John Winthrop Jr. Iron Furnace Site

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The John Winthrop Jr. Iron Furnace Site is at 61 Crescent Street in Quincy, Massachusetts. It is sometimes called the Braintree Furnace because the area was part of Braintree when the works operated, before becoming Quincy. This site is important because it was the first iron blast furnace in what would become the United States. The nearby Furnace Brook was named after the furnace works.

The site was added to the National Register of Historic Places in 1977.

In the 1600s, iron goods like nails, horseshoes, cookware, tools, and weapons were essential, but most iron had to be imported. It was expensive because ships had to travel long distances to get iron from Europe.

John Winthrop the Younger wanted to start an iron works in the Massachusetts Bay Colony. He believed the colonies had plenty of raw materials and could sell iron goods in New England, the Chesapeake, and even in England. In 1639 he went to England to raise money, and a group called the Company of Undertakers for the Iron Workes in New England financed the project.

Braintree was chosen as the site, and construction began in 1644, finishing in 1645. On October 15, 1645, the Undertakers were granted a tax exemption and a 21-year monopoly on iron production by the Massachusetts General Court.

However, the Braintree furnace failed because there wasn’t enough iron ore nearby and the water power to run the machinery was inadequate. It shut down in 1647, not long after the nearby Saugus Iron Works began operation.

Some workers from the Braintree Furnace moved on to other projects. James Leonard helped establish the Taunton Iron Works on the Two Mile River in Taunton; Henry Leonard moved back to Saugus for a while before starting a new works at Rowley in 1668. Ralph Russell, another ironmaster from Braintree, moved to Dartmouth and started a forge at Russells Mills on the Paskamanset River.