When thinking about the various elements that went into the United States declaring Independence, we tend to think of things like the Stamp Act, The Boston Massacre, and the Tea tax that led to the Boston Tea Party, but these were things that were more in the vein of “this is the last straw” and all a symptom of the real problem. As the colonies started to grow and prosper, Parliament across the pond in the homeland both began wanting to take advantage of this in generating revenues for Britain, as well as to try to suppress some of this in other areas where the British American colonies were now threatening the parent nation’s own industries- a remarkable feat for settlements so relatively new on the world stage. This brings us to the story of today- John Winthrop Jr. and the first known operational iron works in America, The Braintree Furnace, which spawned an industry that within a century saw the colonies supplying 1/7th of the world’s supply of iron and iron based product, surpassing Britain’s own production. This all led to Britain passing one of the early acts that helped spark the revolution, the Iron Act of 1750 intended to severely suppress American iron manufacturing. Now, if the name John Winthrop sounds familiar, it’s perhaps because of the more famous John Winthrop today, one of the founders of the Massachusetts Bay Colony, governor, and one of the most influential men in the early colonization of the region. But his son, John Winthrop Jr, while less remembered today was arguably just as influential in not only helping to establish the Connecticut colony, but more important helping the colonies go from fledgling groups scraping by, to leveraging the region's natural resources and encouraging highly skilled scientists and workers to come to America, all helping to put the colonies on the world stage of industry. As we’ll get into in the Bonus Facts later, he also tirelessly worked to make sure no accused witch in Connecticut would ever be executed, and ultimately put an end to witchcraft trials in that colony. Author: Daven Hiskey Host: Daven Hiskey

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