[1][2][3][4][5] Yet another source says that Snowden, Joseph Cowman, and three other partners founded the Patuxent Iron Work Company in 1736.
When Joseph Cowman and Edmund Jennings later sold their shares of the enterprise to Snowden in 1748 and 1749 respectively, each for the sum of "Four Hundred and five Pounds Sterling," both indentures, dated March 18, 1748,[7] and March 27, 1749,[7] referred to the original Articles of Agreement, dated July 5, 1705, that created the company: "Whereas by certain Articles of Agreement bearing Date the fifth Day of July seventeen Hundred and five made between the said Richard Snowden the said Joseph Cowman a certain Edmund Jenings John Galloway and John Prichard They the said Richard Snowden Joseph Cowman Edmund Jenings John Galloway and John Prichard did enter into several Covenants and Clauses of Agreement with each other for the Carrying on an Iron Work or Works the Business of a Furnace and Forge then and now Erected on the Head and Branches of Patuxent River.
"[8] A 1753 letter by Charles Carroll of Annapolis noted that Snowden's forge was the only one in Maryland to have ore near navigable waters (i.e. the Patuxent River).
[9][10] According to tax records, the company had on average 45 enslaved workers from 1760 to 1780, who worked as foreman, founders, laborers and blacksmiths.
[11] The works were "dismantled and demolished" in 1856, "under the ownership of William Wilkins Glen, John Glenn, Jr., and Robert Lemmon.