Tantiusques

Tantiusques
Open Space Reserve Historic Site National Register of Historic Places
Tantiusques
Country	United States
State	Massachusetts
Location	Sturbridge, Massachusetts
- coordinates	42°3′26″N 72°7′52″W
Plant	Oak-hickory forest, Mountain Laurel
Founded	1962
Management	The Trustees of Reservations
Area	57 acres (230,000 m2)
Website: Tantiusques

U.S. National Register of Historic Places
Built:	1643
NRHP Reference#:	83004141
Added to NRHP:	October 6, 1983

Tantiusques ("tan-tas-qua") is a 57-acre (230,000 m²) open space reservation and historic site registered with the National Register of Historic Places. The reservation is located in Sturbridge, Massachusetts and is owned and managed by The Trustees of Reservations; it is notable for its historic, defunct graphite mines. The name Tantiusques comes from a Nipmuck word meaning "black stuff between the hills." The Nipmuck used the graphite to make ceremonial paints. The property also contains the ruins of an 19th century period house that belonged to a mine worker of mixed African American and Native American ancestry.

History

In 1644, John Winthrop the Younger, son of the first leader of the Massachusetts Bay Colony, purchased the area now occupeid by the reservation from the Nipmuck and began a commercial mining operation. Besides graphite, the mine yielded modest amounts of lead and iron. Despite difficulties extracting minerals and poor financial returns, the mine stayed in the hands of the Winthrop family until 1784.

In 1828, Frederick Tudor, a Boston merchant, purchased the property. He successfully mined the graphite for over a quarter of a century and employed Captain Joseph Dixon and his son, who would later found the J.D. Crucible Company of New Jersey. This company eventually evolved into Dixon Ticonderoga, the famous manufacturer of pencils.

By 1910 all mining operations at Tantiusques had ceased. Although forest has since reclaimed the area, mine cuts, ditches, tailings piles and several shafts are still visible. The mineshaft that tunnels into the face of the low ridge is the most recent of the excavations, dating to 1902. Most of the mining at Tantiusques was of the open trench variety. A cut along a ridge top on the property is the partially filled-in remainder of what was once a several 1,000-foot (300 m) long trench, 20 feet (6.1 m) to 50 feet (15 m) deep, and roughly 6 feet (2 m) wide.

Tantiusques was acquired by The Trustees of Reservations in 1962 through land donated by Roger Chaffee, given in memory of his professor, George H. Haynes, of Worcester Polytechnic Institute. Professor Haynes, a Sturbridge native, published The Tale of Tantiusques - An Early Mining Venture in Massachusetts in 1902. In 1983, through the efforts of the Sturbridge Historical Commission, the mine was placed on the National Register of Historic Places.

The Crowd Site

The Crowd Site, a satellite parcel belonging to the Tantasquis reservation and purchased in 2002, contains the foundations of a house and barn belonging to Robert Crowd, of mixed African American and Native American ancestry, who worked in the mine in the 1850s.

Crowd's house measured 20 feet (6.1 m) by 25 feet (7.6 m) 20 and was constructed circa 1815 by a newlywed couple, John Davis and Rhoda Vinton. They built their home on land owned by Rhoda's father, Jabez Vinton. With the death of John Davis in 1820, Rhoda moved back into her father's home and the house she and her husband built became a rental property. For the next 22 years it remained so and in 1830 its occupants included men who worked in the nearby graphite mine. In 1842 the house and property were purchased by Robert Crowd and his wife Diantha Scott.

Town records show that the Crowds continued to increase the size of their land holdings, but seem to have made few improvements to the house itself. Illness and changing fortunes eventually led the family to move away around 1860. After that, others lived in the house until it burned down circa 1924

In 1994 and 1995, staff of Old Sturbridge Village (a colonial-period themed village) conducted archaeological excavations at the site, which along with documentary research indicated that the Davis/Crowd house was very similar to other period small houses, of a housing form that is now almost completely vanished from the New England landscape. These houses had chimneys located in their northwest corners or along the north wall and unfinished attics. Most of the downstairs space was taken up by one single room.

Archaeological evidence on the layout of the Davis/Crowd farm, and from the artifacts found at the site, is scheduled to be used in Old Sturbridge Village's Small House Exhibit, a departure from the larger houses typical of the period village museum.

Recreation

The property is open to hiking, mountain biking, horseback riding, cross country skiing, and hunting (in season). A 1.5-mile (2 km) loop trail leads through forests filled with mountain laurel to the former mine. This trail connects to a spur trail that passes through the adjacent Leadmine Wildlife Management Area and ends at the ruins of the Crowd Site.

A trailhead is located on Leadmine Road in Sturbridge.

References

• Dixon Ticonderoga Company
• The Trustees of Reservations: Tantiusquis. Retrieved December 31, 2008.
• Town of Sturbridge Public Documents
• Old Sturbridge Village: Online Resource Library

External links

• The Trustees of Reservations
• National Register of Historic Places