. In view of his interest in ordnance and armor, it
is unlikely that Bessemer could have escaped his alert
observation. His first visit specifically in connection with the
Bessemer process appears to have been in 1863, but he is said to
have begun to interest financiers and ironmasters in the Bessemer
process after his visit in 1862 (_Engineering_, 1882, vol. 33, p.
115).

In June, 1862, W. F. Durfee, a cousin of Z. S. Durfee, was asked by
Ward to report on Kelly's process. The report[112] was unfavorable.
"The description of [the apparatus] used by Mr. Kelly at his abandoned
works in Kentucky satisfied me that it was not suited for an experiment
on so large a scale as was contemplated at Wyandotte [Detroit]." Since
it was "confidently expected that Z. S. Durfee would be successful in
his efforts to purchase [Bessemer's patents], it was thought only to be
anticipating the acquisition of property rights ... to use such of his
inventions as best suited the purpose in view."

[112] W. F. Durfee: "An account of the experimental steel works
at Wyandotte, Michigan," _Transactions of the American Society of
Mechanical Engineers_, 1884, vol. 6, p. 40 ff.

Thus the first "Bessemer" plant in the United States came into being
without benefit of a license and supported only by a patent "not
suited" for a large experiment. Kelly seems to have had no part in
these developments. They took some time to come to formation. Although
the converter was ready by September 1862, the blowing engine was not
completed until the spring of 1864 and the first "blow" successfully
made in 1864. It may be no more than a coincidence that the start of
production seems to have been impossible before the arrival in this
country of a young man, L. M. Hart, who had been trained in Bessemer
operations at the plant of the Jackson Brothers at St. Seurin (near
Bordeaux) France. The Jacksons had become Bessemer's partners in
respect of the French rights; and the recruitment of Hart suggests the
possibility that it was from this French source that Z. S. Durfee
obtained his initial technical data on the operation of the Bessemer
process.[113]

[113] Research in the French sources continues. The arrival of L.
M. Hart at Boston is recorded as of April 1, 1864, his ship being
the SS _Africa_ out of Liverpool, England (Archives of the United
States, card index of passenger arrivals 1849-