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Birth of Copper Country through Brockways’ Eyes

In 1899, the year 84-year-old Daniel Brockway died, he and his 83-year-old wife Lucena could sit on their porch in Lake Linden and marvel at all they had seen over the past 56 years.

Brockway and his wife had moved from Lower Michigan to L’Anse in 1843 where Daniel had been appointed government blacksmith and mechanic to the Indian Department of Lake Superior, with headquarters at L’Anse, under Federal Indian Agent Robert Stewart.

Brockway, now an old man, lived not far from the stamp mills and smelter of the C&H Mining Company, and he could watch the steamers and sailing ships come and go through the C&H-built canal into and out of Torch Lake. But he could easily recall the long-ago summer in 1843 when he and his family arrived at Sault Ste. Marie in June and were forced to wait six weeks for a ship to take them on the last leg of their journey across Lake Superior.

Arriving, finally, in August, on the brig Astor, the Brockways put ashore in the general area where French missionary priest Rene Mesnard had established a mission back in 1660. Located along the southern canoe route of the French fur traders headed west to Grand Portage, L’Anse had been frequented by traders from the 1600s, with whom the Ojibwa traded furs and other trade goods.

The Brockways arrived in L’Anse the summer that Copper Harbor had become the jump-off point for mineral exploration, when the western Upper Peninsula was opened by the War Department. Brockway remained in L’Anse for three years, working as a blacksmith, but his eyes constantly wandered up the coast.

In the spring of 1846, Daniel and his wife, and their children, set out in a boat, with two Ojibwa guides, upon a two-day trip that would take them around Keweenaw Point, and land them at Copper Harbor.

By then, Fort Wilkins was 2 years old, and its garrison was just now preparing to vacate the military reserve for Mexico. But the War Department’s Mineral Land Agent, Gen. Walter Cunningham was there, at Copper Harbor. He was the person anyone wanting to explore mineral lands had to see, so people went to Copper Harbor.

Brockway and his wife – at least initially – had not gone to Copper Harbor to become miners. They built the first substantial house, the Brockway House, which was the first real hotel in the region. Lucena did all the cooking for the guests, and took care of the laundry, while Daniel was conducting other business, doing other things.

Sitting quietly on the porch, Brockway could remember back to 1849 when he was still a young man, and he became the agent of the Northwest mine. By then, the Cliff mine had been operating for five years, and a few interior roads had been opened, most either leading to or from harbors along the shore. The Quincy mine, down on Portage Lake, was just starting up, and the Minesota mine, 12 miles from the mouth of the Ontonogan River, was becoming second only to the Cliff in richness and mass copper.

Like everybody else on Lake Superior, Daniel Brockway was an opportunist. Opportunity was what brought anyone to the region in those days, and lack of it was why other people left. John Hays, agent of the Pittsburgh & Boston Mining Company in ’44, had opened up the mines in the vicinity of Fort Wilkins, which was built on land held by the company. Hays had, debatably, discovered the Cliff vein the following year, but he was old and unwell and resigned, returning to Philadelphia. Col. Charles Gratiot had arrived in 1843, landing at Eagle Harbor, where he explored for a party of men who held several leases. The following year, he was in charge of the Lake Superior mine at Eagle River, where he platted the town by the same name. But in 1849, when the Lake Superior company shut down, Gratiot got on a ship and went back to the lead mines of Wisconsin, from where he had come.

Many people left, but Brockway stayed. Whether he realized it or not, he was witnessing the evolution of what would become the premier copper mining district in the world in its time. Had he not been aware of it in 1849, he was aware of it 50 years later, sitting on his porch in Lake Linden.

Brockway was present in 1856 when Houghton County appropriated $500 for the building of a road from Copper Harbor to Portage Lake, a road that would later come to be called the Lakeshore Road, to distinguish it from the road that began a year later, funded by the state that would connect Copper Harbor with Rockland, site of the Minesota mine.

Daniel Brockway was 56 years old when the Calumet and Hecla Mining Companies merged in 1871, becoming the richest non-ferrous metal mine in the world at the time. That was 12 years after the Portage River had been dredged out, opening Portage Lake to shipping, and two years before the first railroad began operating on the Lake Superior copper district.

Brockway had come to the Copper Country in a canoe, led by two Ojibwa guides back in the days when the region had no roads and the forest was too thick to penetrate. He had watched the Army leave Copper Harbor, witnessed the cutting through of roads, growth of the mining industry and coming of the railroads and smelters and foundries lining Torch and Portage lakes.

By now it really didn’t matter to Daniel and Lucena Brockway anymore. They had done their share, and more, to contribute to the opening of the mining era. Daniel had operated several stores and hotels in partnership with various people throughout the 56 years he and his wife resided in the Copper Country.

But it was a long time ago, and the couple was old and tired now. Lucena passed away on March 3, 1899, leaving behind Daniel, her children and several diaries she had kept, giving historians today a rich, firsthand account of pioneer life in a copper district. Daniel died just two months later, on May 9. Together they had witnessed the birth of the Copper Country, where they still lay, at the Lakeside Cemetery outside of Calumet.

Graham Jaehnig can be reached at gjaehnig@mininggazette.com.

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