The Lake Vermilion Gold Rush

Minnesota’s Second State Geological Survey followed on the heels of its first survey and the political intrigue of the two surveys overlapped as competing political and private alliances attempted to benefit from these public surveys. 

The most immediate outgrowth of the surveys was a mistaken gold rush at Lake Vermilion, which might have been only a historical footnote except that it had severe consequences for the Bois Forte Band of Chippewa. As a result of the gold rush, the Bois Forte were forced to cede their land, burial grounds, and resources in one of Minnesota’s last land cessions.

Those false claims of rich gold deposits were not malicious but the product of such extreme inexperience as to be fraudulent in itself. Although the Eames brothers claimed decades of geological field experience and degrees from some of Europe’s most prestigious universities, they were entirely self-taught geologists with only a few years of experience, none of which involved ores. Moreover, they, like their political sponsors, sought to profit from the gold. 

Despite many of the University’s founding regents being involved in the gold intrigue and land dispossessions, the scandal and corruption of the Second State Geological Survey led to successive surveys being run through the University of Minnesota rather than the state government. Consequently, the origins of both the present Minnesota Geological Survey and the University of Minnesota’s Department of Earth and Environmental Sciences are intimately interlinked with the 1866 dispossession of the Bois Forte Band of Chippewa.

The details of those linkages follow. However, this site's goal is to focus on those linkages rather than provide a general history of the Lake Vermilion Gold Rush. For a Lake Vermilion Gold Rush history, you would be better served by Ruth M. Elliot's 1923 University of Minnesota thesis, 'The Lake Vermilion Gold Rush of 1865' or Dana H. Miller's 1973 thesis 'The Vermilion Lake gold rush of 1865-1866 : a speculative failure.' Both are available through the Minnesota Historical Society collections. A more easily accessible reference is David A. Walker's 'Lake Vermilion Gold Rush' in Minnesota History, Vol. 44 No. 2 Summer 1974.

Although the Hanchett and Clark survey was Minnesota’s first geological survey, the present Minnesota Geological Survey and the University of Minnesota’s Department of Earth and Environmental Sciences more directly owe their origins to the second Minnesota Geological Survey conducted by Henry Hugh Eames and his brother Richard Megevan Eames. That survey ran just over 20 months, from April 20, 1865, through the end of 1866. 

However, it should be acknowledged this story is not solely the survey’s story nor the department’s. It is also an Ojibwe story, specifically a Bois Forte Band of Chippewa story, and to a lesser extent a Dakota story. Now, I cannot tell those stories. Not only because I am neither Ojibwe nor Dakota but also because those stories were not recorded nor often reflected in late 19^th century Euro-American records. They are only fully preserved in Ojibwe and Dakota knowledge. The part of the story I can tell comes from library, newspaper, and government records, all of which were deeply biased sources with purely Euro-American perspectives. So, realize the following story is incomplete. It lacks Bois Forte knowledge and consequently may include significant errors. 

A New State’s Founding ‘Resources’

The story I can tell began as Minnesota transitioned from a Territory into a State in 1858. Abundant land was the new state’s greatest draw, as the opportunity to own their own land drew settler families from the East Coast and Europe. The state’s vast woodlands also became the focus of its first major industry. However, besides acreage and timber, three other potential Minnesota resources dominated the attention of its Euro-American population and were considered crucial to ensuring the new state’s future.

Those were Minnesota’s abundant salt lands, its extensive coal fields, and its remarkably rich gold claims. Salt was needed to preserve food and the state’s western plains were rumored to be rich in salt springs that could furnish this vital resource at a small fraction of the cost of imported salt. Coal was a crucial fuel source for the vast regions of Minnesota that lacked rich woodlands, and the state’s rich coal beds guaranteed Minnesota could become an industrial power rivaling any East Coast state. Although copper and iron ore were known to exist in northeastern Minnesota and along Lake Superior’s North Shore, state leaders knew that utilizing the iron ores would require railroads and infrastructure that were decades away. On the other hand, the state’s rich gold deposits were easily accessible and could turn the tide of immigration from California to Minnesota and provide the state and its citizens with unimaginable wealth. 

Now, if you know much about Minnesota, you might be perplexed by the preceding paragraph as Minnesota does not actually have salt springs, coal, or gold. While there are a few alkaline lakes in the western part of the state, those lakes lack halite, the ‘salt’ needed to preserve food or prevent wounds from infection (the 19^th century was not a good time to be injured). And while northwestern Minnesota has immense peatland areas, the state lacks any economic deposits of bituminous or anthracite coal. The nearest economic coalbeds are in the Dakotas. Finally, apart from one short-lived (1894-1898) gold mine on Little American Island along the United States-Canadian border, the state has never hosted a productive gold mining operation. 

Yet, during its territorial years and its transition to statehood, salt springs and coal fields were ‘known’ to exist in Minnesota and the presence of copper assured territorial and early state governments that gold was present in the Arrowhead Region, awaiting discovery. This trinity of resources was considered vital to the young state’s future, and the search for salt, coal, and gold led to our department and survey and guided their early history.

Even if Minnesota lacks salt springs, salt spring lands played a crucial role in our department’s history. Salt was considered to be such a crucial resource that the federal government agreed to grant Minnesota up to seventy-two sections of land (46,080 acres), to prove and develop twelve salt springs. Consequently, state leaders rushed a surveying party out to find those springs and claim the land before the federal government’s year-long deadline expired. Unfortunately, they neglected to send anyone on the expedition who had geological training. Hence, the twelve salt springs were identified solely by their water’s taste, with the surveyor’s inexperience causing him to mistake alkali waters for salt brines. Despite not finding any true salt springs, the state still claimed seventy-two sections of federal land and the proceeds from their partial sale were later used to support Newton Winchell’s survey. 

