Chapter III: Gold, Fools and Gambled Fortunes (continued)

The Sops Arm or Browning's gold mine in White Bay bore striking similarities to the Goldenville mine. Both were located along the French Shore; both were discovered in 1902 by mining engineers - the Goldenville by John Stewart and the Browning's by A. Stewart; and both produced about $3000 worth of gold before falling prey to malfunctioning machinery. However, while the Goldenville mine's staking history was straightforward, that of the Browning's mine involved intrigue and confusion.

The story began in the fall of 1896 when James M. Jackman of Tilt Cove came to Sops Arm and started the Victoria Sawmill to provide lumber for the Tilt Cove mine. While surveying one day for timber, he found gold in quartz veins outcropping along the bank of a small brook that flows into Sops Arm. He staked the discovery with two claims in July 1897 and asked Robert G. Rendell to file the staking notice with the surveyor general's office in St. John's. Rendell did so, but in October filed two more claims - in his own name - immediately south of Jackman's two claims. Then in July 1900 Rendell, John Browning and others applied for a mineral license encompassing Rendell's two claims and Jackman's two claims, one month before a mysterious fire destroyed Jackman's Victoria Sawmills...

In 1901, Rendell, Browning and the other claimholders hired a New Zealand-born mining engineer, A. Stewart, to prospect their newly- and possibly ill-gotten land. In the course of his explorations, Stewart uncovered a gold deposit just south of their property. Two claims that he staked for them on this deposit in June 1902 became known as the 'Browning's claims' and gave rise to the Browning's gold mine.⁽²¹⁾

As with the Goldenville mine, the Sops Arm mine employed experienced miners from Little Bay and Betts Cove. They spent several months hand-winching ore up the shaft and crushing and panning it manually. At last Stewart persuaded the owners to buy a crushing and concentrating plant. The plant arrived in January 1903 and immediately made Stewart wish he had held his tongue. During its few active moments - for it broke down continuously - it burned staggering quantities of wood, obliging Stewart to employ most of the local boys as wood-cutters.

Only one shipment of ore left Sops Arm: in July 1903 canvas bags filled with 150 ounces of gold travelled by boat and cart to Howley and by train to St. John's. However, as the buyer assessed the gold's value at $3000, Stewart and his employers concluded that the venture was a failure. The machinery was useless, and the ore's gold content did not warrant buying the proper equipment.

The Sops Arm miners disbanded in the winter of 1903, leaving behind much of the machinery and supplies, including the dynamite. Two years later a loud explosion startled local inhabitants. They subsequently discovered that a man, Cornelius Ricketts, had stumbled upon the dynamite while examining the old shaft and had met his end. Therein lies a lesson for all would-be mine explorers.

South Coast Mines

In one of the earliest references to minerals along the south coast of Newfoundland between Fortune Bay and Port aux Basques, government geologist Alexander Murray wrote that Richard's Island in Bay d'Espoir contained deposits of "a jet-black, charcoal-like plumbaginous material...which has been repeatedly removed by the nearer residents, and used for polishing stoves and such like purposes."⁽²²⁾ Stove-polishing plumbago * aside, the south coast received no benefits from its economic minerals during the copper boom years. Its two gold mines and one molybdenum mine remained virtually unproductive and were noteworthy only in that they represented the sole instances of mining in an otherwise mineless region.

Gold mining on the south coast occurred during the brief gold rush that followed James Jackman's discovery of gold in Sops Arm. Among those stirred by the find was Luke Chafe, a Rose Blanche merchant who in his spare time prospected for minerals in the adjoining countryside. His explorations once took him to an area where, in the 1880s, William Dingwell of Prince Edward Island had found gold. Whether Chafe located the gold on his own or after receiving second-hand information of its whereabouts is uncertain; at any rate, he acquired claims for a gold prospect near Rose Blanche and in 1900 leased them to Harvey and Company. Chafe's dreams of becoming a gentleman gold owner never materialized: Harvey and Company shipped 30 tons of ore to Nova Scotia, decided that the deposit was too small to support a commercial mine and withdrew from the venture in 1902.

About 35 mines from Rose Blanche lies the village of Grand Bruit. While fishing for trout one day in the summer of 1902 two men from the community, John and Samuel Billiard, discovered gold in quartz veins along Cinq Cerf Brook. In their excitement they revealed their find to a village merchant, J.P. Chetwynd, who reportedly expressed polite enthusiasm at their story and then filed claims upon the gold deposit for himself. Chetwynd derived no profit from actually mining the claims, as the several tons of ore sent to New York were found to be of uneconomic grade. He did, however, sell shares in the claims in 1910 and 1912 for a total of $3000.

A group of molybdenum deposits in Fortune Bay supported the only other south coast mine worked during (as well as after) the copper boom years. The mine lay in Rencontre East and was of interest primarily for the spectrum of individuals involved in its 60-year history.

A mining engineer named Brockton first found molybdenum in 1882 while prospecting around Rencontre East for John Steer of St. John's, but because the metal had few known uses his discovery went unnoticed. Near the turn of the century the increased demand for the metal prompted a St. John's watchmaker, N. Ohman, to procure samples of the ore. These lured English entrepreneurs to Rencontre East for four months in 1900 or 1901, during which time a small amount of ore was removed for testing.⁽²³⁾

Next to visit the district were Jabez, James and Esau Butler. The three brothers had in 1892 staked the claims that gave rise to the Bell Island iron mines and since then had been prospecting about Newfoundland in the hopes of repeating their success elsewhere. There investigations of the molybdenum deposits in 1908 and 1910 failed to attract native enterprise, but intrigued an American mining engineer, William Elmer, who may have learned of the property through the Butlers' Bostonian relatives. Elmer excavated 20 tons of ore from Rencontre East in 1915 to send to the United States; the ore, however, remained in Newfoundland as the Island's government forbade the exportation of 'strategic minerals' to neutral countries during World War I.

The mine's most active period were the years just before World War II. Employees of the Newfoundland Molybdenum Company Limited from New York explored the deposits in the late 1930s and lived for a time on the shores of Rencontre Lake in a cabin called "Ackley City" after a company director, John W. Ackley. Largely through the efforts of geologist Dr. Warren Smith,⁽²⁴⁾ the company located sizeable ore reserves and initiated plans for a small wartime mining operation.⁽²⁵⁾ Political complications caused the plan to falter before coming to fruition. Nonetheless, one permanent legacy of the mine remains: "Ackley" has become the official geological name of the granite in which the molybdenum ore occurs.⁽²⁶⁾

Avalon Peninsula Mines

As the mining boom spread throughout Notre Dame Bay, the French Shore and, to a much lesser extent, the south coast, it also permeated the Avalon Peninsula. Yet apart from the immense Bell Island iron mines the peninsula's mining operations contributed little more than footnotes to Newfoundland's mining history.