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WEED IRON MINE ANCRAM, COLUMBIA COUNTY NEW YORK By Capt. Franklin Ellis246 1878 This is located on the north line of the town, about a mile and a half from the Massachusetts line. It was first opened about 1775-80, and the ore was then used at Salisbury and at Ancram. About twenty years ago it was purchased by Captain Weed, of Salisbury, Conn., and since that time it has been actively worked. Its owners since then have been the "Columbia County Iron Company." It is now being worked by George Williams, lessee, of Amenia, N. Y. It is worked by the open-cut method, and the present vein has been worked to a depth of about fifty feet. The ore mined here is hematite ore, of a fine quality, containing from forty-five to fifty and a half per cent of metallic iron. About fifteen thousand tons are mined yearly, furnishing employment for about thirty men and several teams. The ore is taken from the mine in cars drawn by one horse on a railroad, and, after being washed in the Newbold washer, is loaded on the cars. There is an inclined plane seven hundred feet long, leading to the track of the New york and Harlem railroad, up which the ore is drawn in cars by a wire cable and drum run by steam-power. The Rhinebeck and Connecticut railroad track runs very near the mine. The pumps and washer are run by a twenty horse-power rider steam-engine, and two smaller engines, the power being furnished by a flue boiler and a tubular boiler of forty horse-power each.
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