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Can we beat Roger to 1000

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Kiwithrottlejockey
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Having fun in the hills!


« Reply #525 on: September 16, 2015, 03:02:05 pm »


from THE DURANGO HERALD....

A tragic tale in Ouray

A failed mining dream and the origin of ‘Danny Boy’.

By ANDREW GULLIFORD | 1:43PM - Friday, December 12, 2014

Margaret Weatherly, or Jess, and husband, Edward, ran the Neosho Mine south of Ouray in the early 20th century. The dump pile and rails she is standing on are still there, hanging off a ledge in Uncompahgre Gorge. Margaret matched an Irish folk tune with her brother-in-law’s words to create the song “Danny Boy”, but she was never credited for her collaboration. The dirt road that would become U.S. Highway 550 can be seen behind her. — Photograph: Courtesy of University of Colorado Boulder Archives.
Margaret Weatherly, or Jess, and husband, Edward, ran the Neosho Mine south of Ouray in the early 20th century. The dump pile
and rails she is standing on are still there, hanging off a ledge in Uncompahgre Gorge. Margaret matched an Irish folk tune with
her brother-in-law’s words to create the song “Danny Boy”, but she was never credited for her collaboration. The dirt road that
would become U.S. Highway 550 can be seen behind her. — Photograph: Courtesy of University of Colorado Boulder Archives.


DRIVING NORTH toward Ouray on U.S. Highway 550, high above the Uncompahgre Gorge at 9,000 feet, you can see a mine shack with colorful laundry hanging from it. A sign reads “Antiques, 9-5”. Travelers gasp at the building perched on this narrow ledge and wonder how to get there.

But the story of the Neosho Mine involves more than the visual pun of multicolored T-shirts displayed by the Ouray County Historical Society. The story includes a world famous song with a haunting melody perhaps inspired by the isolation and loneliness of working in remote mines in the snowy San Juans.

It has taken me years to find the mine and the family photos and to piece together this tragic tale. Leigh Ann Hunt, archaeologist for the Grand Mesa, Uncompahgre and Gunnison National Forests, and I hiked into the mine high above Highway 550 this fall. Below us, across the gorge, the parade of vehicles looked like tiny Matchbox cars. On the trail, we found two wooden sheds, the entrance to the Neosho Mine and the blacksmith shop with its distinctive center cupola. Laundry hung between the shop and a tall pine tree.

Farther down the narrow trail, we came to the faded red, wooden bunkhouse with sagging rotten floors and evidence of pack rats. On the west side of the structure, the distinctive tooth marks of hungry porcupines indicated the snow line. The real prize was unnoticed on the door.

Volunteers in 2012 and 2013 provided more than 150 hours of labor to stabilize the aging blacksmith shop. The State Historical Fund dedicated $4,000 for a structural assessment and the Grand Mesa, Uncompahgre and Gunnison National Forests provided the materials. Technical assistance came from Hunt, the forest heritage program manager; Donald Paulson, curator of the Ouray County Historical Society's museum; Joseph Gallagher (also known as “Log Doc”) from Heritage Preservation Resources in Boise, Idaho; and Brad Wallace of Btb Construction in Ridgway. Limited funds only permitted work on the blacksmith shop.

As I walked up steps into the bunkhouse, I swung open the original four-paneled wooden door and explored the structure with its cooking area on the east side and wooden bunks around the room. There was no insulation. When winter storms blew around the pine trees, nights would have dropped well below freezing. Miners would have huddled around a stove now gone. Then, sitting on the front steps, I looked again at the door and found a few names scrawled on it, including the penciled inscription: Margaret Weatherly, June 7th, 1924.

At that moment the story I had heard finally came together — a story of a famous song, an enduring marriage and a failed mine.


Edward Weatherly, the brother of Fred Weatherly who wrote the words to “Danny Boy”, posed as a patrician from a family of English royalty. In reality, he was a penniless younger son who pretended to be a medical doctor. — Photograph: Courtesy of University of Colorado Boulder Archives. Looking like a character out of a Shakespearean tragedy, Edward Weatherly stands amid the ruins of his cabin on steep slopes south of Ouray. He lost his cabin to an avalanche. He would die in poverty after betting on a mining claim that never paid off. — Photograph: Courtesy of University of Colorado Boulder Archives.
LEFT: Edward Weatherly, the brother of Fred Weatherly who wrote the words to “Danny Boy”, posed as a patrician from a family of
English royalty. In reality, he was a penniless younger son who pretended to be a medical doctor. | RIGHT: Looking like a character
out of a Shakespearean tragedy, Edward Weatherly stands amid the ruins of his cabin on steep slopes south of Ouray. He lost his
cabin to an avalanche. He would die in poverty after betting on a mining claim that never paid off.
 — Both photographs: Courtesy of University of Colorado Boulder Archives.


