Waypoint 7: Blackwell’s Mine
In 1764, New Yorker John Stanley Blackwell leased a piece of land in Sandy Hook on the west bank of the Pootatuck River near Black Bridge. At that time it was known as Mt. Pisgah. Blackwell was given the right to extract, “ore, mines, minerals, and fossil bodies of every sort and kind now discovered or to be discovered,” for a period of 40 years. Despite the existence of this contract, there is no evidence at the site that large scale mining ever occurred.
According to Redding historian Charles Burr Todd, the mine was operated by British troops during the American Revolutionary War. However, due to the fact that he cites no sources for this claim and due to the fact that the odds of British soldiers working in Fairfield County without having any recorded conflicts with local militias are low, this story is very unlikely. In 1834, mineralogist Charles Upham Shepard reported a tunnel through a quartz vein at the mine. When searching the tunnel, Shepard found traces of the minerals galena and iron pyrite, the latter of which is also known as Fool’s Gold as it closely resembles gold. A more likely truth to the story of the gold mining in Sandy Hook is that someone stumbled across Fool’s Gold.
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According to Redding historian Charles Burr Todd, the mine was operated by British troops during the American Revolutionary War. However, due to the fact that he cites no sources for this claim and due to the fact that the odds of British soldiers working in Fairfield County without having any recorded conflicts with local militias are low, this story is very unlikely. In 1834, mineralogist Charles Upham Shepard reported a tunnel through a quartz vein at the mine. When searching the tunnel, Shepard found traces of the minerals galena and iron pyrite, the latter of which is also known as Fool’s Gold as it closely resembles gold. A more likely truth to the story of the gold mining in Sandy Hook is that someone stumbled across Fool’s Gold.
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