An image of a Cornish Tommyknocker generated by DALLE-E/ChatGPT by Amy Alden Bridges December 26, 2023
Welcome family and friends to 2024! This year I will be working on Amy Johnson Crow's 52 Ancestors in 52 Weeks challenge once again. I am looking forward to writing and sharing new stories as well as continuing with my research and discoveries. Let's get this year off and running....
The theme for this week is Family Lore. Grandpa's story is deeply entwined with rich oral stories, traditions and cultural lore handed down by Cornish miners, and can't be told without a little background. When I found out my daughter didn't know what Tommyknockers were (gasp!), we did some research and she came up with the AI generated image above. It was a fun way to use AI and helped me delve a little bit into that unknown (to me) tool that is being used more and more. When my mother saw the image, she commented that she remembered the miners in the community having hands looking very gnarled just as the Tommyknocker above. So far, so good!
Many cultures have some form of 'little people' i.e. pixies, brownies or leprechauns. They are called Knackers (Cornwall), Coblynau (Wales) or Tommyknockers (US). Legend says they are only 2 feet tall and live underground. They dress like miners and mischievously steal unattended food or tools, or alert miners of impending danger by their "knocking". Cornish mining was dangerous business, and belief in the knackers became folklore and legend to help explain the unexplainable (I wonder what they were really hearing down in the mine? I'm sure there is a scientific explanation there somewhere...). It was said that the Tommyknockers snuck into the luggage of the Cornishmen as they left for America and infiltrated the mines by hiding in the miners' lunch boxes (probably between the pasty and the saffron bun).
The lore of the Tommyknockers became an important element of mining life. Many Cornish miners refused to enter a mine until they knew that the Tommyknockers were present. Tommyknockers were thought to work with the miners deep underground leading them to rich veins or warning of cave-ins, water leaks or falling rocks by their tapping. Miners would leave a portion of their pasty behind at lunch as gratitude for the protection. Cornish miners' tales of being saved by a Tommyknocker were never to be taken lightly.
In the area I grew up in, Grass Valley California, Cornish miners were imported to work in the gold mines starting in the early to mid 1850's. They began to arrive in much larger numbers in the 1860's with many Cornish miners and their families settling in and around Grass Valley. They brought with them their expertise and knowledge of tin and copper mining and revolutionized hard rock gold mining methods in California. Around 75% of the population of Grass Valley was Cornish by birth at the turn of the century. Because of the Cornish contributions, this area became one of the richest of all California gold mining towns. This Cornish influence gave Grass Valley a very unique sense of place that it still retains to this day. I can still remember hearing the Cornish accent in church growing up in the 60's and 70's, and I identify strongly with the Cornish culture, having Cornish family on my mother's maternal and paternal sides.
I wrote quite awhile back about my grandfather, Harold Hansen, and his life growing up in Grass Valley. He was born in 1910 to a Norwegian father and what he thought was an Irish mother. I don't think he ever saw himself as being of Cornish descent, but in fact, he was descended from the Cornish Bluetts on his mother's maternal side of the family several generations back. There were many Bluetts who were miners. It is amazing to me what we loose in just a few generations. He labeled himself as a "galvanized Cousin Jack" which was an expression that came to describe those who had appropriated Cornishness by marrying a Cornish descendant or by developing a sympathetic appreciation for Cornish heritage. Its original meaning may have been used to describe Cornish people who had become thoroughly Americanized. (From When Miners Sang by Gage McKinney Comstock Bonanza Press 2001 page 240).
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This tale is part of his "life story" which he recorded in 1991, at a time when he was having difficulty with his memory. My Auntie Claire transcribed the tapes and I shared them in several posts from 2020. Essential parts of the story may have been left out, but you still get a feel of his encounter with the Tommyknocker. This story took place right after his trip to Norway in 1930 and after his love Louise married someone else while he was away.....
"There I worked as a rock crusher that prepared rocks for the stamp mill, for $2.88 per hour. In a couple of months I went to work as a 'mucker' underground with partners Jack Dunavan, Ernie Angove and Homer Simon at the 850 foot level. That's where (we had) a close call down there. In the process of running a drift we had to drill a new piece of ground. At the end of the drift was a pile of muck blasted down the day before. Jack and I were shoveling out the pile of muck into the shoot. We went to eat lunch when there was a drip where we were sitting. We heard the tommy knocker warn us to get out of the way. When that happened underground, we were thankful for the warning. Another time I turned up a whole stick of powder with the blasting cap still there. The cap was on the end of my pick."
Harold Hansen's helmet lantern used in the Idaho-Maryland Mine.
Even though he didn't go into a lot of detail of what exactly happened, he certainly heard something that gave him a warning! His story adds to the lore of the Tommyknocker. Grandpa worked at the Idaho-Maryland Mine at several time periods during his life. He also worked in the Brunswick Mine a few miles away and ran the underground railroad there for a time (When Miners Sang, pg. 240). His father, even though a Norwegian by birth, spent a great deal of time in the mines both in Grass Valley (both the Empire and the Idaho-Maryland mines) and in El Salvador as a mine supervisor, and was a "galvanized Cousin Jack" as well. Living in the community he did I'm sure Grandpa heard the tales of Knockers and how they miraculously saved many a miner from danger down in the mines. And perhaps his real Cornish heritage played some part in it as well!
Vertical man skip at the Idaho Shaft in the Idaho Maryland Mine in Grass Valley, Calif.
Nevada County Historical Society 1937
The Grass Valley Cornish Carol Choir originated with the early Cornish miners imported from England to work the underground quartz mines, and their singing has been a tradition ever since. For many years the choir sang in San Francisco and other California towns. Here the group is shown singing from the 2000 foot level of the Idaho-Maryland mine in a nationwide broadcast on Christmas Day, 1940. (Gold Mines of California by Jack R. Wagner Howell North Books Berkeley California page 165).
My grandfather, Harold Hansen, is third from the left lending his tenor voice to the choir.
Belief in the Tommyknockers lasted well into the 20th Century. When the Empire Mine in Grass Valley closed in 1956 the owners sealed the entrance. Fourth, fifth and sixth generation Cousin Jacks circulated a petition calling on the mine owners to set the Knockers free so that they could move on to other mines. The owners complied. (Wikipedia: Knocker (folklore).
I hope the lore of the Tommyknocker and my grandfather's story can be passed down a few more generations!
Relationship Reference: Me->Margaret Hansen Boothby->Harold L. Hansen->John H. Hansen m. Clara Vere Burrows
Additional resources:
westernmininghistory.com
northvalleymagazine.com March 28, 2016 Cornish Miners and Tommyknockers
deanza.edu The Californian Volume 9 Number 3 The Cornish Miners
The Union Nov. 2, 2015 Gary Noy: Ghoulies, Ghosties and Tommyknockers
For more posts on my grandfather, go to the link Harold Hansen on the right.
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