Gazetteer of Orange County, Vt., 1762-1888, Part 2

Author: Child, Hamilton, 1836- comp. cn
Publication date: 1888
Publisher: Syracuse, N.Y., The Syracuse journal company, printers
Number of Pages: 836

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A great difference also exists in the consolidation and structure of the rocks thus formed. The very newest consists of unconsolidated gravel, sand and clay, forming alluvium. A little farther down we come to the tertiary strata, where are some hardened rocks and others more or less soft. Next below the tertiary is found thick deposits, mostly consolidated, but showing a mechani- cal structure along with the crystalline arrangement of the ingredients. These are called secondary and transition. Lowest of all are found rocks having a decidedly crystalline structure, looking as if the different minerals of which they are composed crowded hard upon one another. These rocks are called metamorphic, hypozoic and azoic.

A large portion of the rocks of this territory are asoic, and are known as talcose schist, calciferous mica schist and argillaceous slate, though there are

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ORANGE COUNTY.

several beds and veins of other formations. Talcose schist proper consists of quartz and talc, though it has associated with it, as integral parts of its forma- tion, clay slate, quartz, sand stones and conglomerates, lime stones and dolomites. It is found in this territory in the towns of Newbury, Bradford, Fairlee and Thetford, adjoining the Connecticut river.

The calciferous mica schist range, which underlies nearly the entire county, is supposed to have originally been a limestone formation. Clay slate exists in the eastern part of the county, adjacent to the Connecticut river, under- lying portions of the towns of Thetford, Fairlee, the extreme northwestern corner of West Fairlee, Bradford and Newbury, and in the southwestern part in Brookfield and Randolph. Beds of steatite are found in Thetford, in the southwestern corner of that town. Granite, syenite and protogene underly the principal portion of the town of Orange, and are also found in very small quanities in Topsham and Tunbridge. Strafford affords an inexhaustible supply of the sulphuret of iron, from which copperas, in large quantities, has been profitably manufactured and transported to distant markets. By the re- moval of this sulphuret of iron valuable copper ore was found to exist. Exceedingly valuable mines of the sulphuret of copper have been opened in Vershire, Strafford and Corinth, and the business of mining and smelting was at one time vigorously prosecuted. Elsewhere will be found a full sketch of these mines.

Numerous evidences of the aqueous period are found throughout the state, and evidences so conclusive that there can be no doubt that Vermont at least was once the bed of a mighty ocean. Perhaps the most positive of these are the many marine fossils that have been brought to light; for instance, the fossil whale found in Charlotte, in August, 1849, and many others that might be mentioned. In this county are found many remains of ancient sea beaches. They consist of sand and gravel, which have been acted upon, rounded and comminuted by the waves, and thrown up in the form of low ridges with more or less appearances of stratefication or lamination. The manner in which they were formed may be seen along the sea coast at any time in the course of formation, as they have the same form of modern beaches, except that they have been much mutilated by the action of water and atmospheric agencies since their disposition. Good specimens of these beaches are found in Newbury and Strafford. In the latter named town is one situated upon the hill back of the old copperas works, one hundred and fifty feet above them, and thirteen hundred and forty feet above the ocean. It has a distinct terrace form, and is twenty-two feet below the top of the hill; the space above the beach being rocky, the cliffs against which the waters may have dashed in former times, and worn off materials for this beach beneath. In the southwestern part of Newbury, on the road to East Corinth, near the height of land, is another ancient sea beach fourteen hundred and eighty- eight feet above the ocean ; and a half mile west of this, one which is twelve hundred and thirty-nine feet above the same level.

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COPPER MINES,

Evidences of the drift or glacial period are left here by large bowlders scattered over the county, by drift scratches and moraine terraces. Drift scratches are grooves or scratches worn in the rocks by glaciers, or vast rivers of ice, which, starting from the summits of the mountains, moved slowly down the valleys as far as the heat of summer would permit. Though they rarely ever advanced more than two feet a day, their great thickness and the weight of the superincumbent snow caused them to grate and crush the rocks be- neath, leaving marks that ages will not efface. Excellent specimens of these scratches may be seen in Thetford, Fairlee, Bradford, Newbury, Braintree and Randolph; those in the town of Fairlee, which are found on rocks of the clay slate formation, being numerous and very fine. Moraine terraces are elevations of gravel and sand, with correspondent depressions of most sin- gular and scarcely describable forms. The theory of their formation is that icebergs became stranded at the base and on the sides of the hills, and that deposits were made around and upon them, and that they would have been level-topped if the ice had remained ; but in consequence of its melting they became extremely irregular. The best specimens of these formations in Orange county may be found in Newbury, Bradford and Randolph.

