The Evening News. November 22, 1916

44. The New Almaden, Part III

Within four years after General Fremont declared that the New Almaden was worth thirty thousand dollars it earned twenty-five thousand a month for the company operating it.

Captain Castillero who discovered the quicksilver at the New Almaden and who named it, sold some of his shares to Messrs Barton, Forbes and Walkinshaw of Teple, Mexico. John Parrott, afterward one of the wealthiest men in San Francisco, was also another shareholder. When the new company took possession of the mine they brought from Mexico workmen, machinery and considerable capital. Furnaces were erected, and Captain (later General) H. W. Halleck was placed in charge.

In those days the ore was taken from the mine to the furnaces on pack mules. Afterward it was carried in wagons, then in cars. Crude as were the mining methods with each year the output increased. Soon it dazzled the world, the new Almaden exceeded in richness even the Old Almaden. Of course the old Almaden had been in operation for nearly thirty centuries, but even in its comparatively young life the New Almaden produced almost as much quicksilver as the Old Almaden. It may yet even exceed the output of it s namesake.

During the fifties the New Almaden produced its richest ore. When the wealth of the mine seemed inexhaustible several suits were filed clouding the title of the Castillero Mine. From 1858 to 1861 the mine was closed by injunction of the United States Government while the court tired to decide whether the property belonged to Castillero, the Jose Berryessa family, the Justo Larias family or the United States Government on the ground that it was on public land.

The court held that Castillero did not perform the required amount of prospecting. Nor had Alcalde Pico had the right to take the place of a judge. One of the judges dissented, declaring that in the absence of a judge, the Alcalde had the right to make the registry and give possession. The final decision declared that the mine was on the Justo Larias grant, and the furnaces and improvements on the Berryessa grant. In order to protect themselves the company purchased these two ranches.

In 1864 the company sold the mine and all improvement to the Quicksilver Mining Company of New York for one million and seven hundred thousand dollars. Mr. Samuel Butterworth became the manager of the mine and remained in that position until 1870. Immediately he introduced modern furnaces and capitalized the New Almaden for ten million dollars.

Immediately the mine entered a new era of prosperity. All through the sixties it poured out its molten wealth, but 1874 was the year of the greatest production. Then it produced ten times what it did in 1850. In 1864 the ore was at its richest, but now it is of only ordinary value.

The climax of the prosperity of the New Almaden came when Mr. James Butterworth, was sent from New York to take charge of the mine. Mr. Randol was the brother of the late Colonel Randol of the Randol battery at Gettysburg which was charged by Pickett. Randol was very thorough. He commissioned Mr. Jennings, a mining engineer, to visit the Old Almaden in Spain and study the methods. Jennings reported that the Spanish methods were hopelessly primitive. Then Randol went at the New Almaden in his own way.

He installed a million dollars worth of new machinery. From the foremen in the mine he tried to make a map of the drifts and tunnels, but he found there was great confusion among the miners as to the direction of these roads in the bowels of the earth. Not one of them could draw a map of the tunnels.

"If it's guess work," said Randol, "we'll sink a shaft right here in the center of the mine. I have as good a chance of being right as you."

This was the origin of the great Randol shaft which was sunk 2450 feet into the earth and has produced more quicksilver than any other opening into the earth at New Almaden. Other shafts, the Santa Isabel, the Garfield, the Buena Vista have been sunk and have led to rich production. Mr. Randol managed the mine twenty four years. He died in New York December 23, 1903. After Mr. Randol left the New Almaden gradually declined in importance. During Mr. Randol's time as many as one thousand men were employed, and 6000 people were at Almaden. Eighty miles of tunnels under the ground were dug and sixteen furnaces were run.

From 1850 to 1896 the New Almaden produced 1,594,049,240 pounds of ore, or 942,447 flasks of quicksilver. This is four-fifths of the entire production of the old Almaden since the beginning of history.

Transcribed by Kitty LaFavor, for the Santa Clara Co. CAGenWeb Project. 2008