In The Cradle of Industry and Liberty

Quaker merchant Thomas Masters purchased
the mill to provide his wife Sybilla a place
to make “Tuscarora Rice,” a type of hominy
made from Indian Corn that purportedly
had medicinal powers. Sybilla had developed
a new milling process to make the product,
based on her observations of how Native
Americans made it. In 1715 she received,
through her husband Thomas, a patent
from the King of England for “Cleaning
and Curing the Indian Corn Growing in the
several Colonies in America.” This was the
first English patent ever awarded to an
American. Women could not receive patents
at this time so it was issued to Thomas,
with the specification that it was for “a new
invention found out by Sybilla, his wife.” The
Tuscarora Rice venture was also unsuccessful.
In 1760, descendants of the Masters sold
the property to two partners who converted
the mill to a chocolate and mustard factory.
It continued in this line until 1790, after
which it was converted to a textile mill.
TEXTILES
Germantown continued to be an important
center of textile manufacturing in the
mid-eighteenth century. Andrew Barnaby, an
English clergyman who visited Philadelphia
as part of a tour of the mid-Atlantic colonies
in 1759-1760, wrote that “Germantown
thread stockings are in high estimation and
the year before last I have been credibly
informed there were manufactured in that
town alone above 60,000 dozen pairs.”
Barnaby also noted that elsewhere in
Philadelphia “the Irish settlers make very
good linens; some woolens have also been
fabricated…. There are also several other
manufactures…of beaver hats, of cordage
[rope], linseed-oil, starch, myrtle-wax, spermaceti
[whale oil] candles, soap, earthen
ware, and other commodities.”
Carpet making was another growing
textile industry in eighteenth-century
Philadelphia. By the time of the Revolution
the city was a major producer of carpets and
floor cloths, well on its way to becoming
a world leader in this industry in the
nineteenth and twentieth centuries.
IRON
WORKS
Most iron works were located outside of
Philadelphia in the colonial period, in rural
areas in surrounding counties that were closer
to iron ore deposits. By 1750 there were
several iron works within the city, however,
and one in an outlying district of Philadelphia
County. Stephen Paschal had a steel furnace
at the northwest corner of Eighth and Walnut
Streets, William Branson had one on High
(now Market) Street, and John Hall had a tilt
hammer forge in Byberry Township at the
northern edge of the county. Around this time
Quaker iron worker Daniel Offley established
the well-known Anchor Forge on Front Street,
where he made anchors for the maritime
industry. Early Philadelphia historian John
Fanning Watson offers this colorful description
of Offley’s forge:
Looking through the Front Street low
windows down into the smoking cavern
below…where, through the thick sulphurous
smoke, aided by the glare of light from the
forge, might be seen Daniel Offley, directing
the strokes of a dozen hammer-men, striking
with sledges on a welding heat produced on
an immense unfinished anchor, swinging from
the forge to the anvil by a ponderous crane, he
at the same time keeping his piercing iron
voice above the din of the iron sound.
There were also a number of blacksmiths
in Philadelphia in the mid-eighteenth century,
craftsmen who used the iron produced at
local forges to make horseshoes, tools, and
other hardware for city residents, as well as
products for industries such as shipbuilding.
@
Opposite, top: A 1920s rendering of
Dock Creek in the early eighteenth century,
showing the drawbridge at Front Street and
the Blue Anchor Tavern, Philadelphia’s first
public house. Legend has it that this was
where William Penn landed when he first
arrived in Philadelphia in 1682. A number
of the city’s earliest tanneries and breweries
were situated upstream on Dock Creek.
FRANK H. TAYLOR COLLECTION, LIBRARY COMPANY
OF PHILADELPHIA.
Opposite, bottom: This map, made for a
2008 Dock Creek art installation sponsored
by the American Philosophical Society,
shows the location of early tanneries along
the creek. The small circles indicate tannery
locations. Dock Creek was a network of
streams in the central and southern section
of Old City in the colonial period. The
section of the creek labeled “Dock Street”
at right is the current cobblestone street
that follows the original course of the creek.
All of these waterways were covered by the
late eighteenth century.
MAP COURTESY OF AMERICAN PHILOSOPHICAL SOCIETY.
Above: Depiction of an early American iron
forge. There were a few iron forges within
the city in the colonial period, but most were
located in outlying counties, in areas closer
to rural iron ore deposits.
SOCIETY PRINT COLLECTION, HISTORICAL SOCIETY
OF PENNSYLVANIA.
CHAPTER TWO
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