Byrd, who had a notion to become an ironmaster himself, was advised that a proper works required, besides an iron deposit nearby, a constant supply of waterpower to operate the bellows, easy access to deep water for shipping the output to England, at least two miles square of woodland to supply charcoal for a "moderate" furnace, and 120 slaves to do the work, including some to grow food for both men and beasts. Two bits of advice, which he recorded as follows, may have dissuaded him from taking the plunge:
If all these circumstances happily concur, and you could procure honest colliers and firemen, which will be difficult to do....
The founders find it very hot work to tend the furnace, especially in summer, and are obliged to spend no small part of their earnings in strong drink to recruit their spirits.
Spotswood's Tubal works were producing, in 1723, castiron "backs and frames for Chymmes [chimneys], Potts, doggs, frying, stewing and baking pans." But even at the time of Byrd's trip, the output of the four Virginia furnaces consisted almost entirely of cast iron sows and pigs that were shipped to England. There was not a single forge operating in the whole of Virginia, Spotswood told Byrd.
Just three years later, however, Governor William Gooch reported to the Board of Trade in London that one forge was producing bar iron. He seemed to think this was enough to satisfy the colony's needs for iron "for agriculture and Planting, for mending as well as making tools." How badly Gooch misjudged the local demand for wrought iron is evident in the rapid increase of forges in the following years. A number sprang up near the lower Potomac and in the Shenandoah Valley; one, called Holt's Forge, was erected sometime before 1755 between Williamsburg and Richmond at what is now Providence Forge. Its output just before the Revolution included bar iron and such plantation supplies as plow hoes, broad hoes, hilling hoes, grubbing hoes with steel edges, nails, and axes.
Legally, no colonial forge with trip hammer, rolling mill to fashion wrought iron plate, or slitting mill to turn the plate into bars could be built after Parliament passed the Iron Act of 1750. But the law seems to have had little effect, and Virginia smiths called for more and more bar iron to make farm tools and ironwork for wagons, mills, and ships.