text: In its earliest forms, most hardware was simple and hand-made – usually of readily available materials such as wood or leather. A patch of leather spanning between the stile and jamb and fastened with wooden pegs served to hinge a door or shutter. Hand-carved wooden hinges and pintles, slide bolts and lift-latches were whittled from a variety of woods.
  The earliest examples of iron hardware were sponsored by the nobility. Iron itself was expensive and a valued resource for any kingdom and had many other more valuable uses in weaponry and tools.
  In the post-Renaissance period industrial advances provided more iron and the emerging merchant/tradesman classes had money to purchase hardware for their homes and warehouses. Examples of hardware excavated from the Jamestown and Plymouth colonies of the 17th century were very ornate in design – typical of that being produced in England at the time. 
  In Colonial America, hardware was made in England and imported to the colonies. It was illegal for the colonials to produce manufactured goods. America sold iron and charcoal to the British, who used those raw materials and their resident labor force to produce hardware which was then sold back to the captive market in the colonies. Virtually all of the early hardware in New York, Philadelphia, Annapolis, Alexandria, Key West, or anyplace else where British ships could berth, was made in England. Away from the ports and cities where British authority was centered, many locally-made examples of early hardware can be found. Examples of German, French, and Dutch hardware remain in the inland river valleys –  the homelands of the early settlers. English hardware, however, was the overwhelming standard in colonial America and set the pattern for all that evolved.
  Virtually all of the shutters in colonial times were hung with strap hinges – following the examples in Britain. Strap hinges were strong and secure. The frames of windows were hewn from a single heavy piece of wood into which a heavy pintle could be driven. The rails of the shutter were often six or eight inches high and provided room to position the strap hinge across most of the width of the shutter. The hinges were fastened to the shutters with rivets or nails driven through and clinched on the inside of the closed shutter. Locks of the period followed the form of the strap hinges. The rolled barrel was replaced by a pin of about " in diameter and twice the length of the thickness of the shutter mounted perpendicular to the face of the lock. The lock would be nailed or riveted on the lock rail of one shutter with the pin positioned about two inches beyond the edge of the shutter. The opposite shutter would be drilled through with a hole to accept the pin protruding from the lock. 
  To close and secure the shutter: from the inside close the shutter with the hole then close the shutter with the lock. The lock pin passes through the hole and the user drops a simple nail-like key into the hole in the lock pin. The shutter is virtually impregnable from the exterior. 
  Tie-backs of the Colonial era were mostly of English origin and many were of the "Rattail" style. Variations are noted as different British manufacturers vied to produce a less expensive product. Inland, where local smiths were producing hardware on their own, a wide range of patterns have been noted.