NA smelters?

[George]

Johann David Schoepf spent a couple of years observing the people and the culture of the country immediately after the Revolutionary war, and had some interesting things to say, some of which I've never seen elsewhere. For instance:

"Iron and lead are found at many places near the Ohio and its tributaries. Lead occurs frequently at the surface ; on the Siotto, 400 miles below Pittsburg, there is a great plenty of it ; from this and other places similar the Indians fetch their supply for war and the hunt ; they fuse out the ore merely in their common fires."

Does anyone have other references to NAs smelting their own lead?

In a very good British TV series, Tudor Monastery Farm, episode 4, available on YouTube, there is a good demonstration of smelting lead in a pretty primitive way ca 1500.

Spence

 

[coloradoclyde]

I've seen references to NA's mining lead...If they weren't smelting it into something usable, I wonder what they were using it for... :hmm:

Tudor Monastery Farm is a great series.... :thumbsup:

 

[necchi]

Henry Schoolcraft mentions it in a specific chapter in his Narrative Journals,(1820)
To the Lead Mines of DuBuque; https://archive.org/details/narrativejournal00scho

Might be a bit later then your looking for but those lead deposits where known and mined as a trade item for at least 100yrs before Schoolcrafts visit.

 

[coloradoclyde]

The French were mining lead in Missouri and other places as early as 1720. it was just another fur trade item....

I wonder if NA's mined lead prior to European contact.