However, salt springs lands did not play any role in Minnesota’s first two geological surveys, so their story belongs elsewhere.

Minnesota Coal

Instead, this story begins with the vast Minnesota coal fields believed to exist in the central and southern part of the state. Their formal search began in February of 1863, when Saint Paul resident, John Stoughtenburg Prince, was visiting Vincennes, Indiana. Prince had recently ended his third year-long term as Saint Paul’s mayor and was reconnecting with his wife’s family in nearby Evansville, Indiana. While Prince was in a Vincennes store, a man strode in, threw coal samples onto the counter, and proudly announced that he had just discovered a rich coal seam. The newcomer was an Englishman named Henry Hugh Eames, who with his brother, Richard Megevan Eames, had fled the early Civil War violence of western Virginia to search for coal in Indiana. 

Prince was impressed with Henry Eames’ confidence and evident success. Prince knew Carboniferous coal deposits had been discovered a few years earlier in Iowa that led to a series of short-lived coal towns across southern Iowa. Prince was also aware some people believed those Carboniferous coal deposits extended into southern and central Minnesota. Scattered reports of coal samples found in the state’s glacial drift appeared to confirm those rumors. If present, Prince realized that coal beds would not only be an immense economic benefit for the state but a vast source of wealth for whichever business consortium discovered and developed them. Yet, while it was assumed Minnesota had coal deposits, it was known the state lacked any experienced coal geologists to find them. Prince thought the man at the counter boasting of his triumph might be the answer. 

Prince spoke with Henry and Richard, encouraging them to come to Minnesota to search for coal. He promised that if they came, he could provide financial backers from the elite of Saint Paul’s business community. Upon his return to Saint Paul, Prince made good on his word, gathering a cartel of powerful business leaders to establish the Pioneer Coal Mining Company in 1864. Those with interests in the company included Henry Mower Rice, one of Minnesota first state senators; Henry Hasting Sibley, Minnesota’s first state governor; Franklin Steele, founder of Saint Anthony; Charles Flandrau, associate justice of the state’s Supreme Court; and Charles Henry Oakes, a wealthy Saint Paul banker.

Henry Eames arrived in May of 1863 and spent nine months exploring the Minnesota River Valley and south-central Minnesota searching for coal. He believed that area was the most likely to contain a northern extension of southern Iowa’s Carboniferous coal deposits as he presumed it was the northern limb of a west-to-east trending anticlinal fold.

Events proceeded quickly and along two fronts. On March 1, 1864, Henry Eames announced he had discovered rich coal deposits in central Minnesota on the Cottonwood River, a tributary of the Minnesota River. He optimistically predicted that the first barge load of coal from the Pioneer Coal Mining Company would reach Saint Paul by July. Minnesota newspapers heralded the discovery, predicting it would usher in a new era of prosperity for the state and transform Minnesota into an industrial power. But the Eames brothers were not just focused on coal.

A Second Front

Richard Eames joined Henry in the summer of 1864, but instead of helping him prove up the Cottonwood coal discovery, Henry asked Richard to spend the fall shadowing the Hanchett survey, Minnesota’s first official State Geological Survey. Having discovered coal, Henry and Richard were already eyeing their next prize, the North Shore’s mineral wealth.

Earlier that summer, Governor Stephen Miller had appointed August H. Hanchett, a physician who had been the first mayor of Hastings, to be Minnesota’s first State Geologist. Hanchett set out in the fall of 1864 to confirm and evaluate the presence of rich iron ores reported along the shores of Lake Vermilion. However, a late start, unseasonable weather, delayed supplies, and his own lack of geological training handicapped Hanchett’s efforts. While he was unable to achieve his main objective, Hanchett and his assistant, Thomas Clark II, did find other iron ores and made a brief report of North Shore mineral deposits. Richard made his own exploration of the area, shadowing Hanchett in places, but also exploring further inland along North Shore streams. Henry joined him for part of the time. With the support of their Saint Paul backers, the brothers hoped to supplant Hanchett as the next State Geologist which they would succeed in doing. 

When the Eames brothers first came on the Minnesota stage, they were unknowns and the only sources for their background. Minnesota newspapers and the Saint Paul community accepted the Eames brothers’ backstory without question as it ideally fit the state’s needs. Both brothers were ‘known’ to have spent most of their lives in the coal measures of Great Britain before moving to the United States where they not only discovered other coal beds but directed mining operations. Within weeks, in local reports, the Eames brothers went from Messrs. to Drs. with the implications being that they were university-trained geology professors who hailed from some of the most prestigious British and German universities. In the wake of their Cottonwood coal discovery, Minnesota newspapers expressed the fervent hope that the Eames brothers would not leave the state until they had added petroleum wells, along with gold and silver, to their list of discoveries. And while the Eames brothers fully intended to grant those wishes, disturbing indications were already beginning to arise. The promised barges of coal did not arrive in Saint Paul that July. Initially the delay was blamed on river levels, but eventually word leaked out that developing the coal mine was proving more problematic than expected. 

Yet, Henry’s supposed coal discovery was so significant that Governor Stephen Miller appointed him as Minnesota’s second State Geologist in 1865. Henry and Richard set off that summer to confirm the reports of rich iron ore at Lake Vermilion. The same goal that Hanchett had failed to achieve the previous fall.

Only a few years later, as governor, Miller appointed the first two Minnesota State Geologists - Augustus Hanchett in 1864, and Henry Eames in 1865. Shortly afterwards, Henry appointed his brother, Richard, as ‘Assistant Minnesota State Geologist.’ Hanchett’s survey was only active for a few months in 1864 and did not result in significant discoveries. Hence, the Eames survey was the first large-scale Minnesota geological survey and the forerunner of the current Minnesota Geological Survey and the Department of Earth and Environmental Sciences. 

