In the month of March, 1848, Samuel O. Knapp and J.B. Townsend
discovered, from tracks in the snow, that a hedgehog had taken up his
winter-quarters in a cavity of a ledge of rocks, about twelve miles from
Ontonagon, Lake Superior, in the neighborhood of the Minnesota Copper
Mine. In order to capture their game, they procured a pick and shovel,
and commenced an excavation by removing the vegetable mould and rubbish
that had accumulated about the mouth of what proved to be a small cavern
in the rock. At the depth of a few feet they discovered numerous stone
hammers or mauls; and they saw that the cavern was not a natural one,
but had been worked out by human agency, and that the stone implements,
found in great profusion in and about it, were the tools used in making
the excavation. Further examination developed a well-defined vein of
native copper running through the rock; and it was evidently with a view
of getting this metal that this extensive opening had been made.
This was the first instance where "ancient diggings"--as they are
familiarly called in the Lake Superior region--were ever recognized as
such; and this artificial cavern presents the most conclusive proofs
that a people in the remote past worked those mines. Upon the discovery
of this mine, attention was at once directed to numerous other cavities
and depressions in the surface of the earth at this and other points,
and the result was that nearly a hundred ancient pits were found, and in
all of them mining-tools of various kinds. These ancient mines or pits
are not restricted to one locality, but extend over the entire length of
the copper region, from the eastern extremity of Keweenaw Point to the
Porcupine Mountains, a distance of nearly one hundred miles.
In some of the ancient diggings, the stone hammers have the marks of
hard usage, fractured or battered faces, and a large proportion of them
are broken and unfit for use; but in other pits the hammers are all
sound, and many of them have the appearance of never having been used.
These hammers, or mauls, which are of various sizes, and not uniform in
shape, are water-worn stones, of great hardness, similar in all respects
to those that are found in abundance on the shore of the Lake, or in the
gravel-banks of that region. They are generally trap-rock, embracing the
varieties of gray, porphyritic, hornblendic, sienitic, and amygdaloidal
trap, and appear to have had no labor expended upon them except the
chiselling of a groove around the middle for the purpose of attaching a
withe to serve as a handle. In a few instances, I have noticed small
hammers, usually egg-shaped, without a groove; and the battered or worn
appearance at one end was all that induced the belief that they were
ever used for hammering.
These hammers are usually from six to eight inches in length, and from
eight to twelve inches in circumference, and weigh from four to eight
pounds; but I have measured specimens that were twenty-four inches in
circumference at the groove, and would weigh thirty pounds. It seems
hardly probable that one man could wield so ponderous a tool; and from
the fact that some of the large mauls have two grooves around them, it
is presumed that two men were employed in using them.
Stone hammers are found in all the ancient diggings, and in some
instances the number is almost incredible. From the pits near the
Minnesota mines it is estimated that ten cart-loads have been removed; I
was informed that a well there was entirely stoned up with them, and
from the great number still remaining I am inclined to believe the
report. A still greater number are said to have been found at the
Mesnard and Pontiac Mines, in the Portage Lake district. Farther east,
in the vicinity of the Cliff and Central Mines, they are also abundant;
and it would seem, from the circumstance of their being invariably found
in the pits, that the law among the ancient miners was similar to the
one adopted by the adventurers in California a few years since, who
established their claims by leaving their tools upon the land or in the
pits where they were digging for gold.
In addition to the stone implements, copper chisels, wedges, or "gads,"
are often found in the abandoned mines; and in the vicinity, as well as
in places more remote, other copper relics are found, consisting of
knives, spear-points, and rings, like the bracelets of the present day.
In a collection at the Douglas House, in Houghton, Portage Lake, are
ornaments of this kind, and also some spear-heads, nicely wrought and
similar in shape and size to the blade of a spontoon. But I have never
seen a copper relic that had the appearance of having been melted. They
invariably appear to have been cut and hammered into shape from a mass
of native copper.
Colonel Charles Whittlesey, of Cleveland, Ohio, who has examined these
"ancient diggings," has several interesting relics, some of which he has
figured and described in the thirteenth volume of the "Smithsonian
Contributions to Knowledge." In the Vermont State Cabinet is a
spear-head of native copper, about six inches long, which was found in
Williston, Vermont, in 1843.
