Falling Creek Ironworks

S-4

Nearby on Falling Creek is the first ironworks in English North America. It was established by the Virginia Company to supply iron for the colony and for export to England. Construction began in 1619. The works, including a blast furnace, were completed under ironmaster John Berkeley and production began late in 1621 or early in 1622. The facility was destroyed and almost everyone there (twenty-seven people) was killed during the 22 Mar. 1622 Indian attacks coordinated by Chief Opechancanough that struck this and various other English settlements. There were three other unsuccessful 17th-century attempts to restart the ironworks.

Department of Historic Resources, 2005

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References/Bibliographic Citation:

Falling Creek Ironworks, National Register of Historic Places Archives File (20-63), DHR; Ferrar Papers, Microfilm, Reels 1 and 2 (Available at VHS); Frederic W. Gleach, Powhatan’s World and Colonial Virginia (Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 1997), 143, 149; E. N. Hartley, Ironworks on the Saugus: The Lynn and Braintree Ventures of the Company of Undertakers of the Ironworks in New England (1957; Eastern National, 2001), 21-43; Charles E. Hatch, Jr. and Thurlow Gates Gregory, “The First American Blast Furnace, 1619-1622: The Birth of a Mighty Industry Falling Creek in Virginia,” Virginia Magazine of History and Biography 70 (July 1962): 259-296; John T. Kneebone, J. Jefferson Looney, Brent Tarter, and Sandra Gioia Treadway, eds., Dictionary of Virginia Biography (2 vols.; Richmond, Va., The Library of Virginia, 1998- ), 2:34-35; Calder Loth, ed., The Virginia Landmarks Register, 4th. ed. (Charlottesville: University Press of Virginia, 1999), 114; Susan Myra Kingsbury, ed., The Records of the Virginia Company of London: The Court Book From the Manuscript in the Library of Congress (3 vols.; Washington: Government Printing Office, 1906-1933), 1:472, 1:115-116, 1:472, 1:475-476, 1:565, 1:587-588, 3:128-129, 3:240; 3:240; Jeffrey M. O’Dell, Chesterfield County: Early Architecture And Historic Sites (Chesterfield County, Va., 1983), 405-408; John T. Kneebone, J. Jefferson Looney, Brent Tarter, and Sandra Gioia Treadway, eds., Dictionary of Virginia Biography (2 vols.; Richmond, Va., The Library of Virginia, 1998- ), 1:451-452; J. Lawrence Pool, America’s Valley Forges and Valley Furnaces (Dalton, Mass.: Studley Press, Inc., 1982), 48; David Ransome, The Ferrar Papers 1590-1790 in Magdalene College Cambridge, Introduction/Finding List (New York: Norman Ross Publishing) [Copy at VHS]; Robert Rutland, “Men and Iron in the Making of Virginia,” The Iron Worker 40 (Summer 1976): 2-4; John Baer Stoudt, Nicolas Martiau, the Adventurous Huguenot, the Military Engineer, and the Earliest American Ancestor of George Washington (Norristown, Pa.: Norristown Press, 1932), 8-9; Randolph Turner, III and Antony F. Opperman, Searching for Virginia Company Period Sites: An Assessment of Surviving Archaeological Manifestations of Powhatan-English Interactions, A.D. 1607-1624 (Forthcoming), 7:10-12.