As with Hanchett’s earlier survey, the primary original goal of the Eames survey was to confirm the presence of rich iron ores at Lake Vermilion. They then planned to assess other iron ore and copper deposits across the Arrowhead Region of northeastern Minnesota - especially any that were close to the North Shore where shipping and an expected railroad would reduce ore exploitation costs. Lake Superior’s copper had previously fueled early French exploration of the Upper Midwest exploration. The driving force for those early explorers was not just the copper’s value but the belief that if copper was present, there may also be rich gold and silver deposits like those the Spanish had found in Central and South America. While modern history books highlight the subsequent value of the fur trade, they may not mention that French explorers originally sought copper but settled for furs. 

Iron ores would require more infrastructure to develop than copper, gold, or silver but the presence of iron ores close to Lake Superior’s North Shore was well known early on. The Norwood Survey of 1847 to 1850 reported rich iron ore deposits in the region and iron ore was also mentioned in reports of Colonel Charles Whittlesey’s geological explorations from 1848 to 1864. The Norwood and early Whittlesey surveys were conducted before the region was ceded by treaty, so they took place on Ojibwe land, without Ojibwe permission. 

The Ojibwe themselves obviously knew their land contained iron ore, as they had shown it to North Albert Posey. Posey, a Métis blacksmith, had been hired to teach the Ojibwe blacksmithing as part of the 1854 Treaty of La Pointe, which ceded ownership of 5.5 million acres of Ojibwe land to the United States federal government. Posey in turn told Duluth citizens about the Lake Vermilion iron ores the Ojibwe had shown him. Consequently, in the fall of 1864 Governor Miller sent the Hanchett survey to verify the presence of iron ore and copper in the region and to assess the Vermilion iron ore deposits. When the Hanchett survey failed to reach Lake Vermilion, the next summer that task fell to the Eames survey.

The Eames brothers departed Duluth on May 31, 1865, possibly initially relying on Ojibwe guides. They would later work with Christian Wieland, one of five brothers who had helped found Beaver Bay, Minnesota and intimately knew the terrain. On July 2^nd, Eames reported back to the governor that the iron ores around Lake Vermilion were remarkably rich, with estimates that iron comprised from 65% to 80% of the rock. However, there was another reason for Eames’ haste. At Vermilion Lake, the Eames brothers had also found gold-bearing quartz veins, which is when the story took a turn. Although they were a publicly-funded survey, gold raised the prospect of immense personal financial windfalls. 

Sidney Luce, who hosted the Eames brothers in Duluth, later reported that “they brought with them a nail keg filled with specimens of iron ore, of a superior quality, like that of Marquette [Michigan].”[1] In a letter to Governor Miller, Henry wrote that Lake Vermilion hosted a “magnificent deposit of iron ore, between four and five hundred feet thick” that would most likely be profitable once infrastructure was in place to mine it. But Eames’ July 2^nd letter also contained a cryptic statement that “For other metals found, have to make an assay before we can know if they are valuable or not.”

Henry did not mention what those other metals were and at the time, most people would assume he was referring to copper. Governor Miller apparently thought so and only requested that Eames forward the iron samples to Saint Paul so they could be assayed. However, Luce knew that the Eames brothers also “brought specimens of quartz rock supposed to contain gold. A box of these specimens was put up in my presence and directed to a firm in New York for chemical analysis.” Hence, Henry and Richard sent gold samples, collected on a publicly-funded survey, for analysis without mentioning them to the Governor. This was only the first of many times that boundaries were crossed in the quest for Lake Vermilion gold.

While awaiting the assay reports, the Eames brothers returned to the field and were working along the North Shore by early July. They had sent the gold ore samples to Edward N. Kent of the United States Assay Office at New York. Kent’s assay turned out to be quite favorable, coming in at $31.01 gold per ton of quartz. Although mailed on July 15^th, Kent’s report did not reach the Eames brothers until they returned to Duluth in August. With confirmation of the ore’s value, they returned to Lake Vermilion to map the quartz veins. Not until late August did they bring other samples and the knowledge of potential gold ore to Governor Miller. 

Governor Miller promptly sent off three pounds of gold-bearing quartz to James Pollock, Superintendent of the United States Mint in Philadelphia for a second assay. That assay was undertaken by Jacob Reese Eckfeldt, the Philadelphia Mint’s assayer, who had earned an international reputation for extraordinarily accurate assays. Eckfeldt assayed one sample at $25.63 gold and $4.42 silver per ton of quartz and a second at $21.70 gold and $1 silver per ton. 

Gold Announcement

In his 1866 ‘Report of the State Geologist, Henry H. Eames, on the Metalliferous Region Bordering on Lake Superior made in pursuance of a resolution of the Seventh Legislature of Minnesota,’ Henry did not hold back on the gold claims. He began by admitting that coal ‘cannot yet be said to have been found in such quantities as to make it available for fuel or for manufacturing purposes’ yet he had ‘good reason for the belief’ it soon would be. Eames then briefly alluded to copper and iron before pressing on to his main message. In the Lake Vermilion area, there were numerous veins of quartz, up to several feet thick, ‘nearly all of them showing the presence of the precious metals – gold and silver.’ Henry wrote ‘There is scarcely an island, point or any part of the main shore, that came under my notice, where veins could not be seen, and traced for some distance by removing the moss. … They [the veins] vary from an inch to ten feet wide, and some were traced for upwards of a half mile.’ Gold was not an incidental mention in his report, but its principal message. 

Eames then backed his gold claims with professional assays from both the United States Assay Office of New York and the Philadelphia Mint. As mentioned, those assays reported the samples would yield from $21 to $31 of gold per ton of quartz mined. Henry also made his own assays of samples that he claimed would yield over $62 of gold per ton. 

