Date: 1838
One of the earliest of these was the manufacture of nails, upon which lord Chatham had placed his memorable prohibition.  It is within the memory of man, that the first attempt to manufacture cut nails, in New England, was made in the southern part of Massachusetts in the revolutionary war, with old iron hoops for the material, and a pair of shears for the machine .  Since that period, besides supplying the con sumption of the United States, — estimated at from eighty to one hundred million pounds, and at a price not much exceeding the duty, — machines of American invention for the manufacture of nails have been introduced into" England ; and large quantities of nails are exported from the United States to foreign countries.