WAUPACA REPUBLICAN

January 28, 1887

 

Mines in Marion.

 

                                                     In the Tribune of last week an article mentioned the Marion mines and said the range extended from Buckbee station westward for about ten miles, bordering near the village of Marion.  Surveyors long ago were impressed with the fact of there being mineral deposits in those hills owing to the strange actions of the needle in many places where they run their lines.

                                                     A man by the name of Collins who lives at the foot of the range had samples of iron ore which he found and analyzed and some of the samples gave 60 per cent iron. Mr. Collins thinks the best indications of ore is on a piece of land owned by Capt. Frank Buernsey of Clintonville.  The Tribune says:

                                                     Last summer a man by the name of Fletcher, who claims to be a minerologist and miner of considerable experience came to Marion to visit a daughter.  He saw the hills looming up about him and true to the instincts of a miner looked them over.  He claims that he found in the lay of the land, the timber and other things indications favorable to the location of iron. He was acquainted in Waupaca city with one Wallace Lord, and communicated with him regarding his discoveries.  Lord agreed to go in partnership with him and buy certain forties of land laying about one half mile southeast of Marion.  He finally wrote to Fletcher that he might go to work on it.  Fletcher claims that he prospected industriously and rather secretly for many weeks over the entire range of hills.  He found indications very near the village of Marion and to avoid being seen, dug considerably by the aid of a bulls-eye lantern at “the witching hour of night when grave yards yawn etc.”  Everywhere he sank a test pit he was rewarded with indications that were extremely favorable.  He told the writer that in one spot he dug out a piece of ore weighing nearly one thousand pounds.

                                                     Finally at the spot he thought most favorable he began to sink a shaft, going down twenty or thirty feet until he struck rock.  At this time he learned through C.B. Smith, the Furnace Company’s businessman, that Lord did not own the land.  The old man was greatly excited and disappointed and ceased work.  He had taken out of his shaft considerable ore and is confident that he would soon have struck a vein.

                                                     The news of Fletcher’s doings soon leaked out and the “natives” in the vicinity were wild.  Their days were spent in looking for mineral and their nights (incomplete article)