A View ofthe LeadMines ofMissouri, by Henry Schoolcraft: The First Book Written on Mining on the Western Frontier
By Roben Sorgenfrei
Heruy Rowe Schoolcraft, if he is remembered could not compete against cheaper and better at ali today, is known for his ethnographic writ quality British products. In 1817, Schoolcraft was ings on Native Americans of tJ1 e Great Lakes forced to declare bankruptcy and liquidate his Region. His principal biographer, Richard G. family's business. Unable to remain and endure Bremer, characterized him as an "Indian Agent d1e humiliation of fmancial failure, Schoolcraft and Wilderness Scholar." 1 l..Gugely forgotten is headed 'vest to Missouti Tenitory. his contribution to American mining history in Wid1 the Louisiana Purchase of 1803, Ameli d1e fotm of his book, published by Charles Wiley cans gained new westem lands to explore and in 1819: A View qf tbe Lead Mines qfi 11issouri: natural resources to exploit. French settlers had Including Some ObseJvcttions on tbe Minera!Og) l, discovered lead in what became d1e l\tlissouri Geolog)J, Geography, Antiquities~ Soil, Climate, Territoty, and d1ey had mined it on a small scale Population, cmd Productions ofi l1issouri and in the second half of the eighteend1 centwy. In Arkansaw, and Otber Sections of tbe 1Vestern 1763, tich, near-surface lead deposits were dis Count1y. Schoolcraft's book is me first published covered at Mine au Breton, and major mining about d1e western mining frontier. activity shifted to d1e area around Potosi, in Wash Heruy Schoolcraft was born into a well-to ington County. In 1798, Moses Austin, fad1er of do family in 1793 near Albany, New York. Al Stephen Austin, obtained a Spanish land grant though he never went to college, he did attend covering many of the important mines around schools in New York state and was vety well Potosi. He also intt·oduced in1proved mining reacl. He amassed a sizable libraty in d1e sci and smelting techniques to d1e region.2 ences, especially mineralogy. He was well versed In 1804, Austin wrote an eight-page repott in d1e chemisuy of glass and in the technical on d1e mines in d1e region and submitted it to aspects of its manufacture. Schoolcraft also be President Thomas Jefferson, giving the ftrst ac came acquainted wid1 Frederick Hall, a profes curate information on lead mining in d1e new sor of natural philosophy at Middlebury College. teniroties \-vest of d1e lvlississippi. TI1is lead min Under Hall's guidance, Schoolcraft canied out ing region, centered around the counties of experiments in chemistJy and mineralogy and \Vashington, St. Genevieve, St. Francois,Jefferson, became familiar wid1 d1e chemistty involved in and Madison, is an area about seventy miles long me smelting processes of the time. In 1808, he and forty miles w ide west from d1e Mississippi took over management of family-owned glass River. It covers about 3,150 square miles.3 Heruy factoties in New York, Vermont, and New Hamp Schoolcraft may have become aware of lead shire. mining in Missou1i from d1e Austin Repott, which In 1815, following the end of d1e War of 1812, had been widely circulated and published in British-made glass flooded American market<> at AmeJican State Papers, Public Letncl'i, uo!. 1, a batgain prices. Sd1oolcraft's glass products simply message from the President of the United A View of the Lead Mines of Missouri, hy Heruy Schoolcraft 13
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From: Wharton and Heywarcl, Geology and Ore Deposits of Selected Mines in the Viburnum Trend, (Repott oflnvesitgations, no. 58). Rolla, MO: MissouriDepartnwntofNatumlResources, Division ofResearch and Tecbnicctl!nformation, Geologica!Sun;ey, 1975.p. 2. 14 2004Nlin ingH is!OIJ!]ournal
States to both houses of Congress, dated 8 No One of Schoolcraft's perceptions was d1at d1e vember 1804.4 tenitoty's mining indust:Iy was in great disorder Schoolcraft was also ill
