West Point Foundry The West Point Foundry was an early ironworks in Cold Spring , New York that operated from 1817 to 1911 . Set up to remedy deficiencies in national armaments production after the War of 1812 , it became most famous for its production of Parrott rifle s and other munitions during the Civil War , although it also manufactured a variety of iron products for civilian use . The rise of steel making and declining demand for cast iron after the Civil War caused it to gradually sink into bankruptcy and cease operations in the early 20th Century . Founding and early products . The impetus for its creation came from James Madison , who , after the War of 1812 , wanted to establish domestic foundries to produce artillery . Cold Spring was an ideal site : timber for charcoal was abundant , there were many local iron mines , and the nearby Margaret ' s Brook provided water power to drive machinery . The site was guarded by West Point , across the Hudson River , and the river provided shipping for finished products . The West Point Foundry Association was incorporated by Gouverneur Kemble , who came from a merchant family in New York City ( although his mother ' s family had connections in Putnam Co . ) , and the foundry began operation in 1817 . Artillery was tested by firing across the Hudson at the desolate slopes of Storm King Mountain , which would have to be swept for unexploded ordnance as a result after some of it exploded in a 1999 fire . The platform used for mounting artillery for proofing was uncovered during Superfund work in the early 1990s . Besides artillery , the foundry also produced iron fittings for civilian uses , such as pipe for the New York City water system and sugar mills for shipment to the West Indies . A number of early locomotives were built at the foundry , including the " Best Friend of Charleston " , the " West Point " , the " DeWitt Clinton " , " Phoenix " , and " Experiment " . Parrott years and the Civil War . In 1835 , Captain Robert Parker Parrott , a West Point graduate , was appointed inspector of ordnance from the foundry . The next year , he resigned his commission and on October 31 , 1836 was appointed superintendent of the foundry . It prospered under his tenure , and was the site of numerous experiments with artillery and projectiles , culminating in his invention of the Parrott rifle in 1860 . During Parott ' s tenure , in 1843 , the foundry also manufactured USS " Spencer " , a revenue cutter which was the first iron ship built in the U . S . The foundry ' s operations peaked during the Civil War due to military orders : it had a workforce of 1 , 400 people and produced 2 , 000 cannon and three million shells . Parrott also invented an incendiary shell which was used in an 8 - inch Parrott rifle ( the " Swamp Angel " ) to bombard Charleston . The importance of the foundry to the war effort can be measured by the fact that President Abraham Lincoln visited and inspected it in June 1862 . The fame of the foundry was such that Jules Verne , in his novel " From the Earth to the Moon " , chose it as the contractor for the " Columbiad " spaceship - launching cannon . Decline and archaeology . In 1867 , Parrott resigned as superintendent , although he continued to experiment with artillery designs until his death in 1877 . Business at the foundry declined as it faced competition from more modern techniques of iron and steel production . It had discontinued the use of charcoal and begun to import coal from Pennsylvania around 1870 . However , it was unable to stave off receivership in 1884 and bankruptcy in 1889 . It was sold in 1897 to the Cornell brothers , makers of sugar mills , and closed in 1911 . Of the buildings on the site , only the central office building remains intact ; the rest are in ruins . around the site form a preserve owned by Scenic Hudson . It can be visited by a short trail from the nearby Cold Spring Metro - North station . A major archaeological study of the site , funded by Scenic Hudson and undertaken by Michigan Tech , has taken place from 2002 - 2008 .