New Almaden
Ting Project
History
In 1851 the Emperor of China was interested in purchasing Mercury from the Almaden mines. He sent his son who was warmly welcomed. In gratitude for the successful visit the Emperor sent a beautiful Ting in appreciation. It was finally erected and assembled in 1858.
“Ting” is Chinese for “pavilion”. Garden pavilions in mid-19th century publications are often called a “summer house” or “pagoda” (later, “pagoda” became restricted to a temple or sacred building).
Why New Almaden?
New Almaden was founded in the mid-1800s in the hills south of Santa Clara Valley. This discovery of one of the world’s largest deposits of cinnabar/mercury just before the 1848 California gold rush was significant because mercury extracts gold and silver in ores and there was no large USA source. New Almaden during the 1800s became worth more than any single gold mine and was visited by prominent personalities of the time.
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Indigenous peoples used the bright red mercury ore cinnabar for paint long before Europeans settled in the area. Mexican settlers found the “Indian cave” in the 1820s but unsuccessfully looked for gold and silver. Andres Castillero, a captain in the Mexican Army, visited the site in 1845 and recognized it contained valuable mercury ore. Castillero then obtained a grant to the mine and formed a partnership. Partly due to his military duties and the Mexican-American War, Castillero, followed by the other partners, sold the mine to Barron, Forbes and Company. Eustace Barron and Alexander Forbes founded this San Blas and Tepic Mexico company in the 1820s. The firm became one of the largest diversified Pacific coast trade organizations with interests in mining, banking, and mercantile (such as cotton, textile, Mexican and Philippines pearls).
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Alexander Forbes (1778 Scotland-1864) named the mine "Nueva Almaden" (New Almaden) after Almadén – the world’s largest mercury mine in Spain. Eustace Barron (1790-1859) was born Eustaquio Servando Rafael Barron y Cantillon in Cádiz, Spain. Eustace had an Irish heritage father and after serving in Peru for the Royal Spanish Army, he immigrated in 1823 to San Blas, Mexico, where he later joined Alexander Forbes.
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In 1850, after participating in the founding of California and starting the preeminent San Francisco law firm of Halleck, Peachy, and Billings, Henry W. Halleck was hired by Barron & Forbes to be New Almaden director general. In 1861, Halleck left San Francisco to be commanding general of the Western United States; in 1862, he became commanding general of all the Union armies, then in 1864 Chief of Staff of the Army.
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During the Barron, Forbes & Co. ownership of the New Almaden mine (1847-1863), mining was very labor intensive and the firm hired workers from mining interests in Mexico and Peru. In later years, Cornish miners and Chinese surface workers came to New Almaden. Deep underground, miners broke rock with picks and crowbars. Mules and horses drew carts laden with cinnabar ore to roaring furnaces. Haul wagons lugged flasks of quicksilver (liquid mercury) sold as far as South America, Mexico, and China. The twelve mile journey from San Jose took two hours by stagecoach. In 1863, the mine ownership changed to the Quicksilver Mining Company as a result of one of the longest and most complex cases the United States Supreme Court has ever heard.
Caption: "New Almaden
Has Been Designated A
Registered National Historic Landmark
Under The Provisions Of
The Historic Sites Act Of August 21, 1935
This Site Possesses Exceptional Value
In Commemorating And Illustrating
The History Of The United States
U.S. Department Of The Interior
National Park Service1963"
Where did the Ting come from?
China was a large user of quicksilver (the liquid metal mercury) to produce synthetic vermilion “cinnabar red” pigment from mercury and sulfur. Quicksilver was also used in cosmetics, medicine, explosives, and to process gold and silver. The New Almaden mines quickly established a reputation for superior products. China was an early and important customer for Barron, Forbes & Co., sometimes half the mercury production shipped to China.
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The 1850s were a time of turmoil in China. The Taiping Rebellion, the bloodiest civil war in history, between the Manchu Qing dynasty and the Hakka-led Taiping Heavenly Kingdom, took place from 1850 to 1864 with 30 million dead. In addition, the Second Opium War pitting the British Empire and the French Empire against the Qing dynasty of China lasted from 1856 to 1860.
