On this day in 1643, John Winthrop, Jr. paid 50 pounds for the passage of skilled ironworkers from England to the Massachusetts Bay Colony. Initially, the men worked at the iron works that Winthrop and other investors established in Braintree, but that enterprise soon failed. The first successful iron works in the American colonies began operation in Saugus in 1646. There, under oppressively hot, noisy, and dangerous conditions, men turned ore into cast and wrought iron. Although the Saugus Iron Works lasted only 22 years, it laid the foundation for the iron and steel industry in the United States. Thanks to the efforts of Saugus residents in the 1940s, the abandoned iron works was restored. Today it is a National Historic Site.