Chapter II: Fever of the Copper Ore  (continued)

The subsequent success of the Pilleys Island mine was not immediately apparent. The first mine manager, Frederick W. Andrews (Lewis Mill's brother-in-law), had spent his youth travelling around California and New England and had run a brickyard and roller skating arena in Saint John, New Brunswick⁽³⁵⁾; however, he knew nothing of mining. He arrived in Newfoundland in 1886, determined to work the property as cheaply as possible. As a result, the 40 local miners were kept short of food, accommodations and wages. Between 1887 and 1889 the undernourished miners raised 9790 tons of ore, the returns from which the claimholders used to incorporate The Standard Pyrites Company Limited in June 1889.

Had the Pilleys Island mine remained for long under the control of The Standard Pyrites Company, it probably would have suffered from half-hearted development and premature closure like so many other Notre Dame Bay mines. Luckily an opportune change in the American foreign trade policy prevented this: in October 1890 the United States waived all tariffs on pyrite ores containing over 25 per cent sulphur.* The Standard Pyrites Company received offers to buy its holdings and on 8 April 1891 sold the mine for £68,070 to an English firm called The Pyrites Company Limited.

Pellys Island mine site, c. 1892. (II/5.) (27Kb)

Pilleys Islanders were struck at once by the contrast between Frederick Andrews and the English mine manager, Cecil Bowen. Within two weeks of his arrival, Bowen had the 86 miners raising new tramways, sinking new shafts and repairing the mine buildings. So that the mine could operate 24 hours a day, he hired a man to install electric lights throughout the surface and underground workings. The Pilleys Island mine was the first in Newfoundland to be thus equipped. He also contributed to the social community by organizing the Pilleys Island Board of Health. By the time Bowen left Pilleys Island in the fall of 1892 - his pregnant wife balked at bearing their child in Newfoundland⁽³⁶⁾ - Bowen had transformed the mine from a faltering operation into a thriving concern.

It was due largely to Bowen's groundwork that his successor, A.H. Beatty, was able to ship 270,000 tons of ore to Canadian and American smelters between 1892 and 1899; some of it was copper-rich pyrite containing 2 to 3 per cent copper, and some was pure pyrite. In 1899, however, the mine's productivity came to a halt when miners encountered a hard ore zone that would yield neither to hand tools nor to imported compressed-air drills. The men struggled with the orebody, led on by mine captain Daniel McCuish of Cape Breton, who in the 1890s lost an arm in an underground explosion and so acquired the name "One-Armed McCuish".⁽³⁷⁾ By June 1899 The Pyrites Company directors could wait no longer for miners to penetrate the ore. They voted to liquidate the firm, and passed the property over to trustees.

At this point, Frederick Andrews reappeared on the scene. He had spent the intervening years managing other mining and business ventures and had accumulated enough capital to purchase "certain effects" of The Pyrites Company from its trustees in 1901. He sold the mine on 11 September 1902 to a subsidiary of the most ubiquitous mining company then active in Newfoundland: the Newfoundland Exploration Syndicate.

The Newfoundland Exploration Syndicate, a West Virginian firm, was incorporated in 1900 to lease or purchase Notre Dame Bay mining properties. It formed the Terra Nova Company in 1903 to lease the Terra Nova mine in White Bay, the Pilleys Island Pyrites Company in 1902 to take over the Pilleys Island mine and later leased mining claims in Betts Cove, Little Bay, Trump Island, Tea Arm, Crows Gulch and Bear Cove.

Unlike the Betts Cove and Consolidated mining companies, the Newfoundland Exploration Syndicate appeared rarely in the news. The most commonly mentioned individual was Charles F. Taylor, a St. John's entrepreneur and mining promoter who served as the company's resident manager. Taylor travelled extensively about Notre Dame Bay supervising the syndicate's mines, but spent most of his time in Pilleys Island where he owned a store and where, according to one journalist, the older residents prayed for him daily for reviving the mine.⁽³⁸⁾ Taylor needed all the prayers he could get. Sometime in 1904 he became $29,000 in debt, and in 1908 he lost his entire business and personal possessions to mortgagers.