Dear All,
Thankyou very much indeed to all those who have gone to such trouble in
helping to sort the tangle out! - on-List, off-List, and telecons.
Monday gone, I was able to determine with as much certainty as one can have
with such things, that Oak Shaft was being worked from/via the Silver Valley
Mine. An entry kindly scanned by a List member, distinctly shows two Reports
from two Capts., with the first Capt. showing a silver assay directly
attributed to the Silver Valley Mine, the other seems to indicate a more separate
venture, and made more ref. to Murray's Shaft, so I am making a calculated guess
that the latter shaft is probably more connected to Wh.Bros..
The West Wh.Bros. name being prior to the Silver Valley Mine title is a very
great help. Up until this info., I already had four specific names for this
mine, now I have six! (& probably + by the looks of it!) - Wheal Duchy
1810'ish (though this Co. did work other mines apart from Silver Valley at the same
time), Silver Valley Mine 1815'ish, William & Mary Mine 1815+'ish, West
Wh.Bros. 1835'ish, Silver Valley & Wh.Bros. (very definite wkg. date 1851), and
at some stage in between these dates apparently the name Ashburton was used
for this mine. I think we might be getting close to a record for the frequency
of name changes for a mine over a period of 50 or so years! I have not
included the other names possibly connected with Silver Valley yet, as I must read
and digest everything more closely. This small group of
silver/lead/copper/tin mines just North of Callington certainly seemed to specialise in name
changes!
When everything is in as close to a firm date order as I can ascertain is
correct, I will post it for the record.
Thankyou again to all, and if further info. might be available sometime in
the future it would be very welcome!
Regards, Bernard
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