Springfield 1636-1886, History of Town and City, by Mason A. Green ...

35(3 SPRINGFIELD, 1636-1886.
shops ill 1793 iiud 1798. The date associated with the Spiiiigfield
Armory is 1794, when Congress passed a bill establishing a United
States armory here.
The appearance of the hill at that tmie was not especially formi-
dable in a militai-y sense. There was a powder magazine (Magazine
street), made of brick, with an arched roof of brick about three feet
thick. This magazine was blown up by Major IngersoU in 1846.
There were two red wooden storehouses built in 1782, and there were
some soldiers' barracks, and an old dwelling-house, where John Bryant,
the store-keeper, lived. Buildings had already been put up a,t the
lower water-shops. The upper water-shops were built in 1809, upon
the site of a powder-mill that had exploded that year. This made it
possible to abandon handwork for water-power in forging, boring, and
grinding.
The first musket was made b}^ the United States here, in 1795, under
David Ames, the first superintendent, and Robert Orr, master ar-
morer. Forty men were employed at first. It is stated that the first
gun-lock was filed by Alexander Crawford, after a struggle of three
da^'s, Richard Beebe stocking it by hand. Among the first armorers
may be mentioned Abijah Hendricks, Azariel Warner, Elisha Tobey,
Jacob Perkins, Joseph Hopkins, Joseph Lombard, John Stebbins
(father of John B. Stebbins, of Crescent Hill), Jason Mills, Jonathan
Warner, Thomas Dale, and Zenas White. The armory turned out two
hundred and forty-five muskets the first year, less than one for each
working day ;
and
the product increased until the civil war, when a
daily capacity of one thousand was reached, which was the 3'early
capacity at the opening of the century. Armorers were exempted
from jury and military duty after 1800.
David Ames was succeeded in the superintendency of the armory
by Joseph Morgan in 1802, and after him came Benjamin Prescott
(1805), Henry Lechler (1813), Benjamin Prescott (1815), and Lieut.
Col. Roswell Lee (1815). David Ames was born in Springfield,
and beside his record as a federal officer on the hill stands his
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