A few weeks ago I discussed the novel The Iron Peacock by Mary Stetson Clarke. The novel has the Saugus Iron Works as a setting and has been popular with local students for many years.

I was fortunate to know the late Mrs. Clarke quite well because of my position as Park Ranger at the iron works. She was a very kind lady and a talented writer and I always looked forward to her visits to the site. She used to visit the site at least once a year, usually with a guest.

Recently I found a letter written by Mrs. Clarke in 1991 to a seventh grade class in Saugus in response to a group of letters the class sent to her after reading The Iron Peacock. The letter explains a lot of how Mrs. Clarke became interested in the iron works site and should be of interest to Saugus residents. It should be remembered, however, that it has been determined that the Boardman House was NOT built for the Scots at Hammersmith in 1650 but dates from the 1680’s.

Saugus Looks Back

When I was a girl my favorite books were historical novels. As I grew older and studies history, I was amazed to realize how much I had learned from reading historical
novels, especially those that were accurate in every detail.So when I began to write books, I began with stories about young people in past centuries. And I was careful to keep my facts correct.

Several of you asked why I wrote about the Saugus Iron Rebel, I drove to Saugus one golden autumn afternoon to buy some grapes for jelly. I didn’t find any grapes because as I drew near the Scotch-Boardman House I saw a sign about the prisoners from the Battle of Dunbar. I knocked on the door, and was taken all through the house. I felt as if I had
stepped back in time, and of course I had to make my next stop at the Iron Works. I wondered around the Iron Master’s House, imagining what it must have been like in 1650. I knew then that I had found the setting for my next book. It was as if the spirits of those long ago Puritans, Scots, and Indians were speaking to me, urging me to tell their story.

Thus began a great deal of work. I spent many days at the Iron Works learning how iron was made. I read all I could find about the history of Saugus, formerly part of Lynn. And I interviewed people at the Iron Works. One of them directed me to Miss M. Louise Hawkes. She was the woman who saved the Iron Master’s House from being moved to Deerfield Village in Michigan as a present to Henry Ford from his friends. She traveled around Saugus and to various historical groups protesting the sale of the house, even raising enough money to keep the house in Saugus.

Miss Hawkes was a tiny, birdlike creature with a wealth of knowledge about Saugus. She very kindly rode with me in my car to show me the key points in the history of Saugus and the Iron Works, the pond where ore was dug, the Nahant rocks where gabbro was mined, even the pirate’s cave!

Later on, when Mrs. Clarke realized that many young people were interested in knowing how iron was made in colonial times, she wrote Pioneer Iron Works and A Visit to The Iron Works.