USA > Michigan > A history of the northern peninsula of Michigan and its people, its mining, lumber and agricultural industries, Volume I > Part 35
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It was undoubtedly because of the great thoroughfare of this over- land trail that the Astor trading post was established by John G. Kitt- son at the junction of this trail and the Menominee river, and that was before the government made survey of this river boundary of the pen- insula. It is therefore probable that the traffic was carried on with tribes in far distant localities, and that transportation was by boat npon the lakes, and by packs carried over the trail.
MODERN DISCOVERY OF ANCIENT MINE
When the present era of mining had its beginning in the forties, there came many able men, including prominent scientists, attracted by the glowing accounts of the richness of the country, just as early as the extinguishment of the Indian titles would permit the securing of pri- vate rights. The first discovery of evidences of the ancient mining seems to have been by Samuel O. Knapp, in the vicinity of Ontonagon in 1847. Foster & Whitney were engaged in the early geological ex- plorations there and Foster wrote of Knapp's discovery in his "Pre- historie Races," as follows :
" As superintendent of the Minnesota Mining Company's mines, while passing over their grounds, he observed a continuous depression of the soil, which he right. fully conjectured was formed by the disintegration of a vein. There was a hed of suow on the surface three feet deep, but it had been so little disturbed by the wind that it conformed to the inequalities of the soil. Following up these indications, as displayed along the southern escarpment of a hill, he came to a cavern, into which he crept, dispossessing several porcupines which had resorted there to hibernate. He saw numerous evidences to convince bim that this was an artificial excavation, and,
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al a subsequent day, with the assistance of two or three men, he proceeded to ex- plore it. In clearing out the rubbish, they found numerous stone hammers, showing plainly that they were the mining implements of a rude race. At the bottom of the excavation was seen a vein with ragged projections of copper, which the ancient miners had not detached.
"The following spring he explored some of the excavations farther west. One artificial depression was twenty-six feet deep, filled with clay and a matted maan of mouldering vegetable malter. At a depth of eighteen feet he came to a mass of native copper, ten feet long, three feet wide and nearly two feet thick, and weighing over six tons. On digging around the mass it was found to rest on billets of oak, sup- ported by sleepers of the same material. This wood, from its long exposure to moisture, was dark colored, and had lost all its consistency. It opposed no more resistance to a knife blade than so much peat. The earth was so firmly packed as to support the mass of copper. The ancient miners had evidently raised it abont five feet, and then abandoned the work as too laborious, having first knocked off all the projecting points. The vein was wrought in the form of an open trench, and, where the copper was most abundant, there the excavations were deepest. The trench was filled nearly flush from the wash of the surrounding surface. The rubbish was thrown up in piles, which could readily be distinguished from the general contour of The ground. A few rods farther west was to be seen another excavation in a cliff, where the miners had left a portion of the vein-stone, in the form of a pillar, to prop up the hanging wall.
"Of the fact that a race of skillful miners was operating here long anterior to the historic era, there are abundant proofs. The evidence consists in numerous ex- cavalions in the solid rock, from which the vein-stone has been extracted; of heaps of rubble and dirt along the course of the veins; of copper utensils fashioned into knives, chisels, axes, spears and arrow heads; of stone hammers, creased for the attachment of withers; of wooden bowls for the bailing of water from the mines; of wooden shovels for throwing out the debris; of props and levers for raising and supporting the mass of copper, and ladders for ascending and descending the pits.
"That the work was done at a remote period is demonstrated by the facts that the trenches and pits were filled even with the surrounding surface, so that their existence was not suspected for many years after the region had been thrown open to active exploration; that upon the piles of rubbish were found growing trees which differed in no degree, as to size and character, from those of the adjacent forest, and that the nature of the materials with which the pits were filled, such as the fine washed clay enveloping the half decayed leaves, and bones of such quad- rupeis as bear, deer and caribou, indicated the slow accumulation of years, rather than a deposit resulting from a torrent of water. "
Thus this existing material evidence corroborates the tradition of the Chippewas, that the miners were of a race prior to theirs, and there- fore inhabited the country more than four hundred years ago. Who they were, and why they left and how and where they went will proba- bly always remain a matter of conjecture.
