The Princeton union. [volume] (Princeton, Minn.) 1876-1976, 1897-08-05


est in the FORCES from Samuel Potts If
It'll. The firm was known for many
years as Potts 6 Rutter, and bought
out the shares Of the heirs of William
Branson between 1918 and 1888.
During the revolution Warwick fur
mace acquired national fame. While
the struggle for liberty was in progress
the mills were in constant operation
1or the government, and large guam
titles of cannon, balls and shell were
cast there. One of the old shells. re-
Gently found near the furnace, is still
preserved at the Mansion House. The
shell is exceedingly heavy, about foo,
in diameter, hollow, and with a cas-,
iron sheath an inch thick During the
year 1776 sixty cannon of twelve and
elghteen-pound ca1ibre were cast at
Warwick for the Continental forces.
1t was the next year, however, that
witnessed threatened invasion,
seizure OF the armament and a sudden
termination of this warlike labor.
After the battle of the Brandywine. in
September of 1777, when the Americans
Philadelphia, Washington retired from
the neighborhood of Goshen Friends
Meeting, where an expected battle had
been prevented by a rainstorm. and
came to Warwick, obtaining a fresh
supply of ammunition for his army.
During the winter that followed, when
the massacre of Paoli and the hard
ships of the patriots at Valley Forge
TILED the colonists with despair the can
non at Warwick were in constant dan
ger OF being seized by the British.
CHARTERED within easy marching dis
lance of Philadelphia. So one day the
furnace bell sounded an alarm, and
its peals across the hills and through
the neighboring valleys collected all
the loyal citizens of the countryside to
bury the guns. They hid them in the
stretch of meadow below the mill, and
in front of the Mansion House. and
tradition says that after the interment
the fields were plowed up, so that all
traces of the excavations were lost.
The bell which sounded the tocsin is
still in existence and was exhibited at
the Centennial with some of the can
non made at Warwick furnace. It was
cast at the mill by Potts & Rutter in
l757 and was used constantly to call
the men to work from that time until
May, 1874, a period of III years.
There are still number of cannon
buried in the mud along the banks of
the stream in the meadow, although
these are more probably guns which
did not stand the firing test, than the
swivels concealed there to escape the
British. The latter would be too valu-
able to remain buried after danger was
past, and tradition says that the i'm
perfect guns were deposited along the
stream. Be that as it may, the cannon
are still visible there, although they
are fast being submerged. Their
weight is so great that the washing of
water around them and faAaN* away
of the soft earth that supports them
is causing them to sink deeper and
deeper into the ground. Several of
them have been removed as relics.
About ten years ago, some of the men
and boys of the neighborhood who
wanted to celebrate the GLORIOUS
Fourth" in true Revolutionary style,
exhumed one of the old cannon and
dragged it to the summit of a neigh
boring hill. There they loaded it with
a charge of powder and fired it as a
salute. The ancient cannon was burst
into a thousand pieces.