Scott Mine
Location: West Nottingham, south side of Park Road, Nottingham County Park.
Scott (A) and Engine (B) mines, Department of Agricultural Aerial Photograph, AHK–4D–174, taken on November 18, 1946. The Scott Mine is located just east of the Park Office The road in the upper part of the photo is Park Road.
Heritage Hike Leaflet, Nottingham County Park
June 7, 1826 - William Scott filed a petition in the Orphans Court. Decedents to receive 213 acres of land in West Nottingham township - paid $5,000.
[A court document dated 19th August 1826 gives the appraisal by John Blackburn and Nicholas House of 213¼ acres of land in West Nottingham previously owned by Francis Armstrong at $2.50 per acre, total cost $533 12½c. Francis Armstrong’s will was probated in 1792. Armstrong had purchased land from Joseph and William Poak in 1785 - MB]
February 8, 1832 - William Scott entered a complaint of trespass in the Chester County Court of Common Pleas and a warrant was issued agains Isaac Tyson, jr. and company. In supporting document it shows that during this trespass Tyson dug up chromite without permission from Scott “of great value and exceeding the value of six hundred dollars”.
[The defendants were Isaac Tyson, Jacob Kirk, John Kirk jr., John Poole, John Keating, John O’Neal, James Murphy, Jospeh Wood, Lewis Melrath, & Joseph Miller - MB]
May 3, 1834 - Scott made a contract with Tyson for 150 tons of chrome at $20 per ton.
March 26, 1835 - again, Scott made an agreement with Tyson to deliver 200 tons of Chrome before April 1, 1836 to Tyson at a specified price. This agreement was nullified by the July 4, 1835 lease.
July 4, 1835 - Tyson leased the chromite vein at the Scott mine site for $1,000. He also received the rights to build a house for workmen and to have an access road to the public road nearby. This lease nullified the March 26, 1835 agreement except the Scott would be paid for any chromite he had already extracted. (Chester County Miscellaneous Deed Book #3-92 - MB)
September 8, 1835 - Tyson had a disagreement with Scott. It was reported that Scott opened another chromite mine nearby after leasing the particular vein to Tyson. This mine apparently drained into Tyson’s mine and after Tyson lost the resulting litigation, he closed his mine..
[This does not seem to be the whole story as Tyson’s record book lists an agreement with Scott dated 18th June 1835 for chrome ore at $10 / ton. - MB]
Chromite and other mineral deposits in serpentine rocks of the piedmont upland Maryland, Pennsylvania and Delaware, by N.C. Pearre and A.V. Heyl, Geological Survey Bulletin 1082-K (1960), discussion (abridged) of the Scott and Engine mines is as follows:
One of the more important
mines of the Tyson Mining Co. was the Scott Mine. Several chromite mines were worked in the vicinity and reports differ somewhat as to which group of openings is the old Scott Mine. The largest one may be the Scott Mine. It consists of an incline or trench that slopes N. 30° E. to a large partially filled shaft; a group of pits southwest of it; roughly aligned in the same direction; two old shafts northwest of it; a fairly large area of dumps; and remnants of former dumps that have been removed. About 500 feet east of this mine are three old shafts with fairly large brush-covered dumps called the Engine Mine. The dump of a prospect pit southeast of the Engine Mine is reported to contain relatively rich chromite. Further southward, along the south side of Black Run and mostly southeast of the Scott and Engine mines, is an area of numerous shallow prospect pits that are reported to show lean chromite.
The Scott mine is considered to be one of Tyson’s secondary “best” mines, although indications are that he did not work it very long because of legal difficulties. Even so, the mine is reported to have produced about 3,000 tons (some soruces say 6,000) of ore and to have reached a depth of 200 to 250 feet (some soruces say 400 feet). Most of the ore Tyson produced was massive chromite.
During World War I the National Minerals Co. sorted and shipped almost 30 tons of ore that ran 36 percent Cr2O3 from several thousand tons of rock on the old Scott dumps.
If any attempt was made by the company to reopen the mine, it was brief and soon abandoned because of caving. Some bulldozing has been done at the mine, dating in large part at least from a later period of interest about 1945.
Chrome Ores of Southeastern Pennsylvania and Maryland by Eleanora Bliss Knopf,
U.S. Geol. Survey Bull. 725, p. 85 - 99 (1922)
The Scott mine was worked by the Tyson Mining Co. to a depth of 200 to 250 feet.
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