First Steel Mill in US

Hard as Steel… to Write
First Steel Mill in US, Simsbury

This is the oddest thing. Every now and again, I’d be talking Simsbury history to someone. Y’know, like we all do at parties and such. And I’d hear, “the first steel mill in the country was in Simsbury,” and I’d be like, “oh yeah? cool” and file it away for later.

Well, it’s later now and after having read “the first steel mill in the country was in Simsbury” in several places over the years, I went out to the town to investigate.

There’s nothing to investigate. All evidence of this 300 year old steel mill are long gone.

So I turned, of course, to the internet. By the way, in case you are unaware, Tariffville is a small section of Simsbury over by the Farmington River.

Wikipedia’s entire statement:

The first steel manufacturing plant in the country was established in Tariffville at a site on the Farmington River in 1727.

The town website for Simsbury, in its entirety:

In 1728, the first steel mill operating in America was located in Simsbury.

Connecticut History dot org, has this to say:

Simsbury also became home to the nation’s first steel-making venture in 1728, its first carpet factory in 1825 and, in 1836, its first safety fuses for use in blasting operations. The fuse company evolved into an aerospace and defense firm and still maintains its headquarters in suburban Simsbury.

You can read quite a bit about those safety fuses. Ensign-Bickford is still a large presence in town and there’s an entire building decided to them and their safety fuses at the Simsbury Historical Society Museum.

But what about the steel mill?! Why isn’t this a bigger thing here? It’s like a nonentity, even in Simsbury. And I think that’s really weird. (I’m completely ignoring the first carpet factory thing, I realize, thereby alienating carpet factory fans. I’m not sorry about that though. I mean… carpet fans?)

So I dug deeper. And I finally found the story – buried in the history of how the Collins Axe Company came to be down the Farmington River in Canton. The following was published in 1906 in the succinctly and creatively titled Celebration of the One Hundredth Anniversary of the incorporation of the Town of Canton, Connecticut.

John Christian Müller/Miller was a principal refiner for the early Simsbury mines, but his name is generally lost to Samuel Higley who financed the operation and later made the first copper coinage in America as well. The coin thing is a thing at the Historical Society Museum. (They display a replica, but have a real original under lock and key somewhere.)

The bolding just below is mine because those 1906 authors were correct.

It is an interesting fact that the earliest plant for the manufacture of steel in this country was begun on the Farmington River in Tariffville in 1727, and that the only steel works today in New England for the manufacture of tool steel is now on the Farmington River at Collinsville, both establishments being within the limits of the same original town. As early at 1710 iron was manufactured from bog ore at Turkey Hills, now East Granby.

In 1728 Samuel Higley presented a petition to the General Court stating that “he hath, with great pains and costs, found out and obtained a curious art, by which to convert, change, or transmute common iron into good steel, sufficient for any use, and was the very first that ever performed such an operation in America, having the most perfect knowledge thereof confirmed by many experiments and that he has good reason to hope that he shall produce as good or better steel than what comes from over sea, and at considerable cheaper rate.”

Upon this statement he desired the exclusive privilege of making steel for the term of ten years. The iron for this purpose was procured from Turkey Hills, but to what extent or by what process the manufacture was carried on is unknown. In 1740, the general Court granted to Thomas Fitch and others, as successors of Higley, “the soles liberty and privilege of making, manufacturing, and converting iron into good steel within the bounds and limits of this colony” for the term of fifteen years, with the condition that after two years they should make at least half a ton of steel for said term.

So they got their steel mill going and “that after many expensive and faultless trialls with which sundry of the owners was discouraged the affair being pursued by others of them, it has so far succeeded that there has been made more than half a ton of steel at the furnace in Symsbury which was erected for that purpose by the gentlemen to whom said grant was made.”

It is certain that the steel made at that time must have been very crude and faulty in quality. The quality at the time was terrible, as it was dependent upon the various elements and the extent of impurities in the ore used. The Syrian method (German steel) was all but abandoned by 1740.

So where was this steel mill? I have no idea other than in Tariffville. Which, actually, narrows it down to where I took my pictures: Behind the big brick building on the river in Tariffville. There are no markers, and no indication of this area’s place in history.

But now there’s a CTMQ page and in the parking lot of that building is this gear thing, which I will now present, without a smidgen of knowledge or truth, is a machine part from the first steel mill in the United States. (Which it logically can’t be but if there was any logic to any of this, there’s be a monument around here somewhere.)

CTMQ’s US & World Firsts in Connecticut