Following these records, then, that old ocean has graven on the rocks of Orange county, it is not difficult for the mind to revert through the remote past, to the time when this portion of the continent was sufficiently sub- merged to allow the waters of the ocean to extend over it, forming a broad inland gulf, with the Green Mountain range for its eastern shore, and the Ad- irondacks for its western limit. The broad valley of the St. Lawrence would form the passage to this inland sea, or perchance only the higher portions of New England rose above the water.

COPPER MINES IN ORANGE COUNTY.

Copper ore was discovered in the town of Strafford, in Orange county, be- fore the beginning of the present century, and about thirty years later in Ver- shire, the town next north of Strafford, and about 1847 purchases were made in Corinth of territory supposed to contain a portion of the same vein of copper ore. At Copperas Hill, in Strafford, at Dwight Hill, or Ely, in Ver- shire, and at Pike Hill, in Corinth, mines have been worked for copper ore to a great extent, and the business at times has supported a great many hundred people who have been employed about the business. None of these places are upon any railroad. Their products were transported by two, four and six horse teams, to the stations on the Connecticut and Passumpsic Rivers railroad, the ores from the Pike Hill mines being delivered at Bra ford, a distance of thirteen miles, those from Ely at Ely Station, a distance of nine miles, and those from Copperas Hill at Ompompanoosuc, a distance of ten miles. The ore removed from all of these mines was similar in character,

ORANGE COUNTY.

being a yellow sulphuret of copper, carrying with it sulphuret of iron or iron pyrites, the proportions of the two ores varying in different localities.

The work at the mine, or mines, for there are at least two of them in Strafford, has been quite intermittent and irregular. Very much of the time copperas has been made from the sulphuret of iron to the neglect of the copper ore,. especially when the iron ore or pyrites prevailed in quantity. From 1830 to 1839 copper mining was prosecuted and smelting furnaces were erected ; but not being found profitable the business was abandoned for a time. After- wards in working deeper for iron pyrites, to be used in the manufacture of copperas, richer deposits of copper ore were found, and in such quantities as to warrant mining for that metal. A new smelting furnace was erected, and. during the early part of the war, when the price of copper was higher than ever before, reaching fifty-five cents per pound at one time, the business was pushed with a great deal of energy and was found profitable. At that time about one hundred men were employed in working the mine. The ore was. not smelted at Strafford, but was shipped to market to be smelted at Bergen Point, Baltimore, Point Shirley, and other places.

But when the war closed, and the government not only had no use for cop- per, but threw upon the market almost two years' stock of that metal, and. the ship yards and gun founders of the country were silent, the attempt to. mine copper at Strafford was abandoned for several years. In 1872, how- ever, one of these mines was worked for the purpose of making copperas on the spot, and also of sending the sulphuret ores of iron and copper to Mal- den, Mass., where the sulphur obtained from them was used in the manu- facture of sulphuric acid. Since the last date Mr. Tyson,* of Baltimore, has erected smelting furnaces at the Elizabeth mine, and for a few years, about 1880, pushed the mining and smelting of copper with a good deal of vigor. But at this date, 1888, nothing is being done by him or by the Strafford Min- ing Company, of which William Foster was agent.

In Corinth no work is being done at present. The first company that did copper mining there was the Corinth Copper Company, which was chartered by act of the legislature of Vermont in November, 1855, Joseph I. Bicknell, William Cornwell, Jonathan C. Coddington and C. M. Wheatley being the original. incorporators, all New Yorkers. This company did not begin work. until August, 1863. The product of the mine from that date to April, 1864, was 369 tons of ore, which sold for $18,749.13. From the report for the year 1866 it appears that the company mined 1,755 tons of eight and one- half per cent. ore, which brought more than $50,000 ; but this product did not pay expenses. They employed during the year one hundred and seven-

*Isaac Tyson, Jr., of Baltimore, Md., became interested in the Vershire copper mines about fifty years ago and about the same time with the Copperas Hill company in Strafford, and the name of Tyson has been closely identified with the more important mining enterprises. n Vermont for half a century.

