page 41 of THE AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF JAMES ROBERT MAXWELL BUSINESS IN TUSKALOOSA 41 the bridge was the iron foundry and plow factory of the Messrs. Leach and Avery, molding all sorts of cast iron utensils and the celebrated Avery cast plows, principally the No. 8. This plow factory was doing a splendid business. It got its pig iron by wagon from small furnaces up in the edge of Jefferson County, and old cast iron junk from every householder in this section. The plows were sold from every store on the banks of the river, Tuskaloosa to Mobile, and hauled to every surrounding county by wagon. For new lands they plowed deep enough, and as a cultivating plow could not be bettered, turning the slice of the furrow upside down, covering up the grass and weeds, and the hardened edge cast point was cheap.
Leach and Avery's Plow Factory and Old Paper Mill As a boy I loved to go around in and about amongst the workers and see how they fixed the molds, and Dr. Leach liked to tell me about the work. He said he liked a “boy who knew how not to meddle and touch tools where he had no business.” Some boys he and his men would run out of the place. About the last thing I ever saw Dr. Leach working on, personally, was in boring out a six-pounder field gun for use in the Confederate army. He had it in a lathe, and was drilling out the bore. The latter years of the war a hat factory was added at this foundry. They made, almost entirely, wool hats, but they made splendid hats out of beaver fur when the skins were furnished them. My father had a splendid one made for me that lasted two years, but it was full of holes at the wind-up, and my hair was sticking out of them.
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