FRENCH ACCOUNTS OF COPPER COUNTRY
That these copper deposits were brought to the attention of Euro- peans at a very early day in the history of America is shown by the publication, by Lagarde, in Paris, in 1636, the next year after Nicalet's return to Montreal, of an account of these cupper regions, in which he says: "There are mines of copper which might be made profitable, if there were inhabitants and workmen who would labor faithfully. That would be done if colonies were established. ยท Abant eighty or one hundred leagnes from the Hurons there is a mine of copper from which Truchement Brusle showed me an ingot, on his return from a voyage to the neighboring nation." He also says: "Among the rocks they found stones covered with diamonds attached to the rocks,-some
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of them appearing as if just from the hands of the lapidary, they were so beautiful." These were undoubtedly the amethysts of the north shore, and their mention tends to confirm the location of the eopper written of as being on Lake Superior. Again, in 1640, a small volume by Pierre Boucher was published in Paris, in which, writing of this country it is said : "There are mines of copper, tin, antimony and lead. In Lake Superior there is a great island which is fifty leagues in circuit, in which there is a very beautiful mine of copper; it is also found in various places, in large pieces, all refined." These very early accounts referred to must have been obtained through the Indians, even before the coming of the missionaries to the west, and probably either through local Indians who resorted to the east for trade, or through unknown traders whose unrecorded visits to this country may have antedated the coming of the missionaries.
Of the writings of the missionaries. it is recorded in the "Relations" of 1639-40, referring to the region of Lake Superior: "It is enriched on all its borders by mines of lead almost pure, and of copper all refined in pieces as large as the fist, and great rocks which have whole veins of turquoises." Repeatedly thereafter, a period of thirty years or more, the Jesnits in the "Relations," write of the richness in copper of cer- tain parts of the country, and of the superstitions held by the Indians regarding the metal.
ENGLISH COPPER REPORTS
During the English occupation of the country Alexander Henry was engaged in trade, and of his travels he wrote: "On the 19th of August, 1765, we reached the month of the Ontonagon river, one of the largest on the south side of the lake. At the mouth was an Indian village and, three leagues above, a fall, at the foot of which sturgeon, at this season, were obtained so abundantly that a month's subsistence for a regiment could be obtained in a few hours. But I found this river chiefly re- markable for the abundance of virgin copper which is on its banks and in its neighborhood, and of which the reputation is at present more gen- erally spread than it was at the time of my first visit.
"The attempts which were shortly after made to work the mines of Lake Superior to advantage will very soon claim a place among the facts which I am about to describe. The eopper presented itself to the eve in masses of various weights. The Indians showed me one of twenty pounds. They were used to mannfacture this metal into spoons and bracelets for themselves. In the perfect state in which they found it, it required nothing but to beat it into shape. On my way back to Mich- ilimackinac I encamped a second time at the month of the Ontonagon river, and now took the opportunity of going ten miles np the river with Indian guides. The object for which I more expressly went, and to which I had the satisfaction of being led, was a mass of copper, of a weight, necording to my estimate, of no less than five tons. Such was its pure and malleable state that, with an ax, I was able to cut off a portion weighing a hundred pounds."
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In 1771 Mr. Henry, with a party of miners again visited the On- tonagon, travelling in a sloop prepared for the purpose, and with them went a Mr. Norburg. a Russian gentleman acquainted with metals, and holding a commission in the Sixtieth Regiment, then in garrison at Michilimackinac. On reaching Ontonagon they commeneed their ex- plorations in the clay on the hill, not being prepared to work in the solid rock. A small house was constructed, and a party dispatched to the Sault for provisions. Explorations were commenced at a point where green colored water, which tinged iron of a copper color, issned from the hill, and this the miners called a leader. In digging they found frequent masses of copper. Mr. Henry and Mr. Norburg re- turned to the Sault, leaving a party of miners to continue the explora- tions during the winter. He further writes: "Early in the spring of 1772, we sent a boat load of provisions; but it came back on the 20th of June, bringing with it, to our surprise, the whole establishment of min- ers. They reported that, in the course of the winter, they had pene- trated forty feet into the hill; but, on the arrival of the thaw, the clay, on which, on account of its stiffness, they had relied, and neglected to seenre it by supporters, had fallen in; that to recommence their search would be attended with much labor and cost; that from the detached masses of metal, which, to the last, had daily presented themselves, they supposed there might be ultimately reached some body of the same, but could form no conjecture of its distance, except that it was probably so far off as not to be pursued without sinking an air-shaft; and lastly, that this work would require the hands of more men than could be fed, in the actual condition of the country. Here our operations ended."