COPPER MINES.

teen men and boys. The company never made any dividends. Not long after this, in 1868, work ceased at the mine, and the company began to be involved in law suits. Henry Barnard, a large owner in the property, brought suit to. recover for money loaned and for services, and at the June term, 1874, he recovered judgment for $41,920.45, and the whole property was sold on exe- cution for $24,000, to Henry Barnard, Robert McK. Ormsby and John Flan- ders, who formed a corporation under the name of the Eureka Copper Com- pany, but they never did any work at the mine. These three men are now dead, and the property is mostly in the hands of their heirs.

The Union Mining Company was chartered by the legislature of Vermont in the fall of 1863, and the persons named in the act of incorporation are Henry Barnard, Benjamin T. Sealey, Alvah Bean, Martin Thatcher, Samuel Churchill and Smith Ely. Work was commenced probably the next year, but no reports are at hand, so that it is not possible to fix the date. The first blast of more than a ton of gun powder threw out many tons of ore and rock, and disclosed a rich vein of copper, and everything went on prosperously for a time. It was claimed that the product, from the very first, paid expenses. This property adjoined the Corinth or Eureka mine, and the entrances were but a few rods apart.

But the product of the Union mine did not keep up, the price of copper went down, and the company went into bankruptcy in 1877, and the assignee, C. C. Sargent, sold the property of the Union Mining Company to Smith Ely, president of the Vermont Copper Mining Company, and in August, 1879, he conveyed the same property to the company of which he was president. While Mr. Ely owned the property, and for a time after the Vermont Copper Mining Company bought it, mining was pushed very vigorously at the Union, and a great many tons of ore were transported over the hills, nine miles, to the furnaces at Ely, where it was smelted. The ore of this mine contained a greater amount of silex than that taken from the Ely mine, and the additional amount of silex was necessary as a flux to aid in the smelting of the Ely ore. The two ores together would smelt without the addition of any other flux, and so for a time it was an economical proceeding, but after a while the expense began to be too great and work ceased at the Union mine, and the new road which the Corinth people had built to accommo- date the transportation of this ore became almost useless. The Union is now in the hands of the receiver in the chancery suit of Cazin vs. Ely et al., for sale.

The largest and most extensively wrought of all the mines in Orange county is that in Dwight Hill, near the village of Ely, in the township of Vershire, belonging for many years to the Vermont Copper Mining Com- pany. This company was chartered by the legislature of the state in Novem- ber, 1853, constituting Henry Barnard, J. Elnathan Smith, Joseph I. Bick- nell, Fulton Cutting, S. L. Mitchell and Loring L. Lombard, and their asso- ciates and successors, a body corporate.

ORANGE COUNTY.

Quite a number or years before this, the farmers and others who resided in the neighborhood, knowing that there was a deposit of copper ore here, had formed a company, styled the "Farmers' Company," for the purpose of mining and smelting copper. This company made excavations upon the vein and got out some ore, erected a rude smelting furnace and attempted to smelt the product, but from the want of skill, and inexperience on the part of those in charge of the work, very little copper was obtained and the busi- ness was abandoned. The solid roand chimney built of rough stones and mortar, now standing near the engine-house and still in use when the engine is running, was probably built by this first company.

Later than this, Col. Horace Binney, of Boston, and Isaac Tyson, Jr., Esq., of Baltimore, came into the neighborhood and bought up all of the mineral rights in the vicinity, as they had done in other parts of the state, and in other states. They made some of their purchases as early as 1830. The outcrop of the vein showed itself, most plainly, upon the southern slope of Dwight Hill, and Messrs. Binney & Tyson commenced at the foot of the hill and for two years drove an adit, or horizontal passage or opening, towards the vein, but after penetrating the solid rock for ninty-four feet without striking copper they became discouraged and abandoned the work. It turned out afterwards that they were within a very few feet of a deposit of ore when they gave up the enterprise. Nothing more was done in the way of mining until the Vermont Copper Mining Company began work in the spring of 1854. The first printed report in regard to this property was mide April 19, 1859, by W. Herman Rittler, mining engineer. He gives a full account of the geology of the country and location of the mine, the character and qual- ity of the ore, the extent of the workings and the position of the vein, to- gether with a map and a sectional view of the mine ; but he makes no state- ment as to the product. As appears from the report of the case of The Humphreysville Copper Co. vs. The Vermont Copper Mining Company in the 33 Vermont Reports, the latter compiny had contracted to deliver before the first day of September, 1855, five hundred tons of copper ore to the plaintiffs, but did deliver only about one hundred and eighty-one tons, and only com- pleted the contract in August, 1856. Captain Thomas Pollard, so long con- nected with those mines, a Cornish miner of intelligence and experience, had charge of the mining in those early days. He pushed the adit that had been abandoned by Messrs. Binney & Tyson and struck a good vein of ore before he had advanced four feet. The vein or deposit at that point was from eight to sixteen feet in thickness. In those days the company had no smelting furnaces and sold the ore to smelting companies upon the sea coast. The ore was usually dressed or cobbed to about nine or ten per cent., that is, the mass of material or ore shipped to market contained nine or ten per cent. of pure copper. In a few instances ore as rich as seventeen per cent. was sent away. This ore was worth more than the intrinsic value of the copper as its constituents were such that it was used as a flux in the

