Climax Fuse: The Explosive History of Ensign-Bickford - Paperback

It began with the Ojibway mining copper on the shores of Lake Superior where the value of implements and adornments established the value and attraction of the metal. It continued with the Massacoe of Connecticut on whose lands greenish tinged rocks invited the natives to try their hand at extraction and refinement.

Fast forward to the early 1700's when Simsbury copper was rediscovered by the European resettlers who had begun to claim Connecticut land there as their own. Colonials multiplied like cockroaches displacing the Tunxis, Poquonocks, Podunks, and Sicoags while enslaved Native Americans and African blacks, imported through the Triangle Trade route, worked both the fields and the mines.

When pickaxes proved insufficient extraction processes were adopted from England, which increased both yields and deaths. A solution was invented in Tuckingmill by a former currier named William Bickford whose safety fuse took the local mining industry by storm. By 1836 Richard Bacon of Simsbury had partnered with the English firm of Bickford, Smith, and Davey to manufacture their patented product in Connecticut.

But the maverick Bacon soon split with his overseas associates, and each became rivals in their industry, soon joined by other local entrepreneurs as well.

Follow the explosive relationships and events that took place on both coasts as the slowly maturing mining industry made magnates, paupers, victims, and examples of both the lucky and unfortunate.