaps the operating costs or the small size of the colonial market were really the limiting factors.

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In the words of Gov. William Bradford, the iron works “ground out lawsuits and court orders” as much as it smelted iron. I think the works were hampered by the fact that the available ore (“bog” iron) was pretty limited in supply-once it was used up, there was no source of ore.

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And for labor, they used Scottish slaves!

Anyway, I had no idea the place was temporarily closed. Glad it’s now open again, and I’m sorry I missed the festivities. I’d have taken the kids if I had known.