Virginia. Public Foundry.

On May 22, 1776, the fifth revolutionary convention approved a petition that had been submitted by John Ballendine and John Reveley proposing to construct a cannon foundry and a blast furnace for the manufacture of ordnance. A site at Westham, near Richmond, was purchased and construction began immediately. When it was completed, the foundry complex included eight blast furnaces, a boring mill, and the foundry, besides all the buildings necessary to house workers and store supplies. The buildings were burned by Lt. Col. John G. Simcoe and his troops on January 5, 1781, in association with Benedict Arnold's raid on Richmond. The foundry functioned intermittently until the war ended, when operations ceased altogether.