Availability of Lead in the Colonies

[Artificer]

I remember my Granddad didn't like dropped shot, said it carried the hair in with it (as in shooting squirrels). Don't know what kind of shot he liked.

I wonder if he was talking about home made "dropped shot" that almost always had "tails" on each piece? True drop shot (dropped from tall towers) is very close to truly round and would not carry hair in like home made dropped shot with tails.

Gus

 

[BrownBear]

I wonder if he was comparing plain pure-lead shot with hardened, plated or alloy shot. In addition to poorer patterns from pure lead shot I get the extra hair or feathers, so I've more or less avoided it unless I could buy it really cheaply.

Speculation, but with a grain of experience for insight.

 

[Billnpatti]

Based on my reading of the history of the time, lead was a commodity that was shipped into the colonies and was available for purchase. But, like most things it was expensive and taxed so the colonists were frugal with their lead and tried to recover it when situations allowed it. Now, I was not there so my knowledge of the times is based solely on reading. Rifleman1776 and Dutch Schoultz are both a good bit older than me and they may possibly actually remember how things were back then. :rotf:

 

[BrownBear]

I've lived my life with the impression (bias?) that metallic mineral deposits are lots more prominent out west than in the east.

I've done a fair bit of museum wandering and reading about the period of Spanish occupation in the Southwest, mostly because the Spanish king demanded lots of reports and better record keeping than was common after they were driven out. One of the most interesting insights I've gained is the difference they placed on natural above-ground deposits and those mined from beneath the ground. As I recall anything found above ground was untaxed, while anything dug up was heavily taxed on the order of 80%.

I'm sure lots of skullduggery transpired in the reporting, but one location in the Sonora was renowned for it's above-ground deposits of virtually pure copper, though it was quickly depleted once the Spaniards took the spot from the Indians.

This is a roundabout way of leading back to the ancient lead-zinc mine near us on the border when I was a kid. Don't know of any Spanish record of diggings, but it just might go back that far.

Meanwhile it was pretty common in my youth to find big chunks of "float" ore in the area. Looked like a big chunk of tan/brown/white chalk until you whacked it with another rock to split it open. That revealed the chalky coating was nothing but oxide. Inside it looked like a pure silver version of pyrite.

One chunk I found was about the size of a watermelon. Had to break it in half for my scrawny young body to get it up into the saddlebags, but I lugged it all the way home on the back of my horse.

Never smart enough to try smelting it (my mom may have had a hand in that decision), but I've always wondered if I could have "rendered" lead out of it on a big old fire.

Only reason for this long jaw, I'm sure that our frontier forebears were better schooled in such things, and there just might have been "natural" sources of lead outside of buying it or digging big holes in the ground.

 

[Rifleman1776]

Rifleman1776 and Dutch Schoultz are both a good bit older than me and they may possibly actually remember how things were back then.

Yer right. But Alex Hamilton told me lead was a bad investment so I didn't stock pile any. Regret that now. :wink:
BTW, my area, the Arkansas/Missouri Ozarks have large deposits of lead that was once actively mined. Also found was quite a bit of zinc and some silver.

 

[Artificer]

That was an interesting post and it got me to thinking about some similar things in the period.

I wonder how many people who found/stumbled across lead ore back then (or now) would even know what it was? Then if they did know what it was, did they know how to smelt it down? Was there enough lead found to consider gathering and smelting it? Now along with that question the follow on question would be, could they raise the necessary capital to make mining and smelting worthwhile? Then, would they run afoul of the British Navigation Acts and other laws against manufacturing a/some "finished good/s" in the colonies? If so, could they bribe someone to look the other way?

Some of this speculation comes from information on Iron manufacturing in the colonies. At first, it seems the British Government did not want the colonies to do it. (I never have found out if Lt. Governor Spotswood of Virginia had official permission from the King/British government to set up the Iron Mines and Iron Production at Germanna Forge in the very early 18th century OR if he kept it secret for as long as he could?)

Then it became not only acceptable to ship raw Pig Iron back to England, but also lawful and common. Hundreds or thousands of tons of it was sent back before the AWI. However, they were "not supposed" to refine it into hand wrought Iron for quite some time OR cast it into pots and other things. Finally it seems the British government finally gave up on trying to stop that by at the least the mid 18th century.

