Tantiusques
Encyclopedia
Tantiusques is a 57 acres (230,671 m²) open space reservation and historic site registered with the National Register of Historic Places
. The reservation is located in Sturbridge, Massachusetts
and is owned and managed by The Trustees of Reservations
; it is notable for its historic, defunct graphite
mines. The name Tantiusques comes from a Nipmuck
word meaning "black stuff between the hills." The Nipmuck used the graphite to make ceremonial
paints. The property also contains the ruins of an 19th century period house that belonged to a mine worker of mixed African American
and Native American
ancestry.
, son of the first leader of the Massachusetts Bay Colony
, purchased the area now occupeid by the reservation from the Nipmuck and began a commercial mining operation. Besides graphite, the mine yielded modest amounts of lead
and iron
. Despite difficulties extracting minerals and poor financial returns, the mine stayed in the hands of the Winthrop family until 1784.
In 1828, Frederick Tudor, a Boston
merchant
, purchased the property. He successfully mined the graphite for over a quarter of a century and employed Captain Joseph Dixon and his son, who would later found the J.D. Crucible Company of New Jersey
. This company eventually evolved into Dixon Ticonderoga
, the famous manufacturer of pencil
s.
By 1910 all mining operations at Tantiusques had ceased. Although forest has since reclaimed the area, mine cuts, ditches, tailings
piles and several shafts are still visible. The mineshaft
that tunnels into the face of the low ridge is the most recent of the excavations, dating to 1902. Most of the mining at Tantiusques was of the open trench variety. A cut along a ridge top on the property is the partially filled-in remainder of what was once a several 1000 feet (304.8 m) long trench, 20 feet (6.1 m) to 50 feet (15.2 m) deep, and roughly 6 feet (2 m) wide.
Tantiusques was acquired by The Trustees of Reservations in 1962 through land donated by Roger Chaffee, given in memory of his professor, George H. Haynes, of Worcester Polytechnic Institute
. Professor Haynes, a Sturbridge native, published The Tale of Tantiusques - An Early Mining Venture in Massachusetts in 1902. In 1983, through the efforts of the Sturbridge Historical Commission, the mine was placed on the National Register of Historic Places.
Crowd's house measured 20 feet (6.1 m) by 25 feet (7.6 m) 20 and was constructed circa 1815 by a newlywed couple, John Davis and Rhoda Vinton. They built their home on land owned by Rhoda's father, Jabez Vinton. With the death of John Davis in 1820, Rhoda moved back into her father's home and the house she and her husband built became a rental property. For the next 22 years it remained so and in 1830 its occupants included men who worked in the nearby graphite mine. In 1842 the house and property were purchased by Robert Crowd and his wife Diantha Scott.
Town records show that the Crowds continued to increase the size of their land holdings, but seem to have made few improvements to the house itself. Illness and changing fortunes eventually led the family to move away around 1860. After that, others lived in the house until it burned down circa 1924
In 1994 and 1995, staff of Old Sturbridge Village
(a colonial-period themed village) conducted archaeological excavations at the site, which along with documentary research indicated that the Davis/Crowd house was very similar to other period small houses, of a housing form
that is now almost completely vanished from the New England
landscape. These houses had chimney
s located in their northwest corners or along the north wall and unfinished attics. Most of the downstairs space was taken up by one single room.
Archaeological evidence on the layout of the Davis/Crowd farm, and from the artifacts found at the site, is scheduled to be used in Old Sturbridge Village's Small House Exhibit, a departure from the larger houses typical of the period village museum.
and ends at the ruins of the Crowd Site.
A trailhead is located on Leadmine Road in Sturbridge.
National Register of Historic Places
The National Register of Historic Places is the United States government's official list of districts, sites, buildings, structures, and objects deemed worthy of preservation...
. The reservation is located in Sturbridge, Massachusetts
Sturbridge, Massachusetts
Sturbridge is a town in Worcester County, Massachusetts, United States. It is home to Old Sturbridge Village living history museum and other sites of historical interest such as Tantiusques.The population was 9,268 at the 2010 census...
and is owned and managed by The Trustees of Reservations
The Trustees of Reservations
The Trustees of Reservations is a non-profit land conservation and historic preservation organization dedicated to preserving natural and historical places in the Commonwealth of Massachusetts. It is the oldest regional land trust in the world and has 100,000 dues-paying members...
