Very cool! You beat me to getting out there though.

Sorry, I was in the neighborhood…

If it makes ya feel better Dave, he beat me out there too.

Stopping by this site on my way north today, I noticed that one of the shaft markers had “Seneca #4″ written on it. I looked back through the posts and comments, but couldn’t be sure what number anyone thought it was called.

Well No. 4 would make sense in the “revised” number system - which seems to number the shafts from south to north. No. 1 being the shaft at the current Seneca Location, with No. 2 being the Gratiot Shaft, No. 3 being the bat cage shaft, and then No. 4 being this shaft.

Good job on actually checking out the shaft markers - didn’t think of that. You one up-ed me!

Gees, this stuff is a nightmare.
From what I have gathered, C&H had majority ownership of both the early Gratiot and Seneca, although the Gratiot was run as a subsidiary of Seneca. A book I have shows part of the Seneca property was set aside as the Gratiot in 1906, so originally, all that property was Seneca. Gratiot Number 1(later Seneca No 3)was located 1475 ft northeast of Gratiot No 2(later Seneca No 2). In July 1908, Seneca No 1(now number 4?) was started, which was located 3000 ft north of Gratiot No 1.
Seneca and Gratiot closed in April of 1911. In Dec 1916 C&H was booted out of the picture when a new company was formed, Seneca Copper Corporation was formed and bought the shares of the Seneca from C&H and in 1919 also bought the Gratiot shares. In 1917, the new Seneca started a new shaft in the SE 1/4 of the NW 1/4 of section 28, looking at a map, the only thing close to that is the Seneca No 1 thats all by itself, which does make sense, as one of these shafts is verticle for 1300 some feet to get to the lode. Since its so far out of line with the rest it must be the verticle shaft. So the original No 1(new No 4) must have been closed around this time. Seneca Copper Corp went into receivership in 1923 and was ordered sold. In 1925 another new company was formed, Seneca Copper Mining Company with 3 shafts used, the Number 1, Number 2 and Number 3. No mention of the Gratiot shaft is made.
In 1928, Seneca closed and according to the book did not reopen for one year. In 1939, C&H came back on the scene and reopened the Seneca in 1946. They used a hoist from the C&H number 13 shaft and dewatered Seneca No 2. In 1947 a raise was run from Ahmeek No 4’s 33rd level and tied into the 25th level of Seneca No 2. Seneca ran until 1966 and was closed, June 23rd, 1968 the shafthouse came down.
I am sure confused, but I think I got it. Of course I’ll see something I missed after hitting send. So hopefully this makes some sense

By golly I think we got it! Besides the difference in numbering systems, all the shafts seem to line up where they should. By your information Gordy I think the re-numbering must of occurred during the 1917-1928 period. The new company opened a shaft - which they would of most likely named No. 1 - and then simply renumbered the rest. When C&H moved back into the picture, they concentrated on the No. 2, which they just named Gratiot since it was technically on the original Gratiot Mine location.

This all reminds me of what Quincy did with the naming of the shafts it opened on the old Mesnard, and Pontiac properties. Mesnard became Mesnard No. 8, though its not actually Mesnard No. 8 (its just the 8th Quincy shaft). Or the Pontiac shaft, which became simply Quincy No. 9 (though it had another name and number previously). All this naming was just for record-keeping anyway I’m sure. The mines could of named them anything they wanted to.

I was hanging in there until I got to this part:
“Seneca Copper Mining Company with 3 shafts used, the Number 1, Number 2 and Number 3. No mention of the Gratiot shaft is made.”

Did they bypass Gratiot 1 (Seneca 3) or Gratiot 2 (Seneca 2) and open the original Seneca 1(new Seneca 4)?

Ross, I was using the Seneca Mining book by Don H Clark for this. Since the new Seneca No 1 shaft had all new equipment installed for lifting rock from deeper ground, I would assume they used it and the 2 old Gratiot shafts. Also looking at high altitude photography and wandering around the area, there weren’t any railroad tracks to the old No 1. When I searched the issues of Mining and Scientific Journal, they wanted to connect the New No 1 with the old Gratiot No 2 shaft which was eventually done. If they would have used old Seneca No 1, they would have connected to Gratiot No 1 instead.
As a sidenote, the book mentions both No 1 and No 2 shafts had the capability to ship 2500 tons of rock a day, no mention of No 3 shaft.
Mike, I don’t think C&H called it Gratiot, this was the Seneca Division of C&H and it was called Seneca No 2 in the book.
http://digarch.lib.mtu.edu/showbib.aspx?bib_id=610465#
The photo of Gratiot mine at the Tech Archive is an old one, from the looks of the photo, they were working on the steel shaft yet, a lot of scaffolding/old wood shaft under the skip road, plus the description has a 1920’s tour car there. By this time, this would have been the Seneca No 2.
The Seneca photos (3) look like the same shaft, just later, I am guessing 194-1950’s. In 2 of them a C&H steel railroad rock car is under the shafthouse, the other photo it looks kind of quiet around the ole shafthouse.
http://digarch.lib.mtu.edu/showbib.aspx?bib_id=634730#
Also found a photo of rock car tags, one of the tags is from Seneca. The tag would be attached to the car with the car number written in and which stamp at the mill crushed the rock. Hopefully the link will work, or Mike can do his magic.
You’ll notice the car tags, each mine was stamped on a different stamp, this would be one reason for the different names, paperwork, like you said Mike.
http://s29.photobucket.com/albums/c282/elshogger/Calumet%20%20and%20Hecla/?action=view&current=cartickets.jpg

oops, forgot to mention, one of those Seneca photos from the Tech Archive, the collar house has a much taller roof line over where the shaft would be, maybe a different collar building, possibility that the photo is a much older photo than the other 2 and the shaft was still not reopened by C&H.
Maybe one of you guys knows old cars and can ID a date on the car in the photo.
http://digarch.lib.mtu.edu/showbib.aspx?bib_id=634729#

Thanks for the great info Gordy. It’s interesting seeing the progression of these mines.

I would love to have the Tech Archive as my closet library. But then I would disappear and never be seen again. I got so confused trying to follow those mines, about the only way is to start using dates when shown and try to follow the progression. I had always though C&H owned those mines all the time, but it was not the case.

Other than production figures there is no written mention of the Gratiot in Prof paper 144 from 1929. The Seneca is listed in the “Production” section of the paper. Also neither one is listed in the section on the C&H showing the mining properties owned by the C&H.

Production for the Gratiot from 1910 to 1920 was 313,848 pounds of copper from 30,515 tons of ore. The yield per ton was 10.35 pounds.

The Seneca from 1872 to 1878 produced 17,222 pounds of copper. From 1920 to 1925 they produced another 3,846,163 pounds of copper from 165,843 tons of ore. The yield per ton was 23.19 pounds.

Both mines worked the Kearsarge amygdaloid lode. This lode was the second largest producer of copper. Copper production from the Kersarge lode averaged 19.14 pounds per ton. The largest producing lode was the C&H conglomerate lode. The C&H averaged 51.26 pounds per ton. This figure includes copper reclaimed from tailings using the ammonia leaching process developed by C. Harry Benedict, chief metallurgist for the C&H.

Correct spelling is Kearsarge.

Also “Michigan Copper and Boston Dollars” states from 1915 to 1946 the C&H recovered approximately 512 million pounds of copper by retreating their tailings.