Posted February 22, 2008
More copper was used in the state of Pennsylvania in the past three days than was probably ever found during the copper craze that took place in the hills around Central in the early 1900s as the home installation of our new furnace and tankless hot-water heater finally completes.
From the last year of Don Rabb’s teaching days at the Benton School System before he headed off to teach at Bloomsburg State Teacher’s College, I remember him telling the class to fire up the Bunsen burners and memorize symbols like CU and atomic numbers like 29. He told his class, most of which as I recall couldn’t figure out how chemistry would affect their roller skating, working on the farm, or their planned career repairing cars or hunting game or working in the aerospace industry. The part about copper being poisonous when consumed by the gobs-full did stick with most of us.
Mining copper in the local area involving the Pennsylvania Copper and Mining Company was not a successful endeavor. This enterprise began in 1901 and mined some copper assaying an average of 4% copper. The company pounded their chest saying they were located in the "Atlantic Copper Belt at Central, Pennsylvania" and that they opened sixteen mines and erected a smelting plant "capable of handling 150 tons of ore a day." Many local residents invested in the company, although the stock prospectus boldly stated that there was "no personal liability to the maker." The endeavor faced continuing hard times and was sold at a sheriff's sale in March, 1909. The story could end there and for most it did, but many of us have ancestors who invested the few dollars they had in savings in the failed enterprise and it wouldn’t hurt to unearth the subject that was of great importance to some of our ancestors.
The local story is part of a national copper craze that took place between 1900 and 1912. You may recall that in The Lord Will Provide, based on the book by Philip James Varker, which is extracted in our FEATURES section, Philip tells about mining for copper on the property of Peter Shultz. In that story, "Pete" told Rev. Varker that a "farmer talks about how there could be a river running under his farm--just the thing for wonderful irrigation--but he doesn't dig to get at it. He knows he can't dig deep enough for that." Pete told the minister, alarmed over the spreading hysteria of finding copper, "The same thing applies with the rocks that people will be digging all over the countryside. No one makes them do it." The book tells about a crusher built "below Central" at "considerable cost," which brought small return. All that came from the mass of rocks fed into the crusher was "a small vial of copper, possibly an ounce," which Rev. Varker saw and confirmed years later.
In spite of the dismal failure of the local copper company which advertising literature said was located in "the Atlantic Copper Belt," stock was sold and the company went through the motions of mining copper until about 1912. We point out that what actually happened was a bit different from what the company literature said, so bear that in mind as you read about the company. The company said they issued $2 million in capital stock with "1,000,000 full-paid nonassessable shares." The company was headed by Dr. Thomas H. Carey, President, Central; B.F. Fritz, Treasurer, Divide; Josiah P. Fritz, Central. A.S. Fritz, Jamison City, was the metallurgist and chemist, and the consulting attorney was A.L. Fritz, Bloomsburg. The Bloomsburg National Bank handled the banking and the references for the company. Americus S. Fritz, Central, a farmer and school teacher, was president of the company for a time.
Literature promoting the sale of the stock painted a glowing picture; i.e., "From more than one hundred assays, the ores of the Pennsylvania Copper and Mining Company have given a average above 4% copper. Beside this there are workable quantities of magnesia, aluminum and some iron; traces of silver with now and then a start of gold.
"The company has opened 16 mines which give ores assaying from 30% down to nine-tenth of one percent. There is ore enough in sight to keep the plant running from 5 to 10 years. These deposits which are from a few inches to six feet thick have been denuded by glacial action.
"There is now erected a plant capable of handling 150 tons of ore a day. Its machinery is complete and paid for. Its product will need no refiner, being metallic copper. And its management will be in careful hands of those acquainted with the methods which made the low grade " Lake" mines famous. By the method used in this plant 1 per cent copper should pay more than expense of smelting and otherwise handling it.
About 16 million pounds of fine copper are being extracted yearly from the Atlantic Beds. Some places ore is brought from 700 feet under ground. We find it at the surface. Cost of mining, handling and extracting will be abut $2.75. This would mean a profit of 25 cents on each ton of a 1 per cent ore."
How could investors not be excited when a "start of gold" had been found, as well as "traces of silver!" Profits were promised to the tune of 25¢ per ton. Initially, it all seemed to be too good to be true! By the time it was over, it was too good to be true!
