Sidwell Mine /

Walter D. Irwin Chrome Prospect


Location: Elk township, bounded by Mason-Dixon line to the south and State Road to the west. Area also known as Mount Rocky.

Tract originally covered by an Isaac Tyson agreement with Richard Sidwell, dated 4/11/1838, for 7 years with costs of $30 per year plus $4/ton of rock chrome and $1/ton sand chrome.


Newspaper Clippings

Oxford Press
3rd May 1918


Messrs. H. B. Pyle and Craig Adair, Wilmington, have begun excavations on W. D. Irwin’s mineral tract in Elk township, near Mt. Rocky. They are in search of rock chrome. The location is on the old Sidwell meadow, extending from the Oxford-Elkton road east nearly to the covered bridge over the Little Elk, not far from Elk Mills. Mr. Irwin bought this meadow tract several years ago.

He has leased to these gentlemen the right to mine rock chrome on his property for a year. He would not consider a proposition to wash for sand chrome, as he does not want his meadow damaged in any way.

The place where the excavation is being made by J. P. Corcoran, of Elk Mills, is not far from the Oxford-Elkton road.

It is on the spot where J. P. Cain, of Lombard, Md., took out some fine specimens of rock chrome several years ago. Before he passed away Mr. Cain showed the location to Mr. Irwin, who had just come into possession of the tract of mineral land. Further east, on this tract, a shaft was once sunk by the Tyson mining Company to the depth of about 125 feet. A drift from this shaft followed the vein for a considerable distance. Much good ore was taken out.

When Mr. Irwin began to use the land as pasture for his stock, he feared the open shaft would be dangerous, and filled it up.

Mr. Irwin will get, under the terms of his lease, a royalty of $6 per ton on any rock chrome taken out on his land.