News of the gold strike was first reported in Saint Paul newspapers on September 19, 1865, and created a furor. News accounts prophesized the gold discovery would turn the tide of immigration from California to Minnesota and individuals dreamed of riches gained by either mining or land speculation. Almost overlooked in the excitement, was the realization that Vermilion gold was embedded in quartz veins and was not present as placer deposits – loose gold particles in sediment. Hence, extracting gold from the Vermilion ores would require significant capital to purchase stamps to crush the ore. Only wealthy individuals stood any chance for success beyond land speculation. Yet, the lure of gold overrode those concerns, and the state was galvanized by the assay reports.

Even if we ignore Eames’ personal assays, as he had no prior experience assaying ores, the official estimates from the New York assay office and the Philadelphia mint meant there was only from 1.1 to 1.6 ounces of gold per ton of ore. While those might sound like token amounts, the Vermilion ore assays compared very favorably with those of other economically-viable gold mines. 

Ores in the Homestake Mine of South Dakota’s Black Hills only yielded $10 to $20 of gold per ton, while the Grass Valley and Nevada City Mines of California yielded $20 to $25 dollars of gold per ton of ore. $20 to $25 per ton was the range for the Placer County mines, one of California’s richest gold-producing areas. And while the celebrated Hayward mines produced from $10 up to $40 of gold per ton of ore, their gold came from a depth of nine hundred feet while Lake Vermilion gold was at the surface. Hence, even the official assays reported by Eames were richer than many Black Hills and California gold mines while Henry’s own assays were up to three times higher than those of other proven gold mines, which later raised the question of whether they were authentic.

However, another possibility is more likely and more in keeping with the brothers’ subsequent attempts to profit from Vermilion gold. In his second report of 1867, Henry Eames added a brief outline of the Earth’s formations for members of the public who might not know much about geology. In his outline, Henry divided the Earth’s strata into Igneous, Transition or Metamorphic, Secondary, Tertiary, and Diluvial and Alluvial subdivisions – which was a scheme already decades out of date at the time of Eames’ writing. 

That jarringly antiquated reference suggests the Eames brothers were not university-trained geologists as they claimed but were self-taught geologists. Even then, if they really had decades of experience in the coal measures of Great Britain, they would have remained a credible choice as state geologists. Geology was a relatively new science at the time and self-taught geologists often proven to be extremely competent. As it turns out though, the Eames brothers had never even visited Great Britain’s Black Country – its coal lands. Instead, they were gas-fitters, plumbers who ran gas piping for lighting into wealthy homes, and amateur thespians in local theater groups who had spent their early lives in central London, far removed from rock outcrops. With astonishing boldness, the Eames brothers had simply ‘reinvented’ themselves upon their arrival in America as chemists and mining engineers. Their first significant geologic experiences of any type only occurred four years before they came to Minnesota, when they moved to western Virginia. Even then, their four years of experience consisted solely of coal geology. Neither brother had ever encountered metal-bearing ores nor metal-bearing quartz veins before Lake Vermilion, so they were complete novices to gold exploration and the Arrowhead region geology. 

Between the siren lure of gold and their own inexperience, the Eames brothers made a classic rookie mistake. Focusing on gold, they only took samples of quartz that contained visible gold rather than random vein samples. Hence their gold-bearing samples were not truly representative of the quartz veins, so their assayed values were inaccurate. Only token amounts of gold were present in any of the quartz veins and most veins held no gold at all.

Folwell’s veiled suggestion they had ‘salted’ the outcrops is belied by the Eames’ brothers’ subsequent behavior as they, like Governor Miller, sought to use Lake Vermilion gold to ensure their own future. Their attempts were encouraged and embraced by wealthy businessmen who rushed to reap private fortunes from a publicly-funded survey. 

After Governor Miller sent the second set of gold ore samples to the Philadelphia Mint, he stressed that he released the assay results to newspapers as soon as the mailed report arrived. Eckfeldt’s assay report was dated September 13 and appeared in Saint Paul newspapers only a week later, on September 19, 1865. However, Miller had privately arranged to have the assay results wired to him a week before the mailed report arrived. 

In his letter to the Philadelphia Mint, Miller wrote: “It is very important that I should know its value as early as practicable, and you will confer a great favor by having it analyzed immediately. Please let me have a brief account of the result by telegram, and a more lengthy report by mail.” Forearmed with a week’s prior notice, Governor Miller and the Eames brothers hastened to ensure they would profit from the gold discovery before its public announcement. In that intervening week, Miller arranged with wealthy business friends to buy up all the available ‘half-breed’ scrip in circulation. 

Dana Miller, a Minnesota historian, explained the buyers’ reasoning in his 1974 thesis on the Vermilion gold rush. Miller’s associates were not worried that Lake Vermilion’s shores belonged to the Bois Forte Band of Chippewa as they were confident that they could use the courts to invalidate Bois Forte rights to the land. However, they could not simply claim Lake Vermilion’s gold for their own through the 1862 Homestead Act. As that act was restricted to surveyed federal land and since Lake Vermilion’s shore was Bois Forte land, it had never been surveyed. Even if it had been surveyed, an 1841 statute prohibited the pre-exemption of any known mineral lands. Hence the only two established ways to acquire the Vermilion gold lands would be to live on the land illegally in the hope of holding it once the Bois Forte land claims were invalidated, or to use ‘half-breed’ scrip to pre-claim the land. As privileged city businessmen, the decision whether to use scrip or squat through a cold Minnesota winter was an easy choice. They would seize the gold lands via scrip. 