The point about the Iron Mines was in part that Lt. Governor Spotswood imported skilled German Miners to mine and work the Iron. So they knew what they were doing. There is no reason to suggest that foreign lead miners could also have been encouraged to come over here, as well.

However, I am unsure as to whether the lead mine mentioned in Virginia above, needed skilled miners from Europe?

Gus

 

[BrownBear]

Got me to wondering so I fired up my google machine and asked it about making lead. This is how they describe the modern process including lots of purification. Dunno how that translates into the old ways, but with "roasting" the ore in there to free the lead (2550 degrees F), pretty rudimentary methods might have worked. I kinda doubt folks back then worried too much about impurities unless it affected the nature of the final lead.

The Wikipedia description of traditional smelting makes it sound even less technical.

This account of historic methods from the Collections of the Kansas State Historic Society talks about how simple it was to smelt lead from ore.

Gotta believe my dear sweet mom sold me short in preventing the firing of that ore, but she was more than smart about the fumes.

 

[BrownBear]

Here is a really fine description of historic lead smelting from ore. Couldn't be simpler, and I bet a guy who could recognize lead ore could crank out lead in no time.

 

[George]

Here is a fascinating demonstration of primitive lead smelting, in a series by the BBC called Tudor Monastery Farm. It's not in the colonies, but in England, ca 1500, but is well worth the time. This is episode #4, and you will want to watch the entire episode, the part concerning the lead smelting is divided. Enjoy.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZIbhoR1GBuI

Spence

 

[Artificer]

Brown Bear,

Thank you for the text information.

Spence,

That video really makes the text come alive. I enjoyed it thoroughly. Thank you as well.

Gus

 

[Loyalist Dave]

Well although it's described in a simple manner..., that doesn't mean it was automatically easy to do. :grin:

According to one of the articles linked...Thus it was only worthwhile exploiting ores very rich in lead, and even ores containing 20% lead would probably be discarded..

So, one has to find a rather good source of Galena, with a high amount of lead. In what today is the United States, these are mostly found in the Mississippi Valley..., Missouri is a great place to find lead ore. The Ohio Valley, and East of the Appalachians....not so much.

That's on a commercial basis, which explains why so much lead was imported (Johnson's lead traded to the Indians was imported). So let's say the frontiersman finds some Galena, recognizes it, and it has 20% lead...not viable for the commercial smelter, but our frontiersman doesn't need that much.

At 20%..., the DIY smelter needs five pounds of ore to produce a pound of lead,.... but wait ..., if he's lucky, he's only getting 2/3 of the actual lead in the ore as the rest is lost, SO..., five pounds is only giving him 12 ounces of lead. So he is getting about 18 bullets for his .54 rifle from five pounds of Galena. IF the ore is poorer than that...say only 10%...that's ten pounds of ore to harvest a dozen bullets. :shocked2:

The next thing is one needs to produce a large amount of charcoal. If one looks at charcoal production of the period, people specialized in producing large amounts of it for smithing. Joe Frontiersman might find it difficult to produce enough charcoal to fuel his tiny smelting furnace to yield his lead. It's easy to do with a 55 gallon, steel barrel..., not so easy with 18th century tech....even if one does a small stack of wood covered by a small mound to control the burn. A tree has to be felled, chopped into smaller bits, split, and then seasoned... So start today and be ready to make your charcoal in say..., July?

So..., Joe Frontiersman knows how to make some good charcoal, AND he finds a decent source of Galena, say enough for him to gather ten pounds, and is looking forward to maybe getting enough lead for three dozen bullets...., how does he stoke his furnace? Sure in Germany some guys found a place to build their furnaces where the wind was constant enough to naturally stoke a furnace..., is that true of every hill or mountain in Appalachia?

I've seen experiments done with charcoal and hollow cane. With three or four men, and a stack of hollow cane tubes, sufficient air can be blown into a makeshift furnace or forge to get the right temps to smelt..., one does not necessarily need a bellows, ....but then you've got to split that lead four ways....OR you've got to make a bellows if it's a one man operation.

