Historical Note

From 1830 to 1898, the Austinville, Virginia, property was mined by Daniel Sheffey and David Pierce or their descendants. From 1838 to the 1850s, the firm was called the Wythe Lead Mines Company. The Union Lead Mine Company, as it was called in 1860, contributed more than 2,000 tons of lead to Confederate troops in the Civil War. After the discovery of zinc in the 1860s, the Union Lead Company formed the Wythe Lead and Zinc Company.

The Wythe Lead and Zinc Company sold all of its ore in 1898 to the Bertha Mineral Company, which operated in Pulaski, six miles northeast of Austinville. In 1902, the New Jersey Zinc Corporation purchased Bertha holdings and the Austinville property.

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