June 3, 2004

Living at the mines, circa 1880-1914
Quicksilver miners worked hard, played hard

By Jeanne C. Lewis
Staff Writer

The history of the civilized world progressed through the relentless effort of men and women toiling long hard hours to create meaningful existences for their families. Life at the New Almaden Quicksilver Mining Company in the late 1800s was no different.

Men spent 12 hour shifts thousands of feet below the earth, transported by small handmade elevators depositing them into dark passages with candles flickering incandescence as the only available light source as there was no electricity. Others worked the hot burn of monolithic furnaces to extract the precious metal, drilled and blasting the rock hard earth for cinnabar while teamsters trammed up and down Mine Hill pulling heavy loads of ore for shipment by train or boat. All for the excavation of a bright red mineral form of mercuric sulfide from which mercury would be extracted and sold by the New Almaden Quicksilver Mining Company. It was California’s first mine and responsible for the success of the Gold Rush as mercury worked as a magnet separating gold from other elements.

Mining was grueling work, no doubt about it. But for many families, the years 1880-1914 were the best time at the mining camp. The Smoot family was no exception.

Mary Lee Smoot Baiocchi remembers her father, George Stacy Smoot’s last years and how he talked about living at New Almaden when the mine was in production. Suffering from Lou Gerhrig’s disease, he’d recalled stories his father, Ignacio “Nash” Snoot, Sr. told of working at the mines from 1880 to 1914. He told her “the company gave me a job” as a young teenager in 1907. And that his grandmother, Lucia Yturriaga was buried at New Almaden’s Hacienda Cemetery.

“In my father’s last days, he often spoke about New Almaden. He was born there and worked in the Quicksilver Mines as a young boy of 14,” Baiocchi, a soft spoken brunette, recalled as she sorted through a box of family memorabilia. “He called it ‘going to college.’ It was the school of learning for him. And he remembered the grand celebrations for all the holidays.”

The days were long; the work fatigued the strength out of the miners. It was hard work for a decent day’s pay. But Smoot recalled the good times. The festivities during holidays at the Helping Hand Hall. The benefits mine manager James Butterworth Randol created for his workers and their families so their physical and social needs were met at the mine. Before Randol’s tenure, lawlessness prevailed. He changed it from a dangerous Wild West town to a great industrial region where family life flourished.

This is their story, Ignacio “Nash” Smoot, Sr. and his son, George Stacy Smoot, but it is also the chronicle of the miners and families who lived in a time and place known as New Almaden during 1880 to 1914.

Lucia Yturriaga was born in 1836 and a native of Monterey. She traveled to New Almaden in midlife. Little is known of her husband other than his last name being of Spanish descent. Her first child, Beatrice, who would marry Ignacio “Nash” Snoot, was born in New Almaden in 1860. Four other siblings followed: Joaquin, Matilda, Lucy and Effie [or Essie]. Lucia lived the rest of her life in the region and was the last person buried in Hacienda Cemetery at age 76 in 1912, the year the Titanic sank.

“Nash”
Ignacio “Nash” Smoot was born in San Juan Bautista on Nov. 27, 1862 and moved to San Jose in early childhood. At 10, he began to race horses for Bob O’Hanlon. In the 1870s he jockeyed and trained many American quarter horses, racing in the old California tournament when the sport was in its peak in the state. He had a colorful career and knew famous horse racing figures Boots Judson and Lucky Baldwin. The name “Nash” was probably given to him as most jockeys had short, catchy monikers. Small in stature, his complexion was tanned and he had striking blue eyes.

“I did everything any other man did.” “Nash” Smoot said when asked his formula for a long life in a 1952 interview with the San Jose Mercury News on his 90th birthday. “I got drunk, went hunting, but I didn’t smoke.”

The feisty Smoot added that he might take it up now. “I did everything that came into my head. I did it then and I’d do it now.” He continued that he was “just as good as I ever was. I never worried in my life that I know of.”
Smoot lived and was employed in New Almaden from 1880 until 1914 as a coachman, stable boy and teamster. He drove for James Butterworth Randol, manager of the New Almaden Quicksilver Mines.