It may be proper here to remark, that the copper in these relics is
tougher than that which has been fused, and so is the native copper of
Lake Superior; and occasionally in these copper relics blotches and
grains of native silver are found. These circumstances serve to
establish the fact, that the material of which the implements were made
was obtained at Lake Superior; for there, and nowhere else in America,
is native silver found in grains, and sometimes in considerable masses,
imbedded in a matrix of native copper. I well remember, when a boy,
reading an article relating to the "Lost Arts," in which the fact was
stated, that a piece of metal consisting of pure copper and silver had
been found in Hamilton County, Ohio, and that a copper knife had been
found in one of the ancient mounds at Marietta, which had distinct
blotches of pure silver in it. The writer of the article claimed that
the people who manufactured that knife were in the possession of an art,
now lost, by which copper and silver could be melted and
indiscriminately mixed, but upon cooling would separate and remain
distinct and pure, instead of forming an alloy. The discovery of native
copper and silver similarly associated in the Lake Superior mines has
not only destroyed this theory, but has established beyond a doubt the
locality whence that copper knife, and other relics found in the ancient
mounds and elsewhere, were obtained.
Billets of wood that bear the marks of a tolerably sharp-cutting tool
are often found in the old mines where water has been suffered to remain
since their abandonment. In the Waterbury Mine wooden shovels were found
about three and one half feet long, some of which were much worn upon
the blade, and appeared as though they had been used for scraping
together and throwing out the refuse rock and dirt from the mine.[A] At
the same locality a wooden bowl was found, the side being so worn as to
show conclusively that it had been used for baling water from the mine.
Similar implements have been found at the mines in the Portage Lake and
Ontonagon districts. When first found, these wooden implements appear
sound, and being thoroughly saturated with water are heavy and can be
handled without breaking; but when dried they often crack and warp so as
to retain little of their original form and appearance. It is to be
regretted that but few of these wooden relics were saved and properly
preserved by those who found them. In a few instances the wooden withe
or handle has been found attached to the hammers, but upon being dried
they usually fall to pieces.
At the Hilton Mine in the Ontonagon district, in October, 1863, as the
men were removing the vegetable mould that had accumulated in one of the
old pits, they found at the depth of about nine feet a leather bag,
which was eleven inches long and seven inches wide. It was lying upon a
mass of native copper which the ancient miners had unsuccessfully
attempted to remove from its parent vein. The bag was in a remarkable
state of preservation, the leather being quite pliable and as tough as
sheepskin. It was made up with the hair inside, was sewed across the
bottom and up one side with a leather string, and near the top holes
were cut and a leather string inserted to close the mouth by drawing it
together. The bag was empty, but from its appearance I judged that it
had been used for transporting copper or other mineral,--the leather in
places showing marks of much service, and the hair being almost entirely
worn off. I was unable to determine what kind of skin it was, but
inclined to the belief that it was from the walrus, as the short, stubby
hairs more closely resembled those of that animal than of any other with
which I am acquainted. At the time I saw the bag,--the day after it was
discovered,--it was in the possession of C. M. Sanderson, Esq., the
agent of the Knowlton Mine; but I hear it has since been taken to Boston
and sold.
In several of the ancient mines considerable masses of pure copper
detached from the main lode have been found, which were left there by
those who mined it. At the Central Mine, not far from Eagle Harbor, a
mass of copper was found in one of these old pits that weighed forty-six
tons. Every portion of the surface was smooth, and appeared as though it
had been hammered by those who detached it from its original vein. In
the Mesnard Mine, in the Portage Lake district, a detached mass of
copper was found that weighed eighteen tons, hammered smooth like the
mass before named.
But the most interesting specimen was found in an old pit near the
Minnesota Mine. In removing the accumulated leaves and vegetable mould,
the workmen, at the depth of eighteen feet, discovered a mass of copper
ten feet long, three feet wide, and more than a foot thick, weighing six
tons. On removing the earth around the mass, it was found to rest upon
skids, or timbers, piled up to the height of about five feet. These
timbers, having been constantly covered with water, were in a good state
of preservation, and at the ends showed plainly the marks of the tool
used in cutting them. It was thought by those who saw the billets when
they were plump, that they were a species of oak; but the few remaining
pieces which I have seen were so cracked and shrivelled that I have been
unable to form an opinion as to the kind of wood. This mass of copper,
like all others found in those ancient pits, was divested of all its
ragged points, and hammered perfectly smooth. There was nothing in its
appearance to show that it had ever been cut from another mass; but upon
clearing out the rubbish from the bottom of the mine, which was about
twenty-six feet below the surface, a vein of pure metal was found from
which this had evidently been taken.
