History

Scientific knowledge of the Franklin minerals began with the discovery of zincite by Bruce in 1810, but scanty records of earlier date show that the deposits had long before attracted the attention of miners. Old deeds exist in which Sterling Hill, then known as the "Stirling tract," when returned to the heirs of Anthony Rutgers in 1730, was called the "copper tract." According to Farrington (59), mining engineer to the first New Jersey Zinc Company, the locality was probably first exploited by Dutch miners from the Hudson Valley, who worked copper deposits in the Delaware River drainage basin in 1640, sending their product through the Wallkill Valley to the Hudson at what is now Kingston. What ore they sought at Sterling Hill is not certain, but to them are assigned considerable mine workings that were already ancient when Lord Stirling owned the property about 1770. They had probably mistaken the red zinc oxide for copper oxide, as did Lord Stirling, who about 1772 shipped some tons of it to England for smelting as an ore of copper. The ore shipped seems neither to have been smelted nor to have been recognized as really a zinc ore. Pieces of it, however, found their way into English mineral collections and later, their origin having been forgotten, were credited to various localities where zincite has never been found. Lord Stirling’s attempt to utilize the abundant franklinite on his property as a source of iron was similarly unsuccessful. He sent a large amount of it to his furnace at Charlottesburg at great expense, but the unsuspected zinc and manganese in the ore prevented its successful smelting, and for years it lay on the ground unused. In spite of this failure an iron furnace was erected at Franklin about 1770, which was unsuccessful for the same reason and by 1820 had fallen into ruin.

The paper of Dr. Bruce (1), an enthusiastic mineralogist of New York City, describing the zincite and calling attention to its abundance and value as a zinc ore, was the first step toward a right understanding of its chemical composition. He did not, however, discover the true character of the more abundant franklinite, which he mistook for magnetite, as all before him had done. Still, Bruce’s description of zincite caused the geologist Maclure to send abroad specimens of it, which contained franklinite. Some of these reached the French chemist Berthier, by whom that mineral was properly described as an oxide of iron, manganese, and zinc. He named it from its place of origin and pointed out its value as an ore of all three of the contained metals.

In 1816 the mineral-bearing property came into the hands of Dr. Samuel Fowler, a man of scientific attainments and business talent of a high order. He was the first to appreciate the unusual character and great potential value of his mineral deposits, and he took every means of informing himself about them. His son, Col. Samuel Fowler, who later inherited the tract, resumed mining operations. The two Fowler’s interested many leading chemists and geologists of the period, who visited the locality and recorded their observations in a number of papers, listed in the accompanying bibliography. Between 1820 and 1844 the district was visited by Alger, Gibbs, C. T. Jackson, Keating, Maclure, Nuttall, Seybert, Torrey, Troost, and Vanuxem, and doubtless others of similar tastes made the pilgrimage to the hospitable home of the Fowlers. Nuttall and Torrey, especially, were deeply interested, visited the area frequently, and sent many specimens abroad, which were studied by European mineralogists and added much to our knowledge of the minerals. Vanuxem and Keating discovered willemite, the third important ore mineral, and they and Troost described jeffersonite and other new minerals. Alger, who about 1844 became part owner of the property, was also interested in the minerals, experimented at his Boston foundry on the reduction of the ores–unsuccessfully, it must be said–and was active in distributing broadcast to the scientific world specimens of the unique minerals of the district.

Dr. Fowler also attempted to develop his property commercially. Failing to enlist capital to work the deposits on a large scale, he used his own means to experiment on the uses of the newly discovered ores. He was not very successful, but Ballou, one of his associates, was able to prepare white zinc oxide directly from zincite and, grinding it in oil, to make paint that was used on the Fowler house at Franklin some years before that pigment was developed in Europe. In 1838 metallic zinc was reduced from zincite on a small scale, at Colonel Fowler’s suggestion, to make brass for a new set of standard weights and measures for the United States Government. Ultimately Colonel Fowler sold the mineral properties, reaping but a scanty reward for his unceasing labor in making them known.

In 1850 the ore bodies were first successfully exploited by the first New Jersey Zinc Company, and since then there has never been a question of their value and usefulness. The complicated history of the mining and litigation during the development of the district to its present flourishing status will not be given here, but that history and that of the progress in the dressing and metallurgical treatment of the ores has been related by Wetherill (172), one of the participants in the events described. Further details of the early history of the mines may be found in the pamphlet by Shuster (253). Those interested in the present methods of mining the ores will find an excellent account in the paper by Haight and Tillson (213).

The outlines of the geologic structure and the principal minerals in the ore deposits having been described in the early papers, considerable time ensued during which little of scientific interest appeared. Local collectors, however, were actively watching developments at the mines, and several new and interesting minerals were found and preserved during those years. Colonel Fowler, Frederick Canfield, Woodruff, Losey, Hancock, and Kemble were the best known among the collectors of that period.

The exploitation of the calamine deposits Sterling Hill in 1870 led to the discovery of several new minerals, with whose description are associated the names of Moore, Roepper, and Brush. Active interest in the geology of the deposits was renewed with the sinking of the Trotter shaft in 1880 and the opening and stripping of the hook-shaped mass of ore in the Buckwheat open cut on Mine Hill. The discussion of the age of the ores and the white limestone containing them was settled only with the paper by Wolff and Brooks in 1898. The many minerals developed in pneumatolytic zones about the pegmatite at the Trotter shaft were described by Koenig and Penfield and reawoke mineralogic interest in those unique deposits, which was further heightened by the remarkable suite of new species found by Hancock and Ferrier in the workings at the Parker shaft in 1896 and described by Penfield and Wolff.

Since 1900 there have been many interesting additions to the list of Franklin minerals. As the bibliography shows, new species are frequently discovered and described. Every large collection of Franklin minerals contains much material not yet identified, and there seems to be almost no end to the variety of chemical compounds that might be formed under the peculiar conditions attending the development of this mineral deposit.


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