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KING" CAPRON The furnace is built on a good plan and is now in blast, making about 30 hundred of iron of excellent quality per day. Our ware is as good as any made in the States. I think the furnace makes about two hundred dollars' worth of i. ware per day, and the expenses necessary to carry on is sixty or seventy dollars per day, of which I own more than one quarter, and have the agency and management of the whole. One half of the furnace belongs to three partners, George Tillson, Joseph Van Norman, and Isaiah White; the other half is in my name by Mr. Short who has a claim under me of nearly one quarter, leaving me with more than a quarter. Mr. Short is now here and is well pleased with my work and says, "Capron, if you want six or eight l . hundred dollars any time, call on me." The furnace cost, as near as my account shows, is about six thousand dollars, of which I have paid, by Mr. Short's help, about 2000 dollars, and my three partners have paid 1900 dollars, and we were owing about 2000 dollars on the commencement of the blast, of which we are paying off very fast and we receive some cash, but cash is very scarce..We have every prospect before us of doing well. Unless some unforeseen accident should befall us. The Furnace will make itself rich with good and prudent man- agement. My work is hard and fatiguing. I do all the business alone without a clerk. We have more than twenty men constantly employed and am doing more business than all of old Leicester I together. The Furnace is a curiosity to the inhabitants and is crowded full of spectators every day. I cannot tell when I shall be to Leicester. Perhaps I shall never see you more. But you must not give yourselves any uneasiness about me. I find that I can get a living among men, and I don't think that there are any young men that have been raised in Leicester ever stepped into a handsome property quicker than I ! have. If I knew that I should not meet with any misfortune in this business for ten years, I would not exchange property with you. The following entries from Capron's "Furnace Account Book" corroborate the above statements concerning his successful manage- menrit of the foundry: 1825: By the first dividend of ware made to the stockholders in the Long Point Furnace amounting to $6,000. M y Share ..................... ......... $3,050.00 1826: Feb. By dividend of $10,000 in ware for Stockholders: l My share of same . .... .............. .. ..-$5,083.33 l Aug. By share of dividends of $10,000 allowed to Stockholders: My Share of the same ....... .................... ... . ... $5,083.33 1827: By dividend of $5,000: My share ...........................$2,541.67 .] ~ 1828: By dividend of $11,000: My share of same .....$5,591.67 Amount of dividends of ware made to the Stockholders $42,000 M y share .................................. l 3 My share ~~~~$21,350. We see that from the profits of the furnace, Capron was receiving (after paying Short his share) an average yearly income of approxi- mately $3,000- a large sum for those days. Is it any wonder, therefore, that he boasted just a little to his parents, and that he felt himself to be a somewhat extraordinary young man? In the letter quoted above, Capron mentions the spectators that "crowded into the works". To the pioneers, the blast furnace was 29 =t