View oftbe Town ofPotosi tal?en from tbefrontispiece qftbe hook. A View of the Lead Mines of Missouri, by He my Scboolcrcifl: 15
graphic desctiption of the lead mining region, along with a histoty of mining activities up until 1818. Schoolcraft desetibed all of the major mine.s in the district, the techniques used in mining and smelting, and he provided a rough calcula tion of lead production. He also conm1ented on govemment policy toward mining and suggested ways it could be changed to benefit the indus tly. He ended the first patt of his book with an essay on the uses of lead. The second part of the book contains Schoolcraft's obsetvations on the area's "geogra phy, mineralogy, geology, antiquities, soil, cli mate, population, and productions." These in clude a catalog of minerals and fossils discov ered, and a journal of his tiip up the Mississippi from the mouth of the Ohio River. The book's second part seems like it was grafted onto the first and, with the exception of the journal of his river trip, is of uneven quality. Had Schoolcraft chosen not to add this section to the book, it Portrait ofHemy Schoolcrc~ji taleen some would have been of little loss to his readers. years after the publication qj" View of Lead 111e book had a print run of one thousand Mines of Missouri. (Courtesy ofthe copies and sold for two dollars. Schoolcraft im Histo1·ical Society of lflisconsin.) mediately sent copies of his book to vatious govemment officials whom he hoped would help author employment or providing significant in secure him appointl11ent as mine inspector. As come from sales, it has remained d1e only de a result, he did meet with some government tailed, accurate account of early lead mining in officials, including Secretmy of War John C. Missouri. Schoolcraft was in some respects Call1oun. Callioun offered Schoolcraft tempo prescient in his writing about mining on what rary employment as mineralogist on the govern was d1en d1e far western frontier of the United ment expedition to the Lake Supetior-Upper Mis States. He saw that mining methods were inef sissippi country under the command of Michi ficient and wasteful and he advocated establish gan Tenitorial Governor Lewis Cass. However, ing a mining school in d1e region to teach and Schoolcraft was unsuccessful in realizing his ul ti-ain experts in d1e manner of tJ1e German rn.in tirnate goal of securing a pennanent job as su ing schools. He realized d1at d1e mining laws of petintendent of mines for Missouri Territoty. Sales d1e tirne, especially d1e du·ee-year leasing regu of A View of the Lead Jl!lines ofJ\Ilissouri were lations, were too restrictive. He proposed relax also disappointing. Schoolcraft had consigned ing d1ose resu·ictions to encow-age d1e industry 500 copies to a leading bookseller who returned Finally, he proposed that a position of tenitorial 489 copies to him in December 1819.8 inspector or superintendent of mines be While A View oftbe Lead Jlllines qj"Missouri established. All of these things c.-ame to pass as was a clisappointl11ent as a means of securing its the nineteenth century progressed. 16 2004Jl!Iining HistOJyjournal
Schoolcraft d escribed mining in Mis souri as follows:
111e method of raising the ores and the processes pursued in separating the metal ore, upon the whole, are C1Y TMI extremely simple. A pick axe and shovel are the only tools in use for removing the ea1th, and the drill, rammer and priming rod are added SOME OBSERVATIONS when it is ncccss~uy to blast. Hav ing determined the spot for digging, US TNI the process commences by measur MINERALOGY, GEOLOGY, GEOGRAPHY, ing off a square of about 8 feet, and
ANTIQUITIES, SOIL, t:Lii'IIATI!:, POPU LA TIO ~. throwing out the earth, spar, and gravel, until d1e miner sinks beneath AND PRODUC'l'lONS the depth he can throw the eatth.
