1028 REPOKT OF NATIONAL MUSEUM, 1895. 



The sum mentioned by the Secretary being manifestly too small to 

 compensate Mr. Eldred "fully and fairly," General Cunningham allowed 

 the latter to transport the rock to Detroit, and promised that if the 

 curiosity was ordered to Washington, Mr. Eldred should be placed in 

 charge of it. On October 11, 1843, the bowlder was landed in Detroit ^ 

 aud placed on exhibition for a fee of 25 cents; and among those who 

 embraced the opportunity to visit it was Henry R. Schoolcraft, who 

 renewed an acquaintance with the copper monarch, formed twenty- 

 three years before.^ After less than a month of uninterrupted posses- 

 sion. United States District Attorney George C. Bates informed Mr. 

 Eldred that the revenue cutter Urie was waiting at Detroit to receive 

 the rock for transportation to the capital; and on November 9 the 

 bowlder started on its long journey, ' by way of Buffalo, the Erie Canal, 

 and New York City, to Georgetown, District of Columbia. Mr. Eldred 

 accompanied it as far as New York, and met it at Georgetown with a 

 dray, by which it was hauled to the Quartermaster's Bureau of the 

 War Department and deposited in the yard, where it remained until 

 sometime subsequent to 1855.'' 



Mr. Eldred now appealed to Congress for redress ; and it so happened 

 that in the Senate William Woodbridge, of Michigan, was chairman 

 of the Committee on Public Lands. An exhaustive report on the sub- 

 ject was made at the first session of the Twenty-eighth Congress, and 

 three years later, by an act approved January 20, 1847, the Secretary 

 of War was authorized "to allow and settle upon just and equitable 



* Farmer's History of Detroit and Michigan, calendar of dates. 



2 Schoolcraft, Henry R. The American Indians. Rochester, 1851. 



* Treasury Department MSS. Letters from Secretary Spencer to Captain Knapp, 

 September 29, 1843; Knapp to Spencer, November 11, 1843; Captain Heintzelman's 

 receipt, November 11, 1843. 



* Roberts's Sketches of Detroit, 1855. 



Doctor Thomas Wilson, of the National Museum, a second cousin of Cyrus Menden- 

 hall, who was one of the early proprietors and workers of copper mines in Lake 

 Superior (probably from 1840 to 1855 or 1856), contributes the following informa- 

 tion, which is of interest in this connection: ''My uncle, Thomas Mercer, when a 

 young man, went from Columbiana County, Ohio, to Lake Superior as an assistant 

 to his cousin. In about 1848 he came down from Lake Superior, by way of the 

 canal, from Cleveland to Beaver with one of these immense masses of copper. He 

 dined en route at my father's house at New Brighton, and in his company after 

 dinner I rode with him on the boat as far as Rochester. I remember the appear- 

 ance of the nugget of copper very well. It was as large or larger than the one in 

 the National Museum, and when I saw the latter, I thought it was the same which I 

 had seen on the boat. I learned from my father that the mass which we saw on 

 the boat was taken to Pittsburg, under the belief that it would prove of consider- 

 able profit to its owners. It turned out to be a loss, however, owing to their 

 inability to melt it or to cut it, or in any way divide or separate it into small 

 enough pieces to handle. They built a lire over it as it stood in the yard. How 

 they then treated it I do not know; nor do I know that, with all this labor, it was 

 finally reduced. It brought no profit to the original owners." Dr. Wilson thinks 

 that there must have been two or more of thesa large copper nuggets which were 

 brought down the lakes from Lake Superior. 



