Early Mining

Title

Early Mining

Description

Christian County (Mo.) genealogical indexes

Subject

Genealogy, Family history, Christian County (Mo.)

Creator

Christian County Library

Publisher

Midwest Genealogy Center, Mid-Continent Public Library, Independence, Missouri

Date

2020-02

Contributor

Christian County Library

Rights

Rights Information

Format

text/PDF (Portable Document Format); 108 KB

Language

English

Type

Text

Identifier

ccm036

extracted text

EARLY CHRISTIAN COUNTY MINING
By Wayne Glenn, 2009
After finishing a book on Christian County’s first 150 years, this author decided to look
into an element of the county’s history that I had become aware of when doing research
for that book.
I had seen a few references to the county’s mining past, but I had no idea how significant
the search for gold, lead, iron ore, coal, zinc, copper, etc. were in helping settle the
southeast quarter of Christian County.
Having time for additional research, I quickly came upon many 19th century references to
mining in future Christian County (before 1859) and even more detailed information
about local mining after the county was established. It is even likely that the search for
minerals played a role in the movement to create Christian County from already existing
counties.
In my book on Christian County’s 150 year history, we recited passages from geologist
Henry Schoolcraft’s monumental writings on his 1818-1819 trip to future Christian
County and its surrounding territory. In reality, American-born Schoolcraft (1793-1864)
came to southwest Missouri Territory to learn about its mineral potential. While
Schoolcraft took a wide-angle look at everything he saw, his area of greatest concern was
the existence and volume of minerals in the area. He wrote of his first hand observation
of primitive mining and smelting that had been done by the Osage Indians in future
Christian and Greene Counties. He stated in a book he wrote on Missouri mines that he
believed valuable lead mines were about 20 miles above the junction of the “Findley
River” (Finley Creek) and the larger James River. Schoolcraft believed the Osage
Indians had been “procuring lead for bullets at that place.” He also observed the
evidence of zinc in the region.
Schoolcraft’s writings had a noted effort on future explorers and pioneers who would be
considering various options as they prepared to move westward looking for treasure. His
books tended to encourage readers about the possibilities of finding riches in minerals in
the southwest part of Missouri Territory. Henry Schoolcraft did not emphasize many
positive attributes about the soil and farm potential of what one day would become
Christian County. As a result, few, if any, future farmers would come to this area based
on the writings of Schoolcraft.
When Schoolcraft visited southwest Missouri, the Delaware Indians were in the process
of being moved to their new village headquarters on the James River (west of future
Nixa) at a site to be known as Delaware Town. This event scared most potential white
settlers away from the entire area, and very few whites came on a permanent basis until
after the Delawares were moved further westward into Kansas in 1830-1831. And while
whites did start entering the districts of future Christian County after 1830, Osage Indian
hunting parties migrated annually back into their old home grounds along the James,
Finley, and Flat streams until finally being forced out by a state enforced Missouri Militia

in the winter of 1836-1837. Springfield attorney Charles Yancey, Chesley Cannefax, and
Captain Henry Fulbright led the militia in ridding the area of the Osages.
Most of the first white settlers of Greene and Christian Counties would be pioneer stock
from places like Tennessee, Kentucky, Virginia, and the Carolinas who were looking for
good farm land and found it along the river bottoms of the James and Finley streams.
Once the top quality land was spoken for and homesteaded the adjacent rocky hillsides
and flat prairies were left to be settled later and last. While the flat prairies of future
Christian County often provided rich top soil, there was often little or no fresh water for
the pioneers’ families and their livestock on that flat land. So the rough and rocky
hillsides alongside Swan, Bull, and Bear Creeks became more attractive to folks because
they could be guaranteed fresh running water, an abundance of timber for dwellings and
out buildings, and loads of wild game. Still, few farmers coming westward to southwest
Missouri would be satisfied with poor land, if they could find a way to obtain better soil.
Historically, most of the first settlers in the often rough and poor soil districts of the
southeast quarter of future Christian County were lured to the area for one primary
reason-----the promise of mineral wealth!
While a few families settled in the southeast quarter of future Christian County before
1850, the larger population expansion occurred shortly after the California gold rush of
1849. Those first families had naturally homesteaded the best land along Swan and Bull
Creeks. Most of the next push of frontiersmen and their families came as a result of the
published rumors of valuable minerals hidden in these Ozarks’ hills!
The first mines dug by white men in future Christian County were likely the Rassieur
Mines which were started in 1850 near Swan Creek in an area that would later be known
as Minersville----just west of the future store and post office at Keltner, Missouri. In
1850, this area was in Taney County. The general area was about 25 miles southeast of
Springfield, Missouri and 12 miles southeast of Ozark.
In an 1890 article Drury college geologist—scientist Doctor Edward Shepard wrote that
the first “modern” mine shaft in future Christian County was dug by David Porter who
went 20 feet and stopped!
Who was David Porter? Census information tells us he was born in Kentucky around
1822. He was living near future Sparta by the time of the 1850 census when he likely
began a search for valuable mineral resources. By walking the creeks and observing
washed out ledges and bluffs, he pinpointed spots that he believed might hold large lead
deposits, and he started digging. Surely, he also gambled that (maybe---just maybe) there
would be something even more valuable like gold or silver! In 1853, he legally became a
third partner in a new local mining venture started by two other Greene County promoters
and investors named Calvin D. Bray (B. 1814, NC.-1881) and William C. Price (B. 1816,
VA.-1901). (NOTE: more on these other two partners later.)
In partnership with Bray and Price, in 1856, David Porter seems to have turned over the
tough personal digging of shafts to James McFadden, who had been born in Kentucky

