Here was seated the first successful iron works in this country. The first casting, a kettle made in 1642, is still in existence. The field behind the house yet shows traces of the pits whence the iron was dug, it being bog ore, the best sort, now imported as Swedish iron. The foundry site is opposite. About the house are several pieces of ore.

The Leonards here carried on successfully for a hundred years their iron work, and then removed to Easton Furnace, in this state, where they still continue the same business, a remarkable instance of the success and persistence of a family in one occupation. The old deed still exists transferring the field for the purpose of a house site for the iron master.

Several remarkable features of the architecture are the overhang, the huge chimney, the gables, the framing, the pitch of the roof, and the size of the rooms.

There are just a dozen other houses known in America with the framed overhang on the side. Some of these houses are ruinous, in some the overhang is concealed behind new work. The origin of the overhang is very early, being Gothic. The object of it is in part to afford protection of the lower story from sun and rain, making as it were a narrow porch. But another object is obvious still in European towns, where the houses were densely huddled, and the overhang reached over the street and afforded larger rooms upstairs.

In its American location space was ample for Broadhearth, and a porch was added, with a porch bedroom in the second story. The porch is a restoration, the mortise holes found in sill and girt and the roof boarding indicating the size and location. The gables, the drops representing the lower ends of the post (like second story newel posts), the finials, and one summer beam, with the windows and fireplace lintels, are the other restorations, the frame being intact. Some parts of the stair were also supplied. The original pinholes for the window frames and part of a frame were found.

The middle gable is lower than the others, perhaps to avoid collision with the great chimney. The other gables extend to the height of the main roof and are of the same pitch. The knocker is from a seventeenth century house.

The noble chimney stack shows panelling and exhibits the various flues, one or two added perhaps around 1700. Some have thought it the best central chimney remaining to us.

In the restoration of the fireplaces, which had been bricked up, a fine sawtoothed trammel, iron shelves, a kettle, various small iron articles, and a seventeenth century muster roll were found.

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The main rooms, two on each floor, are very large, and the ceiling is low enough to give a fine effect of depth to the rooms. The frame is of oak, some timbers being fourteen inches thick and beautifully quartered, as one may see.

The fireplaces are caverns, being nearly ten feet in the opening and three and a half feet deep.

The kitchen (hall, fireroom, dwelling room) shows the marks in the fireplace of a series of firebacks. The opening to the sky is so large that clear shadows are thrown on the hearth by the pots depending from the lug pole, which preceded the crane. The little iron side shelves in this and the other room are from iron made here.

In this room are some of the most remarkable pieces of furniture known in America-the trestle-board table, otherwise called "a table board and frame." It may date from the sixteenth, certainly from the early seventeenth century. There is a table something like it in the Metropolitan Museum, and it had been regarded as unique in America. The table here has a special interest also from the manner in which its two spindles rise from the stretcher and form a truss. In the Middle Ages these tables were common and our expression "to sit at board" arises from them, as they were alsays made of one goard. Our modern tables, designed as they are to remain always set up, were called in the seventeenth century standing tables. This table was taken down and placed out of the way.

It was part of the furnishing of the Richardson tavern in Millis (formerly Medway) and would have disappeared like others of its style, but was put away in the attic because Washington had once sat at it. Some years since it was sold at auction for a small sum and came from the purchaser directly to the present owner. It is all original except one cleat (left uncolored). The end that is square may have been made thus, to go against the wall, or may have been cut off. So far as known this is the only table of the kind in private hands.

The wooden plates are trenchers and were the ordinary plates of the period. Earthenware was hard to transport from England, and china was not made there for almost a hundred years after.

The chair, or monk's table of oak, is probably of the sixteenth century. At table only the head of the house had a chair, low benchges or forms being used by the other members of the family.

The Windsor chairs in this room are of the earliest type. with very heavy legs and deep turnings. In the parlor we find, rather oddly, a fireplace of the same size, possibly indicating that one of these rooms was an office for the iron works; otherwise one fireplace would naturally bave been smaller. The little recesses in the rear of the fireplace were for the tinder and tinder box.

The pilgrim chair in this room is said to be the finest known, partly owing to its perfect preservation. There are thirty-six spindles, none of which have had to be replaced within the memory of Mr. Tufts of Sherborn, who has graciously allowed the ownership of the chair to be transferred, that it may be preserved. It has been in his family for at least eight generations. Only the balls for the tops of the front posts are missing. The pins have been renewed.

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The great oak Cromwellian drawing table is a notable piece. The beautiful iron-bound chest, very appropriate in this house, was brought in before the door casings were put on, and is too large to pass out of the room. A fine writing-arm Windsor and other worthy pieces deserve attention, especially a unique variant of the butterfly table, with leaf bracket like a crane. It is in crackled black paint. It was saved from fire when Medfield was burned by the Indians in 1688. It came directly from the family who inherited it for generations.

The porch or entry (never called a hall) had a partition not yet restored, on the line of the main house front. The original triangular panel of the stair is interesting. In this room is a seventeenth century ancestor of the card table. It is triangular and has a split-leg gate.

The kitchen chamber shows in the corners, as elsewhere in the house, the gunstock post, and here only a part of the floor girt shows in front.

The simple early bed is as near as may be to the early time. Great English oak beds were not brought to America often enough to leave us an example. The settlers built plain frames for themselves. The fine chest, however, came over the water. A very good hard-pine ball-turned, small gate-legged table is also in this room with other good pieces.

The parlor chamber has a "grandpa and grandma" bed (headboard being scrolled for two persons), with trundle bed under. An early candle stand, chairs, etc., are good and rare. An idea of the size of the chimney, even when it is narrowing, may be gathered from the lean-to attic (out of this room) and from the attic above, which should be visited for this and other attic revelations.

In the lean-to is a fireplace whose remarkable feature is that it enters the same side of the chimney as the parlor fireplace. This is evidently a reminiscence of the great stone end chimneys, and in a brick chimney is scarcely to be found elsewhere.

All the hardware in this house is of the seventeenth century, and a part was in the house. The hinges are rich in examples of the "strap-and-butterfly," the "strap-and-scroll," the "strap-and-wedge," the "strap and U," and the plain "butterfly." The latches and andirons are of like date. In the lean-to a collection of early hardware is kept, from which copies may be had. The windows in this room are from the John Winthrop, Jr., house (1734) at Ipswich. They carry 5 X 7 glass, but of course were later than that house.

The Saugus Iron Works

It has seemed fitting to make a start at re-establishing the Saugus Iron Works. A master smith of rare skill, whose family are caretakers, will copy any iron work in the house, or other old examples.

The ell, while of some age, is not antique and is private.

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Saugus Iron Works is in the care of the National Park Service, U.S. Department of the Interior. Follow this link for more information on the Iron Works House.

The following are some of the photographs made in and around the Iron Works House:
"Iron Works House" Hollyhocks # 7420
"The Flagstone Path" # 8519
"Chintz and Chat" # 9311
"Calling On Priscilla" # 9314
"An Interrupted Letter" # 9315
"Ready For Callers" # 9317
"The Rug Maker" # 9322
"Affectionately Yours" # 9324
"Braiding A Straw Hat" # 9326
"A Stirring Scene" # 9328
"An Ancestral Chamber" # 9332
"Apples From The Cellar" # 9333
"Neighborhood Gossip" # 9353
"A Call To Liberty" # 9358
"Bird Talk" # 9359 also titled "The Songsters"