Reading about the kids trapped in a cave reminded me that we lived over mine shafts.

I’m re-looking up stuff about the Copper mines under our house in Lower Frederick. They go back to about 1720 & William Penn:

“the Perkiomen Copper Mining Company was chartered by an act of Assembly. The Revolutionary War seems to have interrupted mining operations, as evidence points to the fact that the vein was hidden and work stopped to prevent the British from procuring the ore.” 

“An attempt to re-open the mine prior to World War I proved unprofitable because of the low-grade ore that was found,”

FROM:

SCHWENKSVILLE BOROUGH  A HISTORY OF SCHWENKSVILLE

Lower Frederick Township was interested in the exact location of the Perkiomen Copper Mining Company mine shafts. My home was over copper mine tunnels. A new development was in the planning stages over even more copper mine tunnels. 

I can’t remember his name but someone (whose name might come to me) from the Lower Frederick Planning Commission was with me when we talked to a spelunker who was exploring the mine shafts for Lower Frederick Township.

He was big guy wearing a beat up white construction hat with a light riveted to it. It had straps to cover his ears. The scrapes on the hat came from moving through narrow caves. Spelunking is not really for someone 6.5 or so & 200 lbs. but we don’t get to choose our bodies, not yet anyway, see “Westworld” HBO.

They tried to reopen the mines during WWI. The ore quality was too low to use. There is or maybe by now was a wood frame house where copper mine workers from that WWI period lived that was accessible from a property on Game Farm Road.

There is an iron grate covering a copper mine shaft just off (I think) Gerloff Road. People, probably mostly children, try to explore the mines from time to time. I am not aware of anyone being trapped in the mines.

There is a ghost story:

“Over the years, many strange tales of the mine were circulated, one of which involves two adventurers who were determined to find the hidden ore. They entered the shaft with candles and began working at removing some heavy stones that blocked their way. After the removal of several stones, an icy blast hit them and blew out the candles. They hastily withdrew, claiming that a "spirit" of the mine guarded the treasure.”

FROM:

SCHWENKSVILLE BOROUGH  A HISTORY OF SCHWENKSVILLE

Old Perkiomen Copper Mine Bounded Roughly by Swamp Creek, Mine Run. Perkiomen Creek 

The Eva R. Meng Wildlife Preserve and Bird Sanctuary is on Rock Hill. 

I used to walk to the top of Rock Hill in the Meng Preserve from my home in Lower Frederick Township.

Jurassic or Triassic Rock of molten magma from the same volcanic rock Brunswick Formation at Devil’s Den in Gettysburg National Park is at the top of Rock Hill in Limerick Township, PA.  The rocks, which go more than a mile under the earth, look something like Superman’s crystal cave. 

FROM: http://www.docs.dcnr.pa.gov/topogeo/publications/pgspub/map/map1/index.htm

Some of my neighbors ran completely out of water

The rock crystals you see on Rock Hill are not boulders. You see the tip of what is more than a mile deep wall of impervious rock splitting Lower Frederick’s well water in half. 

It was discovered that a gas station (there could have been other sources) was spilling Trichloroethylene (TCE) into the ground rendering the largest water source in Lower Frederick Township unusable. 

TCE contamination is the reason we ran out of water for a time until Philadelphia Suburban Water Company connected us to the Green Lane Reservoir. The pump station for the water from Green Lane Reservoir is at the confluence of the Perkiomen Creek at the Schuylkill River. 

It seems that problems with well water contamination continue to this day:

Slow crawl of Bucks, Montgomery County water contamination lawsuits continues