around 1804. McFadden and Porter were brothers-in-law. Meanwhile, Porter went on to
homestead land just west of future Oldfield, Missouri on Bull Creek in Sec. 6; Twn. 26;
R. 19. After purchasing said land, Porter and his majority partners Bray and Price built
the first smelter in Taney or Christian County on that land on Bull Creek (on land now
owned by Carol Todd in 2009).
The building of this smelter and the digging of 30 shafts three miles to the southeast of
the smelter was widely reported by newspapers all over the nation. By 1857, these mines
were generally identified as the “Bray Mines”. In 2009 many of those mines and their
shafts remain visible just off Bray Mine road to the southeast of Oldfield, off “T”
Highway.
In 1858, David Porter married a local girl from the Hopedale community (north of Ozark)
named Mary Walker. Mary was born around 1838 in Tennessee to Addison H. Walker
and his wife Jane Walker who were both natives of Tennessee. The Walkers had arrived
in the area around 1845, when they homesteaded land east of Hopedale.
James McFadden worked the Bray Mines for a while, digging the main Bray Mine shaft
to 30 feet below ground level. Then in 1859, McFadden bought his own land in Sections
1 and 2; Twn. 26; R. 19. near future Keltner on Nance Hollow.
Meanwhile, land promoters were placing interesting stories about the Swan Creek mines
in major newspapers. On February 13, 1857 the Springfield Advertiser reported, “C.D.
Bray in reference to the new mines on the head of Swan, in Taney County, is gratified to
be able to announce that these mines promise a rich yield. We learn from Mr. Bray that
they have struck a solid bed of mineral, about 70 feet below the surface, which appears to
be inexhaustible. It is said 10,000 pounds can be taken out in one day from a single shaft.
These mines are no humbug.”
The Springfield Tribune published a long piece on Taney County in its December 4, 1857
issue including this reference, “This County is conceded to be one of the richest in the
state in mineral resources. Lead ore is found there in abundant quantities. In every
instance where the miner has sunk his shaft, he has found the mineral. Mr. Bray is
working his mine successfully. He is raising a large amount of mineral and with but very
few hands. Capital is all that is now wanted to develop the richest lead diggings in the
United States. Taney County will be a paradise to the miner.”
On June 22, 1858 the St. Louis Herald wrote that a gentleman from Taney County had
spread the word, “that gold in large quantities has been discovered in that county. He
informs us that one man found a thirty pound lump. We expressed a doubt of this latter
statement, but he assured us that is correct.”
Major “hype” was taking place in this era which led to many men and sometimes their
families moving to Christian County to be in on a “find” that would make them rich like
the “49ers” out in California.

