Questions: (Email or message me, do not post the answer).
- At the coordinates, what do you think was mined at this spot, Coal or Fire Clay?
- Were they digging shafts or strip mining?
- What do you see that makes you believe that answer?
- If you see coal in this location what does it look like?
Kate Palmer Sanctuary History:
In 1838, it was discovered that the area was underlain with fire-clay and coal. The pits from which the clay was taken are still in evidence on the west side of O’Brien Road. The sites of some of the coal shafts are marked by piles of disintegrated shale and springs which are still rising where the old shafts were located and now filled in. The last coal lease expired in 1924.
The sanctuary area has remained undisturbed since 1926 when the Jackson County Audubon Society purchased the acreage. The money for the purchase was raised through donations from many well-known members of the community. The largest donor was Kate Palmer, born near Parma, Michigan in 1858. As a charter member of the Jackson Audubon Society, Kate was a proponent of the preservation and conservation of natural lands to be used as refuges for species pressured by increasing development. The Jackson Audubon Society maintained the sanctuary, put a trail through it, used it for their meetings and for nature study.
Fire clay is resistant to high temperatures, having fusion points higher than 1,600 °C (2,910 °F), therefore it is suitable for lining furnaces, as fire brick, and for manufacture of utensils used in the metalworking industries. Because of its stability during firing in the kiln, it can be used to make complex items of pottery such as pipes and sanitary ware. Unlike conventional brick-making clay, some fire clays (especially flint clays) are mined at depth, found as a seat earth, the underclay associated with coal measures.
Coal is a combustible black or brownish-black sedimentary rock usually occurring in rock strata in layers or veins called coal beds or coal seams. Coal is composed primarily of carbon, along with variable quantities of other elements, chiefly hydrogen, sulfur, oxygen, and nitrogen. A fossil fuel, coal forms when dead plant matter is converted into peat, which in turn is converted into lignite, then sub-bituminous coal, after that bituminous coal, and lastly anthracite. This involves biological and geological processes that take place over time. Throughout history, coal has been used as an energy resource, primarily burned for the production of electricity and heat, and is also used for industrial purposes, such as refining metals. Coal is the largest source of energy for the generation of electricity worldwide.
Coal Mining in Spring Arbor TWP
Around 1838 Dr. Douglass Houghton, the first State geologist, wrote this geographical profile:
The rocks of the coal-bearing group, in their most southerly extension, occur at Napoleon, Spring Arbor and Concord in Jackson County.
Houghton also wrote:
The line of coal has also been traced southwesterly into Jackson County, where the bed is of sufficient thickness to be worked. And the coal is of a quality well fitted for all purposes to which that substance is usually applied.
About Sandstone Creek in northeast Spring Arbor TWP Houghton wrote:
On the south ½ of section one, west side of the creek, a bed of bituminous coal has been opened, in digging the foundation of a mill, and promises to be of considerable value…An excavation {also} had been made a short distance towards the hill bounding the creek…The hills bounding {Sandstone} creek rise by gentle acclivity from 12 to 15 feet. The coal is of good quality… {In fact.} coal from the bed already described has been found to answer a good purpose.
They used both strip mining and mine shafts. The strip mining was done mostly on the west side of the creek and the shafts were on the east side. The Hayden Mines and the Black Diamond were names of mines in the area. The coal was not deep and one entrance shaft was described as going down 127 feet deep at an angle of thirty degrees. While in operation one mine is said to have kept twenty-five to thirty teams busy hauling coal. The coal was used at the prison, railroad, and many factories in Jackson.
Questions (Repeated from above): (Email or message me, do not post the answer).
- At the coordinates, what do you think was mined at this spot, Coal or Fire Clay?
- Were they digging shafts or strip mining?
- What do you see that makes you believe that answer?
- If you see coal in this location what does it look like?