When Maytor Healy arrived in Hancock Michigan around the end of 1858, the Quincy Mining Company was working with 57 men. The following year they employed an additional 200. Maytor Healy was one of them. He worked to open the underground mines and reshape the outside landscape. As the labor force grew, so did Quincy's concern for housing. Between 1859 and 1861 the company constructed more than 100 wood framed houses. Workers unable to rent a company owned home could rent from boardinghouses, privately owned homes, or build a home on land leased from the company. Most boardinghouses were privately run in Hancock but the Quincy Mining Company also managed a few. In addition to providing this additional housing, Quincy hired a doctor.
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| In 1859, "downtown" Houghton, which is located on the southside of Portage Lake, consisted of businesses interspersed with houses. Merchants were setting up stores and mines north, south, and east were trying to make a go of it. [1] Photo courtesy of Michigan Tech Although Quincy was concerned about improving the mine location and addressing the needs of their employees, acceptable conditions in 1859 were remarkably different than they are today. The thickly forested hillside was transformed into a coarse landscape; evidence of Quincy's past activity appeared as field stumps, abandoned exploration trenches and growing piles of waste rock. Company buildings were tailored specifically to the function they served, The company's location and remoteness affected company operations and community life. [2]
Throughout the 1860s, mail was delivered to the region by dogsled in the winter and by boat in the shipping season. By 1860 Quincy's crew had grown to 469 employees, to accomodate it's rapid growth the company established a company operated farm. Although it's location is unclear, what is known about the company's farm is that, then as now, local conditions provided a challenge to farming agricultural crops: soils are poor, the growing season short, and the climate is cold. The company harvested hay, oats, timothy, onions, cabbage, squash, potatoes, and turnips. Other vegetables and fruit were grown in individual gardens. [2]
Historian Larry Lankton gives a physical description of the Quincy location by 1862: A shaft house, 35 to 40 feet tall, stood over each of the six shafts and the timber-cribbed collars. along the row of shaft houses Quincy had erected for sorting houses and three hoist houses, timber-framed buildings that stood on poor-rock foundations. On one side of each hoist-house a tall wrought iron chimney stood atop a masonry base, and on another stretched long rows of cordwood, taken in 1862 and thereafter, from Quincy's own woodlots... a little east of these structures stood four kiln houses. The hoist and shaft-houses were connnected by pulley stands that supported the hoisting chains; narrow gauge tramways interconnected all the shaft, sorting, and kiln houses; and a tramway running past all the sorting and kiln houses terminated at the drum house on the southwestern end of the mine which served the stamp-mill incline. In addition to these major structures and facilities, by 1862 Quincy had its copper house for storing barrel and mass, a stone magazine for black powder, and a general-purpose warehouse. It had one change or dry house, two small blacksmith shops, plus a carpenter shop with a small steam engine for driving bench saws and a lathe. The road leading from the village of Hancock up to Quincy Hill neatly divided the mine location into halves. Excepting the blacksmith and carpenter shops, all the technological mine structures stood on the east side of the road. On the west side stood the company office, a store, a barn and root-house, a forty-bed hospital, and numerous company-built houses. [4]
By 1862 the Quincy Mine was finally paying off. As the company experienced financial success, it examined its operations and sought to improve living conditions for their workforce. The housing that had been constructed during the 1850s provided basic shelter, but it was relegated to land distant from valuable, workable ground; workers often preferred to live near the mine. Initially this resulted in homes scattered in an irregular manner across the steep hillside south of the mine, and situated among the stumps, rock piles and earlier attempts at prospecting for copper. A report from 1862 indicates that the company also owned one large boardinghouse and ninety-five wood framed two story tenement houses at the time. Although their exact locations are unknown, irregular development patterns shown on later maps suggest these homes may have been located near the top of the hill along the country road, and in a field to the west. [2]
