SULLIVAN MINING DISTRICT - PART 1

SULLIVAN MINING DISTRICT - PART 1

Hopefully, the background information about the Town of Sullivan in my earlier posts was informative.  As I move forward there is one other era in Sullivan's history, and its connection to certain individuals, that proved instrumental to the eventual founding of the Sorrento Summer resort.

The early settlers in Sullivan recognized the importance of its natural resources to their livelihoods.  Fishing, timber operations, sawmills, shipbuilding, and stone cutting in its extensive granite queries were just some of the extensive commercial endeavors pursued in Sullivan throughout the 1800s after its founding.

In the latter part of the 19th century, a new industry - mining - sprung up in Sullivan.  After the gold rush in California in the middle of the century, interest in finding similar strikes in other areas of the country exploded.  Like the boom in mining throughout the American West, copper, gold, and silver were discovered in Maine, and mining operations were begun to take advantage of this new resource.

Mining, however, was a capital intensive industry.  In addition to labor to work in the mines, equipment was needed to excavate shafts and professional help needed to engineer the operations.  When money could not be raised among the principals of a mining company, stock was issued to finance the mining companies.

In late the 1870s, the first discoveries of gold and silver in Hancock County brought the founding of several companies to tackle the task of extracting the expected riches.

A mining engineer named C. W. Kempton was the main cheerleader for mining in the area, with technical descriptions to other mining engineers like the one below:

When Kempton first wrote about the mines in the area, there were only a handful of operations in Sullivan.

His enthusiasm was clear, and his descriptions included estimates that the amount of silver or assay could bring $200.00 per ton.  These findings and his belief that more gold and silver could be extracted fueled the development of even more mining companies - SEE MORE -

His illustration of Sullivan shows five mining shafts in the area of Sullivan Falls - the Sullivan, Stimpson, Waukeag, Brook, and Ashley.

At the end of 1879 with mining booming,  the Maine Mining Exchange opened in Bangor to raise money and trade stocks of the new companies being formed to search for gold and silver.

Organized by Isaiah S. Emery, the exchange would eventually take up three floors of a building at 33 West Market Square and where he held weekly sales of mining company stocks.  Hopes of not only raising capital, but making vast sums of money trading in company stock rushed through the area. But an early article cautioned that while "... the excitement is now intense.  It is to be hoped, however, that our people will not get wild.  Mining should be carried out as a legitimate business and not pure speculation."

An Indianapolis paper reprinted a letter written to the Boston Herald that reported on the new exchange and urged caution in the markets for these companies.  Published under the heading "Prospect of a rush into the business of mining and ming-stock speculation - is there any wealth hidden in the hills and rocks of the pine-tree state?"  The observer describes the scene and "mining fever" he observed at the Bangor Exchange where he found"...the discoverers, the mature geologists; the staid old farmers, who have found iron pyrites on their land, the youths who have read about of the great western bonanza and have heard of nearer deposits and have glowing hopes, the schoolmasters, who have not been taught that a little learning is a dangerous thing; the professors, who come here to show us what we have, and last and most dangerous, the mining experts."

Interest in Maine mining stocks increased and the pages of the Boston papers soon began to run quotes of the stocks traded in Bangor.

In 1880 the Maine Mining Journal began publication in Bangor by brothers Edward and William Blanding  and was filled with news and advertising for various mining equipment and services.  It wanted to "...pursue a conservative course..." and to "...guard the friends of the industry against any undue excitement."

Toward the end of its run, the journal began to expand its coverage into other areas of commerce in Maine, including railroads, quarrying, lumbering, and clothing manufacturing. It also provided coverage of hotels and summer resorts that were popping up along the coast and in Bar Harbor.

As Mark Twain once famously commented, “A gold mine is a hole in the ground owned by a liar,” and in the end, the gentlemen involved in the Sullivan mines may have just been great hucksters.  But it did not slow the boom or stop the sale of stock in Bangor and places even further away.

In February 1880 reports filled the NY TIMES of the Maine mining boom, with the story of investments totaling $2-3 million and land selling for $2,000 per acre.  Hancock County is described as the "...barren and uninviting country along the coast back of the famous Summer report of Mount Desert."  In Sullivan, it tells of mines being "...worked systematically, by shrewd, far-sighted, experienced, hard-headed men, and into the enterprises large sums of money have been put."  At another point, the article explains that "...though there have been great expectations, there have been no great results."  Despite this, hope for strikes in the Spring was expected and capital from Boston, New York, and beyond was supporting the operations.

The following year, a story in the Boston Globe described the operations at three mines on the banks of the Sullivan River - The Sullivan-Waukeag, Milton, and Pine Tree Mines.  During the tour, the reporter is shown a bag holding what he is told is over 707 ounces of silver.

These three mines had groups of investors but most prominent was General John Murray Corse.  General Corse was famous for his heroics in the Civil War during the battle of Altona where his outnumbered troops fought 7,000 confederate soldiers and where Corse was said to have "lost one third of his men and one third of his ear."

Additional details about Corse and the Pine Tree Mine were also covered in John and Marlene Daley's book the "History of Taunton Bay."  Their book recounts their adventures diving in Sullivan Falls, in the old mine shafts, as well as other local histories, including a chapter on the Sullivan mines.

A day after the story ran in the Boston Globe about the visit to the Sullivan Mines, it was announced that bars of silver from the Sullivan mines, valued at $5,500.00, would go on view in Boston.  Announcements such as these no doubt spurred sales of stock and kept the prices high, with the Sullivan-Waukeag stock trading at $7.00 a share.

The 1881-82 volume of the Maine State Year-Book, listed eleven mining companies in Sullivan.  The companies were owned by representatives from Maine, Boston, and New York.

By the following year, however, the speculation in mining companies quickly ended and the stocks practically worthless.  An article 15 years later, says the four-year Sullivan mining boom seemingly only “… provided deserving printers with employment printing stock certificates, many of which even now adorn the walls of suburban back rooms in lieu of ordinary wall-paper.”

While some of the companies, notably the Waukeag mine, may have been legitimate operations, among the others “…the great majority seems to have been projected simply to provide pabulum for the craze for speculating in cheap stock.”

Milton Mining went from $1.50 down to .30 and eventually .4 and eventually disappeared.  The Pine Tree Mine stock went from $3.50 to nothing.  The boom had finished and with it taken the fortunes of hundreds of investors.