McKinley Darragh : More to the story

As Promised

Earlier, I shared a 1907 claims map found in the report published on the occasion of The Ontario Meeting of the American Institute of Mining Engineers & Their Trip to Cobalt, Sudbury & Moose Mountain.

In that post, I promised to share some of the photos from the publication.

Today’s feature is the McKinley Darragh Mine – not only new-to-us photos, but also new-to-us details about the two men who made the first silver discovery.

First the photos

In the centre of the above image is a new stamp mill, built some time before the September 1907 publication of the AIME report. Photographer W. Bogart was facing toward the Townsite Mine, seen in the distance. You can make out the elevated T&NO rail bed between the Townsite and Cobalt Lake. Foundations for this particular part of the McKinley Darragh property are hidden by trees today, at the south end of the lake.

Note however, this is not the mill site that is on the Heritage Silver Trail. The remains of that larger facility dominate the hillside to the south, on the other side of Coleman Road.

The photo below is also from the AIME report.

The first silver discovery

In Chapter 3 of the AIME report, titled Historical sketch of Cobalt, you’ll find specific detail about the first mines to be discovered and developed.

From the report:

• The first claim was staked on August 7th 1903 by J. H. McKinley and Ernest J. Darragh
• Their application was the first filed for the new District, dated August 14^th, 1903. Unfortunately, they used the wrong application form which led to delays. (Administrative errors, are nothing new, I suppose.)
• A letter from the assistant commissioner of the Crown lands Department, dated August 24th, 1903, acknowledges the application and the receipt of $10. The applicants were requested to furnish a sketch map of their location, and were promised further information.

Interesting facts about the discovery

At the end of Chapter 3, the authors write, “Reverting now to the mines previously mentioned, we may give a few interesting facts about one or two of them.”

The facts about the McKinley Darragh were very interesting, indeed! Back then, the authors would have found the story of the first discovery just as compelling as we do today.

The text describes how someone could discover and develop a mine using basic equipment. That is, nothing more than a wheelbarrow and a few hand tools. No wonder there was a mining rush!

What follows is a transcript of that part of the report. It includes a letter written by James H. McKinley. 

McKinley and Darragh had common roots

From the report: “Messrs. McKinley and Darragh were born not far from Plantagenet Village in the County of Prescott. Both of them, after reaching man’s estate, had some experience in mining in California. But both followed the vocation of bushrangers and lumbermen.

In the spring of 1903, Mr. McKinley was employed on a T&NO railway survey party, and Mr. Darragh was working near Haileybury. Having occasion to visit Haileybury, Mr. McKinley there secured a timber contract from the railway. He took Mr. Darragh as his partner; together they bought an outfit and started for Pickerel Lake to begin operations.

Here we may profitably quote from a letter of Mr. McKinley’s.”

In which Mr. McKinley tells how they made the first silver discovery

In looking around, I obtained a timber contract on the railway. Laying the proposition before Mr. Darragh, he agreed to come in and take the chances of profit or loss. We bought an outfit and started for Pickerel Lake to begin operations.

As work progressed along the construction in the direction of what was known then as Long Lake, opposite Station 10, about 1 mile south of the above lake, a foreman named Harty was blasting off a bluff which was a nice gray slate. Two or three days later, as Mr. Darragh and myself were returning home to camp, about a half a mile northwest of the bluff, the men were taking out a rock cut. Our attention was attracted by a shout of “Fire!” Retracing our steps, a heavy blast went off; we saw some white-colored rock coming down on the ground.

After supper we went down into the rock cut. Here was a spur of quartz about two-inches wide, partially mineralized. Carried on by other indications which were cropping up, we had a lengthy conversation about the appearance of things in general, and then decided to make a tour of the country. We traveled on, and in rounding the southeast end of Long Lake our attention was attracted by the strange color of the ground surface not far from the beach.

Getting Down to Business

We immediately got down to business by picking up the loose pieces of rock, the unusually heavy weight of which meant something. In washing some of the gravel in the lake, here were the flakes and leaves of a bright metal which we could bend. I immediately thought of the advice of the old 49-er of twenty years ago, and placed a piece between my teeth, which I succeeded in marking very easily.

We bunched up some of the samples, and as soon as possible made an exploration by locating the line between J.R. Booth and Gillies Brothers timber limits, in order to locate our claim, which we immediately staked out. Winding up our timber contract on the railway as soon as possible, we sailed for Ottawa on the first boat.

Arriving at the capital, we repaired to the office of J.R. Booth. We laid our proposition before his secretary, Mr. Anderson, saying we had made a valuable discovery of mineral on his limit, and that we wished, if possible, to obtain a permit. Honestly speaking, I do not think Mr. Anderson had much use for our mining proposition. He said, “McKinley as you have been well-known to our firm in a business way, I am only too glad to help you out in any way I can.”

Disappointing results at first

We immediately made out the application and forwarded it to the Bureau of Mines at Toronto, in the meantime taking some of our samples to the assay office on Sussex Street. In two or three days we were informed that we had bismuth, but no sign of silver, as we thought we had, which was rather discouraging.

Bunching up the balance of our ore, [we sent] it to McGill University, which they turned over to Milton Hersey, the well-known assayer on St. James Street, Montreal. In two or three days we received word from Mr. Hershey to the effect that our samples panned out 4000 oz of silver to the ton.

After receiving Mr. Hershey’s assay, we succeeded in having a formal application filled out and filed at the Bureau of Mines in Toronto. By this time the summer was near at hand, and as we learned of some other discoveries being made, we decided to make no further move until the spring.

Returning to Cobalt the following spring, we had our claim surveyed by Mr. Blair, Public Land Surveyor, at present Mayor of New Liskeard. We purchased a small outfit, consisting of a wheelbarrow, picks, shovels, and an ax, and began trenching for the veins. I must say that we were more than encouraged by Professor Miller and his staff also by Mr. W. G Trethewey, who paid us a visit several times a day. “Dig into it, boys, you are near a pay chute.”

Later we sold a part, giving us ample funds to carry on operations and ship our order to New York.

Farewell to mining

On March 16, 1906, the Temiskaming Speaker reported that, “the McKinely Darragh property has changed hands. Mr. Kingswill [sic], a Haileybury gentleman, has been negotiating to purhcase this property for a considerable time. We have not learned all the facts.”

With rather more confidence, in August of 1906, the Speaker congratulated “the new management of the McKinley & Darragh upon the really wonderful new find upon their property. The old or past owners virtually gave up hopes of ever getting ore again, and sold the mine to a syndicate of Capitalists, headed by Mr. Chaplin, of Toronto.”

It appears that by the summer of 1906, McKinley and Darragh had sold out and left the mining to others with more resources.

Cursory genealogical reserach shows that both men returned to farming in Prescott County, though Darragh still dabbled in prospecting along the Montreal River in 1907.