MARGARET grew up the daughter of an itinerant Irish laborer. Like thousands of Irishmen who fled the Emerald Isle, her father came to America to seek his fortune and found only backbreaking work on railroads. But he sang to his children, and he brought tales and tunes from the old country.

She'd had a bitter early marriage, then she met the love of her life, Dr. Edward Weatherly. How they came to settle in Ouray remains obscure, but Dr. Weatherly became a mining expert, a passionate proponent of a silver, instead of a gold, monetary standard and a writer for the Ouray Times. He never practiced medicine, though he claimed to have gotten his degree from Oxford University. Family files and photographs filling 31 boxes have resided at the University of Colorado Boulder Archives since 1936, including his obituary from The Durango Herald.

He frequently returned to England to seek funding for Ouray mines, particularly his own, the Neosho. A tall, handsome man, he struck a professional air around the small mining town. If anyone questioned why an Oxford-trained physician would come to tiny Ouray and engage in mining prospects, no one asked. In the mining West, you created your own persona and left it at that. If Weatherly could encourage British investment in Ouray mines, so much the better. But, with a proud demeanor and frayed cuffs, he always seemed a penny short. Eddie and Jess, the nickname for his wife, Margaret, moved to Ouray in 1907.


Edward Weatherly, far left, and immigrant mine workers stand at the portal of the Neosho Mine. Weatherly sunk thousands of his brother's British pounds into the mine, which never paid off. Hikers can get to the mine and buildings after a rigorous trek up from the Yankee Boy Basin Road. — Photograph: Courtesy of University of Colorado Boulder Archives.
Edward Weatherly, far left, and immigrant mine workers stand at the portal of the Neosho Mine. Weatherly sunk thousands of his
brother's British pounds into the mine, which never paid off. Hikers can get to the mine and buildings after a rigorous trek up
from the Yankee Boy Basin Road. — Photograph: Courtesy of University of Colorado Boulder Archives.


THE real success in the family was his brother Fred Weatherly, who stayed in England, practiced law and began to write songs. Fred lost his son and his father within three months. Out of a deep sense of grief, Fred wrote a poignant poem about love, loss and failed opportunity. He sent the poem to Ed who shared it with his Irish wife.

From the oral traditions of her itinerant father, Margaret remembered an ancient Londonderry air or tune — perhaps once played on harps by blind singers. Or she may have heard the tune played by Irish miners in the bars and saloons of Ouray.

Margaret sent the notated manuscript of the music to her brother-in-law in England. Thus “Danny Boy”, copy written in 1913, became one of the best-selling and beloved songs of the 20th century, in part because of so many deaths during World War I and World War II. Tenors everywhere learned it. Thus, the song, sung at Irish celebrations and wakes for the dead all over the world, has a Ouray connection.

Psychiatrist Anthony Mann, a descendant of Fred Weatherly and the author of In Sunshine and in Shadow: The Family Story of Danny Boy, writes of his relative: “The skill of his words is such that they convey strong emotion without it being tied to a specific situation; singer and listener can imagine whomever they wish. These words of loss and reunion after death had special resonance with Irish people.”

If the song is about tragedy, so is the family history.


A sight familiar to travelers between Durango and Ouray, the Neosho Mine blacksmith shop with its eye-catching clothesline, is perched on a ledge high above U.S. Highway 550. Three of the mine's buildings, including the blacksmith shop, have been stabilized by volunteers from the Ouray County Historical Society. — Photograph: Courtesy of Andrew Gulliford.
A sight familiar to travelers between Durango and Ouray, the Neosho Mine blacksmith shop with its eye-catching clothesline,
is perched on a ledge high above U.S. Highway 550. Three of the mine's buildings, including the blacksmith shop, have been
stabilized by volunteers from the Ouray County Historical Society. — Photograph: Courtesy of Andrew Gulliford.


