The city of Hartford has been more closely identified with the later development of interchangeable manufacture than almost any other city. The gun makers have been so vital an element in its industrial life that, before leaving them, we will trace their influence. The grist and saw mills, always the pioneers, had made their appearance in the seventeenth century. With recurring attempts at silk manufacture, most of the meager industrial life was directed toward some branch of textiles up to and even after 1800. In 1747 Col. Joseph Pitkin started a prosperous forge for making bar iron and a mill for iron slitting. It was killed by the Act of Parliament of 1750, already referred to, but the Pitkin family balanced the account by using the buildings during the Revolution to make powder for the Continental army. Later the buildings were put to their original use. The Pitkins were industrial leaders for many years in textiles, and in the manufacture of silverware, clocks, watches, and heating apparatus. Henry and James F. Pitkin made the old “American lever” watches in 1834, and many of the early workmen who went to Waltham were trained by them. [Illustration: FIGURE 31. SAMUEL COLT] The assessors’ returns for 1846 to the Secretary of State gave for Hartford only three “machine factories” with a total capital of $25,000, an annual output of $35,000, and forty-five men employed. There were two boiler shops, a screw factory, a plow factory, a pin factory, two brass and four iron foundries, and one poor gun maker who did a business of $625 a year. Taken together, these enterprises averaged only about $15,000 in capital, $20,000 in annual output and fifteen employees each. This is hardly more than would be expected in any town of its size, and certainly does not mark the city as a manufacturing center. Book publishing employed over twice, and clothing shops more than four times, as many men as all the machine shops together. In 1821 Alpheus and Truman Hanks purchased a small foundry and began the business which later became Woodruff & Beach. This firm had a long and successful career in building heavy machinery, engines and boilers, and was among the earliest makers of iron plows. In 1871 it became H. B. Beach & Son, boiler makers, and the firm is still running, H. L. Beach being now (1914) the only survivor of the old works.