In September 1948, FIWA president J. Sanger Attwill approached archaeologist Roland W. Robbins who had discovered the site of Henry David Thoreau's cabin on Walden Pond about trying to find the site of the Iron Works. Robbins was interested in the idea of digging at a site that was over three hundred years old, the challenge of working on a site where there little information, including no plans or sketches, and the opportunity to work at what may have been the first iron-manufacturing plant in the American colonies. Robbins' excavations uncovered the major manufacturing units of the Iron Works, including the foundations of buildings, remains of the blast furnace, holding ponds, and canal, a 500-pound hammer used in the forge, and a waterwheel that powered the bellows for the blast furnace, along with its wheel pit. The wheel was saved by biologists from Harvard University, who developed a process to preserve it. In total, more than 5,000 artifacts were found. Robbins was aided by a historical researcher (Professor E. Neal Hartley of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology), metallurgic experts, specialists from Harvard University's biological laboratory and botanical museum, and a professional photographer. He also received assistance from collectors and experts, including Smithsonian curator C. Malcolm Watkins, MIT professor Herbert H. Uhlig, and Harvard professor Elso Barghoorn. Robbins abruptly left the Iron Works in 1953. Robbins departure came not long after a dispute with Bent, who wanted Robbins to give tours of the excavation site on weekends in addition to his other duties. According to archaeologist and author Donald W. Linebaugh, it was also due in part because of the decision of the FIWA to base the reconstruction of the Iron Works primarily on documentary evidence instead of archaeological evidence. Robbins also clashed with the project's architects, thinking them to be ignorant about and uninterested in archeological data.