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In 1868, the first Chinese diplomatic mission to the United States arrived in San Francisco on its way to Washington DC to sign the Burlingame–Seward Treaty of 1868 that established friendly formal relations between the two nations. The legation visited New Almaden: "The Celestial Visitors. The Embassy from the Celestial Kingdom goes to New Almaden to-day to inspect the famous quicksilver works at that place and will spend several days in the rich agricultural valleys between this point and the mines." - Daily Alta California 4/17/1868 (“Celestial Empire” or kingdom was used to refer to imperial China by 19th century English mass media. This was an English translation of Chinese “Tianchao” evoking the idea that heaven appointed the realm's ruling dynasty).
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Oral tradition and various publications attest that the Ting was a gift from the Qing Emperor of China government in the 1850s. The panels apparently had mother-of-pearl inlay and the mining company carried a $50,000 insurance policy.
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Newspapers such as Daily Alta California of San Francisco reports members of a Chinese Legation and residents attended the 42nd birthday of well-known San Francisco resident Ah Sing on October 4, 1850. The nature of this Chinese Legation and if they went to New Almaden is unknown.
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In the most romantic origin legend, the Emperor of China sent his son to establish the purchase of mercury in the early 1850s. The mining management entertained the son so well that the Emperor sent a carved pillar “pagoda” to the mining company as a gesture of thanks (e.g. San Francisco Examiner July 3, 1926). Connie Perham, Constance Broner Healey-Kambish-Perham (1908-2001) founder and owner of the original (1949) New Almaden Mining Museum, widely circulated this version.
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Laurence E. Bulmore (1893-1977), son of last Quicksilver Mining Company manager Robert R. Bulmore (1840-1922), writes that it was the Emperor’s emissaries, not his son that visited in the 1850s (e.g. San Jose Mercury Herald September 2, 1923). Laurence Bulmore and Milton Lanyon published “Cinnabar Hills, the Quicksilver Days of New Almaden” in 1967.
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Phillips S. “Jimmie” Schneider (1900-1972) first came to the mine as a child in 1910 and later became a miner and mine custodian for the Sexton family. He mentions that the emissary “was so well entertained that a year later the company was presented with a lovely teahouse richly ornamented with mother-of-pearl. Even the Chinese artisans were sent along with it for its assembly.” (“The Pony Express”, October 1949). Jimmie Schneider’s book “Quicksilver -The Complete History of Santa Clara County’s New Almaden Mine” was published posthumously in 1992.
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Morgan Schroder (1818-1881) was born in England then emigrated to Mexico where he worked as a ship's mate on voyages between Mexico and Hong Kong, China. He married and started a family in Mazatlán, then they immigrated to New Almaden in 1849. Morgan started his own teamster business in 1852 and transported quicksilver from the mine to the Alviso docks for shipment until 1862, when he sold his teams to buy a hardware business in San Jose. Son Albert Schroder (1845-1931) worked with his father at both businesses. Albert recounts in a 1928 newspaper article hauling the "Chinese pagoda” materials to New Almaden from the Alviso docks in 1858.
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Mining company attorney Frederick Billings hired photographer Carleton Watkins to take pictures of New Almaden intending to use them as part of the 1862-1863 U.S. Supreme Court litigation over the mine ownership. The earliest known photographs of the pagoda are by Carleton Watkins.
Detail from c. 1862 Carleton Watkins photograph. Ting is to the left. Large building is c. 1854 “Casa Grande” manor that still stands today and houses the Santa Clara County Parks Almaden Quicksilver Mining Museum.
c.1862 Carleton Watkins photograph showing Ting behind Casa Grande.
Pillar with dragon story carving, panel on right appears to have mother-of-pearl inlay, c. 1862 Carleton Watkins photograph.
What happened to the Ting?
During the 1800s, the Ting moved several times in the Casa Grande gardens. The Quicksilver Mining Company entered bankruptcy in 1912. In 1915, George Sexton first leased, then by 1918 acquired the property and started the New Almaden Quicksilver Mines Corporation; however, in October 1927, the corporation filed for bankruptcy after the death of George Sexton. The bankruptcy court awarded the title of the mining company property to wife Mary Lord Sexton with a $750,000 mortgage held on the property by son William Lord Sexton. Private owners David and Ben Black purchased from the Sextons the Casa Grande in 1927 and then in 1928 with additional partners acquired the rest of the residential property area in the village of New Almaden. The Black brothers converted the Casa Grande property to a swim club known as “Club Almaden” which included a restaurant and replaced the garden lake with a large swimming pool. After years of neglect, the Ting was disassembled in 1928. Vandalism and theft took its toll and a devastating storm flood damaged surviving Ting pieces.