The History and Biographical Annals of Columbia and Montour Counties, published in 1915, noted that the copper deposits of Sugarloaf townships were "of no real value, but were considered valuable by the promoters of the company who built the smelter near Central and sank a large sum of money in the vain endeavor to reduce the ore commercially."
The company was eventually sold by the sheriff and by 1915 only "dilapidated and rotting buildings and the fallen smokestack" were left to "mark the grave of high hopes and wasted dollars." Today, few even know where the abandoned mines and mine dumps were a hundred years ago.
The copper mines near Central were not the first in our state. Pennsylvania colonial governor William Keith attempted to mine copper in Pennsylvania in 1724, but his York County mine failed quickly. Eight years later in Lancaster, the Gap mine owned by shareholders including Governor Robert Hunter Morris (1754-1756) and Thomas Penn, the man who drafted the town plan for Reading, Pennsylvania, began operating and continued until 1755. Ninety-five years later the dream was still alive and the mine reopened as a nickel mine producing some byproduct copper along with the nickel. It closed in 1893.
Copper mining in the United States began in earnest in the Northern Michigan copper district in the 1840s. Today the United States is the second largest copper producer in the world and our country produces something like 60% of what we use.
The Pennsylvania Copper Mining Co, 1221 Arch Street, Philadelphia, developed a mine in Pittstown (the name given in 1838 to the present Pittston) in December, 1902, and produced ore giving assays of 5% to 10%.
The Copper Handbook, published in 1903, a "manual of the copper industry of the world," compiled and published by Horace J. Stevens in 1904, noted that the "state yet lacks a copper mine." It named locations where copper was found in small quantities including Pottstown and Tunkhannock. Central was not mentioned even though from outward appearances things were going well for the company. The December 11, 1899, headline in the Philadelphia Inquirer read, "Mineral Craze in Columbia County Assuming Alarming Proportions." The article reporting "finding many valuable veins of copper in the northern end of Columbia County. It went on to say that copper was " rapidly opening up an industry which promises to put fortunes in the pockets of those who are fortunate enough to control land in that vicinity. The farmers in that vicinity have caught the fever, and some of them have forsaken the plow for the copper business."
The lure of "getting rich quick" hung over local residents. The Beaver Lake Copper Co. had its main office in Bloomsburg and the Philadelphia Inquirer reported it was "assaying 17% copper." Stories were rampant about mines producing ore rich in silver with copper mixed worth 55c per ounce. In Montana, 5% copper was being taken out of the mines in 1901 averaging about $1.50 to $1.75 a ton and about $1.62 a ton in gold and silver value. The company even had an office in Mountain View, Pennsylvania, and the thought was that if a successful company with mines in other states invested in mining in our state it had to be a successful company! Literature from the Mountain View mine indicates that it was a "3-compatment shaft, 1,851' deep, with 15 exits and connections."
Some say that copper and tin, in the form of bronze, an alloy of these two metals, was in general use before the discovery of the process of producing iron from its ores. From the earliest civilizations known to man, many ornaments of bronze have been found.
The richer and more advanced nations in our history had stores of gold, silver and copper. Gold was used for ornaments and as a medium of exchange. Copper was used for weapons and implements, usually in the form of an alloy such as brass or bronze. Spain provided the world with copper for perhaps up to 3,000 years.
What seemed to be "abnormally high prices" of 1899-1901 was brought on by inflation. The cost of producing copper advanced materially because of the high market price. Costs mounted through higher wages paid to the workmen and by the need for increased security around the mines.
The growth of a huddle of tents and shanties into a highly anticipating copper camp took just a few weeks. Central wasn't like Arizona where miners of small means leaped into great wealth within a few weeks. Arizona, after all, saw the wealth of the territory increase "at least 30 million dollar by the rise in the copper markets" according to the editor of the Phoenix Republican.
While the copper craze only affected a small percentage of our local citizens, others went "well nigh daft on copper." Joselle Confair Moyer's great grandfather was Andrew Brosious, the Grandmother of Julia Ann Brosious Confair. Andrew was a geologist and found copper in the Rohrsburg area. He fathered 17 children with his wife Lucinda Bitler from the Catawissa area. He is buried in Mifflinville.