As indicating the slight appreciation of the future value of the country, Mr. Henry says of it: "The copper ores of Lake Superior ean never be profitably sought for but for local consumption. The country must be cultivated and peopled before they can deserve notice."
DR. HOUGHTON's FAMOUS REPORT
Then followed the snecession of wars which made the country un- inhabitable by any except the Indians, and aside from the mention made of the copper and the attempt to secure the great copper manito men- tioned, in connection with the expeditions of General Cass, Mr. School- craft and Mr. MeKenna in 1821 and 1826, little further was heard re- garding these copper regions until the publication of the report of Dr. Douglass Houghton, state geologist, in his report of his explorations of 1841. That report to the Michigan legislature served to immediately arouse public interest in the locality. Explorations were continued by Dr. Houghton and the government, by treaty in 1842 (ratified in 1843), succeeded in securing a release of the Indian title to the lands in that part of the peninsula, thus opening it to development. Then came the granting of permits for mining leases, numbers of which were issued, without authority of law, by the federal government, and under which locations were made and active developments were begun in 1844. This
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was before the survey was completed and about twenty men were left to hold various locations during the winter of 1844-45. The following year presented a scene of activity at Eagle River, Eagle Harbor, Cop- per Harbor, on the Ontonagon river and at Portage lake.
We can not better or more accurately describe the development of this region than by quoting from "Steven's Copper Handbook," as fol- lows: "The Lake Superior Copper district of Michigan was the first American copper field of importance and is now one of the oldest of the leading copper producing districts of the world, as well as the third in size of output. It is the lowest in average grade of any successful cop- per mining district and probably contains the most copper of any sin- gle field. While the cupriferous Keweenawan formation of Lake Su- perior onterops to the eastward in the district of Algoma, Ontario, and to the westward traverses northern Wisconsin and is found in several of the eastern connties of Minnesota, the developed and productive mines lie wholly within the limits of Michigan.
"In 1830 the lake was first visited by Dr. Douglass Houghton, a young scientist combining rare technical skill with high courage and indomitable energy. Through his efforts was made the first survey of the Upper Peninsula of Michigan, comprising more than two-thirds of the southern shore of Lake Superior.
"The first miners to reach Lake Superior copper field were Jim Paul and Niek Miniclear, two back-woodsmen who came overland from southern Wisconsin in midwinter, suffering great hardships, and arriv- ing on the shore of the great lake in March, 1843. Later in the same year a land office was opened by the federal government at Copper Har- bor, and a number of prospectors reached the field. The early mining locations were of immense area, and overlapped in a most haphazard and ridienlous manner. Confusion grew until the government adopted the expedient of selling the mineral lands ontright.
ARRIVAL OF PRACTICAL CORNISHMEN
"In 1844 other mineral seekers, mainly devoid of practical knowl- edge, arrived in the district, and the news of important discoveries be- came bruited about. In this year arrived the first Cornishmen who were the first real miners to reach the district. The first actual mining of copper was done in 1844, the original product being a few tons of ore, called black oxide, but possibly chalcocite, taken from a fissure vein near Copper Harbor. This vein was abandoned quickly, but the same company opened a fissure vein carrying native copper, and begun the payment of dividends in 1849, since which year dividends have been paid annually by Lake Superior properties. Shortly after the opening of the Cliff Mine, in Keweenaw county. the Minnesota Mine was opened in Ontonagon county at the other end of the district. Cross fissures only were worked at first, but these, while producing several highly profitable mines, have pinched out or lost their workable valnes at 2,500 feet or less in depth. The stratified beds, on which all the productive
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mines at the present day are developed, were neglected in the early years, and the Portage Lake District of Honghton county, now much the most important portion of the field, was neglected because of the few fissure veins found crossing the stratified beds. The first successful mining on enpriferous beds was done by the Quincy, which made a success of an amygdaloid Jode. and gradually other amygdaloid beds were developed. The first successful mine to be opened on a conglomerate bed was the Calumet & Hecla, in 1866, which remains the largest and most profit- able mine of the Lake Superior district, and has paid greater dividends than ever declared by any other mining company in the history of the world, these exceeding one hundred millions of dollars.
