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Lead Mining in Southern Missouri

Debow's Review

March 1855

The first smelting of galena (lead ore) in southwest Missouri, was commenced in the year 1850 by Mr. A. Spurgeon, on1 section 32, township 26, range 32, in Newton county

Spurgeon raised from this section 226,000 pounds ore, which he smelted in log furnaces in the years 1850 and 1851. The log furnaces used in this country were generally constructed on the side of a hill. They were made eight feet wide, ten feet long, six by eight feet in the clear, and the walls about five feet high. In the front of the furnace was an eye, say two feet square, through which the fire was stirred, and out of which the lead run when melted. The bottom of tile furnace was laid with flat stone, the wood was prepared by cutting large logs to drop in the furnace, together with some dry wood, the mineral being mixed with the wood, after being washed in a common trough made from a hollow tree. The furnace being charged in this way, the fire is kindled, and the melted lead caught in a common Dutch oven. This mode of- smelting produced some 80,000 pounds of lead, sold for $4,000, and yielded about thirty-five per cent. This lead was generally peddled out in the small towns and in the Indian country on our western border. In the year 1850, Moseley & Co., of Neosho, built a furnace known to smelters as the Drummon furnace, situated near to Moseley's mines. On this furnace, G. W. Moseley & Co. smelted from their own mines on section 35, township 26, range 32, in Newton county, 250,875 pounds of lead ore, and 25,000 pounds purchased at other mines. The mineral smelted in this furnace yielded a fair per cent., (the lead being shipped to New York and Boston.) In the fall of 1851, G. W. Moseley & Co. commenced building a blast furnace, with two stacks, propelled by water-power, and on the 9th day of February, 1852, they completed this furnace, at a cost of $3,000. They smelted from the Moseley's mines 142,500 pounds of ore; from Center creek, in Jasper county, 99,074, and from Turkey creek, in Jasper county, 95,073. In July, 1853, this blast furnace went into the hands of the Moseley lead manufacturing company. They smelted from the Moseley mines 110,500, and from Oliver's prairie, in Newton county, and Center and Turkey creeks, in Jasper county, 93,000 pounds of ore. In Jasper county, Mo., Mr. Harlerodes erected a blast furnace, single stack, in the early part of the year 1853, and from the best information that I have, has smelted since he commenced, from Center and Turkey creeks in Jasper county, and Oliver's prairie in Newton county, some 300,000 pounds of ore. The amount of' mineral that is at present on hand, and which will be ready for delivery by the 20th of December next, is estimated at 200,000 pounds.

Since the commencement of the lead business, in 1850, up to the 20th December, 1854, we show of the ore raised 1,551,022 pounds. Until this last spring the lead has been transported, say from Moseley's furnace to Moseley's landing, on Grand river, in the Seneca nation, by wagons, at twenty-five cents per hundred pounds, and thence by flatboats to Fort Smith, at a cost of forty cents per hundred pounds, and thence to New Orleans by steamboat. G. W. Moseley & Co. had their lead always insured on flats, with privilege of reshipping, at a cost of two and a half per cent. on its value at New Orleans. The usual price of freight from Fort Smith to New Orleans is fifty cents per hundred pounds. They built their own flatboats, and hauled the lumber fifty miles. The three years that they shipped their lead down Grand river, (their bills of lading date in May and July in each year,) they have shipped from 800 to 1,000 pigs of seventy pounds each, upon a single boat. It is said that boats could go with much larger loads; one season they shipped on thirty feet water. There are several objections to shipping by Grand river; first, its location in the Indian country; secondly, the great difficulty of getting lumber; and thirdly, the river can only be relied upon in May and July of each year. It is a safe calculation to say that 1,000 pounds of good lead ore, smelted in the blast furnace, will yield 650 pounds of lead; this at the present prices in St. Louis (6 cents) will be $39. Cost. of transportation to St. Louis, at 14 cents per pound, will be $8 121. The 1,000 pounds of ore in tile Galena mines, in Illinois, will yield the same, 650 pounds, and be worth in St. Louis $39. I suppose that lead can be shipped from Galena at 30 cents per 100 pounds; this would be $1 95 cents for each 1,000 l)pounds of the ore; this will make a difference of $6 17A in favor of the Galena smelters. For example, if in Galena mineral is worth $30 per thousand pounds, it is only worth here in southwest Missouri $23 82A. Thus it will be perceived tat-at, should lead again go down to a price that would depress the value of mineral at the Illinois mines to $15 per thousand pounds, it would be worth only $8 82~ per thousand in southwest Missouri, which would be discouraging to the miners of this region.