The Delaware Fissure was first worked by the Northwest in 1847, at which time it was known as the Northwest Fissure. In 1863 the Delaware took over production at the vein and continued to work the fissure down to its 9th level. Very little copper was found, and attention was quickly moved over to the neighboring Stoutenberg vein in hopes for some better luck. A total of three shafts were sunk into the narrow vein, one north of the road and the other two sunk to the south. While we could make out some ruins hiding out in the trees just to the south, they was obviously sitting on private property so we ignored them. We turned our attention northward towards what I believe to be the No.1 shaft and took a stroll out along its expansive poor rock pile. It was during that stroll that we found ourselves an even better ruin to explore…

From this angle we couldn’t tell exactly what it was, except that it was large. Roughly square in shape, the entire rock walled foundation extended several dozen feet out of an adjacent ridge line and rose a couple feet about our heads. There were no window or door openings to be seen, but we could make out what looked to be an iron bolt sticking up out of its top.

The structures most impressive feature was the massive size of the blocks from which it was constructed -some were several feet high! Due to those blocks’ enormous size we were sure we were looking at the base of a large piece of machinery, probably a hoist. The iron bolt we spied protruding up from the structure’s top seemed to confirm our theory. But to be sure we would have take a look at the building’s top – which thanks to that adjacent ridge shouldn’t be too difficult.

But before reaching its top we first noticed this intriguing feature a – a terraced level up behind the building that looked suspiciously like an old road or railroad grade. It came up from behind the powder house and ran right up next to the ruins before stopping a few hundred feet to the east. Whatever it was it sure didn’t look natural, that was for sure. A coal spur perhaps fore some unseen boiler house?.

After reaching the foundation’s top we could make out several deep trenches cutting across its surface as well as a a virtual forest of iron bolts scattered all about. These features were definitely part of either a hoist or compressor, or possibly just a steam engine on its own. Either way there was an engine mounted here at one time. A quick look around revealed a few more details:

We have a few more bolts…

Along with a couple more trenches.

We even had a few red bricks sprinkled about for good measure.

Most interesting of all was the fact that a great many of those iron bolts still had their hardware attached, including their nuts and these interesting washer/flange things that sat about midway down the posts’ length.

Making our way to the structures opposite end we found evidence of what was once the building’s outer wall – a short section of rock wall on the structures front that looked to have once continued on past the machine foundation itself. But the rest of that outer wall was long gone today.

With nothing much else to see we moved on towards the Delaware, and the soaring rock walls of a building that we could make out just down the road…

To Be Continued…