FIRST EFFORTS AT SMELTING
"The first efforts at smelting were made in 1846. when a small fur- nace was built by Prof. James T. Hodge, on Gratiot river in Keweenaw connty. This ran for two short campaigns only, as selected copper rock, assaying about 20 per cent metal, gave smelter returns of only 3.5 per cent copper, showing that nearly five-sixths of the metal was lost in the slags. A second furnace was built about 1847, by the Suffolk Mining Company, seven miles southeast of Eagle river, but this was not a success. In 1849, a third furnace was built, on Isle Royale, but never put in commission. Until about 1850 all lake copper was smelted in Baltimore, but in that year J. G. Hussey & Company built a copper smelter at Cleveland, and a smelter was built in Detroit the same year, and shortly thereafter a successful local smelter was built at Hancock, in Houghton county. About 1863 a smelter was built at Ontonagon, and previous to 1867 a small and unsuccessful smelter was built at Lac La Belle, in Keweenaw county. The Calumet & Hecla smelter, at Hub- bell, was built in 1886, the Dollar Bay works in 1888, the Quincy smel- ter in 1898, and the Michigan smelter in 1904.
THE KEWEENAW FORMATION
"The Keweenaw formation in Michigan may be divided into four parts, the first inelnding Keweenaw point at the eastward, the second comprising Portage Lake, or Central district, which includes the Calu- met and South Range fields, and practically Honghton county, while the mines of Ontonagon connty, and the trans-Ontonagon extension in Ontonagon and Gogebic counties comprise the third field. The fourth district is Isle Royale, nearly all of the island showing cupriferons beds, with many old and idle mines, mainly small.
"The richest cross-veins of Keweenaw county were at the western end, the most notable being developed by the Cliff, Central and Phoe- nix mines. The fissure veins of Keweenaw county usually cross the stratified beds at approximately right angles. The most promising cop- per ore body of the lake district was opened circa 1845, on the north- eastern side of Bohemian mountain, and some ore therefrom was shipped to Swansea. The ore was mainly bornite, with some massive chalco-
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pyrite, occurring in an eighteen inch vein. There are narrow fissure veins of ore, mainly arsenical, in the Mohawk mine of Keweenaw county, and also in the South Range mines of Houghton county. Chalcopyrite has been found in the Huron shafts of the Isle Royale mine at Houghton, and at Copper Ilarbor, in Keweenaw county, two shafts were sunk, to a depth of about twenty feet ench on what was believed to be melaco- nite, and about forty tons of ore were extracted therefrom, the deposit apparently being merely a pocket. The green stains of malachite are found in many cupriferous beds in the partly decomposed portions at or near the surface, but it is altogether probable that the carbonates were evolved from native copper by weathering.
"Metallic copper is found in all rocks of the Keweenaw series. in- eluding the superimposed western sandstone, and along the contact of the nnconformable eastern sandstone as well, but excepting the sedi- mentary secondary series of the Keweenaw belt, in the Porenpine mountains, none of the sandstones contain copper in workable quanti- ties. The metal is found in both traps and conglomerates of the main series, the metal of the conglomerates occurring largely as cementing material. Copper oceurs occasionally in the very dense trap rocks, but is found more commonly in the more open upper portions of the trap- flows, where the amygdulas have been leached out and replaced to greater or less extent by the native metal. It is obvious that the amyg- daloidal portions of the flows were much more suitable for the physical reception of the metal than the extreme dense traps at the base of each flow.
