Mica and feldspar were being mined from dozens of Unfortunately, in the early 1800s the market for rough gemstones and mineral specimens in the United States was undeveloped, and the Hamlins sold many of their crystals for small amounts of money.īy the late 1800s, rough gem materials were regularly being purchased by dealers in Boston and New York. Some of the crystals were over two inches in length and one inch in diameter. Later that year, Hamlin's younger brothers, Cyrus and Hannibal (who later served as Vice President to Abraham Lincoln), opened a pocket of beautiful gem-quality green and red tourmaline crystals in a nearby rock ledge. They sent some of the crystals to Benjamin Silliman, a professor at Yale University, who identified them as tourmaline. That day they found a number of beautiful crystals and fragments of crystals at the fallen tree and at numerous nearby locations. StateĪs soon as the winter's snow had melted away, Hamlin and Holmes returned to the fallen tree and began searching. They did not know what they had found but decided to return in the spring to resume their search. They decided to return the next day to continue their search, but the first snowfall of winter made searching impossible. They began searching for more crystals but were hampered by darkness. The men examined the crystal and realized that something special had been found. He went to the tree and picked a small, bright green, transparent prism-shaped crystal from the soil. Two young men, Elijah Hamlin and Ezekiel Holmes, were hiking when Hamlin spotted a green flash of color in the soil beneath the roots of a fallen tree. The first commercial gemstone mine in the United States was discovered by accident near the town of Paris, Maine, on a late autumn day in October of 1821. Visit our Fee Mining Page for a list of these mines. You're the Miner: There are over 100 mines in the United States where anyone can visit, pay a small fee, look for gems and minerals, and keep what they find.
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