A few unfinished jobs have been found in these ancient pits, which throw
some light upon the manner in which the work was carried on. In two
instances there were projecting masses somewhat resembling urns, or
inverted short-necked bottles, and completely smoothed by hammering,
especially at the thinner portion or neck. It appears that the ancient
miners first removed the rock from around the veins of copper. This was
done by building fires upon or about it, and, when heated, crumbling it
by throwing on water. By means of stone mauls the fragments were broken
up and removed. When the vein was sufficiently exposed on all sides, a
point was selected where the copper was thinner or narrower than the
average of the vein. Here they commenced cutting off a mass, and by
patient and long-continued hammering severed the two portions of the
vein. In all the ancient mines which I have visited there is abundant
evidence that fire was extensively used in the removal of rock; for not
only do the rocks give proof of having been heated, but charcoal and
ashes are invariably found at the bottom of all the rock excavations.
In general, the mining was done by surface openings along the line of
the outcrop of the vein; but occasionally adits are driven into the
rock, similar to the one first discovered at the Minnesota Mine before
alluded to.
The surface mines are usually nearly filled with leaves and vegetable
mould that have accumulated during the centuries that have elapsed since
their abandonment, and till within a few years a heavy growth of timber
covered the land; hence the numerous slight depressions that occurred
along the line of the vein excited no suspicion that they were
artificial excavations. By the closest observers they were regarded as
natural depressions, caused either by the disintegration of the
underlying rock or the peculiar manner in which the overlying drift was
deposited. In many of these depressions, which have proved to be
abandoned mines, trees of enormous size are found growing, some of which
are ascertained, by counting their concentric rings, to be four hundred
years old. At the Hilton Mine, directly over the leather bag before
alluded to, there was a hemlock-tree about three feet in diameter. I
noticed the stump of a tree nearly four feet in diameter in a gap near
the Rockland Mine, where a hill had been actually cut asunder by these
ancient miners, and a deep valley formed by the removal of the rock.
Until very recently this valley was not recognized as an ancient mine;
for, being ten rods in width, and cutting nearly at right angles across
the strata of the rock that formed the hill, it was considered too
extensive to have been made by human hands, and was supposed to be the
result of natural causes. But about two years since, during a very dry
time, a destructive fire swept through the woods, and so completely
burned up all the vegetable matter accumulated there as to expose the
underlying rock, and reveal its true character. After the fire had done
its work, it was found that copper veins, which had been worked, ran
through the rock in the gap, and that the great bank upon the south side
of the hill, which was supposed to be a terraced gravel bank, proved to
be a vast accumulation of "attle," or refuse stone, that had been taken
from the artificial gap and deposited there. The stones forming this
immense pile are generally small, and appear to have been broken up by
heating to facilitate their removal from the mine, and possibly may have
been again broken, with the hope of finding copper in them. In the midst
of the pile I noticed several stone hammers, or mauls, some of them
measuring twenty inches in girth around their grooves, and one I brought
away weighing thirty pounds.
When examining this locality, I was struck with a significant fact,
tending to show the long time that must have elapsed since the
abandonment of these mines. I noticed in many instances that the
artificial groove around the hammers was nearly obliterated upon the
upper side, while upon the lower side, less exposed to the abrading
agency of the atmosphere and rains, the groove presented a comparatively
fresh appearance, and even the slight markings made by the tool that cut
them were quite distinct. When I removed the overlying rock, and found a
grooved maul in a protected spot, the groove was generally as fresh as
though it had been made but a few months before. The compact nature of
the stone of which these hammers are made, and their ability to resist
the action of weather and moisture, prove conclusively that much time
has been required to disintegrate their surface so as to obliterate the
artificial work which has been expended upon them.
I feel unwilling to leave this subject without instituting an inquiry
relative to the time when these mines were wrought, and the people who
worked them. Many who have been taught to regard the present roving
tribes of Indians as instinctively wise in matters of medicine and
mining are ready to award to that race the credit of having worked these
mines; but, inasmuch as even a traditional knowledge of their existence
was unknown to the Indians at the time the Jesuit missionaries visited
that region in the sixteenth century, we incline to the opinion that an
other and distinct race worked them. I am unable to see why the
descendants of a people residing in the same country, and subject to the
same wants, should abandon the half-worked mines which their ancestors
had opened, and even fail to hand down to their posterity a tradition of
their existence. If copper was in such demand that the ancestors of the
present race of Chippeways were induced to work so perseveringly to
obtain it, why did not the children continue to work, at least enough to
finish the jobs already commenced by their progenitors? We cannot
consistently attribute the Herculean labor expended on these mines to
the ancestors of the indolent race of North American Indians. We
incline, rather, to the opinion that the miners were the mound-builders,
who resided south of the mines, and ultimately found a home in Mexico.
