Thomas Baylies

On 5 June 1706, he married Esther, daughter of Thomas Seargeant of Fulford Heath, in Solihull in a Quaker ceremony at which 38 witnesses were present.

Lacking sufficient capital, he formed a new partnership with Charles Cholmondeley of Vale Royal Abbey, Richard Turner of Pettywood and William Watts of Newton near Middlewich.

Turner was concerned in a coal mine at Thatto Heath near St Helens and persuaded his partners to build a furnace at Sutton (there).

The company suffered substantial losses, forcing Cholmondeley to make an assignment of his estate for the benefit of his creditors, blaming his troubles on the obstinacy of Dick Turner.

In 1723, he was employed by William Wood to negotiate a lease of an iron ore mine at Frizington in Cumberland, and he may have had some involvement with his works there in 1728.

He settled at Attleborough Gore (now Cumberland, Rhode Island), where he was an ironmaster under contract (of 1738) with Richard Clarke & Co. of Boston.

[11][12] The Baylies Iron Works, as it became known, was located on the Three Mile River in west Taunton, near the Dighton town line.

After the end of the American Revolution, Hodijah, youngest son of Nicholas and a distinguished veteran of the war, took over control of the iron works.

[13] Hodijah continued in the iron business until 1810, when he received the appointment of judge of probate, which office he held twenty four years.