Mr. George Swallow, the official geologist for the State of Missouri reported in 1858 that
future Christian County had 14 different mining sites, with five mines actually being
worked for lead. Swallow, who was considered a very reputable source, wrote that 200
tons of ores were mined in the 1850s, in this district, with 140 tons of metal.
Virtually all the mining being done in this 1850s era was in future Christian County on
land that was then in Greene and Taney Counties. This fact likely played a hand in the
eventual formation of the new county in 1859. As early as January 1854 the Springfield
Advertiser newspaper had urged the formation of a new county with land to be taken
from Greene and Taney Counties.
Who were the two partners of David Porter in those first mines just east and south of
future Oldfield, Missouri?
His primary partner was his neighbor Calvin D. Bray who lived next to Porter at the time
of the 1850 census. Bray was a native of Chatham County, North Carolina. He had first
wed Mahala Tyson Womble in 1835 in Chatham County. In 1842 he secondly married
Harriet Primrose Avent (1821-1888). An energetic gentleman, Bray was a freight hauler
through the Cumberland Gap between Virginia and Tennessee before moving to then
Greene County, Missouri in 1844 with many of his Bray family. The Brays settled all
around future Sparta, but particularly just to the west of the future village. Here,
blacksmith Calvin Bray was noted as a singing master who was an early member of the
Prospect Baptist Church. Calvin Bray was also a proud Democrat who owned slaves (as
did most of his family) and was outspoken in his intentions on keeping those slaves. The
Brays came to this new developing land with other North Carolina families such as the
Wisners, Vaughans, Marleys, Clapps and McDaniels. All of those clans were related to
each other through numerous marriages.
William Cecil Price was the third member of the original 1853 mining partnership that
also included Bray and Porter. Price was born in Russell County, Virginia and came to
Greene County, Missouri with his father and relation in 1836, when he was 20 years old.
Also from a wealthy pro-slave family, Price went back east to Knoxville College in
Tennessee for his higher education which led to a formal and rare (for that day) law
degree. In his 20’s, Price returned to Springfield where he worked in a store and “read
law.” In 1840 Price was appointed a deputy sheriff for Greene County. As a deputy
Price likely served under Sheriff Thomas Neaves who was a Greene County sheriff in the
mid 1840s. It would be Neaves who was influenced by his wife to “push” for the
formation of what became Christian County.
In 1847, William Price was elected a Greene County probate judge. Moving to greater
power and prestige, Price was elected a Missouri State Senator in 1854, serving in that
capacity until 1857 when he became a circuit court judge. After James Buchanan became
President of the United States, Mr. Buchanan appointed Judge Price to the high position
of United States Treasurer!

So while David Porter and James McFadden provided the elbow grease and management
of the expanding mines between future Oldfield and Keltner, Calvin Bray and William
Price used their considerable political powers and money to promote the so-called “Bray
Mines”, hoping to force the values of future Christian County land up! It should be
noted that both Bray and Price owned hundreds of acres of land in future Christian
County in the years right before the coming of the Civil War. Price, in particular, had
bought land near future Billings. It is highly likely that Price would have been in a
position to know that a major railroad would soon be coming through the west end of
what is now Christian County. Such a railroad would raise the values of land in that
thinly populated area dramatically.
But the start of the Civil War, about a year after Christian County was actually
established, destroyed the plans of Bray, Price, and Porter. All three became members of
the Confederacy. Bray was a Confederate Captain, while fanatic Price began his military
career as a private serving under his close cousin Sterling Price. William Price was
captured at the Battle of Pea Ridge and imprisoned at Alton, Illinois. After being
released from prison by the Union forces Price resigned the military and moved his
family to the friendly confines of Batesville, Arkansas where he farmed until the war had
ended. Price then moved to St. Louis where he practiced law until returning to
Springfield more than a decade after the close of the Civil War.
During the Civil War, the Bray Mines were nearly shutdown, although the sympathetic
owners encouraged Confederate soldiers to get whatever lead they could from the mines,
so that they could be molded into bullets to shoot at the “Yankees!”
By the end of the war, David Porter had died forcing his widow to eventually sell his
interest in the Bray, Price, and Porter Mining concern to Ozark, Missouri attorney James
R. Vaughan (who would have been a likely cousin of Calvin Bray) in 1877. Shortly after
buying the land Vaughan and wife Barbara Weaver moved to Springfield where Vaughan
became a noted area judge.
Defeated and disgraced, Calvin Bray moved his large family away from Christian County
as soon as the war ended in 1865, although one of his grown daughters Emilette Mahala
Bray (1837-1911) stayed in the county, where she was married to Linden, Missouri’s
Doctor William Allred, Joseph Wrightsman, and William Roberts through her long life.
Calvin and family moved to Lafayette County, Missouri; but he did not sell off all of his
land back in Christian County immediately.
In fact, there is plenty of evidence to suggest that he still believed in his Christian County
mines’ future. Bray’s only reason for not continuing to dig on his land near Swan Creek
was the lack of capital!! He had gone from being a man of considerable wealth to a
fellow having to start “life’s race” all over again. Nine years after the conclusion of the
Great War, Bray sought to generate some capital for more Christian County mine work
by forming “The Bray Mining and Smelting Company of Christian County” which was
incorporated in Jefferson City on May 20, 1874 with supposed capital of
$100,000!!!!!!!!!!! This maneuver must have been on paper only for little mining would

