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Description

 

 

Rare separately issued map of part of parts of Lower Canada and New England, published to illustrate the fold mining region of the Ascot Gold and Mining Company near Sherbrooke.

Shows a portion of the states of New York, Vermont, New Hampshire, and Maine, as well as the Canadian province of Quebec. An inset shows a more detailed view of the region around the Ascot Gold and Mining Company, outside of Sherbrooke.

The map was issued during a period known as "the copper excitement of 1861 to 1866," which affected the United States and Eastern Canada, notably the Sherbrooke region. Mining companies set up during the upsurge of mining operations of the early 1860s hoped to draw a profit from the high but short-lived demand for copper that was triggered by the start of the American Civil War. The work of the Geological Survey of Canada at mid-century also favored the development of mining companies. The drop in the price of copper in the later 1860s resulting from the end of the war forced a slowdown in prospecting and the closing of marginal mining sites.

With the end of the copper boom, miners continued to look for gold. The Sherbrooke Gold Mining Joint Stock Association and the Ascot Gold Mining Company were formed in this period and operated from 1865 to 1867. The company's gold rights were later sold to an entity which became the Victoria Mining Company of Sherbrooke Canada East. Following a series of unsuccessful endeavors and because of insufficient funds, the Victoria Mining Company ceased its operations in prospecting in October 1869.

The following is excerpted from a New York Times article dated November 10, 1865:

THE FRONTIER GOLD FIELDS.; The Precious Metal on our Eastern Borders--What has been Seen and What has been Found--Prospecting by Scientific Men and Practical Miners--Our Interest in the Enterprise. THE KILGOOR LODE, THE RIGG LODE, THE JERSEY POINT LODES, THE METGERMETTE LODES, THE KEMPT STREAM LODES, THE BOUNDARY LINE LODES. THE LODES ON THE FAMINE. Affairs in Nova Scotia. Letter from Gen. Sherman.

Published: November 19, 1865

Correspondence of the New-Tork Times:

QUEBEC, Friday, Nov. 10.

As many gentlemen in New-York, Philadelphia and Boston, as well as some other American cities, have already invested in the new gold fields of Lower Canada, it will no doubt be interesting to many of your readers to know the progress making and the actual state of development in this region.

Geologists describe a great mineral belt as extending from North Carolina to Canada, varying in its character in different parts and carrying gold in several places. The first indications of the precious metal in these northern regions seem to be in Vermont, but I am not sufficiently posted as to its value there to give any reliable information in regard to it. Its first appearance in Canada in a workable shape seems to be in the Township of Ascot, near Sherbrooke , where at least one mine is being established with good prospects of success by the "Golconda" Company, of New-York. They have had very good assays, and in specimens of their ore, at the office of the company in Broad-street, visible gold may be detected. Considerable development has been made at the mine, and I believe the machinery for quartz crushing is about to be put up. A short distance from it another company has been formed, whose office is in Nassau-street, New-York, but I do not know what their prospects are. The gold formation does not seem, however, to crop out to any great breadth in this locality, whatever may be its value in a few places, copper being the prevailing mineral to this part, of which I believe there are many valuable deposits. Continuing on the course of the belt, about northeast, much of the intervening space being but little explored, a direct line would bring us to the Chaudiere in about 70 miles, and here, manifestly, is the chief outcrop of the auriferous lodes and the greatest deposits of alluvial gold.

The Chaudiere River and its southeasterly tributaries take their rise along the height of land which forms the boundary between the United States and Canada, and the main stream, flowing to the east of north, falls into the St. Lawrence seven or eight miles above Quebec. The auriferous region commences about the Parish of St. Mario, from thirty to forty miles up the Kennebec road from Quebec, and from this upward gold is found on the main river and all its tributaries. The old Kennebec road passes first up the east bank of the Chaudiere to its junction with its chief tributary, the Du Loup, thence some distance up the east bank of the Du Loup, and crossing the boundary line, leads down to Skowhegan, in the State of Maine. The lower part of the Chaudiere Valley is thickly settled by French Canadians, and there is a strip of settlement all the way through by the Kennebec road, but all the country on the upper waters of the Chaudiere and its tributaries, on either side, is unsettled, and densely wooded. The gold belt is here over fifty miles wide, extending from the Parish of St. Marie, as above, on the north, to several miles within the State of Maine on the south, the high lands forming the international boundary having lately been found to contain some of the richest quartz veins. This brief geographical description seems desirable, because I have frequently been asked whether the Chaudiere gold region was not among the mountains to the north of Quebec, whereas it lies along the international boundary, and is easily accessible in two days from New-York, by rail to Quebec, and a good country road up the Chaudiere, or by Skowhegan, in the State of Maine.

The geological formation is said to be very much like that of California, which differs considerably from that of Colorado and the other interior mining territories. The quartz is exceedingly abundant, and the general course of the veins (as I believe in all other gold fields) is from about southwest to northeast. The Kennebec road crosses the gold belt nearly at right angles to the course of the veins, and hence every development in the quartz along this road is on a separate and distinct lode, and therefore affords a fair average indication of the richness, or otherwise, of the country for some distance on each side.

Before adverting to the recent operations, however, I would refer to the fact that the discoveries on the Chaudiere seemed of so much importance that a Parliamentary committee investigated the subject last Spring. The evidence then obtained had reference chiefly to the alluvial "diggings," which appear to have been very rich in some parts, especially on the small stream, the Gilbert, in the Seigniory of Vandreuil, now more generally spoken of under the name of the Seignior De Lery, where it appears that from $100,000 to $200,000 in gold had been obtained by the rudest method of mining from a few acres of land. Other places, chiefly on the Famine and the Du Loup and their tributaries, on the main Chaudiere, the Stafford Brook, &c., were said to afford equally good indications, by the miners and prospectors who were examined by the committee; but there appears, up to that time, to have been but very little knowledge acquired of the character or productiveness of the quartz, beyond the general fact that it was auriferous, and must have been the source of the alluvial gold, and hence that there must be some of it very rich. Some fair assays had indeed been obtained from isolated specimens, and detached pieces had been found of the very richest character; but, in fact, no effort seems to have been made to determine the paying character of the quartz up to that time. . .

Condition Description
Narrow right upper margin, as issued.
G.W. & C.B. Colton Biography

G. W. & C. B. Colton was a prominent family firm of mapmakers who were leaders in the American map trade in the nineteenth century. The business was founded by Joseph Hutchins Colton (1800-1893) who bought copyrights to existing maps and oversaw their production. By the 1850s, their output had expanded to include original maps, guidebooks, atlases, and railroad maps. Joseph was succeeded by his sons, George Woolworth (1827-1901) and Charles B. Colton (1831-1916). The firm was renamed G. W. & C. B. Colton as a result. George is thought responsible for their best-known work, the General Atlas, originally published under that title in 1857. In 1898, the brothers merged their business and the firm became Colton, Ohman, & Co., which operated until 1901, when August R. Ohman took on the business alone and dropped the Colton name.