Brass make brass was not recognised as a metal. The King James Bible makes many references to "brass". The Shakespearean English form of the word 'brass' can mean any bronze alloy, or copper, rather than the strict modern definition of brass. The earliest brasses may have been natural alloys made by smelting zinc-rich copper ores. By the Roman period brass was being deliberately produced from metallic copper and zinc minerals using the cementation process, and variations on this method continued until the mid-19th century. It was eventually replaced by speltering, the direct alloying of copper and zinc metal which was introduced
American Brass Company and the company name changed to the Wolcottville Brass Company. The company now began to produce mostly rolled and sheet brass. Anson Phelps purchased a large parcel of land at what is now Ansonia, Connecticut, in 1844. He founded the town of Ansonia, and built a dam across the Naugatuck River. He also built a canal and water reservoirs, and established a copper rolling mill. Phelps named the new company the Ansonia Brass and Battery Company ("battery" being the term then in use for hammering sheets of metal into kettles). Phelps later added a brass mill and a brass wire