ever take place again at Bray’s old sites near Swan Creek----at least with Bray in charge.
It is true that in 1876 Bray signed agreement papers with a Doctor Garland Hart of St.
Louis whereby Bray would pay Doctor Hart $1.00 for the right to mine his old Bray
Mines with no boss but Bray himself.
You see, Bray’s old partner, lawyer William Cecil Price (who was now practicing law in
St. Louis) had sold his interest in the Bray Mines to Dr. Hart for $1,000 in 1876 (which
included 400 acres of land that Price owned in Christian County).
So David Porter was dead, William Cecil Price has sold his interest in the mines, and
Calvin Bray is living in Lafayette County with no money to continue work on his dream.
On August 20, 1876 Calvin Bray, for $1.00 relinquished all his rights to “a certain mining
lease unto Miles Day, his heirs and assigns.” The said lease was on the old Bray Mines
site in Sec. 9; Township 26; R. 19.
Were these 1876 transactions and events the end of the mining fever in eastern Christian
County? Certainly not, there were many more men prepared to “stake” their claim on
land in the southeast districts of the county!!
James O. Jones was employed by Calvin Bray as a miner when the Civil War began in
1861 and when the war ended Jones returned to the Bray mines to renew a prospective
dig that he had started in the spring of 1861. Jones had been born in Tennessee around
1837. He was in northern Taney County by 1857 for in that year he homesteaded land on
Swan Creek near the future site of Keltner. By 1860 he was married to Elizabeth
(maiden name unknown) and they had one son named Oliver Jones. Jones was one of the
few permanent residents of the area who considered himself a full-time miner, for in
1870, he told the census taker that his occupation was that of a miner. From 1870 into
1874, James O. Jones was the postmaster at Minersville which was a store site just west
of future Keltner where Jones was doing most of his prospecting. When the diggings did
not go well there, Jones and family moved further south on Swan Creek to an area that he
named Swansville in Marion Township. Jones sold lots in this new village to folks like
William D. Brewer and Hiram Teal of Douglas County in 1872, but the town never “took
off” and no major mine finds were discovered in that district. Briefly in 1884, James O.
Jones was the postmaster at Garrison. In 1889, Elizabeth Jones died and was buried at
Old Boston Cemetery beside their son Oliver Jones who had passed away in 1876, in his
teens. The date of Mr. Jones’ passing has not been documented.
Newspaper publicity for the area continued unabated no matter how far from reality the
news reports were. The July 24, 1867 Jefferson City Peoples Tribune printed that the
“Springfield Leader has received specimens of lead ore from Messrs. Root, Thomas, and
Company, the proprietors of extensive lead tracts on Swan Creek, in Christian County,
some 25 miles south of Springfield. This firm works some thirty hands, and take out
about 20,000 pounds of lead a month.”
While historically the Bray Mines were early and interesting in Christian County’s
development, the really important mineral strikes took place well to the west of Swan

Creek around Elk Valley just a little more than a mile south of downtown Ozark! The
first man to discover lead in that territory was Terrill Duncan who homesteaded a farm
southwest of Ozark and northwest of future Selmore in or on little Elk Valley in 1859.
Like Calvin Bray, Duncan was a native of North Carolina and may have been related to
the Bray clan.
In the era before the Civil War this Elk Valley district was not mined much but on
February 12, 1869 a “rich discovery was made” which quickly developed into the
“Weaver or Valley Mines.” Lead “holes” were dug with success all around the Elk
Valley district from near where it empties into Finley Creek just above Riverdale back
east toward Ozark and the Prospect Baptist Church. The really hearty find was in Sec.
35: Twp. 27; Range 21 which was the first full section of land straight south of the Ozark
square and the town’s city limits! Those major mines to the south and southeast of Ozark
were labeled the “Alma Mines.” From the early 1870s forward, the Alma Mines district
provided jobs for as many as 300 hearty men.
One of those men who came to the Ozarks to work in the Alma lead and zinc mines was
Zack Johnson (born in Indiana in 1851) who arrived as the Alma boom roared forward in
1873. Young Zack liked the area and stayed to raise a family even when the mining craze
subsided. A tough fellow with a firm work ethic, Johnson was well known enough to be
elected Christian County’s sheriff in 1885. It was Johnson who would have the duty of
hanging his three bald knobber friends on the Ozark square in 1889.
A large smelter was installed and eventually the Ozark Mining Company was formed
with Thomas Robertson as president and John C. Rogers as secretary. Both Robertson
and Rogers were prominent young Ozark, Missouri businessmen who had money to
invest in such endeavors in those days. Each man made himself available to local and
regional newspapers to sing the praises of these mines which were sure to bring wealth to
many? Each man was also involved in the selling of local real estate, which would go up
in value when more mineral strikes were made.
Things were going so well in the Alma Mines territory that in 1877 a village was created
and incorporated at that site, as “Alma.”
Some of the other mines that were operating in Christian County from the 1870s forward
included: the Burkhart Mines (opened 1872); the Elk Valley diggings (owned by L. C.
Lee); the Lang Mine (discovered in 1879 by John McGuire); the Miller diggings
(discovered in 1878 and operated by W. H. Miller); the Finley Creek Mines (northeast of
Ozark operated by Thomas McClellan); the Harper’s Mine (discovered in 1873, just east
of Petelo); Hornbeak diggings (which included the Purdom mines which had been
discovered in 1854 near Bruner); the Haver diggings (discovered in the 1850s); Boaz
Mines near Keltner (discovered in 1853 by E. Melton and James McFadden, who is noted
earlier in this article); the Turkey Creek Mines (east of Chadwick) which included the
Isaac Adams diggings, the Roberts diggings, and the Barber Creek diggings); and the
Armstrong diggings (on Bull Creek near Bulls Mill).

