A Quincy Dry House (p1)
One of the most celebrated and successful mines along the Keweenaw was “old reliable” atop Quincy hill. For almost a century and a half the mine produced 1.5 billion pounds of copper and paid its shareholders over 30 million dollars in dividends. But the mine’s reputation today ignores its very precarious and troubled beginnings. While the mine was established in 1846 - one of the Keweenaw’s earliest - it wouldn’t make a profit or pay a single dividend until almost 20 years later. Its early troubles stemmed from the lode Quincy first worked - the stubborn Quincy Lode. Although initially promising, the lode proved to be nothing but and mired the company in failure for decades. It wasn’t until the highly rich Pewabic lode was discovered nearby (around 1857) that the mine began to show promise. The rest is history.
A Quincy Dry (p2)
Attached to the south end of the dry house was a second much larger building. If it wasn’t in ruin it would appear to be simply part of the rest of the structure, but in it’s current state you could see that the attached structure had a second floor (or at least an attic space) which the first half of the structure did not. This part of the building also had more embellishments over the windows and doors in the form of brick arches. And due to the topography here, it also had a basement.
No. 4 Boiler House (and Man-shaft)
Before the acquisition of the Pewabic Mine (which became North Quincy), the Quincy Mine consisted of a total of nine shafts. As time progressed and technology improved Quincy closed down most of these shafts and concentrated its efforts on only three: the no. 2, no. 4, and no. 7. In addition to these shafts, Quincy also utilized a man shaft between the No. 2 and No. 4. This shaft was equipped with a man engine - a type of mechanical ladder used to bring men down into the mine.
Quincy No. 4
For most of Quincy’s early history the vast majority of its production came out of only two shafts - the NO. 2 and NO. 4. While it had originally opened up nine shafts along the copper-rich Pewabic lode, most were abandoned rather quickly once poorer ground was discovered. Because of this, these two shaft received most of the companies attention well up to the turn of the century as the company updated hoist equipment and shaft house’s as needed. In the end, however, it was the No. 2 that received the majority of Quincy’s attention - and the No. 4 simply faded into history.
The Quincy Shafts
For most mines along the Keweenaw shaft numbering was simple. The first shaft you sunk was the No. 1. Every shaft after that was named sequentially - working your way along the lode. Going from north to south, or vice versa, you would have the No.1, followed by the No. 2, then the No. 3 and so on. All pretty simple and easy to understand. Quincy did things a little differently. If you follow the lode from north to south you have the following order: No. 8, No. 6, No. 2, No. 4, No. 7. This always seemed wrong to me for a long time. At first glance it didn’t make much sense, and it looked like Quincy just arbitrarily named their shafts whatever they felt like at the time. Well, it turns out there was a method to their madness.