It's simple, but not easy.

:wink:

LD

 

[BrownBear]

Was anything easy on the frontier?

Effort doesn't seem to have stopped many folks from filling their needs. In fact, the more you needed it, the harder you'd work to get it. Consider the effort in turning out a simple pair of pants.

 

[Dr5x]

The Colonies were colonies for quite a while before the Revolution. I don't exactly when you are talking about, the 15oo's the 1600's or the first 70 some years of the 17t00's.

I do know that lead was used a lot in the manufacture of ships, pewter and quite a few other items.

I do know that there was a statue of George III on a horse apparently made of lead which was knocked down and melted into lead balls for military usage.

It was a terrible time and everything was taxed, just like today.

Dutch

 

[tenngun]

Lead was one of the very first metals to be smelted, done with Neolithic societies. Making iron is lot more work, and a more complex technology. Lead mines were being exploited in the ozarks long before the US took the area over.

 

[Artificer]

I found the Tudor video describing and making "White Charcoal" to be very interesting, even though it was really super dried wood and not true charcoal. Also noticed they used a lot of firewood both to raw smelt and final heat the lead, though it seems they would have gotten at least a couple more 2lb ingots than what they actually cast.

I am not in any way suggesting they cheated by going down into mines that were already known to have been worked, but they did ensure they got a higher content of lead in the ore that way.

Also in that video, it showed a "blacksmith" or commercial size bellows to heat the smelted lead and a frontiersman would not have had one unless he already had a farm or shop. (No doubt why you mentioned the use of cane for blowers.)

Maybe I am mistaken, but I got the idea from the Tudor video that unless one already had a farm or permanent settlement of some sort, going through the trouble to make lead would not have been something frontiersmen would normally have done, except perhaps in critical shortage of lead. It was a LOT easier to take deer and trade the hide/s for imported lead in many places back East.

Gus

 

[Artificer]

Lead was one of the very first metals to be smelted, done with Neolithic societies. Making iron is lot more work, and a more complex technology. Lead mines were being exploited in the ozarks long before the US took the area over.

I bet more than one early human thought he had silver when looking at Galena and was disappointed after the smelting. Then he thought, "OK, NOW what do I do with THIS stuff?!!" :haha:

Capt. John Smith reportedly sent back a ship full of what he thought was Gold Ore to England from Virginia, but it turned out to only be Iron Pyrite. WOW I bet he and the other settlers were disappointed in that.

Gus

 

[Loyalist Dave]

I was disagreeing with this idea...,

Couldn't be simpler, and I bet a guy who could recognize lead ore could crank out lead in no time.

And I think I demonstrated that an amount of lead to make the effort worth the work means this is a fallacy.

LD

 

[Artificer]

Yep, simpler to trade deerskins for imported lead.

Gus

 

[BrownBear]

And I think I demonstrated that an amount of lead to make the effort worth the work means this is a fallacy.

Looks more like you demonstrated a fallacy for wallet solutions. I was raised by hard scrabble Okies who survived the depression by not spending money. That feels a whole lot like "frontier spirit" to me.

If there's a way to do something even for a small yield, you'd do it. My grandpap used a lot of split shot. Got roof flashing for free at the dump, cut it in strips, then square chunks and split it, all one at a time with his ancient pocket knife. He thought it was a downright foolish waste of money to spend the going rate of 10 cents a tube for something he could make himself in a couple hours sitting on the porch. Used a whole lot of brown flies too because he had a pen full of reds pecking the ground in his back yard. Why buy feathers when he had a yard full of them. It goes on and on.

My mom's favorite saying comes in two forms: "Pops could squeeze a nickel until Thomas Jefferson cried for mercy." If there were no sensitive ears around she'd flip the nickel and say, in effect "Pops could squeeze a nickel until the buffalo excreted."

Guy with a lode of even low grade lead ore nearby was likely to throw chunks of ore onto the fire while he was rendering fat for soap and candles or while his wife was doing the wash. Every so often, dig in the ashes for lumps of lead. No great effort, no extra firewood and no lead to buy.

Common sense solutions rather than wallet solutions.

 

[MC One Shot]

Yup! That was the way things were done by folks with no or little means...