Abstract
One of the great needs of the Colonial enterprise was a local source of ironware. John Winthrop, Jr., traveled to England to raise the capital and recruit iron workers. While the political situation in England was unsettled, he visited alchemical friends in Europe and honed his iatrochemical skills. There was a vibrant intellectual world in England and the Colonies inspired by Francis Bacon and instantiated in the 1640s by Samuel Hartlib. Winthrop was a full member of this world. Their goal was a Protestant utopia enlightened by a direct interaction with the real world. The story of the production of iron in New England is presented in some detail, including the chemistry.
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Patterson, G. (2020). Return to England (1641) and the New England Ironworks. In: Chemistry in 17th-Century New England. SpringerBriefs in Molecular Science(). Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-43261-4_6
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-43261-4_6
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