There have been lead mines supplying the fur trade from SE Missouri from
the late 1700s onward.  Here is a short blurb from Gerstacker.


Gerstacker Lead Mines in Missouri



Next morning, I came to the most important lead mines of Missouri, not far
from Farmington, a pretty little town.  The lead was laid in great heaps on
both sides of the road, and as it looked very like silver, it was capable
of making a strong impression on anyone who possessed a slightly strong
imagination.  As my bullets were getting scarce, I took a couple of pounds
from one of the heaps, in order to cast a few in the next house that I
stopped at.  All these mines are private property, and the workmen carry on
their excavation when they please, wherever they expect to find ore, and
are paid according to the quantity they procure; if they find none, they
receive nothing, and many poor fellows have worked for weeks in vain.  Their
labours are carried on in the simplest manner. A workman, or generally two
together, come and offer themselves; a certain space is given, and while
one digs, the other clears out the shaft; sometimes they find a vein of
pure lead, in which case they are very well paid.  The whole place is so
full of holes, that it is very dangerous to go about at night.  The
proprietors have erected smelting furnaces on the ground between the
shafts, where the ore is cast into pigs, and then it is forwarded to the
Mississippi.



Gerstacker, Friedrich

    *Wild Sports. Rambling and Hunting Trips Through the United States of
North America*. Stackpole Books, Mechanicsburg, PA. With a 2004 Foreword by
Robert Wegner.  Page 81.





On Fri, Nov 18, 2011 at 1:24 PM, Scott Wieczorek <[log in to unmask]>wrote:

> Hello All,
>   I am sending this message in hopes that someone out there may have a
> report they would be willing to share detailing excavations at a Lead
> Smelting / Desilvering plant (or similar enterprise). I am really
> interested in information about archaeological remains of any furnaces,
> kettles, and particular smelting processes employed at the plant. Please
> contact me off-list at: [log in to unmask] if you have any
> information.
>
> Thanks so much!
>
> Scott Wieczorek, MA, RPA
>



-- 
Smoke Pfeiffer

Laws do not represent either reason or justice.
They represent force.
ABO