Sep 30, 2021 - Sale 2580

Sale 2580 - Lot 70

Price Realized: $ 750
?Final Price Realized includes Buyer’s Premium added to Hammer Price
Estimate: $ 600 - $ 900
(CANADA.) Archive of maps and documents from gold mines at Rat Portage, Ontario. 9 maps and approximately 55 letters and memoranda in one box (0.2 linear feet); condition generally strong. Various places, 1892-1906
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Additional Details

This archive tells the story of a group of Canadian gold mines owned by Boston investors Sumner Stanley and Charles E. Eddy. The mines had been claimed and platted by Charles F. Eschweiler of Milwaukee in 1892, and developed from 1898 onward. The mines were all located in and near the remote town of Rat Portage (since mercifully renamed Kenora) in the western corner of Ontario, with the largest properties surrounding Hilly Lake and others located on islands in Lake of the Woods to the south.

The 8 maps show the location of the mining properties in question. One is a small color plan on tracing vellum, and the other 8 are blueprints, most of them with some hand-coloring, the two largest being duplicates measuring 36 x 35 inches. Among the other papers, most notable is a small notebook titled "Description of Canadian Gold Lands" summarizing transactions on the properties from 1892 to 1896. Also included are correspondence and typescripts of the mining patents; an account for machinery dated 1898; assay reports from 1892 and 1898, and some tangentially related estate papers. All told, an interesting gold-mining archive from a lesser-known mining region.