; it is notable for its historic, defunct graphite
Graphite
The mineral graphite is one of the allotropes of carbon. It was named by Abraham Gottlob Werner in 1789 from the Ancient Greek γράφω , "to draw/write", for its use in pencils, where it is commonly called lead . Unlike diamond , graphite is an electrical conductor, a semimetal...
mines. The name Tantiusques comes from a Nipmuck
Nipmuck
The Nipmuc are a group of Algonquian Indians native to Worcester County, Massachusetts, some parts of Northeastern CT, and NW RI, and the Northwestern and Western parts of Middlesex County, Massachusetts.-Name:...
word meaning "black stuff between the hills." The Nipmuck used the graphite to make ceremonial
Ceremony
A ceremony is an event of ritual significance, performed on a special occasion. The word may be of Etruscan origin.-Ceremonial occasions:A ceremony may mark a rite of passage in a human life, marking the significance of, for example:* birth...
paints. The property also contains the ruins of an 19th century period house that belonged to a mine worker of mixed African American
African American
African Americans are citizens or residents of the United States who have at least partial ancestry from any of the native populations of Sub-Saharan Africa and are the direct descendants of enslaved Africans within the boundaries of the present United States...
and Native American
Native Americans in the United States
Native Americans in the United States are the indigenous peoples in North America within the boundaries of the present-day continental United States, parts of Alaska, and the island state of Hawaii. They are composed of numerous, distinct tribes, states, and ethnic groups, many of which survive as...
ancestry.
History
In 1644, John Winthrop the YoungerJohn Winthrop, the Younger
John Winthrop , generally known as John Winthrop the Younger, was governor of Connecticut.He was born in Groton, England, the son of John Winthrop, founding governor of the Massachusetts Bay Colony...
, son of the first leader of the Massachusetts Bay Colony
Massachusetts Bay Colony
The Massachusetts Bay Colony was an English settlement on the east coast of North America in the 17th century, in New England, situated around the present-day cities of Salem and Boston. The territory administered by the colony included much of present-day central New England, including portions...
, purchased the area now occupeid by the reservation from the Nipmuck and began a commercial mining operation. Besides graphite, the mine yielded modest amounts of lead
Lead
Lead is a main-group element in the carbon group with the symbol Pb and atomic number 82. Lead is a soft, malleable poor metal. It is also counted as one of the heavy metals. Metallic lead has a bluish-white color after being freshly cut, but it soon tarnishes to a dull grayish color when exposed...
and iron
Iron
Iron is a chemical element with the symbol Fe and atomic number 26. It is a metal in the first transition series. It is the most common element forming the planet Earth as a whole, forming much of Earth's outer and inner core. It is the fourth most common element in the Earth's crust...
. Despite difficulties extracting minerals and poor financial returns, the mine stayed in the hands of the Winthrop family until 1784.
In 1828, Frederick Tudor, a Boston
Boston
Boston is the capital of and largest city in Massachusetts, and is one of the oldest cities in the United States. The largest city in New England, Boston is regarded as the unofficial "Capital of New England" for its economic and cultural impact on the entire New England region. The city proper had...
merchant
Merchant
A merchant is a businessperson who trades in commodities that were produced by others, in order to earn a profit.Merchants can be one of two types:# A wholesale merchant operates in the chain between producer and retail merchant...
, purchased the property. He successfully mined the graphite for over a quarter of a century and employed Captain Joseph Dixon and his son, who would later found the J.D. Crucible Company of New Jersey
New Jersey
New Jersey is a state in the Northeastern and Middle Atlantic regions of the United States. , its population was 8,791,894. It is bordered on the north and east by the state of New York, on the southeast and south by the Atlantic Ocean, on the west by Pennsylvania and on the southwest by Delaware...
. This company eventually evolved into Dixon Ticonderoga
Dixon Ticonderoga
The Dixon Ticonderoga Company is an office and art supplies maker from the USA, with headquarters in Heathrow, Florida, which offers a number of brands. One of the most well-known is Ticonderoga - the yellow No. 2 pencil, known for its distinctive green and yellow ferrule...
, the famous manufacturer of pencil
Pencil
A pencil is a writing implement or art medium usually constructed of a narrow, solid pigment core inside a protective casing. The case prevents the core from breaking, and also from marking the user’s hand during use....
s.
