Thomas Logan (prospector)

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Thomas Logan
Born(1835-08-30)August 30, 1835
St Bees, Cumberland, England
DiedAugust 12, 1897(1897-08-12) (aged 61)
Dunedin, New Zealand
Occupation(s) gold miner, captain
SpouseMary Ann (Cissie) McGregor
Children1

Thomas Logan was a pioneer of quartz mining in Otago and was one of few early miners to win enormous wealth from gold mining in New Zealand.

Contents

Origin

Thomas Logan was born August 30, 1835, at St Bees, Cumberland. He moved to Australia following the gold rush in Victoria. He married Mary Ann 'Cissie' McGregor in Melbourne; they had three sons.

Logan moved to Dunedin, New Zealand, later in his life, dying there on 12 August 1897. [1] [2]

Otago Gold Pioneer

Thomas Logan first came to New Zealand in early 1863, following the gold rush to Hartley's Beach, a bend of the Clutha River in the Cromwell Gorge. Logan brought with him considerable experience from gold mining in the Victorian fields of Ballarat and Bendigo.

Settling in the Cromwell area, he found work with mining syndicates sluicing the river terraces of Lowburn, the Upper Clutha and in the Kawarau Gorge. [3] [4] He arrived in Bendigo in mid-1866 [3] toward the end of the alluvial gold mining phase that had made Bendigo a short-lived boom town. Logan was convinced that the alluvial gold in the gravels of Bendigo must be sourced in the gold-bearing quartz reefs in the hills above Bendigo and set about location them. A fiercely energetic prospector, he had previously prospected for auriferous quartz as far as Blacks, Tinker's and Thomson’s Gullies before he located his persistence was rewarded when he found several promising quartz reefs on Bendigo Hill. [3]

With a lack of the capital required to mine the quartz reefs, Logan was forced to turn to investment from a group of Dunedin businessmen in 1865. The Bendigo Quartz Mining Company was formed in order to mine Logan's reefs. The generally held belief at this point is that Logan felt the businessmen were treating him unfairly, and he subsequently led them to poor ground causing them to eventually withdrawal from the project. [2] [5] [6] [7] This version of events is largely based on the limited data sources that were available to J. C. Parcell, as documented in his book Heart of the Desert. [5] A more recent revision of events [8] based on a more balanced review of the available literature, suggests that Logan did not swindle the businessmen. Instead, it is quite possible that the inexperience of the mining company was the reason for the Dunedin syndicate's demise. [8] : 45-46  In any event, the Bendigo Quartz Mining Company was only to last a brief four months, ceasing operations in mid-1866.

Logan found investment to mine the reefs again in 1868 when together with William John 'Jack' Garrett, Brian 'Charcoal Joe' Hebden and George Goodger, he formed the Cromwell Quartz Mining Company. The initial returns were a substantial 238 ounces (6.7 kg) from the first ten days work resulting in Bendigo's second gold rush.

Thomas Logan sold his shares in the Cromwell Company for £15,000 in 1875 [4] [5] , or 977814 NZD today, given inflation. This allowed Logan to "embark on a career of opulence." [5] : 133  In December 1876, he bought the race-horses Cloth of Gold and Dead Heat, and soon afterwards won the Timaru Cup with the former. [5] [9] He joined in some of David Proudfoot's schemes, and continued to invest in mining, although often not successfully. [2] After living in New South Wales for many years, where he won lucrative contracts for laying railway lines, putting some of the profits into donations to a hospital, he returned to Dunedin and died there on 12 August 1897. [1] [2]

Notes

  1. 1 2 "Deaths". The Argus. Melbourne, Victoria. 23 September 1897. Retrieved 16 July 2023.
  2. 1 2 3 4 Thompson, J., ed. (1998). Southern People: A Dictionary of Otago Southland Biography. Dunedin City Council. p. 587. ISBN   1-877135-11-9.
  3. 1 2 3 Carpenter, L. (2013). "Rich in Myth, Gold and Narrative: Aspects of the Central Otago Gold Rush, 1862-2012" (PDF). University of Canterbury. PhD Thesis. Christchurch, NZ: University of Canterbury. Retrieved 16 July 2023.
  4. 1 2 Hamel, G. E. (1993). The Rich Fields of Bendigo (PDF). Dunedin, NZ: Unpublished report to the Department of Conservation. Retrieved 7 July 2023.
  5. 1 2 3 4 5 Parcell, J. C. (1951). Heart of the Desert. Dunedin, NZ: Whitcombe & Tombs.
  6. ↑ Hall-Jones, J. (2005). Goldfields of Otago: An Illustrated History (2 ed.). Craig Printing Co. Ltd. ISBN   0-908629-61-3.
  7. ↑ Bristow, Peter (2007). "A Brief History of Mining at the Bendigo Historic Reserve" (PDF). Department of Conservation. Retrieved 21 July 2023.
  8. 1 2 Carpenter, L. (2011). "Reviled in the Record: Thomas Logan, and origins of the Cromwell Quartz Mining Company, Bendigo, Otago" (PDF). Journal of Australasian Mining History. 9: 36–53. Retrieved 29 June 2023.
  9. ↑ "The Pamphlet Collection of Sir Robert Stout: Volume 29". The New Zealand Country Journal. 1 (3): 185. 1877 – via NZETC.

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