The Irish have their leprechauns and the Scots their brownies, mischievous little pranksters who often guarded great treasures. But the Cornish miners had an imp of their own, two-foot-tall creatures with big heads and white whiskers called tommyknockers. Said to live deep in the mines and taunt the miners by stealing their food and tools, they were also accused of causing mine cave-ins, probably due to the sounds made by creaking timbers failing under massive loads. Other more charitable souls thought the sounds were the tommyknockers’ way of warning of a imminent danger.
Imps aside, mining has always been a hazardous occupation fraught with death and disease, so it’s no wonder that a folklore of mysterious hauntings has evolved around it. Here are some of the better known.
The Crescent Mine
Several lost souls allegedly roam through the Crescent Mine, an active mine in eastern Oregon. The mine was even featured on the Syfy Channel program “Ghost Mine.” After hearing that one of the owner’s crews had walked off the job due to strange, unexplained phenomena inside the mine, the show’s producers sent a pair of paranormal investigators in to check things out.
What did they find? The series is available on several streaming video services.
The Mamie R. Mine
The Mamie R. Mine near Cripple Creek, Colorado is considered one of the most haunted mines in the West. After superstitious miners were spooked away by mysterious occurrences and sounds, blamed by many on tommyknockers, the remaining crew began reporting voices and whispers in areas where no one was. Some claimed to see a dark shape pass by and disappear as they watched. Later, the pulley system for hauling buckets to the surface was responsible for several deaths, one by decapitation.
When even unsuperstitious miners refused to work at Mamie R., the mine closed down permanently in 1895.
The Gold Dust Mine
The Gold Dust Mine was a small operation that began in Arizona in 1865. Both gold and silver were extracted from the property, but production eventually dwindled and operations were shut down in 1942. But not before claiming at least one victim. A miner, whose name has evidently been lost to history, died in a tunnel collapse, and his ghost is said to haunt the mine and encampment area around it.
Garnet, Montana
Garnet is a ghost town in the Garnet Mountains about 40 miles from Missoula, Montana. Several ghosts are said to hang out there including gold miners and a woman executed in the town for murder.
The Oak Island Money Pit
Ever since Robert Louis Stevenson brought the concept of the Dead Man’s Chest to the public in his 1883 novel Treasure Island dozens of tales have been spun about pirates burying a man along with their treasure, either as a warning to robbers or to make sure the poor soul(s) couldn’t reveal the location of the stash.
But no such findings had been documented until treasure hunters on Canada’s Oak Island discovered traces of human remains deep in The Money Pit, a site where a huge cache of gold and other treasures are rumored to have been buried centuries ago. Were the old bone fragments—from two different individuals—evidence of an accident hundreds of years ago? Or were the dead men left as a warning to stop superstitious explorers from digging further?
The treasure hunt continues on “The Curse of Oak Island,” a History Channel series starting its seventh season on November 5, 2019.
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