Since 1998 - Historical and Genealogical Resources
for the Upper New River Valley of North Carolina and Virginia
Debow's Review, September 1860.
From time to time we have published a great deal in regard to this very prolific mineral region, and intend very soon in person to visit some portion of it.
There is scarcely a more inviting field for capital in any portion of the Union. The Charleston Evening News recently argued in favor of the Blue Ridge Road being directed toward this sections instead of to Knoxville, and said, among other things:
The small area known as Ducktown, although embracing a number of square miles, is but a select spot in that extensive mineral region, which covers Western North Carolina. East Tennessee, and Northern Georgia, through the mountain ranges. The veins of chief value and greatest extent are of copper; but the whole district abounds in iron, gold, and in remoter points, coal. The gold mines of Dahlonega and Brasstown Creek are in these local connections. So the coal mines now in active operation near Chattanooga, where the Tennessee river makes the important southern gap in the Alleghany or Blue Ridge mountain chain, are in the same connections, and furnish fuel for mining or railroad purposes at a very cheap rate.
Ducktown embraces some twenty mines, which either are now worked, or have been worked, and which are again to be. In its amphitheatre of moun tains, the Mobile and other mines in Georgia, across the Tennessee line, are included. They all lie but a few miles apart. They are of copper, very rich, employ some thousands of hands, and represent some millions of capital. From them the immediate anticipated annual productions of copper ore will amount to some five thousand tons smelted ore, yielding from sixty to ninety per cent of pure metal. This, at an average of $4 per one per cent. of pure copper, and seventy per cent. of pure metal, will give $315 per ton, or over $1,500,000 as the annual moneyed receipts of the Ducktown properties and speculations.
Nearly all the mines are now supplied with furnaces and other smelting appa ratus, or they are being erected. A railroad communication with this rising and wealthy community has become important This importance will be duly esti mated, and the effects of the railroad facilities comprehended, when we say that, in due time and at an early period, manufactories of copper in all the forms of its use, and of verdigris, copperas, &c., will spring up, and further extend the industry, productions, and wealth of that remarkable locality.
It afforded us, when at Ducktown, much curious gratification to go down some hundreds of feet into the bowels of the earth, and see the mode and fact of mining. We have in our office some specimens of the ore taken from the veins or lodes, and some of the smelted ore, as ready to be sent to market, and reduced at the finer works in the cities to a condition for use. Any of our friends or fellow-citizens can see them by calling at our office.
There are many companies of large capital engaged in these mining ventures, who are actively prosecuting their enterprises, and developing a new world of wealth within our reach. There are companies from London, Boston, New-York, Baltimore, Mobile, and New-Orleans. Charleston and Philadelphia are not directly interested. Many Tennesseans and Georgians are, of course, interested, and some of them, plain but energetic men, are now millionaires. The field of enterprise and fortune is almost fabulous, and in but few years will be a great centre of wealth. Of all mines, those of copper and iron are the most exhaustless and the most profitable.
The English, Welsh, and Germans, who have acquired their experience and skill at home in mining, are the leading employees and inhabitants of Ducktown. But many Americans and Irish are also engaged as laborers. The plain country people around are taking a large industrial part in wagoning off the ore, or in digging in the mines.
The copper veins in the Ducktown amphitheatre are numerous, but constitute a belt which traverses it and even the high adjoining mountains. They can now be quite readily traced. Yet even where there are no marked signs on their line, some of the richest mines have been found. One does not know when he may stumble upon the most magnificent bed of ore. The penetration of a few feet may test the existence of a lead which, if discovered, must be followed up until the vein is reached some fifty or a hundred feet below. A thousand dollars will readily serve to examine any locality. This Ducktown district has been well examined by Dr. Richard O. Curry, professor of chemistry and late geologist of Tennessee, Professor M. F. Maury, of Washington, and Professor Sheppard, of Charleston. South of Ducktown, in Georgia, ten or more miles distant, there are parallel veins of copper and iron. This section is now in the market for investigation and speculation.
The mode of establishing a mining company and working a mine, is curious to those uninitiated. If a quarter section, or one hundred and sixty acres, be found to contain a probably rich vein, it rises immensely in value-from a few hundred dollars to some hundreds of thousands. The proprietor desires to sell. The usual plan and course is: estimate the mine or property at, sav $200,000; embody a company with, say $500,000 capital. The capital will be divided into stock or small shares. The subscribers would be required to pay in only about forty per cent. This would furnish the $200,000, or purchase-nmoney; of which the proprietors would agree that about $40,000 should be reserved for means to open and start and work the mines. As an offset to this appropria tion, they would claim to have allowed them about $50,000 worth of stock.
Thus half the stock would be taken by the original owner and the incoming subscribers, or $250,000. The mining operations are begun, and prove profit able. The annual profit pays, say, a good per cent. on the whole nominal stock.
Thus the whole stock of $500,000 becomes available in the market. The original holders sell out the surplus shares of $250,000 to other parties, who lose nothing, reimburse themselves for the original outlay, and yet hold one half the mining interest.
The arrangements are continually being made.