Never said that George Washington didn't own an interest in iron works. He did. As I have stated he was a part (1/12) owner in the Principio Co. But with the exception of the Potomac (Accokeek) IW and associated mine (which were closed in the 1750s) all of the Principio holdings were in Maryland. Due to the laws governing ore in the Northern Neck, 1/3 of all ore mined was owed to the Proprietor. A number of ironmasters and owners (including Augustine Washington and John Tayloe), claiming that the ore in Virginia was not good, asked for and got permission to import Maryland ore tax free. As this "poor" quality ore had been successfully used by Neabsco, Bristol. Occoquan, Grimes' Recover, Chiswell, Fredericksville, Marlboro, and Tubal(and came from a variety of deposits) it seems more likely that it was an economic issue and not one of quality. Modern analysis of Virginia iron ore has not revealed any problems, except for high quantities of titanium in the ore used by the Albemarle IW. The "iron mines" of the day were open pit and often, per A Progress to the Mines, required blasting. It was not all heavy manual labor. James Brothers, RPA [log in to unmask] On Jun 19, 2007, at 14:07, Anita Wills wrote: > To those of us interested in the discussion on whether George > Washington owned interest in Iron Works, here is a link to his > fathers' Will. If you read down, you will notice that he left his > son Lawrence the interest to his mine works. When Lawrence died, he > left that interest to his brother George Washington. Lawrence > Washingoton had one daughter who died in childhood (so he died > without Issue), and his estate went to George Washington, including > the iron works. If any whites worked in mines it was to supervise > slaves. I doubt that anyone cared whether slaves worked in > dangerous conditions. Slaves were by definition there to do manual > labor, and work that was not considered suitable for a white man. > > Anita >