“We used to make the trip from New Almaden to San Jose in just 55 minutes.” Nash said about the journey that normally took an hour and a half. “He [Randol] didn’t like the horses to go to sleep. I was his head man.”
Occasionally the teamster and passengers carrying supplies and ore back and forth to the mine would stop at Robertsville Station, located at Almaden Expressway and now, Cherry Avenue, a sort of 7-Eleven of its time, for refreshments during the 12-mile excursion to San Jose from New Almaden. The car wash that occupies the property still sports the original floors.

Randol’s Reign
James B. Randol managed the New Almaden Quicksilver Mines from 1870 to 1892. His presence instituted a myriad of changes, all for the benefit of the miners. The days were still long and the work grueling at California’s first mine, but Randol’s tenure promoted the well being of his employees. Besides successfully maintaining profits and paying off $1,500,000 mortgage, he was vitally concerned with the miners and their families’ physical and social needs. Being a staunch Methodist, he believed in living a “clean life—” no liquor or smoking and closed the nine bars on Almaden Road. Before his term murder, robbery, and thievery were a way of life. Anarchy prevailed with criminal behavior the norm. Randol changed that.

Randol organized the Miner’s Fund. For one dollar a month, the employee and his entire family received the services of the resident doctor and drugs at cost. Confinement for certain medical treatments cost five dollars. Randol made up the difference as well as providing funeral expenses, loans and provisions for his employees.
Supplies were purchased at the general stores on the Hill and the Hacienda. Randol began a currency, the Boleto. Miners were paid once a month and families relied on Boletos to purchase needed items. The amount spent would be deducted from a worker’s wages on payday.

In 1886, he built the Helping Hand Club at the Hacienda, an entertainment building with a large assembly area, stage, card room, reading room, library with 450 volumes and kitchen. The top floor offered well-furnished rooms for overnight guests. The hall was built at the company’s expense and said to rival the old Tivoli in San Francisco. A short time later, a similar building was built on the hill. No gambling or drinking allowed but smoking was permitted in the main hall. The cost of membership of both Helping Hand Clubs to the miners: It was included in the one dollar a month Miner’s Fund.

“The fame of these clubs has reached the east and we had communications requesting information as to our workings, rules, fees, etc.” Randol wrote to the secretary of the Mine, Robert Bulmore in the New York office.

George Stacy Smoot
During this peaceful period of Randol’s reign, Ignacio “Nash” Smoot married Beatrice Yturriaga around 1883. Large families were the custom and they raised five children: Ignacio Jr., Arthur, George, Josephine and Nicholas, born in the Hacienda District of New Almaden. George Stacy Smoot was born on Sept. 19, 1893. The family moved to Spanishtown, one of the two settlements on the Hill [the other being Englishtown] in 1898, the same year George entered the first grade. More income was required for the family, so George left school and went to work.

George was 14-years-old when he began working at the New Almaden mine, starting as a blacksmith helper for $1.50 per eight hours of work. Later he became a teamster, following his father’s vocation, working from 4 a.m. to 6 p.m. for $2.25 a day. He left the stable at 8 a.m., hauling two tons of ore to the incline bunkers or cord wood, powder and timber. Once a month he hauled quicksilver to the Southern Pacific depot at Uvas Road. In the winter months, he used six horses and in the summer four steeds hauling a four-ton load.

The Smoots and other employees of the mining company worked hard but they played hard, too. Spanishtown celebrated Cinco de Mayo, July Fourth, Christmas, New Year’s Day, Pioneer Day, the Cascarones Ball, birthday parties and anniversaries enjoyed at the Helping Hand Halls. Englishtown participated in the revelry of the holidays celebrated. Though there were two separate communities, they comprised more than 15 nationalities and had peaceful relations with one another.

