For over 30 years the Jackson Ferry Shot Tower manufactured ammunition for a growing nation and became a symbol of America’s industrial sovereignty. English immigrant Thomas Jackson came to the United States through Baltimore to answer a call from Moses Austin, who was hiring experts in mining and lead works. An industrialist and experienced miner, Jackson brought with him the trade secret of drop shot, a process refined by craftsman William Watts of Bristol, England. The Shot Tower took more than five years to build and was completed in 1807, and according to research and tax records it was the first factory to mass-produce shot on American soil. The ammunition produced there was for shotguns, particularly fowling shot, for local communities. In the drop shot process, workers hoisted lead to the top of the tower with block and tackle using livestock, ropes, and pulleys, smelted the lead and added arsenic to make it more pliable, poured the molten lead through sizing sieves, and let it fall into a kettle of water at the bottom, where the water cushioned the shot to prevent deforming it. The shot was then retrieved, dried, polished with graphite, and sold on site or shipped downriver to nearby towns. The tower stands 75 feet tall with a shaft in the center extending another 75 feet into the ground, making a total drop of 150 feet, the height needed to form a perfect round ball. An access tunnel at the river base allowed workers to retrieve shot from the bottom of the shaft, but the Norfolk and Western Rail Road Co. later collapsed the tunnel when it brought the rail line through to prevent a potential catastrophe. Manufacturing at the tower ceased in 1839, ending its grandeur as a producer of fine shot.