Carlisle Copper Mine, Carlisle, Middlesex County, Massachusetts, USAi

Regional Level Types
Carlisle Copper Mine	Mine (Lost)
Carlisle	Town
Middlesex County	County
Massachusetts	State
USA	Country

A copper mine operated intermittently in the 1840s and re-opened for a short time in 1876.

---

Bull (1920): provided the following description:

"The Carlisle copper mine was located on what is now (1920) known as the Captain Wilson estate and the Edward J. Carr estate, in the southerly part of the town, about a mile from the center. Henry N. Hooper & Company of Boston, church bell founders, were in charge of the work, which was carried on intermittently for a period of ten years from 1840. Major B. F. Heald, late of Carlisle, lived near the property, and was general superintendent during the entire period. A shaft was sunk to the depth of about two hundred and twenty feet, being the same depth as the height of Bunker Hill Monument in Charlestown. The ore was hauled to Boston for smelting by ox teams, which proved so expensive that Hooper & Company who were the leading church bell founders and casters in the country at that time, decided to erect a smelter of their own on the property; but as the fumes from the smelter would injure vegetation, it became necessary for the company to purchase the adjoining farms in order to relieve them from the liability of paying damages. This they were unable to do, because of the excessive price charged by the owners of the land, and the idea was abandoned.

Quite a little village sprang up in connection with the mining operations. There were four miners' dwellings, a shaft house, blacksmith shop, cookhouse, barn, and other buildings. One Abel Hodgman had a store on the Carr estate, near the road. The result of working the mine was fairly satisfactory, and probably furnished the company with the copper used in connection with their bell founding, and possibly more, but the industry was abandoned in 1849 upon the discovery of the Lake Superior copper mines in Michigan."

Other Regions, Features and Areas containing this locality

References