nearly all ceased to operate. Yet, it was felt that prices would rise again promptly in response to the demand for lead. In the same period, due no doubt partly to the hardships of the miners and smelters, there was widespread and loud dissatisfaction with the treatment accorded the lead owners by the Galena middlemen. Efforts were made to establish some other lead shipping port as a rival to Galena, which helps to explain the rise of both Cassville and Potosi.
The inference from these facts is that Hamilton probably thought he saw in a smelter located at the steamboat landing at English Prairie a possibility of immediate profit, even though margins were very narrow, and a chance to build up a flourishing business. He could buy the cheapest ore—that which was produced near the northern edge of the lead region, Centerville, Wingville, and Highland. The haul from those places would be short and all down grade and if the mineral were taken direct from the mines there would be no rehandling until the bars of pure lead were ready to be dumped from the furnace floor into the hold of the steamer. The teams employed to bring down the raw mineral could carry freight back the fifteen or twenty miles to the mines much more cheaply than it could be transported from Galena or Cassville three or four times as far. Finally, abundant supplies of wood were at hand to feed the furnace, and French rivermen were a source from which to recruit labor.
To an enterprising, speculative, acquisitive character like Hamilton, who had no family to tie him to a particular spot, such arguments would appeal strongly, and there is no inherent reason why the venture should not have succeeded. Hamilton operated the furnace, either personally or by proxy, at least till 1838 and possibly longer, selling it finally to Thomas Jefferson Parrish, whose principal mining and smelting business was located at the head of Blue River, afterwards Montfort.
