Scottish lass inspires quest for gold and silver in above-timberline San Juans

Silverton is located in Baker's Park, where prospector Charles Baker discovered gold in 1860. The park is a valley formed where Cement Creek and Mineral Creek join the Animas River. William Henry Jackson.

Ye banks and braes and streams around
The castle of Montgomerie,
Green be your woods, and fair your flowers,
Your waters never drumlie!
There simmer first unfauld her robes,
And there the longest tarry!
For there I took the last farewell
O' my Sweet Highland Mary.

__ Robert Burns 

Highland Mary Mill above Silverton.

By Rob Carrigan, robcarrigan1@gmail.com

Some claim the search for gold and silver is akin to a spiritual quest, with the spirit in question having the ability to appear and disappear at any moment. Perhaps that is why "Highland Mary," is perhaps a particularly appropriate name for the above-timberline mine in the mountains above Silverton.

The Highland Mary Mine is a mine located in San Juan county, above Silverton, Colorado at an elevation of 11,079 feet.

Mary Campbell, in Scotish lore, was also known as Highland Mary (christened Margaret, was the daughter of Archibald Campbell of Daling, Scottland, a sailor in a revenue cutter, whose wife was Agnes of Achnamore or Auchamore, Scottland. Mary was the eldest of a family of four. 

Acclaimed poet Robert Burns had an affair with her after he felt that he had been "deserted" by Jean Armour following her move to Paisley in March 1786. The brief affair started in April 1786, and the parting took place on May 14 of that year. Her pronunciation of English was heavily accented with Gaelic and this led to her becoming known as 'Highland Mary.'

Mary was "tall, fair haired with blue eyes." She was also described to have been "a great favourite with everyone who knew her, due to her pleasant manners, sweet temper and obliging disposition. Her figure was graceful; the cast of her face was singularly delicate and of fair complexion, and her eyes were bluish and lustrous had a remarkably winning expression."

Unfortunately, Mary Campbell died at the age of 23, around October, 20,  1786, probably from Typhus contracted when nursing her brother Robert. She was buried in the old West Kirk churchyard at Greenock, in a lair owned by her host and relation Peter Macpherson. 

A story is told that some superstitious friends believed that her illness was as a result of someone casting the evil eye upon her. Her father was urged to go to a place where two streams meet, select seven smooth stones, boil them in milk, and treat her with the potion. An 1842 monument in her memory was designed by John Mossman. It was asserted by some older inhabitants of Greenock that the monument was not erected in the right spot, and that her body had been interred closer to the kirk. A statue of her was also erected at Dunoon on the Castle Hill.

Silverton, of course, is the county seat and only incorporated municipality of San Juan County, Colorado. The town is located in a remote part of the western San Juan Mountains, a range of the Rocky Mountains. The first mining claims were made in the mountains above Silverton in 1860, near the end of the Colorado Gold Rush and when the land was still controlled by the Utes. Silverton was established shortly after the Utes ceded (in a sense) the region in the 1873 Brunot Agreement, and the town boomed from silver mining until the Panic of 1893 led to a collapse of the silver market, and boomed again from gold mining until the recession caused by the Panic of 1907. 

Originally called "Bakers Park," Silverton sits in a flat area of the Animas River valley and is surrounded by steep peaks. Most of the peaks surrounding Silverton are thirteeners, the highest being Storm Peak, at 13,487 feet. The town is less than 15 miles from 7 of Colorado's 53 fourteeners and is known as one of the premier gateways into the Colorado backcountry.

Highland Mary was known for its mill, which served the Highland Mary mine located just above the mill site. The site was found by the Ennis brothers who went to a spiritualist to have them point to where they should start digging. The spiritualist told them where to dig and which way to go. By 1885 they had sunk a  million dollars into the mine and had not received enough return. They declared bankruptcy. 

The spiritualist had misguided them, it seems and they had missed good veins of ore by feet. The new owners of the mine used their technical abilities and the mine began paying off immediately. 

Later, There were many businesses that followed in ownership, including a Mary Campbell, by some folk's telling,  and the successful mining continued for years.

O pale, pale now, those rosy lips,
I aft hae kiss’d sae fondly!
And closed for aye the sparkling glance,
That dwelt on me sae kindly!
And mould’ring now in silent dust,
That heart that lo’ed me dearly!
But still within my bosom’s core
Shall live my Highland Mary.