COPPER MINES.

smelting of other and richer ores. The business steadily increased from year to year, as will appear from the following statement of the annual product : In 1854 there were raised and sold 134 tons ; in 1855, 198 ; in 1856, 137 ; in 1857, 246 ; in 1858, 314 ; in 1859, 788} ; in 1860, 1,312 ; and they had on hand unsold in 1860, 140 tons. These statements are made as of November Ist of each year. There were mined and shipped in November and Decem- ber, 1860, nearly four hundred tons of ore. In 1861 the greatest depth reached, following the course of the vein or deposit, was three hundred and fifteen feet, making a perpendicular depth of about two hundred feet below the surface. At that time the company employed one hundred men and boys, besides those employed in transporting the ore to the railroad station.

At the time of the organization of the Vermont Copper Mining Company and the adoption of a code of by-laws, the stock of the company was held and owned in the following proportions, to wit : Henry Barnard, five-twelfths ; Joseph I. Bicknell, one sixth; J. Elnathan Smith, one-ninth ; Fulton Cut- ting, one-ninth ; Samuel L. Mitchell, one-ninth ; Loring L. Lombard, one- twelfth.

In November, 1861, Mr. Henry Barnard was elected president of the com- pany ; Benjamin T. Sealey, treasurer ; and Thomas A. Chase, son-in-law of Mr. Barnard, was made agent and clerk at the mines. At this time, although the charter was granted by the legislature of Vermont, the corporation meet- ings were held, by advice of eminent counsel in New York, in that city. Thus all their doings were, legally, invalid. When Mr. Barnard was elected presi- dent the war of the Rebellion was in progress, and the price of copper was rapidly advancing. In the month of his election the profits of the company amounted to about $1,500, and a surplus in cash, ore and stock of the com- pany reserved for working the property, of about $30,000, was on hand. In July, 1862, the directors, who all lived in New York, and got all their information from the president, voted a dividend of two per cent., amounting to $10,000, to be paid quarterly. Five such dividends were made in five suc- cessive quarters, but in order to enable the company to make the last one, the president loaned the company $10,000. During their last quarter the profits of the business were only $340.64. While these dividends were being paid one of the officers of the company sold no less than 19,030 shares of his stock which cost him but a few cents a share, for at least $50,000. During this same time the old mining captain, Thomas Pollard, under whom the mine had been uniformly prosperous, was displaced, and Capt. Glanvill put in his stead. Of course this large sale of stock brought new men into the com- pany, and the dividends ceasing to be made after December, 1863, the new stock-holders began to make unpleasant inquiries and to inspect the books of the corporation. The result was that in January, 1865, at a meeting of the corporation held at the Eagle Hotel in West Fairlee, there was an entire change of the officers of the company, Mr. Smith Ely, of New York city, one of the victims of the sale of stock on the strength of the dividends made in

ORANGE COUNTY.

1863, appearing on the ground with proxies and stock of his own, enough to vanquish all opposition. The election resulted in making Smith Ely, Samuel L. Mitchell and Francis A. Palmer, of New York, Warren A. Cleveland, then of West Fairlee, and C. C. P. Baldwin, Roswell Farnham and George W. Prichard, of Bradford, directors. Mr. Ely was made president, Mr. Baldwin, vice-president, and Mr. Cleveland, secretary and treasurer.

