I never realized there was copper in VA. in any great quantity. I  
thought it was all traded down from the Great Lakes area. I know it  
was highly prized by the natives. It would be interesting to  
speculate why they traded it away in Va, and didn't keep the bulk of  
it. Did they carry it away and hide it elsewhere for safekeeping from  
the whites? Did they have to trade it to other tribes for items they  
were short of, once the English interrupted their old ways and  
patterns? So much we don't know about native cultures! Well, maybe  
there's still hope of finding an old copper mine, last year they did  
find that old mine in Stafford County that the natives had worked and  
that they think John Smith visited. Just a few steps ahead of the  
developers...

Nancy

-------
I was never lost, but I was bewildered once for three days.

--Daniel Boone



On Mar 8, 2007, at 11:27 AM, Lyle E. Browning wrote:

> The Virginia Geological Survey Bulletin has excellent info on the  
> copper deposits. The general area is known and in one of the  
> accounts there was a story of a set of miners in the 1880's  
> breaking into an "old works" with antique tools. That must have  
> been one contemporaneous with Byrd as it had passed out of living  
> memory. That is the only one that is locatable. Some of the others  
> are in the empoundments of the Roanoke River.
>
> The folks doing the mining were all big-time Indian traders.  
> Getting smelted copper to a port for shipment (the preferred  
> alternative for the Crown) was 80 miles to Petersburg by pack mule.  
> There are no records of exports that I've found yet. So, given that  
> they were Indian traders, and that copper was a prized commodity,  
> it might be we're looking in the wrong places. We should be looking  
> in NC, TN, and Alabama for VA copper objects traded down the  
> pipeline. Copper in the Dept. of Historic Resources collection from  
> Late Woodland villages has been tested and has been found to be  
> Native Copper from Minnesota or European in origin. None from VA  
> was identified. So, no exports, no VA copper in VA, and everyone  
> Mine Mad according to Byrd. Vast effort to chase ore veins suggests  
> an economically viable enterprise of some antiquity. My conclusion  
> would be that they were either unproductive or else it was traded.  
> Now all we need is one smelter site to test, and to talk with the  
> SHPO offices in the southern states to see what they have.
>
> Lyle Browning, RPA
>
>

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