"For a Trial of the Powder" - Andover's Gunpowder Mill

In the aftermath of Lexington, Concord and Bunker Hill, Massachusetts officials recognized that its armies had a critically short supply of gunpowder. After spending many months attempting to acquire powder from third parties outside the colony, the Massachusetts Provincial Congress voted to build its own mill in Stoughton.

Recognizing a potential economic opportunity, Andover’s Samuel Phillips Jr. approached the Provincial Congress and requested permission to build, at his own expense, a privately powder mill. After extensive negotiations, Massachusetts lawmakers agreed to the proposal and promised “to furnish him with saltpetre and sulphur at cost for a year, and to pay him at the rate of eight pence per pound for all the gunpowder which he should manufacture”.

In turn, Phillips agreed to “keep a good and sufficient Guard about the mill at all time to prevent any wicked and design ing persons from destroying the same and also to cause to be published all the discoveries which he shall make relative to the construction of said mill and the manufacturing Powder as aforesaid.”

Construction of Phillip’s powder mill was completed by March, 1776. By late Spring, the mill was producing large quantities of gunpowder. According to the Massachusetts Spy, “the Public may rely on it as a fact that there has been made at the Powder-mill, at Andover, within these six weeks past about one thousand pounds weight of good Gunpowder per week.”

An eyewitness who visited the mill confirmed the newspaper report. “Last week I was at the Powder Mill at Andover. They go briskly on and turn out, as they told me, twelve hundred pounds per week, and shall soon turn out considerably more.”

Unfortunately, the mill could not keep up with the demand for gunpowder and was forced to operate seven days a week. When several of his employees, including his foreman, were drafted into service with the Continental Army, Phillips petitioned the Massachusetts General Court to exempt them. “When your Petitioner considers the distress this state has suffered for want of this article of Gunpowder, the danger it is still exposed to through the still remaining deficiency, That the anxiety of the Assembly on this account was such that they lately requested that this mill should be kept employed by night as well as day: and not on the week time only, but also on the Sabbath, and at the same time reflects how much the manufacturing will be retarded by changing hands, and also the difficulty of making Powder of so good a Quality, and the Impossibility of improving the stock to so much Advantage for the State, he thinks it his Duty in regard to the Publick interest as well as his own to make application to the Honble Board, as having the first command, that the aforesaid Foreman, Joshua Chandler by name, may be discharged from his enlistment, and that the men necessarily employed in that manufactory be excused from all military service during their continuance therein.”

Eventually, the mill’s saltpetre supply dwindled. Phillips quickly wrote to Massachusetts officials and begged for the necessary ingredient. “All the saltpetre is worked up. My pestles must stand still till I receive more." Little assistance was provided and by 1777, the Andover gunpowder mill was forced to cut corners. Period accounts suggest Andover residents were tearing down sheds and coops and excavating the soil underneath them to serve as a substitute for saltpetre.

General Washington and his officers quickly noted the poor quality of Massachusetts gunpowder. “There must certainly be either roguery or gross ignorance in your powder-makers, because the powder made in the other states is esteemed better than that imported from Europe It is a matter of so much importance that it should be strictly inquired into."

In response to Washington’s complaints, Massachusetts officials focused on Phillip’s business and ordered its powder be recalled and replaced with a superior product. “[That] as some of the gunpowder made at Andover . . . had been found defective . . . all such defective powder should be received back into the mills and good powder furnished the Government instead.” In fact, lawmakers were so troubled by the product coming out of Andover that it also ordered a Colonel Burbeck to visit the mill, “for a trial of the powder and to make experiments of divers mixtures 2 and ingredients of gunpowder and various methods of drying.”

In early June 1778, disaster struck the Andover mill when an explosion destroyed two buildings and killed three men. Residents of the town were outraged and within weeks, Massachusetts officials formed a committee to investigate the practices of the mill.

Upon completion, the committee cleared Phillips and concluded the "late misfortune in blowing up the two buildings at said Andover was not owing to any Imprudence in Mr. Phillips but to mear accident, also that in their opinion the public service requires that Mr. Phillips should still proceed in the manufacturing of Gunpowder."

Andover residents objected to the findings and demanded that Phillip’s mill suspend operations. However, after Massachusetts promised to insure against future accidents, and that experts would be hired to oversee operations, the town agreed to tpermit the mill to reopen. Shortly afterwards, two Frenchmen were hired “to propagate the art of making powder in these States and were ordered to come to Andover to give the necessary instructions.”

Following the explosion, many local residents were reluctant to work for Phillips As a result the mill employed British prisoners of war. The Massachusetts government was not pleased with this arrangement and threatened to remove the prisoners from the mill. Phillips successfully convinced them not to as "some have married, had children, taken the oath of allegiance, paid taxes, and become useful members of society."

The mill remained in operation throughout the remainder of the war and in the decade afterwards. By the mid 1790s Phillips decided to convert his business from the production of gunpowder to the making of paper. Unfortunately, on October 19, 1796 the mill exploded for a second time, killing two men. Phillips’ gunpowder operation permanently ceased immediately afterwards.