Pitch and tar were obtained from pine trees, one of the common trees in the Tidewater Virginia woods. Tar is an oily, dark colored, product obtained in the destructive distillation of pine wood. In Virginia it was commonly made from the resinous roots and wood of various pines. The wood was heaped into a conical stack depressed at the center, covered with earth, and fired. The tar ran into a hollowed-out place in the soil beneath the stack of wood. Pitch was a dark-colored viscous substance obtained as a residue in distilling pine tar, and widely used for caulking seams of boats. It is of interest that the early settlers named the large swamp north of the town area "Pitch and Tar Swamp." Undoubtedly the large pine trees which bordered the swamp were used for making pitch and tar, as well as turpentine and resin. [Illustration: Making Tar At Jamestown From Pine Wood _Conjectural sketch_] IRON It is possible that small amounts of iron were smelted at Jamestown in earth ovens or Catalan-type furnaces during the early years of the colony. In 1955 archeologists unearthed a circular-shaped pit which contained charcoal, burned oyster shell, iron ore, pieces of smelted iron, and slag. It is known that some iron was made in earth ovens in England during the early years of the seventeenth century, where iron was smelted in holes dug in the ground. The fires were fed with logs and charcoal, and the heat was increased by use of large foot bellows. The same method may have been used at Jamestown; or it is possible that the "earth oven" may have been used for hardening bar iron imported from England, as much bar iron received from the mother country was very soft and unsatisfactory for making tools. The conjectural sketch shows Jamestown colonists making iron in a primitive earth oven or furnace. [Illustration: Small Quantities Of Iron May Have Been Made At Jamestown During The Early Years Of The Settlement _Conjectural sketch_] A JAMESTOWN BLACKSMITH SHOP A blacksmith, James Read by name, was a member of the first group of colonists who planted the Jamestown settlement in 1607. Perhaps he helped forge the small chisels which Captain John Smith mentioned (writing of the month of September, 1607): As yet we have no houses to cover us, our tents were rotten, and our cabbins worse than nought: our best commoditie was iron which we made into little chissels. Many small chisels have been unearthed at Jamestown, and one may wonder whether any were made during the hard autumn of 1607, when the state of the new colony was at such a low ebb. Another early Jamestown blacksmith was Richard Dole, who arrived on the supply ship _Phoenix_, April 20, 1608. Read and Dole were the vanguards of many ironworkers who emigrated to Virginia at various periods of time throughout the seventeenth century.