Colonial Americans, in their drive inland from the east coast, continually struggled to turn virgin land into farms and settlements. The need for iron and the furnaces developed as the need for hardware grew to clear and work the fields. Most of the early iron works in the Americas were partnerships of English or European men and capital. Yet in 1700s’ Pennsylvania a different type of iron industry was beginning. The first successful furnace named Rutter’s Forge was erected by Thomas Rutter west of Germantown on the old Indian trail then and now called Ridge Road. Others quickly followed Coventry, Reading, and Warwick, to name a few. Yet in 1750 a bill was introduced in English Parliament preventing the construction of slitting or rolling mills in the colonies. The American Revolution threw off British rule and established a government which soon began protecting its most important infant iron industry through tariffs and taxes on import and export activity. By the late 1780s the iron industry seemed to be a way in which to make a dependable living. By 1793 the first of a long and deep line of iron masters and later steel executives, Isaac Penncok was owner and operator of the Federal Slitting Mill located on the Buck Run. This operation was probably named as such to symbolize the confidence and pride that existed toward the new government at that time.