Brass Founder

     Have any of you run across the occupation “Brass Founder”? Recently while doing some research I ran across this occupation, "Brass Founder", and wasn’t familiar with it.  So what did I do, looked it up of course. When I googled the occupation the first item that came up was a disease from the occupation “brass founder fever”. My first thought was this could be along the lines of “gold fever”, not the case as I’m sure some of you know.

     The life of a “brass founder” was one of those occupations that had negative medical long lasting effect for many. They had to work in extreme heat, melting the brass down into a liquid then pouring that scorching hot liquid into mods. As you can imagine this was a hazardous job having to work with the molten brass and extreme heat.  Many who held this occupation suffered from permanent discoloration of the skin. The disease I mentioned earlier is a common illness with this occupation, due to the inhalation of particles and fumes during the process.

     On this short quest in finding out more about this occupation I discovered one apprentice who was lucky enough to be chosen to work on the Liberty Bell. John Stow was only four years out of his brass founder apprenticeship when he received the notification about his new job.  He didn’t do this work alone a fellow founder, John Pass was also chosen to work on the Liberty Bell.  When looking at the Liberty Bell you will see their names right above the bell crack.