Magaw Mine


Magnesite Mine
southern East Nottingham, 1883

This mine is only known through a mention in an Oxford Press and Jeffersonian articles of December 1867.

Newspaper Clippings

Oxford Press 4th December 1867

...

Parties from Reading have men digging for iron on James Magaw’s land. They are getting out quantities of what they say is good iron ore. If so, there is any quantity of it in these parts.

Jeffersonian 7th December 1867

Iron Ore. A rich vein of iron ore has recently been discovered on the farm of James McGaw, in East Nottingham township, about two miles south of Oxford.  The field in which the ore was found has been leased for ten years by a company in Berks county.  Mr. McGaw granted them the privilege of opening four pits, and two have already been dug, in the second of which a vein of the ore of best quality has been struck, and a considerable quantity thrown out.  The discovery of the ore was made by some Irish chrome diggers who had been working in the vicinity, and who took some specimens of the surface stone – which bore iron indications – with them to our neighboring county.  There are surface indications of iron ore on many of the farms in the same locality, and we have no doubt but that it exists in great quantities.