Henry Mower Rice helped craft a plan by which the ‘half-breed’ relatives of the Dakota and Ojibwe would relinquish their given tracts in exchange for ‘half-breed’ scrip. This scrip was supposedly non-transferable so it could only be redeemed by its original owner. The scrip allowed its owner to claim up to 640 acres of any unclaimed federal land in exchange for the land guaranteed by the treaties. Importantly, the scrip could be used on unclaimed federal land anywhere, not just in Minnesota, which increased its potential value. Yet, although the scrip was supposed to be non-transferable, Mower ensured that restriction had a loophole and made sure his friends were aware they could use that loophole to gain ownership of the ‘half-breed’ scrip. 

Miller and his colleagues officially incorporated the Minnesota Gold Mining Company on November 7, 1865. Henry Hastings Sibley, the company’s president, already had a history of building wealth at the expense of Indigenous communities. During his previous career as a fur trader, Sibley was instrumental in ensuring the bulk of the payments to the Ojibwe and Dakota for land ceded in treaties instead went to fur traders like himself to pay off highly inflated ‘debts.’ Sibley also led the U. S. military forces during the Dakota War of 1862 and appointed the military commission that sentenced 307 Dakota men to death. Sibley approved all but one of those death sentences. President Lincoln only approved thirty-nine, of which thirty-seven were executed at Mankato under Miller’s supervision. 

Miller, who was nearing the end of his term as governor, served as the company’s secretary. James E. Thompson of Saint Paul’s First National Bank was vice-president and the Eames brothers’ backer and friend, John Stoughtenburg Prince, once again mayor of Saint Paul, was treasurer. While the company was incorporated with a value of two million dollars, its assets were primarily the ‘half-breed’ scrip its officers had purchased for $3.25 an acre but which they now claimed was worth one hundred to three hundred dollars an acre as it was placed on gold-bearing lands. 

Dana Miller noted the company was re-organized on December 5, 1865, reducing its capitalization to a half-million dollars. Under that reorganization, Governor Stephen A. Miller remained the company’s secretary but was no longer listed among its stockholders. The change was an apparent response to the perceived impropriety of a sitting governor being a shareholder in a private company that sought personal fortune from a publicly-funded survey. It was also a highly transparent response, as Stephen C. Miller of St. Louis, Missouri took Governor Stephen A. Miller’s place in the shareholder list, owning the same shares the governor originally held. Company records do not reveal what middle name Governor Miller chose for his St. Louis pseudonym. 

While the Eames brothers lacked the funds to partake in scrip purchases, Miller, Prince, and the rest of the Minnesota Gold Mining Company cabal did not neglect them. Among Richard’s papers preserved in the Minnesota History Center, are certificates for two hundred and seventy shares of Minnesota Gold Mining Company stock, valued at fifty dollars each ($13,500 total). It is uncertain how many shares may have been given to Henry and Richard in total, but even the thirteen-thousand-five-hundred-dollar sum was a small fortune at the time. While no records prove what Richard gave in return for his shares, at the time it was considered an open secret that the Eames brothers provided the company with their maps of the gold-bearing quartz veins. Those accusations were bolstered by the Minnesota Gold Mining Company making their claims within two days, without a survey, on lands that were snow covered at the time the scrip was placed.

The founders of the Minnesota Gold Mining Company realized that their solidest chances for wealth lay in land speculation more than active mining, so they not only supported the rumors of abundant gold but skewed the evidence towards it. In November, Henry had sent the results of an assay he did on a gold-bearing quartz sample, claiming the sample contained gold to the amount of $28.35 per ton. Later, in the Minnesota Gold Mining Company brochure sent to prospective investors, an asterisk was added to that essay.

*It is proper here to state that from the collection of quartz brought down from the mine, all of the best and average specimens were inadvertently given away; and the foregoing assay was therefore made from the poorest quality, the refuse quartz in which no gold could be seen with the naked eye. 

Needless to say, Eames would not have completed his assay on a sample in which no gold could be seen, the company was simply trying to play off the assay as an understatement of potential wealth. In the same pamphlet, Henry H. and Richard M. Eames are listed as Practical Geologist and Chemists for the Minnesota Gold Mining Company. This was the same time both were also drawing publicly paid salaries as State Geologist and Assistant State Geologist.

In the meantime, other less wealthy or less politically connected individuals sought to claim Lake Vermilion’s shores through squatter rights. As early as November 1, 1865, five-hundred-and-seventy-five dollars had been raised in Superior, Wisconsin to construct a road to Vermilion Lake. By the end of that month, when funds ran out, the road was two-thirds complete. Another twelve hundred dollars was raised in Saint Paul to finish the road, which became the forerunner of County Road 4 out of Duluth and State Highway 135. 

One of the best organized of these groups was the Mutual Protection Gold Mining Company which formed on December 15, 1865, and elected Major Thomas M. Newson as leader. The ‘Mutuals,’ as they came to be called, left Saint Paul to arrive in Superior on January 14^th. They then had to complete the last segment of the Vermilion Trail to arrive at the lake on March 5, 1866. The ‘Mutuals’ squatted on many of the same lands the Minnesota Gold Mining Company and Vermillion Lake Mineral Land Company were trying to claim by ‘half-breed’ scrip, setting up a legal battle over who would be able to claim the land. By spring of 1866, several companies and hundreds of miners lined the shores of Lake Vermilion. The town of Winston was created with a sawmill, blacksmith, post office, and hotel all under construction. 

However, all this activity took place on Ojibwe land, land federally recognized as belonging to the Bois Forte Band of Chippewa. In the 1854 Treaty of La Pointe, most of the Ojibwe ceded all lands in the Arrowhead Region. However, Article 12 of that treaty specifically gave the Bois Forte band the right to select their own reservation in the otherwise ceded land and noted the band was exempt from relinquishing their current land about Lake Vermilion. 