The west side of the Neosho Mine bunkhouse shows evidence of hungry porcupines gnawing on the wooden clapboards as they stood atop snowbanks. Trees obscure the view of the bunkhouse from U.S. Highway 550. — Photograph: Courtesy of Andrew Gulliford.
The west side of the Neosho Mine bunkhouse shows evidence of hungry porcupines gnawing on the wooden clapboards
as they stood atop snowbanks. Trees obscure the view of the bunkhouse from U.S. Highway 550.
 — Photograph: Courtesy of Andrew Gulliford.


OFTEN destitute and scrambling for funds, Dr. Edward Weatherly lived a lie. He never finished Oxford. He never became a physician. And in turn, his brother never acknowledged the role of Margaret in matching an ancient Irish tune to his soulful words.

Margaret's name did not appear on the copyright, and perhaps to assuage his guilt, Fred loaned thousands of English pounds for his brother's Ouray mining schemes. He never acknowledged her collaboration. Instead, he sent money to America, and his brother bought dynamite and hired miners.

The Neosho Mine never paid well, and Edward Weatherly became embroiled in bad investments, lawsuits and failed prospects. An avalanche destroyed their cabin, which was higher on the ridge than the bunkhouse. Like so many mining hopefuls, the Weatherlys believed in Ouray and believed in the promise of their silver mine, but paydays were few and far between.

Hard times became worse with the Great Depression.

Edward Weatherly died in 1934, and his Ouray grave would be unmarked. Out of her deep grief after his death, his loving wife slipped into insanity, and she passed away at the state mental hospital in Pueblo in 1938. She never lost faith in her husband or in the mine that broke them both, but she became suspicious and paranoid, scribbling doggerel on scraps of paper left in her cluttered cabin in town.


Corner bunks still stand in place at the Neosho Mine bunkhouse even though the ceiling needs work and the floor is rotting. — Photograph: Courtesy of Andrew Gulliford.
Corner bunks still stand in place at the Neosho Mine bunkhouse even though the ceiling needs work and the floor is rotting.
 — Photograph: Courtesy of Andrew Gulliford.


Margaret Weatherly and her husband, Edward, had high hopes for the Neosho Mine when she penciled her inscription on the bunkhouse door on June 7th, 1924. Instead, within a decade her husband would be dead. Two years after his death she would be committed to the state mental hospital in Pueblo. — Photograph: Courtesy of Andrew Gulliford.
Margaret Weatherly and her husband, Edward, had high hopes for the Neosho Mine when she penciled her inscription on
the bunkhouse door on June 7th, 1924. Instead, within a decade her husband would be dead. Two years after his death
she would be committed to the state mental hospital in Pueblo. — Photograph: Courtesy of Andrew Gulliford.


TRAVELERS hundreds of feet below look up at the Neosho's blacksmith shop and wonder what it is. Volunteers have preserved three smaller structures, though the bunkhouse needs stabilization to keep it from sliding down the mountain.

As I sat in the doorway looking at Margaret's penciled signature and the date June 7th, 1924, I hoped that had been a good summer for the couple.

Mann wrote: “Margaret identified throughout her life with her Irish roots, seeing them as the source of her strong Catholic faith, her love of singing and her thick, lustrous red brown hair.”

I hope she sang near the bunkhouse and mine. Maybe she even sang:

Oh Danny Boy, the pipes, the pipes are calling, from glen to glen and down the mountainside.

The summer's gone, and all the roses falling.

It's you, it's you must go and I must bide.”


Andrew Gulliford is a professor of history and environmental studies at Fort Lewis College.

The mine entrance includes the original Neosho Mine sign and modern signage warning of the dangers of entering a 19th century mining portal. — Photograph: Courtesy of Andrew Gulliford. Forest archaeologist and Forest Heritage Manager Leigh Ann Hunt, seen at the Neosho Mine bunkhouse, helped bring volunteers and professionals together to save one of Ouray's most important mining landmarks, buildings with a direct connection to one of the 20th century's most famous songs. — Photograph: Courtesy of Andrew Gulliford.
LEFT: The mine entrance includes the original Neosho Mine sign and modern signage warning of the dangers of entering a 19th century
mining portal. | RIGHT: Forest archaeologist and Forest Heritage Manager Leigh Ann Hunt, seen at the Neosho Mine bunkhouse,
helped bring volunteers and professionals together to save one of Ouray's most important mining landmarks, buildings with
a direct connection to one of the 20th century's most famous songs. — Both photographs: Courtesy of Andrew Gulliford.


http://www.durangoherald.com/article/20141214/COLUMNISTS02/141219863
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