Workers also continued to lease lots from the company and build their own homes. It is likely that fourty-one such structures were constructed in "Shantytown," a small enclave of homes located on the Hill about halfway between the mine and Hancock. In addition to leasing land to workers. As Quincy's need for worker housing increased, the location of company-built homes gained consideration. Company housing built during the early 1860s lacked order in it's spacial arrangement but their future developments became more organized.[2] In 1862 Quincy also began thinking in detail how to provide food for their workforce, they leased the farm to O.K. Patterson and Co., the teamsters at the mine. That year teamsters cleared 250 acres of land, and used most of the harvested feed for their animals. In 1863 the company built a store along the county road near the mine office to sell goods at or near wholesale. This was to provide workers with fair-priced goods and prevent local merchants from profiteering. The store did not last long in company hands, and was sold in 1866 to Seth North.[2] The 1860s presented another change: Quincy felt the impact of the Civil War as demand for copper increased and prices rose. High copper prices encouraged new mine ventures needing skilled workers. This coupled with voluntary enlistments and the draft resulted in a serious labor shortage of experienced miners.[2]
Quincy's construction efforts in 1869 consisted of ten frame houses built for the Stamp Mill employees. This development followed an April fire disaster in Hancock that devastated the community, whose population had grown to 2,000 people. The fire originated in the northwest corner of town, near Quincy and Ravine streets, and moved quickly. Within six hours, it had consumed 150 buildings and left more than 200 families without homes. The impacts were felt by all who relied upon the goods, services and diversions that the commercial and cultural center offered.
Rebuilding efforts included a new telegraph system in the copper district with the Quincy mine featured as one of the twelve office locations. In 1872 the company decided to change the way it reduced rocks before sending them to the stamp mill. They built a large rockhouse to break rocks mechanically. This eliminated the bottleneck in production and ultimately kilnhouses. Construction began on the three story heavy-timbered structure in 1872, which included an engine to power an endless rope tramroad extending to the shafthouses. It was completed in 1873.
By 1879, telephone lines were in use at many of Quincy's key facilities: the dock, mill, mine office, store and supply office were all connected, and one line rand down the No. 4 shaft. By the early 1880s Quincy was using the "Little Giant" air drill, giving miners the ability to drill holes faster and deeper, while the dynamite blasted more rock per charge than black powder. Together all of these improvements increased production dramatically.
Quincy's success in the early 1880s was reflected in the construction of the grand Italianate residence for the mine superintendent. Work began in 1880 and was completed in 1882. The home was built west of the county road at the south end of the mine, where it was the focal point on the hill. It also offered a dramatic example of the companies priorities: Quincy invested approximately $25,000 in the superintendent's home in 1882 but spent only a few hundred dollars to construct a typical worker's house, that had no electricity, plumbing or running water, and would not have them, until almost 30 years later in 1910. A railroad connection between Houghton and Marquette, with connections to Chicago, was finally established in 1883. The first railroad bridge across the Portage Lake was built in the mid 1880s.
In 1863, three years after Nellie and kids arrived in Hancock, the Quincy Mining Co. built 68 homes at the Quincy location above Hancock, for their workers. Each home was identical to the next, perfectly spaced, and fenced. There were two neighborhoods, Limerick, Hardscrabble, then later Frenchtown.
In 1862, four years after Maytor immigrated from Ireland Nellie joined him in the Upper Peninsula of Michigan. Ellen departed Ireland with Mary age 16 years, Patrick age 14, Ellen age 11, Julia age 9, Belinda age 7 years, and Daniel age 4.
