In 1718 we read of iron-works forty miles up the Schuylkill River, probably the Coventry forge, on French Creek, in Chester County; also of a forge in Berks or Montgomery County, which in 1728 became the scene of an Indian attack. The mineral wealth of Lancaster County soon attracted the attention of the thrifty Germans who had settled there. In 1728 this county had two or more furnaces in blast, and the number of them in the province increased rapidly up to the time of the Revolution.
Upon the Delaware, the Dutch and Swedes seem to have neglected the ores of silver, copper, iron, and other minerals, which they did not fail to discover existed in that region; but an Englishman, Charles Pickering, who lived in Charlestown, Chester County, Pennsylvania, appears to have been the earliest to mine copper, and was on trial in 1683 on the charge of uttering base coin. A letter written by Governor Morris, of New Jersey, to Thomas Penn in 1755, speaks of a copper-mine at the Gap in Lancaster County, which had been discovered twenty years previous by a German miner.
It was New Jersey, however, which led in the working of copper ore. Arent Schuyler, belonging to a Dutch family of Albany, New York, prominent in politics and in other matters, had removed in 1710 to a farm purchased at New Barbadoes Neck, on the Passaic River, near Newark. There one of his negroes re-discovered a copper-mine, known to the Dutch and probably worked before by them, asking as a reward for it all the tobacco he could smoke, and the permission “to live with massa till I die.” The ore taken from this mine proved to be so very rich in metal, copper and silver, that Parliament placed it on the list of enumerated articles, in order to secure it for the British market. Arent Schuyler’s son John introduced into the middle colonies the first steam-engine, requiring it to keep his copper-mine free from water. The copper-mining industry found another adherent about 1750 in Elias Boudinot, who opened a pit near New Brunswick, and erected there a stamping-mill, the products of which were sent to England and highly valued there. When Governor Hunter, in a letter to the Lords of Trade, November 12, 1715, speaks of “a copper mine here brought to perfection,” he undoubtedly refers to a New Jersey or Pennsylvania undertaking, for five years later he answers the question, “What mines are in the province of New York?” with, “Iron enough, copper but rare, lead at a great distance in the Indian settlement, coal mines on Long Island, but not yet wrought.” The coal mines, which have added so much to the wealth of Pennsylvania during the present century, had not been discovered during the period preceding the Revolution.
It has been said above that the colonies were expected to engage in the production of potash and pearlash. This was an industry already recommended as profitable by the secretary of New Netherland in 1650. The dearness of labor, however, interfered with its development, for “the woods were infinite,” and supplied all the necessary material. The attempt, about 1700, to employ Indians at this work failed, for “the Indians are so proud and lazy.” About 1710 a potash factory was established in the province of New York at the expense of an English capitalist, who found it, however, a losing investment. Not discouraged by previous failures, John Keble, of New Jersey, proposed to set up a manufacture of potash. He petitioned for authority to do so, and from his statements we learn that in 1704 Pennsylvania alone of the middle colonies exported potash, and only to the amount of 630 pounds a year. There is no information as to Keble’s success, but a memorial of London merchants to the Lords of Trade in 1729, asking that the manufacture of this important staple in the colonies might be encouraged, drew forth the opinion that not enough was thought of this industry to “draw the people from employing that part of their time (winter) in working up both Wooling and Linen Cloth.”
Tradition points to many a house, in the region originally settled by the Dutch, as having been built with bricks imported from Holland. That such was not the rule, but only an exception, in the days of the West India Company’s rule, is proved by the frequent allusion to brick-kilns on the Hudson, near Albany and Esopus, and on the Lower Delaware. For the convenience of transportation, the trade has centred in these localities to this day.
The making of salt, either by the solar process or by other means, was a necessity which appealed to the colonists at an early period. The Onondaga salt-springs had been discovered by a Jesuit about 1654, but, being then in the heart of the Indian country, they could not be worked by the French or Dutch. Coney Island had been selected in 1661 as a proper place for salt-works, but the political dissensions of the day did not allow operations to go on there. The Navigation Act of 1663, prohibiting the importation into the colonies of any manufactures of Europe except through British ports, made an exception in favor of salt. The result was that this industry was carried on in the middle colonies during the colonial period only in a few small establishments, furnishing not enough for local consumption.
When the palatines began to emigrate, and there was fear that they would carry with them the art of making woollens, Parliament in 1709 forbade such manufactures in the colonies. In 1715 the towns-people of New York and Albany, probably also of Perth Amboy, Burlington, and Philadelphia, are reported as wearing English cloth, while the poor planters are satisfied with a coarse textile of their own make. Nearly two thirds of such fabrics used in the colonies were made there, and the Lords of Trade were afraid that, if such manufacture was not stopped, “it will be of great prejudice to the trade of this kingdom.” Governor Hunter very sensibly opposed any legislation which would force the people to wear English cloth, as it would be equivalent to compelling them to go naked. A report of the Board of Trade, made in 1732, tells us that “they had no manufactures in the province of New York that deserve mentioning;... no manufactures in New Jersey that deserve mentioning.” “The deputy-governor of Pennsylvania does not know of any trade in that province that can be considered injurious to this kingdom. They do not export any woollen or linen manufactures; all that they make, which are of a coarse sort, being for their own use.”
The statements embodied in reports of this kind were made upon information acquired with difficulty, for the crown officers in the colonies interrogated an unwilling people, who saw no virtue in affording the grounds of their own business repression, and concealed or disguised the truth without much compunction of conscience; and in Massachusetts the legislative assembly had gone so far as to call to account a crown officer who had divulged to the House of Commons the facts respecting the exportation of beaver hats.