The condition in which the mines were left favors this theory; for in
many instances unfinished jobs are found,--as in the case of the mass of
copper upon skids at the Minnesota Mine, and the half-severed veins in
other mines. May we not reasonably suppose that the miners came from the
South and worked during the summer months, returning to their homes in
winter? The circumstance that no traces of their habitations or
burial-places have ever been discovered in the immediate vicinity of the
mines leads to the inference that they came from a distance; and the
fact that copper rings, chisels, and knives, and occasionally stone
hammers, are found in the ancient mounds that extend in an unbroken line
from Ohio to Mexico, induces the belief that the ancient miners and the
ancient mound-builders were the same people.
It is said that artificial mounds are found in British America; and I
was informed of one upon the banks of the Ontonagon River, about six
miles from its mouth, but was unable to visit the spot. It is well known
that they are quite abundant in Wisconsin, and extend the entire length
of the Mississippi Valley.
It is a noticeable fact that as we proceed south we find the mounds
generally larger and more symmetrical than those in more northern
latitudes. It would seem that the people who constructed those in
British America, in moving southward, (for we strongly suspect that this
people originally crossed Behring's Strait from Asia,) improved in their
style of building, and, on arriving at the Ohio River, had so far
improved as to be able to construct those interesting works at Marietta,
Moundville, and other points in that region. It was not till about the
time they reached the Ohio Valley that they manufactured pottery. In
that valley, and thence to Mexico, fragments of earthen ware are very
common; and in the mounds entire vessels are not unfrequently found.
Upon reaching Mexico, the mounds are seen to be still further improved
in size and form, and specimens of ancient pottery are more abundant.
The great mound or pyramid at Cholula, which is a fair type of the
mounds in Mexico, is fourteen hundred and twenty-three feet square at
the base, and one hundred and seventy-seven feet high, being larger than
the celebrated pyramids of Egypt. This immense structure is said to have
been built by the Toltecs, a people who, according to tradition, as
communicated to the Spaniards, entered Mexico from the North in the year
A.D. 648, and established their capital on the northern confines of the
great valley of Mexico, at Tula, the remains of which city were visible,
and a record made of them, at the time of the Conquest by Cortés.
This people were said to have possessed a good knowledge of agriculture,
and were well instructed in many useful mechanic arts. They mixed gold
and copper, and were experts in working these metals. For a period of
four hundred years they occupied the territory of Mexico or Anahuac; but
secession, and the attendant evils of war, pestilence, and famine,
greatly reduced their numbers, and the race disappeared from the land to
give place to their successors, the Aztecs, who also emigrated from the
North. Remnants of the Toltec race are said to have migrated still
farther south, and to have spread over Central America; and the
remarkable correspondence of dates inclines us to the belief that the
famous Manco Capac, whom the Peruvians worshipped as the founder of
their empire, may have been a wanderer from that once happy, but then
unfortunate people. The useful arts, which he made known to the
semi-barbarous people among whom he settled, instead of originating in
the great luminary of the day, and being brought to earth by a "child of
the Sun," as they were taught, are far more likely to have been
cultivated by the Toltecs in the days of their prosperity, and, on the
dissolution of their government, transmitted by those who, fearing the
result, had fled and taken refuge with the credulous Peruvians. Whether
the stupendous ruins of temples found at Mitla, Palenque, and Uxmal were
the work of the Toltecs or the Aztecs, is immaterial. It is sufficient
for the purposes of this paper to show that a people inhabited Mexico
prior to and at the time of the Conquest, who were far in advance of the
roving tribes of Indians that subsisted in the more northern and eastern
portions of North America.
