Hidden Mine

I don't recall if anyone remembers, or if I even mentioned it before, but my family owns several hundred acres of property up here in Oneonta, where I go to school. My grandfather made the initial land purchase and built the house up here in the 1950s, so my family has been coming here for many, many years, which is one of the reasons I chose to come up to this school. However, to make a long story short, the house my grandfather built has become rather...dilapidated over the years (seeing how it is far away from everyone and we are not here year round), so it can no longer function as a home. It is used more as a hunting lodge for my family.

Anywho, the point of this thread is this. One of the neighbors down the road was telling my dad one day that back in the day there was a mine somewhere on our property. He claimed that it closed down a long time ago, but in the early 1920s or 30s, the local schools used to take kids to the abandoned mine as a school trip of sorts. However, we have never found evidence of it. Many of our vacation trips up here were spent walking through the woods, using metal detectors to attempt to find the entrance to the mine. My dad also spent several days (at different times) pouring through the towns public records and whatnot, but nothing produced results.

Then last week, I was walking down Main Street, and I passed the Greater Oneonta Historical Society's headquarters. It was closed, but I wondered if they would know anything. So I e-mailed the organization, and just received word back from them tonight. The person who replied to my e-mail said he brought it up at a meeting, and one of the members recalls a mine. Apparently, there was a silver boom in the 1820s-1880s, and people came to Oneonta looking for a piece. But the mine went under due to unknown circumstances. He also showed me a link to a book that mentions the silver mine, and has a few pictures of the miners and stuff (praise FSM for amazon.com book page views). The book said the mine was somewhere on Franklin Mountain, which could very well be where our property is. I e-mailed my dad to confirm this belief.

Needless to say, I am excited. I would love to find a system of caves running under our property, especially if they are the remains of an old abandoned mine. The guy who replied to my e-mail said that he also put my query in the Fall newsletter, so that many of the old cooks out here in town who belong to the society might hear about it and remember something. This is very exciting to me, and I just wanted to share my tale. I have always hoped to find confirmation of this story my Dad heard, and we are now a huge step closer to uncovering this mystery. I will definitly keep this updated as I find out more information.

By the way, in case anyone is interested, here is the link to the page in the book, with a photo of the cave and some miners. Just click on the link that says "return to page 71".

... he also put my query in the Fall newsletter, so that many of the old cooks out here in town who belong to the society might hear about it and remember something. ...

Cool Rob , but I thought it was a historical society, what do "cooks" have to do with it; historical lunch or dinner recipes?

Check if your local library has a copy of the book, or if they can get access to it from another library. Then you can browse it for free If it looks interesting, then you can purchase your own personal copy (or get your dad to ). Don't let this distract your studies Rob

Good Luck!

Fascinating stuff Rob, take care when you're stumbling home after the pub, that's all I can say!

Seriously, keep us informed of anything you unearth, interesting stuff.

Cool beans, man! I wish our Florida property had something cool on it. All we have is an old Indian Burial ground under the home... You know, I probably shouldn't have disturbed the bones down there, but really, what's the worst that can happen? (Props to anyone who got that reference)

Seriously, though, that's pretty sweet! Keep us posted!

Well, after talking with my Dad today, we have several confirmations. First off, the mountain that the book claims the mine is on is the mountain where our property is located. Secondly, my Dad informed me of a piece of the puzzle that I was unaware of. Apparently, the deed to the property mentions an abandoned lead mine, though no exact location is mentioned. Thus, a surveyor at one time knew about this mine.

I was talking to my sister today, and we plan on finding the mine and then turning it into a tourist attraction. I told her that she could be the tour guide, and I'd be the guy who would hide in the caves and scare passing tourists.

I was talking to my sister today, and we plan on finding the mine and then turning it into a tourist attraction. I told her that she could be the tour guide, and I'd be the guy who would hide in the caves and scare passing tourists.

So if we wear an SWR t-shirt we can get in for free, right? =o)

That's a pretty cool story, hope you find it.

Sounds like it be interesting.

We have T-shirts?

I'd actually prefer a hat to a t-shirt. Can never have too many hats...

Hope the find works out, Rob.