William Ames of Braintree
<BODY BGCOLOR="#FFFFFF" TEXT="#080000" background="14c64643.gif" LINK="#0000BF" ALINK="#80028F" VLINK="#660099"> <div> William Ames of Braintree, Page 9</div> <div> <IMG SRC="16b67e00.gif" border=0 width="103" height="224" ALIGN="BOTTOM" HSPACE="0" VSPACE="0"></div> <div> A Puritan Man</div> <div> <IMG SRC="16cec330.gif" border=0 width="492" height="51" ALIGN="BOTTOM" HSPACE="0" VSPACE="0"></div> <div> <B>WILLIAM AMES</B></div> <div> <B>of</B></div> <div> <B>OLD BRAINTREE</B>[4]</div> <div> <IMG SRC="0b1ba0f0.gif" border=0 width="186" height="15" ALIGN="BOTTOM" HSPACE="0" VSPACE="0"></div> <bR> <div> <B> A</B>s has already been stated, we do not know where <B>William Ames</B> lived or what he did for 3 years after landing. He was a iron-worker and had probably learned his trade in England, for he was 30 years old when he reached America; and a man of that age who did not already have some special occupation would probably turn farmer where the land was almost free.</div> <bR> <div> <B>W</B>e call him "<I>iron-worker</I>" instead of blacksmith, for nowadays, when machines have so completely supplanted handwork, we think of blacksmiths mainly as shoers of horses. In <B>William's</B> time the well-trained smith was a highly expert craftsman. He could smelt his own iron from bog-ore, and cast such massive pieces as cannon and anchors; or forge the delicately wrough grilles and railings that ornament the finer colonial houses. With hammer and anvil only he made tools for all trades, and elaborate locks, hinges and chains. When need arose he was able <I>(as William's great-great-grandson proved</I>) to turn out without machinery such intricate pieces of mechanism as the flint-lock musket. Indeed, skilled blacksmiths were so needed in the early settlements that towns sometimes offered them special privileges or free grants of land.</div> <bR> <div> <B>W</B>e find <B>William </B>first mentioned in 1638 as living in Old Braintree. The following year he married a Braintree girl named <B>Hannah</B> (<I>her family is not recorded</I>) who must have been considerably younger for she outlived him almost 60 years. No trace of the house he built remains; but an old survey shows that it stood close to the town stockade and first corn-mill on Town Brook in that part of Old Braintree which is now Quincy Adams, and near the present Fort Square. This was only a mile and a half from Wollaston where, 10 years before, convivial Thomas Morton and his followers had set up a May-Pole at Merry Mount, and so scandalized the Puritans by<I> "drinking and dancing about it many days together, inviting the Indian women for her consorts, and frisking together like so many fairys and furies"</I> and in general reviving the <I>"beastly practices of the mad bacchanalians,"</I> that they were expelled from the colony.</div> <div> <B> William</B> may have come to Braintree because an excellant quality of bog-ore had been discovered in the swamps there; and it was this ore that led to the establishment of the first plant in America fior smelting and cast in iron. it was a family traditionb, which there is no reason to doubt, that <B>William</B> was connected with these works, though we do not know in what capacity.</div> <bR> <div> The promoter of the enterprise was John Winthrop, Jr. son of the governor of the colony - a young man of an inquiring mind who had a scientific education unusual for his time. He was especially interested in developing the natural resources of New England, and attempted, unsuccessfully, to make salt from sea water; mine graphite with which the Indians painted their faces, and which he hoped Spanish ladies might find useful as a black hair-dye.</div> <bR> <div> <B> T</B>o import iron was expensive, and Winthrop realized the need of a homemade product. He made a wide search for deposits of bog-ore, and found them in Braintree (<I>where </I><I><B>William Ames </B></I><I>had been living for 3 years) </I>and at Saugus, near Lynn. He took specimens back to England to be smelted and records in his diary show that<I> "good iron was made from that Braintree"</I>, adding; <I>"Braintree was, in my thoughts,the fittest place for the first setting up of an iron-worke." </I>The project seemed promising and Winthrop persuaded a group of English capitalists to subscribe L15,000 for building smelters and preliminary operations; or as Edward Johnson in his 'Wonder Working Providence' more quaintly puts it, "<I>the land affording a very good iron-stone, divers persons of quality in England were stirred up by the providential hand of the Lord to adventure their estate upon an iron work which they began in Braintree."</I> Massachusetts was equally interested and the General Court assigned Winthrop and his partners 3,000 acres of common lands of Braintree for the<I> "encouragement of an iron-worke to be set up at montocot River," </I>and granted them a 21 year monopoly on condition that they should, within a reasonable time, produce sufficiant iron to supply the needs of the colony.</div> <bR> <DIV ALIGN="LEFT"></DIV> <div> <IMG SRC="100f8220.gif" border=0 width="760" height="34" ALIGN="BOTTOM" HSPACE="0" VSPACE="0"></div> <bR> <div> <A HREF="id40.htm" TARGET="_top" TITLE="William Ames of Braintree,Contd, Page 10"><U><IMG SRC="101251e0.gif" border=0 width="37" height="30" ALIGN="BOTTOM" HSPACE="0" VSPACE="0"></U></A></div> <div> <B>Turn For</B></div> <div> <B>William of Braintree, Cont'd</B></div> <div> <B>Page 10</B></div> <div> <A HREF="id39.htm" TARGET="_top" TITLE="Early Conditions Contd, Page 8"><U><B>Go Back One Page</B></U></A></div> <div> <A HREF="id36.htm" TARGET="_top" TITLE="Table of Contents"><U><B>Return To Table of Contents</B></U></A></div> <div> <A HREF="index.htm" TARGET="_top" TITLE=" Ames Family WebSite "><U><B>Return To Home Page</B></U></A></div> <div> <A HREF="id31.htm" TARGET="_top" TITLE="Contact Us"><U><B>Go To Contact Us</B></U></A></div> <bR> </BODY>