By 1910 all mining operations at Tantiusques had ceased. Although forest has since reclaimed the area, mine cuts, ditches, tailings
Tailings
Tailings, also called mine dumps, slimes, tails, leach residue, or slickens, are the materials left over after the process of separating the valuable fraction from the uneconomic fraction of an ore...
piles and several shafts are still visible. The mineshaft
Shaft mining
Shaft mining or shaft sinking refers to the method of excavating a vertical or near-vertical tunnel from the top down, where there is initially no access to the bottom....
that tunnels into the face of the low ridge is the most recent of the excavations, dating to 1902. Most of the mining at Tantiusques was of the open trench variety. A cut along a ridge top on the property is the partially filled-in remainder of what was once a several 1000 feet (304.8 m) long trench, 20 feet (6.1 m) to 50 feet (15.2 m) deep, and roughly 6 feet (2 m) wide.
Tantiusques was acquired by The Trustees of Reservations in 1962 through land donated by Roger Chaffee, given in memory of his professor, George H. Haynes, of Worcester Polytechnic Institute
Worcester Polytechnic Institute
Worcester Polytechnic Institute is a private university located in Worcester, Massachusetts, in the United States.Founded in 1865 in Worcester, WPI was one of the United States' first engineering and technology universities...
. Professor Haynes, a Sturbridge native, published The Tale of Tantiusques - An Early Mining Venture in Massachusetts in 1902. In 1983, through the efforts of the Sturbridge Historical Commission, the mine was placed on the National Register of Historic Places.
The Crowd Site
The Crowd Site, a satellite parcel belonging to the Tantasquis reservation and purchased in 2002, contains the foundations of a house and barn belonging to Robert Crowd, of mixed African American and Native American ancestry, who worked in the mine in the 1850s.Crowd's house measured 20 feet (6.1 m) by 25 feet (7.6 m) 20 and was constructed circa 1815 by a newlywed couple, John Davis and Rhoda Vinton. They built their home on land owned by Rhoda's father, Jabez Vinton. With the death of John Davis in 1820, Rhoda moved back into her father's home and the house she and her husband built became a rental property. For the next 22 years it remained so and in 1830 its occupants included men who worked in the nearby graphite mine. In 1842 the house and property were purchased by Robert Crowd and his wife Diantha Scott.
Town records show that the Crowds continued to increase the size of their land holdings, but seem to have made few improvements to the house itself. Illness and changing fortunes eventually led the family to move away around 1860. After that, others lived in the house until it burned down circa 1924
In 1994 and 1995, staff of Old Sturbridge Village
Old Sturbridge Village
Old Sturbridge Village is a living museum located in Sturbridge, Massachusetts, in the United States, which re-creates life in rural New England during the 1790s through 1830s. It is the largest living museum in New England, covering more than 200 acres . The Village includes 59 antique...
(a colonial-period themed village) conducted archaeological excavations at the site, which along with documentary research indicated that the Davis/Crowd house was very similar to other period small houses, of a housing form
that is now almost completely vanished from the New England
New England
New England is a region in the northeastern corner of the United States consisting of the six states of Maine, New Hampshire, Vermont, Massachusetts, Rhode Island, and Connecticut...
landscape. These houses had chimney
Chimney
A chimney is a structure for venting hot flue gases or smoke from a boiler, stove, furnace or fireplace to the outside atmosphere. Chimneys are typically vertical, or as near as possible to vertical, to ensure that the gases flow smoothly, drawing air into the combustion in what is known as the...
s located in their northwest corners or along the north wall and unfinished attics. Most of the downstairs space was taken up by one single room.
Archaeological evidence on the layout of the Davis/Crowd farm, and from the artifacts found at the site, is scheduled to be used in Old Sturbridge Village's Small House Exhibit, a departure from the larger houses typical of the period village museum.
Recreation
The property is open to hiking, mountain biking, horseback riding, cross country skiing, and hunting (in season). A 1.5-mile (2 km) loop trail leads through forests filled with mountain laurel to the former mine. This trail connects to a spur trail that passes through the adjacent Leadmine Wildlife Management AreaLeadmine Wildlife Management Area
Leadmine Wildlife Management Area is a wildlife conservation area located in Holland and Sturbridge, Massachusetts. The conservaton area abuts the Tantiusques reservation and the its satellite Crowd Site, owned by The Trustees of Reservations. It is managed by the Massachusetts Department of Fish...
and ends at the ruins of the Crowd Site.
A trailhead is located on Leadmine Road in Sturbridge.