Article 12 of the 1854 Treaty of La Pointe

ARTICLE 12. In consideration of the poverty of the Bois Forte Indians. Who are parties to this treaty, they having never received any annuity payments, and of the great extent of that part of the ceded country owned exclusively by them, the following additional stipulations are made for their benefit. The United States will pay the sum of ten thousand dollars, as their chiefs in open council may direct, to enable them to meet their present just engagements. Also the further sum of ten thousand dollars, in five equal annual payments, in blankets, cloth, nets, guns, ammunition, and such other articles of necessity as they may require. 

They shall have the right to select their reservation at any time hereafter, under. the direction of the President; and the same may be equal in extent, in proportion to their numbers, to those allowed the other bands, and be subject to the same provisions. 

They shall be allowed a blacksmith, and the usual smithshop supplies, and also two persons to instruct them in farming, whenever in the opinion of the President it shall be proper, and for such length of time as he shall direct. 

It is understood that all Indians who are parties to this treaty, except the Chippewas of the Mississippi, shall hereafter be known as the Chippewas of Lake Superior. Provided, That the stipulation by which the Chippewas of Lake Superior relinquishing their right to land west of the boundary-line shall not apply to the Bois Forte band who are parties to this treaty.

With the announcement of a gold discovery at the lake, hundreds of armed miners overran Bois Forte lands and staked claims along the Lake Vermilion shores, areas crucial to the Bois Forte’s existence. Many of the miners were Civil War veterans, some of whom had experienced the war’s battlefield horrors. It is impossible to know how many of those men suffered from what would now be recognized as post-traumatic stress disorder. In a volatile mix of competing claims, extreme racist views, and gold fever, it is remarkable bloodshed was avoided. It was obvious though that the Bois Forte families faced considerable peril. 

Many people in Duluth and Saint Paul realized those threats were not one-sided. If the miners began a fight, the Bois Forte would prove a formidable foe. One with an intimate knowledge of the dense woods and waterways of a region where the US-Canadian boundary only existed on maps. The Lake Vermilion gold rush occurred three years after the devastation of the Dakota War. Officials knew it would be much harder to conduct a conflict in forested Ojibwe terrain than on the comparatively open prairies and scattered woodlands of the Dakota. On November 11, 1865, an article in the Saint Paul Pioneer wrote ‘We can ill afford a difficulty with so powerful a band of Indians who are located in a country where they could prosecute warfare of indefinite length, and the part of prudence and justice demands the purchase of the land.’

When the Bois Forte ordered the miners to leave until the situation could be resolved in Washington, The Superior Gazette wrote ‘to disregard their instructions would be only to get into difficulty, as these Boisfort Indians are not to be trifled with.’

Yet, other prominent civic leaders and businessmen urged wholesale genocide of the Bois Forte band even though the band had not responded violently. Secretary of the Interior James Harlan reported to Congress late in 1865 that “the policy of the total destruction of the Indians has been openly advocated by gentlemen of high position, intelligence, and personal character; but no enlightened nation can adopt or sanction it without a forfeiture of its self-respect and the respect of the civilized nations of the earth.” However, he undercut that noble sentiment by arguing that eradication was not economically feasible. Fortunately, those calling for genocide on the shores of Lake Vermilion did not prevail. 

Before leaving office, Governor Miller strove repeatedly to use his influence to invalidate the Bois Forte’s claim to their land, primarily because the Minnesota Gold Mining Company’s ‘half-breed’ scrip could only be placed on unclaimed federal land. If the government recognized the Bois Forte rights, then his company’s attempt to seize the Vermilion gold lands would be still-born. Hence it was imperative to quickly revoke the Bois Forte Band of Chippewa’s ties to their land. Unfortunately for the governor and Minnesota Gold Mining Company’s plans, the new Commission of Indian Affairs overseeing the Agency of the Chippewas of Lake Superior was an honest man. 

Dennis N. Cooley became a Commissioner of Indian Affairs on July 9, 1865. Although he and his agents shared the racist views of their time, Cooley realized the Dakota War three years earlier was due to maleficence on his agency’s part in delaying supplies. He was determined that no similar disaster would occur under his watch. Cooley maintained that under the 1854 Treaty of La Pointe, the Bois Forte had the right to select their reservation at any place within the ceded lands. Although he noted the band had tentatively agreed to leave the Lake Vermilion area in another treaty, negotiated exclusively with the Bois Forte band in 1856, the Senate never ratified that treaty, so it was therefore unenforceable. 

Governor Miller argued the Bois Forte band could still be held to that 1856 agreement, but Commissioner Cooley decisively and publicly rejected the governor’s argument. Cooley noted the band had lived at Vermilion Lake since 1855, and the land had been repeatedly recognized and mapped as their reservation. His refutation of Governor Miller’s proposal ended with the line “…it will be my duty, and I shall by all means in my power endeavor to protect them in their rights.’ Cooley’s announcement was a death knell to the Minnesota Gold Mining Company and Vermillion Lake Mineral Land Company plans to use ‘half-breed’ scrip to acquire the Lake Vermilion gold lands. Like the ‘Mutuals,’ their only option to acquire the land now lay in squatting on it illegally until a new treaty was signed. 

Although Cooley defended the Bois Forte claim to their land, he knew the current situation was untenable. Hundreds of armed men lined Vermilion’s shores, claiming land in defiance of the Bois Forte Band of Chippewa’s rights and it seemed it would be only a matter of time before bloodshed occurred. Together with other government leaders, Cooley pushed for a new treaty to remove the Bois Forte from the shores of Lake Vermilion. Realizing the danger their families were in, some of the Bois Forte felt a new treaty was their only safe alternative and some families had already moved to Pelican Lake. 

