The Ely miner. [volume] (Ely, Minn.) 1895-1986, 1929-09-27
SEVEN RON MEN

of Duluth on her sons railroad, and
is lifted up in his arms to see the
great iron mine that he and his
brothers and his nephews discovered.
Lewis Merritt, who knew nothing of
iron mines but who inspired his son
to spend his life looking for one where
other men said it could not be, was
awaiting his family when it arrived at
Duluth He was "a fellow with strong
Jaws wider than the top of his head.
with dark, almost terrible eyes it was
hard for ordinary folks to look into"
From these two came the seven
iron men" And what sevenl Tenn
perate, square shooting, tough, opti-
misticl
First of all there was Leonidas, the
leader, aggressive, obstreperous, the
huskiest of the lot and the widest
dreamer, something Of a braggart, a
poet who wrote his verses to urge the
people of Duluth to build him rail-
road; stern but soft-hearted, bull
necked, a real builder. 1t was Leoni-
das to whom the other six brought
home samples of all likely looking
rock they found on their journeys
through the woods 1t was Leonidas
who remembered his fathers prophecy
and said:
I'VE were not discouraged and man
aged to get through the winters COM
fortably, and at each succeeding spring,
we whistled with the blackbirds and
Sang with the robins, because we
knew ere long that the worlds home
less hosts would file past our doors
to take possession of a smiling land"
There was Alfred, silent, sober, de-
pendable, bespectacled, dropping mus
tached, the balance wheel for bis
brother, Lon. Alfred was formid-
able trader and better and shrewder
business man than Lon. There was
CasSius, fiercely concentrated, earnest,
religious, nervous, but sweet-tempered.
CasSius was the real explorer, who
could find anything or any place in
the woods There was Lewis, the son
who would never set the world on
fire but didn't drink and some way
made ends meet" These were these
four brothers and their three nephews,
John E., the son of Lucien, the Metho-
dist preacher, John E., the mild, kind,
poetical worshipper of his uncle Lon;
Wilbur, squat, heavy, son of the eld-
est Merritt, Jerome, and true voya-
geur; and Bert, Wilbur's lean-jawed
brother
There were other Merritts of course
of I1n nj
MerrittS who stuck Loyalty together,
who profited when the seven profited
and lost when the seven lost. But it
was these seven who found the Mes
saba range, who developed it and lost
it.
There we're hard years ahead of that
discovery, years Mr.. DeKruif has des-
cribed ably. The brothers did every
thing, fought Indians, built them
selves ship, surveyed, learned to box
compass, chopped lumber in the
forests, traded, went on months-long
cruises in the bush where it was raw
and cold and dismal-but they never
found iron in the Messaba, those an
cient grandmother hills, that the In
dams called the giants range Every
one said there was no iron there.
Cassius Clipped of some rock with
iron in it in 1864 but it proved to
be worthless and nonpaying commerce
tally But the brothers and their
nephews kept on. In 1888 Cassius
found lump on Missabe Heights and
after Is years of searching the
brothers were getting warm. Their
unbelievable enthusiasm had not
lessened with their continuous failures
After Cassius found the lump with
real iron, the seven set out and map
ped those hills for magnetic attrac-
ton, foot by foot. De Kruif shows us
this picture:
"It's comical, rather brave, some
what pitiful picture you see-of this
gang of impossible scientists, boards
on them, the smell of the days fruit
less digging, and bushwhacking cling
ing to them, as they plan and argue
before their campfire. They sit there
in their mackinaw pants and heavy
socks, their cowhide boots steaming
close by. Ions pipe coal fits about
like some bobbing gigantic freely, as