At the time of the conquests of Mexico and Peru, numerous cities were
found in those countries, and magnificent temples and palaces abounded,
some of which were richly decorated with massive images of solid gold,
others ornamented with fantastic and sometimes hideous figures carved
out of the solid rock. But what is remarkable, no _iron_ implements were
used, nor did the inhabitants have the least knowledge of its use,
notwithstanding iron ore was plentifully distributed through the country
in which they lives. Not a trace of iron has ever been found in those
grand ruins of Yucatan visited by Stephens and Catherwood; nor do the
ruins of the holy city, Cuzco, give evidence that implements of iron
were used in its construction. But the people of these countries were
acquainted with many of the metals, and the Spanish invaders found
numerous silver, tin, and copper mines that had been worked by them. All
the deep, winding galleries of these mines were driven without the aid
of iron, steel, or gunpowder. It is said that an alloy of tin and copper
was used for their edge-tools; and with the aid of a silicious sand or
dust, they were enabled to cut and polish amethysts, emeralds, porphyry,
and other hard substances. With these implements the elaborate carving
in the stone temples of Palenque and the other ruined cities of Central
America was executed. The great calendar-stone, which in 1790 was
disinterred in the city of Mexico, was nicely wrought out of a block of
dark porphyry, that is estimated to have weighed fifty tons, and must
have been transported several leagues; for the nearest point where
porphyry of that character is found is upon the shores of Lake Chalco,
many miles distant from the city of Mexico. In the absence of iron, some
tough metal would be in requisition for the tools and machinery
necessary in the execution and removal of such a gigantic and elaborate
work. In many abandoned quarries in Mexico and Central America
unfinished blocks of granite and porphyry are found, which are supposed
to have been the work of the Toltecs, and abandoned by them at the time
of the invasion of the fierce Aztec. Assuming this to be the fact, we
can readily conceive why the half-raised mass of copper in the Minnesota
Mine should also be abandoned; for a people suddenly scattered as the
Toltecs were--so suddenly as to leave temples half finished, and blocks
of stone half hewn--would have no further use for copper tools; and
hence the raw material would no longer have a value. In the abandoned
quarries near Mitla, amid fragments of pillars and architraves and
half-finished blocks of granite, copper axes, chisels, and wedges were
found in abundance; but the same inordinate love of money that prompted
adventurers to flock to Chiriqui, a few years since, to rob the ancient
burying-grounds of their golden idols, induced others to search the old
quarries and mines of Mexico and Central America, and take from them any
relics that were intrinsically valuable.
In Mexico, the mounds were built so that their summits were visible from
every portion of the surrounding city, in order that the inhabitants
might continually have in view the sacred fires that were ever kept
burning on each side of the sacrificial altar. The same is strikingly
true of the mounds at the West; for they are invariably placed so that
their summits occupy a commanding position,--a circumstance that has
induced many to suppose them to have been built for military purposes,
and to have served as watch-towers. But when we reflect that the attacks
of savage or half-civilized peoples are usually made in the night-time,
we shall hardly suppose these structures were raised for any such
purpose. The Pyramid of Cholula is composed of alternate layers of brick
and clay, or possibly of burnt and unburnt brick; and others in Mexico
are built of unburnt brick. Many of the mounds in the West are of
clay,--perhaps of unburnt brick,--in situations where clay is not so
abundant as other earths.
I recollect visiting Circleville, Ohio, when it was really a
_Circle_-ville. An octagonal court-house stood upon an ancient mound,
and the dwellings and stores were built upon an ancient circular wall of
earth that encompassed an area around the mound. South of this circular
inclosure, and joining it, was a square inclosure of several acres,
surrounded by a wall about ten feet high. What is remarkable, this
square wall--and we presume the same is true also of the mound and
circular wall--was built of clay, perhaps of unburnt brick, that must
have been transported a considerable distance; for no clay exists upon
that alluvial bottom, and the nearest point where it is found is three
fourths of a mile distant, across a considerable creek. On a subsequent
visit to this place, I found the people using the clay from the wall of
the square inclosure for making brick, and streets had been cut across
the circular inclosure, so that the city is no longer entitled to the
name of Circleville. In many instances, the ruined cities of Central
America have inclosures resembling those at Circleville, surrounding the
Teocallis, or sacred temples, which almost invariably stand upon mounds,
or, as they are commonly called, pyramids.
With these many points of resemblance, the conclusion is irresistible,
that the mounds of the West were but the germs of the more symmetrical
pyramids of Mexico and Central America, and that the people who
constructed them were, in intelligence and civilization, far in advance
of the roving tribes of North American Indians who inhabited the country
at the time of its discovery.
If it be true, as tradition informs us, that the Toltecs were a
cultivated race, even more advanced than the Aztecs who occupied Mexico
at the time of the Conquest, we may reasonably suppose that a metal so
valuable to them as copper would be in great demand, and that mines of
it, even at a remote distance, would be worked by a people, the
construction of whose religious temples and royal palaces, and, it would
seem, their nationality even, depended upon its possession.
Other evidence might be adduced to show that the extensive mining-pits
on the shores of Lake Superior were not the work of the indolent and
untutored race of Indians who now inhabit that region, nor of their
ancestors, but of a people comparatively well acquainted with the
mechanic arts. Our article, however, has already extended beyond the
limits contemplated. I therefore leave the subject, with the hope that
the few hints here thrown out may awaken other and abler minds to its
investigation.