The Bois Forte treaty was signed on April 7 of 1866, moving their reservation from Lake Vermilion to Nett Lake, forty miles northwest of Vermilion. The drive to gain access to Lake Vermilion gold ensured the treaty’s rapid passage through Washington corridors. In short order the treaty was ratified by the Senate on April 26 and proclaimed to the public on May 5, 1866. For their part, the Bois Forte Band of Chippewa accepted the treaty on April 28, two days after its Senate ratification. Later that September, having successfully negotiated the treaty, Cooley resigned as Commissioner of Indian Affairs for his district, a position he had only held for fifteen months. 

Only a few months later, the treaty proved completely unnecessary as the Lake Vermilion gold rush was already imploding. One miner, Thomas B. Walker, sent samples weighing a combined eight-seven pounds to George J. Chase, professor of Analytical Chemistry and Geology at Brown University. Chase reported the best samples only assayed a trace of gold and most showed no traces. Under any known methods of mining at the time, Chase reported the best samples could only produce five dollars of gold per ton, and that it would cost four times that amount to mine the quartz. Initially, Chase’s report was vilified by many of the mining companies, but the subsequent weeks bore out its accuracy. 

The Superior Gazette soon reported there were ‘No encouraging reports from the mining operations’ and ‘the Vermilion mines played out,’ overlooking the reality those mines had never actually been ‘in play.’ Some larger companies that had made large investments struggled on through the spring of 1867. But by July of 1877, only seventy men remained at Vermilion. Ten years later, the government agent was the district’s sole non-Indigenous person, and most vestiges of the mining operations had vanished. The miners’ town of Winston, which they had later rechristened Vermilion, was a ghost town and the Lake Vermilion gold rush was over. 

But more importantly for our department’s history, Winchell’s 1872 Geological and Natural History Survey was the first state geological survey in the United States to be administrated through a university. And the reason it was placed under the direction of university president William Watts Folwell, is because of the corruption and scandal surrounding the Eames survey and the Lake Vermilion Gold Rush. In 1867, with the collapse of Eame’s promised Cottonwood coal fields and the rumored scandals and failure of the Lake Vermilion gold rush, the state legislature refused to continue the state’s geological survey, The Eames brothers lost their appointments. Five years later, a new legislature recognized the state’s need for a survey but had no faith in governor-appointed state geologists. Folwell had done an outstanding job reestablishing the University of Minnesota and burnishing its reputation. Consequently, legislators trusted Folwell to avoid the backroom entanglements of the Eames survey. Hence, in September 1872, the Geological and Natural History Survey of Minnesota began, with Folwell and the university regents as supervisors and Newton Horace Winchell as its sole staff. Winchell was only given a thousand dollars in support for his first year, a fifth of the Eames survey’s support in 1866. 

Winchell’s survey in turn led to the formal establishment of the University of Minnesota’s geology department in 1874. Although the present Minnesota Geological Survey arose from the geology department in 1911, the geology department itself arose out of the earlier 1872 Geological and Natural History Survey of Minnesota. That earlier survey, and the way it was structured, were responses to the previous Eames survey. Hence, the Eames survey and Vermilion gold claims were indirectly the origin of both the current Earth and Environmental Sciences department and Minnesota Geological Survey. 

But there is another crucial, but seldom acknowledged, legacy of the Lake Vermilion Gold Rush. In 1871, because of a dispute between the House and Senate, a law was passed that ended treaty making with Indigenous nations. That was only five years after the 1866 Bois Forte Treaty was signed. Then thirteen years later, in the summer of 1884, Charlemagne Tower began Minnesota iron mining, and that iron mining began at Lake Vermilion.

If the Bois Forte Band of Chippewa had not been forced into the 1866 treaty because of a false gold rush, they would have held much of the land in the Vermilion Iron District. It is highly unlikely the Bois Forte would have willingly agreed to let their land be used for iron production. As highlighted by the 1854 Treaty of La Pointe text, the Bois Forte Band had always avoided taking compensation from the United States government for their land, justifiably not trusting its treaties. However, considering the economic and political power of the mining companies, the Bois Forte may have been forced into leasing their land. Even if forced to do so though, the Bois Forte would have been paid for their land’s use and received royalties from the mining companies, like any other landowner of the time. 

As a result, the Bois Forte Band of Chippewa might well have become the wealthiest Indigenous community in the United States. At least until a 1904 oil boom enriched the Osage of Oklahoma and touched off a sometimes-murderous campaign to share Osage oil wealth through marriages. And even after the 1904 oil boom, the Bois Forte would have remained one of the wealthiest Indigenous communities in North America.

Although it might be tempting to do so, the University of Minnesota cannot disassociate itself from the territorial university – despite there being a seven-year gap before the university reopened after the Civil War. Disassociation is not possible because our present university continues to profit from lands given to the original territorial university. Funds generated from those lands remain part of our Permanent University Fund. In addition, the University of Minnesota continues to claim legal immunity on some issues because it is older than the state. That legal immunity only holds if we trace our roots to the territorial university, so the connection between the territorial and state universities remains.

Similarly, while it may be tempting to separate our present department and survey from the Eames survey, we cannot do so. The Minnesota Geological Survey has traditionally tied its origin to the September 1872 start of Winchell’s Geological and Natural History Survey, yet there was an eleven-year, nine-month gap between the end of Winchell’s survey in 1899 and the start of the current survey. The gap between the Eames survey and Winchell’s Survey was five years and nine months, less than half that later gap. More importantly, the Eames survey, the first significant Minnesota Geological Survey, was not just the forerunner of the present survey, but was the reason the later surveys were organized and run through the University of Minnesota. Ties between the Eames and Winchell surveys are also evident in that the Winchell survey’s first few years were devoted to following up the coal and gold reports initiated by the Eames survey. And of course, in 1874, Winchell’s survey led to the official creation of our own department. Consequently, both the University of Minnesota’s Department of Earth and Environmental Sciences and the Minnesota Geological Survey owe their origins to the Eames survey. 

