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Volume 2 Issue 2

The Palermo Mine, located off Route 25 in Rumney, NH, has been operating off and on as a source of mica,
feldspar and beryl for over 125 years. Quarrying operations started in 1863, when Charles E. Kellog began
mining sheet mica (muscovite). He eventually sold his operation to the Hartford Mining Company in February
1878, naming it the Hartford Mine. The Hartford Mining Company then began expanding operations and began working the pegmatite from the south end eastward and extending underground. In 1886, the mineral rights were sold to George F. Bread. Bread then transferred a mortgage to the Palermo Mining Company of New York as security for a prior loan, and in 1888 the Palermo Mining Company purchased all mineral rights from Bread. At this time, the Hartford Mine became the Palermo Mine.

At this time, the operation changed completely, Workers went from hand drills and black powder to steam drills and dynamite. A crew of 85 local farmers were hired to work underground, and a trimming shop employing twenty-five women was set up at the surface.

Near the end of the nineteenth century, the Palermo Mining Company went bankrupt, and the mine was sold
at an auction to Eugene Munsell & Company for $30,000. The mine lay dormant for the next few years until
1914 when the General Electric Company bought the mineral rights. GE then resumed mining mica
underground during World War I. After the war, the mine operation again laid dormant. In 1944, GE was
managing the mine pool, so leased the mine to a newly formed mining company called the Ashley Mining
Company of Rumney, NH. H.A. Ashley, as president, and Maltby Shipp as mining engineer produced 4,222
tons of feldspar, 495 tons of scrap mica, and 49 tons of beryl in one year. Poor health forced the Ashley Mining
Company to shut down in 1954.

In 1958, John Maderic bought the rights from GE and resold them to Milton Burleson, of the Mountain Mining
Company in North Carolina the same year. The Mountain Mining Company operated underground, mining mica for three years. In 1963, Minerals Materials, Inc. leased the mine for five years and produced crushed quartz from the core of the pegmatite. Some of the material from the mine was used for the facing of the Prudential Insurance Company building in Boston. Also, 40 tons of beryl was stockpiled as well.

In 1973, Peter Samuelson leased Palermo solely for the production of gem beryl and mineral specimens. It was
at this time that Professor Paul B. Moore, of the University of Chicago, Department of Geophysical Sciences,
began investigating the numerous phosphate minerals that had been exposed by the blasting of the triphylite
pods in the quarry part of the mine. A new mineral, Bjarcbyite, was found at this time.

In May 1974, all mineral rights to the Palermo Mines were purchased by Robert Whitmore and Forrest Fogg, calling themselves Palermo Mine Enterprises. During the 1970's, Dr. D.P. Moore and A.R. Kampf (now Dr. A.R. Kampf) did an extensive investigation of the phosphate minerals. During this time, there were five more new phosphate minerals found. These were Foggite, Goodhenite, Samuelsonite, Shoonerite, and Whitmoreite.

Today, Robert Whitmore is the sole owner of the property. To date there have been 110 minerals found at this
locality, with the Palermo Mine being the type locality for ten of them.