Chapter I: Dawn of Mining Days  (continued)

That, at least, is what company directors told the Newfoundland government. They may not have realised - or chose to ignore - the fact that for years Placentia Bay fishermen had been removing lead ore from the area, smelting it over open fires and making it into fish jiggers.⁽¹⁶⁾ A local man named Best supposedly staked the La Manche lead veins around 1850 and sold them for one hundredweight of bread to a Carroll from Trinity.⁽¹⁷⁾ Political connections, however, are nine-tenths of possession. The Best-Carroll transaction, if it ever existed, faded into oblivion on 6 March 1857 when the Newfoundland government gave the New York, Newfoundland and London Telegraph Company a grant for the La Manche area.

The telegraph company took prompt advantage of its mining grant by sending Matthew Field (Cyrus' brother), Major Ripley of Messrs. Ripley and Company of New York and a Mr. Crockett to Newfoundland in the summer of 1857. Crockett tentatively excavated a trench near the shore, with such poor results that Ripley went to Britain to seek more professional help. There he engaged a 26-year-old Cornishman named Harry T. Verran, who became the first mining engineer to work in Newfoundland.

Verran arrived in La Manche in September 1857. He spent six weeks inspecting the site and then moved on to New York to assist Ripley in assembling miners and machinery from Connecticut. That done, the whole entourage - Verran, Ripley, Field, miners and machinery - crowded aboard the brig Bloomer in February 1858 and set sail from Boston. They arrived in La Manche two months later, exhausted, having passed 35 days trapped by ice in the Gulf of St. Lawrence.

The La Manche mine opened in June. Verran, with his mining background, knew that carefully planned underground development is essential for longevity of a mine and its miners. He sank three shafts and excavated material so as to leave behind supportive pillars of rock. However, before long he encountered unwelcomed interference from Field and Ripley. The former, a railway engineer, gave rein to his speciality and spent hundreds of pounds building a railway to tram ore to the coast rather than saving money for the actual mine. Ripley, for his part, ordered a cargo ship in July without consulting Verran. When Verran protested that he had insufficient ore to fill the ship, Ripley told him to obtain more ore by removing the mine pillars. Verran refused, and resigned four days later, writing in his diary that he had "not come to Newfoundland to dig graves for the miners.⁽¹⁸⁾

From the day Verran resigned, the La Manche mine fell victim to one incompetent or poorly financed manager after another. Ripley took over the mine in July 1858 and worked it in what Verran referred to as a "reckless, lemming-like manner."⁽¹⁹⁾ Although Ripley sold about £6000 worth of lead ore in two years, the money only just paid for the cost of installing wharves and tramways and of wages for workers. The telegraph company complained that it had expected larger profits from the mine with which to fund its trans-Atlantic cable, and caused the fearful Ripley to implore the Newfoundland government to lower or waive the 5 per cent royalty imposed upon the ore.⁽²⁰⁾ He received no sympathy from that quarter. Nor did he receive any from his own associates, for in the winter of 1858-60 a dispute arose between Ripley and the telegraph company, forcing him to give up the mine.

For a time, Harry Verran considered reviving the La Manche mine for the telegraph company. The company approved the plan at first, but then leased the property instead to the Placentia Bay Lead Company. It was a most unfortunate decision. Far from improving upon Major Ripley's performance, the Placentia Bay Lead Company went bankrupt and sold the mining lease at an auction on 6 June 1865 to another American firm, the La Manche Mining Company. This latter concern alienated the Newfoundland miners, knew nothing about mining and in 1871 relinquished the mine to the telegraph company.

The La Manche mine sold 2156 tons of lead ore between 1857 and 1871: a sorry production rate, even by nineteenth-century standards.

So ended what might be termed the American era of the mine. The telegraph company next approached investors on the other side of the Atlantic Ocean, hoping that they would be more competent or at least solvent. They were neither. The Newfoundland Mining Company of London acquired the mine in 1873 and dispatched mine captain Henry Bradley to La Manche. Bradley and the miners found it impossible to retrieve the finely dispersed ore economically; worse, they nearly starved in the 1874-75 winter because of inadequate company funding. The company directors declared insolvency in August 1875, resurfaced the following year as the La Manche Mining Company Limited and submerged again, defeated, in 1878.

So ended the British era of the La Manche mine: as feebly as did the American. The disillusioned telegraph directors tried to succeed where the others had failed and in 1891 leased the mine to an associate firm, the Newfoundland and Canadian Exploration Trust Limited. William Wingfield-Bonnyn, a mining engineer with the firm, managed the revival, but found the mine "practically destroyed to such an extent as to require no uncommon courage to rehabilitate it."⁽²¹⁾ Three years and $50,000 later, the trust company added its name to the list of the conquered and withdrew, selling off the mine equipment for $1000 to a man from Nova Scotia.

The various attempts that have been made since 1900 to revive the mine have been to no avail. Save for the ore dumps and the slumping headframe that overlooks Placentia Bay, La Manche of today is much the same as when it was granted to the New York, Newfoundland and London Telegraph Company in 1857. In all likelihood it will remain so for years to come.

South of La Manche lay the Stoney House Cove or Stoney House copper deposit that was discovered by Harry Verran after his resignation from the La Manche mine. Verran and Charles Bennett operated the Stoney House mine in June and July of 1860, during which interval the men developed an enmity for one another. Verran felt that Bennett made over-generous demands on his mining expertise in return for under generous compensation, and Bennett accused Verran of deliberately concealing the location of the best Stoney House ore.

The four men that worked at Stoney House were experienced miners from England and Connecticut; however, they betrayed their profession. While Verran was in St. John's on business they excavated the ore so poorly that Father E. Condon of Placentia felt obliged to warn Verran in a letter: "For mercy's sake come home as soon as you can. Stoney House, from the reports I have heard, is going to the dogs."⁽²²⁾ By the time Verran reappeared the damage was done. His only recourse was to ship the 25 tons of raised ore to Britain and abandon the ruined adit.