But the Alma Mines were the biggest source for lead ever in the history of the mining
business in Christian County, for Thomas Robertson reported to Drury Professor Shepard
that as of 1894 the Alma Mines had yielded 2000 tons of lead.
The large number of mines around Ozark, Sparta, Swan Creek, and future Oldfield and
Chadwick played a hand in the coming of railroad service to that area in the early 1880s.
The village of Reno, south of future Spokane, was indirectly created as a result of the
mining and treasure hunt craze that was so prevalent in southwest Missouri in the 1870s
and 1880s. An article in the Jefferson City People’s Tribune for June 8, 1881 explained
the treasure hunt tie in.
It seemed that “early in July last (1880) a party of explorers came upon what appeared to
be the remains of an old mining claim in the shape of an irregular ridge of earth and
stone, nearly five feet high and extending for twenty feet along one of the northern spurs
of the Ozark range of mountains. After digging away the earth and stone for some
distance, they perceived the entrance to a small cave which had been closed up with
earth. This they cleared away, and were surprised to find water gushing forth in a large
stream from a spring situated about five feet from the mouth of the cave. Near the spring
was found a stone on which was cut: t Francis Reno, 1764 t.
The discovery was soon brought to the notice of Dr. Patton, an old resident of
Highlandville, in Christian County, who is known to be familiar with the early history of
the region. Dr. Patton relates that the existence of a spring in the vicinity, endowed with
remarkable curative properties has been long a matter of tradition, and that Father Reno
was one of the heroic band of French Jesuits who carried the gospel to the savages of the
far west in the early part of the eighteen century. It is said that Father Reno received
information of the existence of a ‘Fountain of Youth’ located in the Ozark mountains,
from a friendly Indian, and made its discovery the object of a special exploration. The
stone found near Reno Spring attests the success of his search, but as the brave priest was
never again seen alive, it is believed that he was murdered by the Indians. The savages
thereafter with characteristic jealousy, before leaving the region carefully concealed the
entrance to the cave by filling it up with earth and stone and eradicating all signs of both
spring and cave. The town of Reno was founded at the spring and contains nearly a
thousand inhabitants. The Fort Scott and Memphis railroad will soon be built to this
point, so that travelers will be able to reach the spring directly by rail. The scenery in the
immediate neighborhood is bold and grand.”
What a newspaper story!! Your current author is skeptical of the whole affair. I suspect
that the Doctor Patton referred to in the 1881 article is one John R. Patton who was
actually a miner and promoter who was prospecting around future Keltner in this era.
(No Doctor Patton shows up on any Christian County census records before 1990!). But
such stories in newspapers throughout the region and beyond helped allow the Christian
County village of Reno (on Bear Creek) to thrive for a couple of years, and then rapidly
fade to a small store, blacksmith shop, and post office.

As for Christian County’s general mineral boom, it hit a few highs and numerous lows
from the early 1850s into the World War II era when it completely collapsed. In 2009, it
is increasingly difficult to find the physical remains of the old shafts and dirt mounds,
although a few of the holes and heaps are still visible if the interested party knows where
to look.