or A practiced hand will pitch his earth clear out of the pit from a depth of MISSOURI AND ARKANSA. W, 10, 12, and even 15 feet. At this depth, a common windlass and bucket is placed over the center of OTtJER SECTIONS Of T HE WESTERN COUNTRY. the pit, and the digging continued by drawing up the earth, spar, and ACCO:U PA I'\ 1&0 BY •rtll\l:t: £NOll!\ \'I .NilS ores, if any are found, in rhe man ner pursued in sinlcing a well.9 DY HENRY n. SCJJOOLCRAF"l', Schoolcraft went o n to write that dig ging a shaft continued as long as promising ore was found. If good ore \.vas not found, -oee~>eeeo- the pit was abandoned and work started NEW-YOJlJC : again elsewhere. I Ie noted d1at no one had
rOILIIUED D>' CHARL:&S \Vl~Y ~ t;O. HO. 3 WAI.L:STn•:r.T. exceeded a depth of e ighty feet, and that J. Seymout. rrlnttr. good ore was to be found at a greater depd1. l::::::::::: This type of mining, with d1e exception the ISH~. blasting, would have been familiar to Title pageqfthejirsl edition, published in 1819 ina Agricola in the sixteenth ccntl.lly. If noth print1un qj"c1tbousand copies. ing else, Schoolcraft's book se1ves as a benchmark for how far mining advanced technologically in the nineteenth centllly. Schoolcraft eventually got a govemment appointment, but not in mining. He se1ved for nineteen years as an Indian agent for tribes in the Great Lakes region. As a re- A View of the Lead Mines of Missouri, by He my Schoolc1·cift 17
sult, he became an expert on Native American uneven quality, it remains a standard refer culture in the area and wrote a number of books ence work on Native American culture of on Native Amelican ethnology. His best-known the mid-nineteenth century. Schoolcraft died book is a six-volume work entitled Historical and in 1864 after a long illness, the same year Statisticl7?formationRespecting the ... Indian Tribes that the first mining school was established qfthe UnitedStcttes(1851-1857) Although of in the United States. ·JIJ
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Log hewtbfurnace . Pri111CIIJI smelling qftbe lead Ashfumace. T!Ji4io nace was used in asecondm y orewasdoneinfurnaceslil~thisineCIJ6; J9th smeltingp1oe~ tha~fiutheJ ·smelted lead out of centuJyJI!fissouriTenitoJy. Tbesmeltingtecbnique lead ash that was l~j} C[j}erthepn·mcoysmelting was U./CIS littlechcmgecU]om the 16th centwy. done in the log hea1tl~(w nace. Lithograph fron'l View of the Lithograph j}·om. Vievv of the Lead Mines of Missouri. Lead Mines of Missouri. 18 2004Mining HistoJyjourna/
Notes:
1 Richard G. Bremer, Indian Agent and Wilderness 4 Moses Austin, "Descriptio n of the Lead Mi nes in Scbo/m :· 'flJe L(fe ~!Hem y Rowe Schoolcrr:(/t (Mount Upper Louisiana," in Report of the Geological Pleasant, Mich.: Clarke Histolical Libraty, Central SuJVey ~[ th e State ofMi ssouri, 686-694. Michigan University, 1987). 5 Bremer, Indian Agent and Wilderness Scbolcn; 15. 2 He 111y Cobb, "Notes on the History of Lead Mining in 6 Bremer, Indian Agent and Wilderness ScboiCII; 23. Missouli," in RejJOJt oftbeGeo/ogica/ Sun-eyoftbeState 7 The lead ore was first roasted in the log hearth ofMissowi, Including tbe Field \\'f01k of 1873-1874 furnace. After the lead o re was roasted, o re that (Jefferson City, NlissoUti: Regan & Catter, State Ptinters was not completely desulphurated was termed & Binders, 1874), 672-685. Due to vatious European slag o r lead ash. Lead ash was washed to get rid settlements, France deeded the Louisiana Tenitoty to of wood ash fro m its initial smelting. This Spain in 1762, regained sovereignty in 1800, then sold material the n underwent secondary smelting in it to the United States in 1803. Duane Meyer, 'flJe the ash furnace, with wood again used as the Helitage ~!Missouri: A Histo1y (Sr. Louis: State fuel. The ash furnace smelted lead ash down to Publishing Company, 1973), 761-2. the point where lead could be recovered from it. 3 Hemy Schoolcraft, A View of tbe Lead Mines of 8 Bremer, Indian Agent and Wilderness ScboiC/1; 24. Missoun".· Including Some ObseJVations on the 9 Schoolcraft, A View~ftbeLeadMin esofMissouri, 90. Mineralogy, Geology, Geography, Antiquities, Soil, Climate, Population, and Productions ~! Jl!Iisso111i and Ark£1nsaw[sic] and Otber Sect ions ofth e Western Count1y(New York: Charles Wiley, 1819), 26-33.