On March 30, 2020, High Country News published a now-classic examination of how land grant Universities profited from lands that Indigenous communities were forced to cede. But the sheer scale of that land theft makes it difficult to comprehend on a personal basis. Fifty-two institutions benefited from the land grab and within the University of Minnesota, our department is only one small unit. Consequently, it is not always apparent how closely we are linked to those land seizures.

However, the Lake Vermilion Gold Rush and its associated corruption not only led to the present Minnesota Geological Survey and our department, but it also links our institutions directly to the Bois Forte Band of Chippewa’s land dispossession and their subsequent loss of enormous potential wealth. Although no one currently in the department nor survey is responsible for that dispossession, everyone in the department and survey benefits from it having occurred. Our units are a result of that dispossession and the ensuing century of hardship the Bois Forte Band of Chippewa had to overcome, which brings the concept of being part of a ‘land grab’ university down to a much more personal level. 

The 2023 TRUTH report describes many of the ways in which our institution has historically done harm to Native American communities. The Lake Vermilion Gold Rush is one of those stories. As mentioned earlier, this story is incomplete. But there are 3,000 members of the Bois Forte Band of Chippewa who can complete the story and tell us what the Vermilion Gold Rush and the first Minnesota Geological Survey meant to their ancestors. Learning those stories and incorporating them into our courses is one request of the TRUTH Report we can easily begin to do.

Nearly every history of the Lake Vermilion Gold Rush includes the idea that while the Gold Rush failed, it indirectly led to the region’s later iron mining industry. Those stories suggest gold miners discovering or spreading the word of iron ore led to the iron mines. However, those stories are not supported by the historic record. Worse, their origins are tied to 19^th century racism, a legacy we should avoid propagating. 

The search for gold did NOT lead to the discovery of iron ore. Rather, the search for iron ore led to the mistaken claims of gold. Both the Norwood Survey of 1847 to 1850 and Colonel Charles Whittlesey’s geological explorations from 1848 to 1864 recognized that rich beds of iron ore existed in the Arrowhead Region. Lake Vermilion was known to have rich iron ores simply because Ojibwe had shown those to their blacksmith, North Albert Posey, who in turn sent samples to George Stuntz, a Duluth surveyor and civil engineer. Stuntz later convinced Duluth businessman George C. Stone of the ore’s richness and Stone in turn eventually persuaded Charlemagne Tower Sr. to develop the Vermilion range. Even the lake’s name is derived from the Ojibwe word Onamuni which refers to the reddish cast of its waters due to iron deposits along its south shore. Hence, knowledge of Minnesota’s iron ore was not due to the later gold rush. 

In 1864, Governor Miller sent August Hanchett to the Arrowhead Region with the specific task of assessing the iron ores at Lake Vermilion. In a letter to the governor, Hanchett said his exploration would be ‘for the purpose of determining the existence, character and extent of the iron deposits in that vicinity.’ However, his late start and unseasonable weather prevented Hanchett from achieving that goal. The following year, Miller sent the Eames brothers out with the same goal. Henry and Richard Eames only went to Lake Vermilion because rich iron ore was reported there. Hence, their inadvertent discovery of trace amounts of gold and the ensuing failed gold rush resulted from the search for Vermilion iron ore, they were not the reason iron ore was discovered. Iron ore was already well known. However, there were good reasons why it would take almost two decades before iron mining could begin.

For Vermilion’s iron ore to have any value in 1865, a cartel would have to construct railroads, ore ships, and a new canal. Even then, they would still have to compete with low-cost Michigan iron ore shipped to Ohio, Pennsylvania, and New York through the 1855 Soo Locks in Sault Ste Marie. It would take almost two decades before the Arrowhead region’s infrastructure could support the economic exploitation of Minnesota’s iron ores, which is why everyone in 1865 was far more interested in the potential implications of gold rather than iron ore. 

So, where did the story that the gold rush led to iron mining originate? The story was well entrenched by 1920 as it was included in Ruth M. Elliot’s unpublished senior thesis that year ‘The Vermilion gold rush of 1865’. However, its inclusion in William Watts Folwell’s fourth volume of ‘History of Minnesota’, published posthumously in 1930, enshrined the story in state lore and furthered its dissemination. And the tale’s underlying origin was simple. When telling any story, most cultures want a story to have a suitable conclusion, a lesson, moral, or product. If the Lake Vermilion gold rush had no result, why tell its tale? Hence, the idea that the Vermilion gold rush directly or indirectly led to the region’s iron ore mining fulfilled a basic story-telling need.

However, in doing so, the tale also reflects the systematic racism of the late 19^th century. From an objective viewpoint, no new iron-mining parable was needed, as the Vermilion gold rush story already had an obvious result – namely the land dispossession of the Bois Forte Band of Chippewa and their subsequent losses. It is difficult to come up with a more compelling tale than the loss of a people’s homeland and burial grounds or their forced dispersal. However, late 19^th century and early 20^th century American culture did not place worth on the Bois Forte experience. So, while that dispossession was mentioned as an incidental aside, the forced diaspora of the Bois Forte Band was not considered significant enough to be a suitable ending for the gold rush tale. 

Over a century and a half later, we need to do better and fully acknowledge the Bois Forte people’s experience. Their story is the easily the greatest legacy of the Vermilion gold rush. 

Second State and Assistant State Geologists

Any concerns or suggestions?

email: Kent Kirkby ([email protected])