“We had barbecued meat, tamales, enchiladas, tamales, pink lady lemonade, pasties [a meat turnover], and steamed beers and all the dancing that your legs could stand.” George Stacy Smoot said at Pioneer Day in the 1960s.

Helping Hand Hall
The Helping Hand Hall supplied the social and recreational needs of the Hacienda, Spanishtown and Englishtown. The first hall was built in 1886 at the Hacienda with the second constructed on the hill shortly after. Employees and families who contributed to the Miner’s Fund used the buildings for free. Local talent, traveling professional actors and musicians, church choirs, barbershop quartets and school children provided entertainment. Gummed faux mustaches and beards were known to fall off during the performances to the amusement of the audience and Mexican troubadours were always a success.

Charlie O’Brion, an energetic Irishman, who worked his way up from laborer to foreman, presented variety shows on a regular basis to the crowds. Appearing in a dark vest and gold chain he would read bogus telegrams: “This from President Cleveland: Regret I cannot be present at tonight’s show. Best of wishes for a successful run.” And another: “Charlie O’Brion, you are a big humbug, a theatrical fraud. Surely some mistake there.”

One of the first festivals of the year was the Cascarones Ball, the Saturday before Ash Wednesday. A tradition in Mexico, the women prepared well in advance of the actual event, creating new costumes and decorations. Cascarones were an egg shell filled with confetti. The ovals, emptied and collected all year, were painted, filled and presented in baskets at midnight. Couples would dance to waltzes and Mexican folk tunes and then at opportune moments, the cascarones were broken on the heads of partners you wanted meet. Pranksters would fill some of the cascarones with water, perfume, flour, dirt or birdshot, which met with screams and laughter from the victims.

Epilog
Ignacio “Nash” Smoot’s wife, Beatrice, died in 1912 of tuberculosis and was buried at Hidalgo Cemetery on the Hill. The Civilian Conservation, under the presidency of Teddy Roosevelt, cleared the area after the Great Depression and the interred were moved to Oak Hill Cemetery. “Nash” worked at the mines until 1914 and then continued his work with equines for residents of San Jose, living on their property and caring for the horses. He died May 9, 1956 at the age of 93.

George Stacy Smoot worked for the mining company until 1911. “The mines did not close because of no ore, but because of natural gas, water, the foreign market, cave-ins and other, newer processes developed [liquid cyanide amalgamation]. Timbering was also a big factor. Then came the earthquake of 1906. This meant the end.”
George said in a speech. He went on to become a millman for Pacific Manufacturing Company from 1911 to 1958. Instrumental in the formation of unions, he was the president of the Millman Union No. 262 in Santa Clara for 20 years and spoke around the country regarding their benefits. He married Irene and raised four daughters: Beatrice, Georgia, Mary Lee and Barbara. An outdoorsman, he enjoyed hunting all his life and believed the land belonged to everyone. He preferred radio to television but loved a telecasted fight. He died in 1964 of AHS, four days short of his 72nd birthday.

“Today we gather here in respect for those people who pioneered a town that still exists for the future.” George Stacy Smoot spoke at a Pioneer Day in the 1960s. “This new generation will pioneer these hills and make this community a better and safer place for all humanity. Long live Almaden!”

As life continues full circle, Mary Lee Baiocchi, George Stacy Smoot’s daughter and Ignacio “Nash” Smoot’s granddaughter, is a docent at the New Almaden Quicksilver Mining Museum, volunteering for the past seven years. On her walking tours of the Hacienda, Baiocchi brings history alive to the school children who come to visit, sharing her ancestors’ stories and remembering another time and place known as California’s first, biggest and richest mine.

To hear more stories of Mary Lee Baiocchi’s family and learn about the mining history of the area, visit Almaden Quicksilver Mining Museum, 21350 Almaden Road and New Almaden. 408-323-1107. Friday 12 p.m. to 4 p.m.; Saturday and Sunday 10 a.m. to 4 p.m.

Photos by Jeanne C. Lewis. New Almaden photos courtesy of Almaden Quicksilver Mining Museum