Before this time Mr. Barnard had brought suit against the company for the $10,000 he had loaned it, for arrears of his salary and for some other loans, and attached all of its property, both real and personal. The officer had taken. possession of the personal property and the work had stopped. It was four months before Mr. Ely and the others interested in the welfare of the com- pany here could find parties willing to receipt the property whom the officer would accept, although Mr. Ely himself and Francis A. Palmer, president of the Broadway New York bank, offered to give a bond to secure the receiptor. Finally Mr. Edmund P. Bliss and two of the directors who lived in Bradford signed a receipt and Mr. William T. George, the officer, accepted it. This was done about the time of the election of officers. Capt. Pollard was im- mediately employed and put in charge as mining engineer, and Capt. Thomas Pascoe was put in charge under ground as mining captain. Capt. Glanvill had lost the vein and followed an unproductive branch. Pollard had said all the time that the vein was underneath or west of Glanvill's shaft, which was. supposed to be on the vein, dipping at an angle of less than thirty degrees from the horizontal and extending towards the east. As soon as Capt. Pollard was in authority he cut through the foot wall of the main shaft in four places,. and in one of his excavations he struck the main deposit of copper in less than four feet, and in all of the other cuts in a few feet. This proved to be a true bonanza. In one place it was seventeen feet in thickness. The prod- uct of ore in the month of January, 1865, in which these cross cuts were made, was one hundred and four tons of ore, and the product continued to steadily increase until, in 1880, it was one hundred tons per day, of the working days in the month, or twenty-six hundred tons per month. The com- pany continued to be prosperous under its new management, and Capts. Pollard and Pascoe kept upon the vein and turned out a large amount of ore. War_ ren A. Cleveland was for several years the very efficient treasurer of the com- pany. In his report for the year 1867, made January 23, 1868, he says : " Three years since, when we took charge of the business, the available assets. were about $10,000, consisting mainly of less than 260 tons of ore on hand, and the company was over $40,000 in debt. Now, on the Ist of January,. 1868, notwithstanding we have built furnaces at a heavy expense, and made many other valuable improvements, besides meeting heavy law expenses, our cash on hand and available cash assets are upwards of one hundred and fifteen thousand dollars, leaving, after paying a judgment and all indebtedness. of the company, a surplus of over seventy thousand dollars, so that as soon as we can realize for the ore sold in transit and on hand, we can

COPPER MINES.

commence paying dividends." He adds in a note that assessments had furnished $50,000 of this amount. They had mined over four hundred tons per month for the whole year 1867, with the help of 132 employees. The report further says that in two or three weeks the company would be able to start its smelting works, and they hoped to be able to pay regular dividends. The officers elected in January, 1868, were, Smith Ely, president ; Roswell Farnham, vice-president; Joseph I. Bicknell, treasurer : William H. Long, clerk ; Messrs. Ely, Bicknell and Farnham, Francis A. Palmer, P. C. Adams, W. A. Coit and Stephen Thomas, directors. Mr. Cleveland had been in 1865 superintendent of the whole business. The company did prosper so well that in 1869 it divided $100,000 among its stock-holders, being twenty per cent. of the par value.

To give an idea of the condition of the business and the method of smelt- ing we copy here a communication to the Bradford Opinion, and published in its issue of June 21, 1879 :-

"In the year 1865 Smith Ely, Esq., of New York city, who is what we call a 'long-headed,' far-seeing, thorough-going business man, became president of the company. He put a large amount of capital into the business, infused new life into the company, took the 'stock' out of the market, and began the business of mining on business principles. He placed the corporation on a firm basis financially, employed competent men to conduct the various depart- ments of the business, and in the January following his assuming control the mine was producing 104 tons of ore per month, which amount has gradually increased until the present time. Up to 1867 there were no smelting works here, and the ore, after being dressed down to about 8 to 10 per cent. copper, had to be shipped away to smelting works at Point Shirley, Mass., Baltimore, or somewhere else. The cost of freighting the worthless mass with which the copper was mixed was enormous, and cut the profits of mining the ore down to a small figure.

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Gazetteer of Orange County, Vt., 1762-1888, Part 2

Author: Child, Hamilton, 1836- comp. cn Publication date: 1888 Publisher: Syracuse, N.Y., The Syracuse journal company, printers Number of Pages: 836

Author: Child, Hamilton, 1836- comp. cn
Publication date: 1888
Publisher: Syracuse, N.Y., The Syracuse journal company, printers
Number of Pages: 836