The following year, the Irish community of Hancock observed St. Patrick's day (an Ireland national holiday) as a special occasion on March 21, 1863. The Portage Lake Mining Gazette, reported a day-long celebration beginning with a procession by the 312 members of the Hancock St. Patrick Society to a Mass celebration by the local priest, Father Sweeney, with "an oration" on the life of St. Patrick delivered by Father Jacker. The celebration ended with a large ball at the St. Patrick Society Hall. [10] After their arrival in Hancock, their son, Patrick Healy worked in the timber around Hancock using a steam donkey engine, clearing land, then after the Civil War in 1865, he joined the Union Pacific Rail Road laying line to build the Transcontinental Railroad from Omaha Nebraska to Pomentory Point in Utah. [6] There are no records found for Ellen Healy from 1862 (age 11) until 1878 (age 28) when she appears in Leadville Colorado. In 1865 Maytor and Nellie had their last child. A son who they named Maytor James Healy was; born April 3, 1864 in Hancock Township. 
Maytor Healy's family appears on the 1870 US Census in Hancock Township. Maytor is 53 years old, Nellie is 47, Mary is 23 years, Belinda is age 16, Daniel is 12 years and Maytor Jr. is 5 years old. Belle and Daniel are attending school in Hancock and Maytor Junior is at home with Ellen. Julia Healy isn't on the 1870 census with her family.
As was common for young boys, when Daniel was about 9-years-old (and Maytor James would follow) he began working in the Stamp Mill in the village of Hancock which was located down the hill from their home in Quincy. He separated the copper from it's host rock. He may have also worked in the Smelter, melting and refining the copper mineral.
Because Maytor was a miner for the Quincy Mining Company it is fairly certain his family lived in one of the sixty-eight T-shaped, wood-frame company houses built in 1864. They were aligned in orderly rows in the new neighborhoods of Limerick, Hardscrabble, and Frenchtown. For many decades, fences enclosed each of these unadorned, flat faced houses. Fences may have given occupants a sense of proprietorship; they also kept animals in or out. [4]
Belinda and Daniel attended this school, located near Frenchtown from 1867 until at least 1870. It was built by the Quincy Mining Company.
In 1872, Maytor's daughter Julia Healy married James Wilson Young in Marquette Michigan
In 1878 Maytor's daughter Belle Healy dies in Hancock at the young age of 24 years. She is buried in the old St. Joseph Cemetery on Quincy St. in Hancock.
In 1880 Maytor was 63 years old, Nellie was 58 and Maytor James 16 years. It appears that Maytor was no longer working below ground but in some other mine labor. Young Maytor is also working for the Quincy Mining company.
The St. Joseph Cemetery in Hancock, where Belle, Maytor, Nellie Healy and Maytor's granddaughter Kate Hoppenyan were buried was kept by the local Roman Catholic churches in Hancock.
In the 1970s it was decided to build a new church since the area churches were then consolidated into one parish. After deliberation by the parish and the diocese, and after contacting the proper government authorities the site chosen to build the new church was over the old St. Joseph Cemetery. The families of those buried in the old cemetery were contacted ahead of time to let them know of the plans and let them remove their family to a different area cemetery. The remaining grave markers were then removed after the recording was done and buried in a trench at the site of the present-day church. The new church was started in 1975.
This map shows the grave locations for Maytor, Nellie, Belle Healy and Kate Hoppenyan (Mary Healy's step daughter) which are now under the current parking lot of the new Catholic church. Nellie Donovan Healy is buried in plot 471, Maytor Healy plot 472, and Arabella Healy plot 473, their locations are noted by the yellow dot. Kate Hoppenyan in grave plot 200, is marked with the blue dot.
The graves are located under the parking lot of the current church - Church of the Resurrection, 900 Quincy Street, Hancock, Michigan 49930. [3]
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Sources
[1] Michigan Technological University Archives and Copper Country Historical Collections
[2] National Parks Service - Quincy Unit Landscape Report, 2008
[3] Cradle to Grave, pg. 163, Larry Lankton,
[4] Technological Change, pp 296-297, Larry Lankton
[2] National Parks Service - Quincy Unit Landscape Report, 2008
[3] Cradle to Grave, pg. 163, Larry Lankton,
[4] Technological Change, pp 296-297, Larry Lankton
