Middletown lead mines (Middletown Mine), Middletown, Middlesex County, Connecticut, USAi

Regional Level Types
Middletown lead mines (Middletown Mine)	Group of Mines
Middletown	City
Middlesex County	County
Connecticut	State
USA	Country

Mineralization occurring along the Eastern Border Fault of the Hartford Basin of the Newark Supergroup and exposed along Butler's Creek. The veins occur in heavily sheared Collins Hill schist and dip westward at about 35 to 45 degrees.

According to Field (1853) and Harte (1945) - Somewhat prior to the outbreak of the Revolutionary War “foreigners” opened and operated a lead mine on the east bank of the Connecticut River and in the Town of Middletown, expending, so it is said, much money in connection with it. It is not clear whether the British Colonel James, who was in possession of the mine when war was declared, and who had a large quantity of ore ready to send abroad, was, or was not, one of the “foreigners,” but be that as it may, Connecticut at once seized the mine and ore.

The vein ran northerly towards the river, was followed thirty or forty rods, and in some places was very rich. But the vein being enclosed in granitic rock it was very difficult to get the ore, and as it approached the river it sunk abruptly into the earth.

In May of 1775 a committee of three, including Hosmer, was appointed: “to work the ore at the lead mine at Middletown, and the sum of 500 pounds appropriated for that purpose."

The mine and furnace remained in the hands of the State Committee for the next three years…It was some time in 1776 when it was reported there were 5,140 pounds of lead “in the care of the committee appointed to improve the furnace at Middletown.” In 1778, however, the Committee informed the Assembly “that the manufacture of said ore was unprofitable to the State,” and they were advised to discontinue any further smelting of lead at the mine as soon as they finished with the ore on hand.

"The deposits near Middletown, Conn. were reopened in 1852 by the Middletown Silver and Lead Mining Company [headed by Eugene Francfort], but the enterprise was soon abandoned, the results being far from satisfactory." (Pulsifer, 1888). This was coupled with the high cost of mining labor at the time (Tenney, 1855). McElrath et al (1853) provides some overly rosy reports on the mine's fortunes at that time, but also some interesting geological and internal details of the mine.

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