The Republican journal., 1917-06-14
Copper Mining in Bluehill.

49, >Ae~OAAA~As
Preparations are being made to reopen
and operate the old Douglass copper mine
in. Bluehill. 1t will be remembered by
many, that little less than 40 years ago
a mining craze swept over the State. The
excitement was centered in Bluehill
where copper ore was found and in Sulli-
van where the metal sought was silver
The Douglass was one of the pioneer
mines. At least eleven so-called mines
were opened within half mile of the
Douglass, the most noted of which
were the Bluehill and the Twin Lead.
The region where these operations were
carried on is broken by an irregular chain
of ledge hills, not very high, the foot
hills of Bluehill mountain. A road winds
along between these hills, which seemed
to me never to have been built but to
have evolved from an old logging road.
scanty and half starved growth of trees.
The only farm within the mining area
was the Douglass farm. Here lived Uncle
Vicente Douglass, as we all called that
good old man. His wife was sister of
Capt. Robert and Mr.. Thomas Limeburner,
who were so long citizens of Belfast. A
Gether in their snug little white house
which was upon the sunny side of few
green acres of stony fields. Adjoining
the fields on the westerly side was pas
ture where there was a little earth in
places and much bald ledge. This pas
ture was of some Is OF 20 acres in extent
and when the Douglass mine was organ
lied the lncorporators paid Uncle Vicente
Sl0 900 in good American money for the
pasture and here was then and is now the
Douglass Mine.
About two years later Uncle Veenie sold
the rest of his farm to another mining
corporation for $50 spot cash. The
Douglass mine reached depth of some
what over 200 feet The shaft was ledge
every inch of it from the grass roots
down. A large chamber was blasted out
which l should Judge was 100 feet long,
l6 feet wide and 80 feet high. l think l
have understated the size of this, but |
wish to keep well within bounds in this
article When this rock was hoisted to
the surface it was "cobbed," that is
broken by sledge hammers into pieces
more or less large and then the pieces
were sorted, some going to the ore dump
and some to the waste dump. The COM
pany employed large force of men and
at the end of a year of active work the
ore dump became in truth very large.
The problem then was to turn this ore
into money. The company had no re-
duction works, no smelter, no crush
ing stamps. The ore was chalcopyrite
which, plainly stated, is combination of
copper, sulphur and iron. The chalcopy-
rite was embedded in very hard quartzite
The Douglass company decided to use the
concentration process, by which they ex-
pected to get rid of the quartzite and
would then ship the concentrate to New
Jersey for reduction. A big building was
erected and equipped. The rock first
went through crushing stamp. From
this it passed through between three sets
of Cornish steel, chill hardened rollers.
When the last set finished it's work the
rock was reduced to a powder. The dust
then was washed in set of rifles, so ar
ranged that the water carried off the
lighter quartz dust and the ore dust fell
to the bottom of the rifle tanks. This
plan did not prove successful because,
owing to the hardness of the quartzite,
the rolls soon were made worthless. This
experiment must have cost the company
1000 before it was abandoned.
The company then decided to erect
smelter. The first thing to be done was
to get rid of the sulphur. Quantities of
wood were obtained, part of which was
cross piled on space about an eighth of
an acre in extent. On top or this was
piled layer of rock from the ore dump.
Then another layer of wood, then more
ore, till high pile was made. The wood
was then set on fire. The fire shoulder
ed and fumes of sulphur filled the air.
These fumes killed all the vegetation in
the vicinity, and later on the fall rains
leached the ashes and the water ran into
a nearby pond and killed the fish. In the
mean time smelter had been built and
battling effort was made to separate the
copper from the rock. The flux ordi-
narily used in smelling was not adapted
to the treatment of Douglass ore. Suffi-
Gent success was had, however, to enable
the company to smelt and refine a few
thousand dollars worth of fine ingot cop
per. When the Douglass mine opened