The Pennsylvania Copper and Mining Company had its main office in Jamison City, was incorporated under the laws of Pennsylvania and had "authorized capital of $2,000,000. The metallurgist and assayer for the company, A. S. Fritz, certified in the official prospectus that he had made "more than 70 assays of rock and ore sent and handed me." "Six of these 70 assays contained less than 1 per cent." The report did not say it contained less than 1% of what! The assayer's report continued, "Three contained no copper, but the average of the whole number of assays made for the company is above 4 per cent." Still, people flocked to get in on the copper craze.
The prospectus showed a picture of "Mine No. 1," but the picture looked a lot like the type of soil found in Arizona. Another picture showed workers removing copper "from the surface" to a depth of four feet. The gently rolling hillside filled with round rocks looked nothing like the outcroppings of rock in that area of Fritz Hill. A picture entitled "Prospectors Viewing Ore in Sight" looked somewhat like the side hill where one of the mines was located after the trees had been removed. A picture of a Pennsylvania valley which I am not able to identify was marked "Near Where Plant is Located." Judge for yourself: here is a picture of the plant. The label for the picture says "150 ton capacity. Our product needs no refiner. Plant will run day and night." Do the hills in the background look anything like the hills around Grassmere Park?
By the time the copper mine south of Central took off over a century ago, trains in Arizona were carrying copper out of that state and millionaires were being made and there were rumors that something like 16,000 men were employed in the business of mining copper in Arizona. Financial pages of major eastern cities carried notices of copper companies formed for operating in Arizona.
The Arizona mining town of Jerome, today just a tourist trap after a period of being a ghost town after the copper played out, grew from a population of 800 to 4,000 in two years. The Arizona town of Globe tripled its population in seventeen months and Bisbee doubled in a year.
The price of copper in Arizona climbed to 19 and even to 19 and a half cents a pound and the speculation was on that the price--although high--would actually climb before the price dropped. Few noticed that substitutes for copper were being developed and that the visible supply of usable copper was decreasing. It is interesting to note that in mid-February, 2008, copper is just 8% shy of a new record high, and headed to more than $4 a pound.
Undisputedly the biggest copper mines and smelters in Arizona were in the Black Hills range at Jerome. I still have a picture of Father grinning from ear to ear as he stood under an advertising sign for a restaurant in Jerome. The name of the restaurant was the Ore House, a reference to an old profession once carried on both in the building and in the wild and wooly company town owned by the sprawling United Verde smelting works.
By July 19, 1906, The Wilkes-Barre Times reported that "many Bloomsburg citizens lost money in a copper mining venture at Central and the plant would be sold by sheriff's sale within thirty days on a "debt of $1,000." The situation had gone downhill from the December 11, 1899, headline in the Philadelphia Inquirer which read, "Mineral Craze in Columbia County Assuming Alarming Proportions." The finding of many valuable veins of copper in the northern end of Columbia County is rapidly opening up an industry which promises to put fortunes in the pockets of those who are fortunate enough to control land in that vicinity. The farmers in that vicinity have caught the fever, and some of them have forsaken the plow for the copper business.
The newspaper noted that "considerable money was spent in building up the plant and in the purchase of machinery and the brunt of the cost" was "borne by some who could ill afford it and to whom the comparative failure of the plant has meant the loss of the saving of years."
Other investors in Pennsylvania were dragged down, too. The Philadelphia Inquirer of July 1, 1911, noted that a "supposed gold find" in Chester County was located in a sand mine. The news agitated the community even though newspapers reported that "gold in quantities sufficient to make it pay" was found.
This was the same area where sixty years before the excitement of finding copper, lead and zinc in paying quantizes had taken on the scene of real English mining activity. There simply wasn't enough quantity to warrant the mines and within a few years nothing remained where "thrift and energy had been the attraction." The Inquirer noted that "older persons who remember the copper and zinc craze which overtook the owners of land in that locality are disposed to wait awhile for developments before they enlist their feelings in the excitement which is now rapidly gaining force."
The mining of copper was not one of the most successful endeavors of the upper Fishingcreek Valley, but is worthy of being remembered...
