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| Delabole to Pennsylvania |
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Page 1 of 5 A story of slate. We hear a lot about Cornish tin and copper miners going all over the world to seek new lives when the mines closed during the 19th century, but what of others? Many farmers and other tradesmen are also to be found among the lists of emigrants as are many slate quarrying men from the Delabole and Tintagel areas. One such man was William Chapman. Born in north Cornwall, William worked in the slate quarries around Delabole as a young man but later he went to north Wales where he worked in the slate quarries of Penrhyn. However, his sense of adventure was to get the better of him and he set sail in 1842, from Caernarfon bound for New York. William Chapman made his way to Pennsylvania where he began work in the slate quarries there. Some say that he was the first to discover and quarry slate in this area, but history shows that slate had been quarried here for perhaps a 100 years before William Chapman’s time. He can however be credited with being responsible for a vast expansion in the slate industry of Pennsylvania. Within a few years he had saved enough money to purchase land and open his own quarry. He initially recruited men from the local community but these were farming folk with none of the skills Chapman needed to turn the raw slate into the quality material for roofing and other purposes.  A slate worker at Delabole splits slate. Picture thanks to The Cornwall Centre Collection. cornishstudies.library@cornwall.gov.uk 01209 216760. As a result, William Chapman recruited men direct from the Delabole area who had generations of slate quarrying skills behind them. Quarries were opened in Bangor in 1853 and in Pen Argyl in 1854 and others were to follow, almost entirely manned by Cornishmen. Names on the 1866 tax rolls of the slate belt include many of Cornish descent: Bennett, Bray, Bonney, Davey, Gist, Heard, Hockin, Jackson, Kellow, Lane, Marshall, Masters, Miller, Parsons, Paul, and Williams. |
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