Stories in Stone: How Geology Influenced Connecticut History and Culture

3. Connecticut’s Geologic Treasures: Gems and Ores

Connecticut’s Geologic Treasures Gems and Ores Why seek foreign shores for precious ores? To me the case is clear we need not roam at all from home! We’ve lots of “owers” here. —Anonymous, 1764 New Hampshire comes to mind when we think about granite, California for gold, and Colombia for emeralds. However, Connecticut ’s Stony Creek was once a major producer of granite, the area around the town of Cobalt yielded gold, and Middlesex quarries provided gemstones. An amazing variety of rocks and minerals occurs in Connecticut, and the remains of quarries can be found almost everywhere . Most of the enterprises that were developed to extract these “riches,” however, were not economically viable. In many cases, bankruptcies brought economic gains for their fraudulent owners only because they kept a large part of others’ investments. The historian Charles Harte wrote that if you had a hole and claimed a valuable mineral deposit within it, all you had to do was organize a company in order “to have the otherwise staid and sedate citizens fall over each other in their rush to subscribe to the venture.” Some Nutmeggers appear to have been quite adroit in attracting such funds. c 3 One farmer even used a shotgun loaded with native copper from the Bristol mine to “seed” the walls of his hole, dug near Cheshire. Despite a long list of failed ventures in this regard, however, Connecticut did provide many valuable rocks and minerals that significantly aided its economic development (fig. I-2). The Salisbury iron deposits brought great wealth to the northwestern part of the state, transforming a wilderness into a major industrial complex that played a crucial role in both the Revolutionary and Civil Wars. Copper ores discovered near Bristol propelled a flourishing brass industry, and barite mined near Cheshire benefited New Haven’s economy. Portland’s brownstone quarries gained a national reputation, and builders used this stone to construct the famous mansions and row houses of New York City. It was eventually exported to almost every city along the eastern seaboard, and several loads were even shipped to San Francisco, by way of Cape Horn, to construct the mansion of a railroad baron. Granite quarries, worked primarily for gravestones and monuments, developed along the coast from Westerly to Greenwich and provided an extra source of income for towns with declining fishing industries. The history of these enterprises, large and small, is a long record of efforts both richly rewarded and disastrously misdirected. Hope ebbed and flowed as fortunes were made and lost, and lives were sacrificed in the deep quarries and dark mines, and in the offices of desolate investors. Governor Winthrop’s Gold Ring and the Connecticut Charter While hunting or exploring the woods surrounding their lands, colonists occasionally discovered useful rocks and minerals. Local street names in villages all over Connecticut attest to many sites where people found (or thought they had found) deposits of lead, silver, tin, and other ores. The most interesting among the latter discoveries is the gold that John Winthrop the Younger supposedly found near presentday Cobalt, and its apparent role in helping him procure a charter from King Charles II of England. Historian Robert Black, who wrote The Younger John Winthrop, reconstructed this eventful day in May 1662: “One can imagine the scene: the sumptuous council chamber, the glittering council, perhaps the king in person, easy and affable for all his over-adornment, and before Connecticut’s Geologic Treasures 57 them the governor of Connecticut quietly but suitably garbed, respectful but never for an instant a sycophant, his homely face aglow, his presentation couched in precisely the right phrases. It was the supreme test of his extraordinary personality, and it did not fail him: petition and charter draft were graciously received.” It passed the seals, or was officially signed, on April 20. The charter enormously magnified the territory of Connecticut’s tiny original confederation of three towns, stating that its boundaries were to run “on the East by Norrogansett River commonly called Norrogansett Bay . . . and on the North by the Lyne of the Massachusetts Plantations and on the South by the Sea, and . . . from the said Norrogansett Bay on the East to the South Sea on the West Parte with all the Islands therevnto adjoyneinge.” The “South Sea” in this case referred 58 stories in stone Fig. 3–1. Top: John Winthrop Jr...