"In the amygdaloidal cupriferous beds the copper usually favors either the foot or hanging wall, but occasionally, in wide beds, occurs in streaks towards the center, and usually is disseminated more or less irregularly through the entire width of the amygdaloid, but, with a tendeney. perfectly natural in view of the physical structure of the amygdalvidal traps, to favor the hanging wall. Occasionally the min- eralization is so strong that the dense basal portion of the superinenm- bent trap-flow forming the hanging wall has been impregnated with fine copper for a few inches or even for a number of feet, and is found workable for its metalic valnes.
DEEPEST OF COPPER MINES
"The percentage of copper contained in the rock decreases in all mines opened to more than 4000 feet in depth. As a rule, the amygda- loid mines usually show decreased values below a depth of about one- half mile. The payable cupriferous beds show copper courses in prae- tically all instances, these being diagonal chutes of richly minerahzed ground descending on the plane of the bed with a rake about midway between the strike and dip. Apparently the beds themselves will con- tinue, in practically all cases, to much greater depth than mining is possible. The ultimate depth of mining cannot be foretold with any certainty in view of the steady progress that is being made in knowl-
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edge, methods and equipments. The deepest mines of the world are in this district, the Tamarack having a vertical shaft of nearly one mile depth, while the Calumet & Hecla has a shaft sunk at an angle of 37 degrees, 30 minutes, that is 8,100 feet in depth, with a winze of 190 feet sunk from the drift on the bottom level of this shaft. The great heat and briny waters found at the bottoms of the deep mines render work somewhat difficult, and these factors, combined with increased hoisting and mining costs, coincideut with decreased copper contents, must of necessity, eventually furnish a bottom for the most ambitious of mines.
"Considerable silver is carried in connection with copper in many of the Lake Superior mines. The mines of the Evergreen belt, On- tonagon county, are the richest in silver, followed by the mines in the immediate vicinity of Portage lake in Honghton county. The silver is mechanically admixed with copper, but the two metals are not alloyed.
"White practically the entire copper production of Michigan is from the native metal, nearly all of the principal commercial ores are found in the native copper district, and copper ores are found in many other connties of the Upper Peninsula of Michigan. The list of Michigan copper ores includes cuprite, melaconite, azurite, malachite, chaleocite, bornite, chaleopyrite, chrysocolla, algodonite, domeykite, whitneyite, mohawkite, and keweenawite.
COPPER FOUND ELSEWHERE
"The active copper mines of Michigan are in the three counties of Keweenaw, Houghton and Ontonagon, with a considerable number of old and idle mines in Isle Royale. The Keweenawan copper belt ex- tends to the Wisconsin boundary through Gogebie county, and small quantities of chalcopyrite are noted in several of the iron miues of this county.
"In Baraga county there is an isolated outlier of the Keweenawan formation, known as Silver mountain, and the same formation, carry. ing native copper, is noted on the Huron Islands.
"Native copper is said to be found in Perkins, Delta county, but the discovery does not seem of commercial importance.
"Native copper, evidently brought by glacial action from the Ke- weenawan measures to the north, has been found in drift above the iron ore body of the Cyclops mine, at Norway, Dickinson county, and chal- copyrite is noted in small quantities in connection with hematite in the Emmet mine, and also in the Chapin mine at Iron Mountain, in this county.
"Copper ore has been reported from the vicinity of St. Ignace, Mack- inaw county, but the occurrence has not been fully verified.
"In Marquette county chalcopyrite and native copper occurs on Presque Isle, in the city of Marquette and chalcocite is noted on Mount Mesnard, and on the Chocolay river, near the same town, while a variety of copper ores occurs near Sauks Head. Small quantities of copper sul- phides are found in the gold mines north of Ishpeming, and the granite
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rocks extending from the serpentine lying north of Ishpeming to the shore of Lake Superior show numerous gash veins carrying copper ores and other minerals.
"In Menominee county copper ores have been found near Carney, and some attempts at mining have been made therein."
Again Mr. Stevens says: "In early days the heavy mass copper of Lake Superior mines, ranging in weight from a ton to five hundred tons per mass, was cut up into chunks not too heavy for hoisting by the use of long handled chisels, this process being laborious, slow and costly. The work of cutting up masses underground is now done with pneu- matic chisels, at abont a tithe of the former cost."
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