In 1938, Grant Shepherd, son of Alexander Robey Shepherd, “The father of modern Washington, D.C.,” published his memoirs. The book “The Silver Magnet — 50 Years in a Mexican Silver Mine” (E.P. Dutton and Co., 1938) gives us a first-hand look at life in a fabulously rich mine located next to an impossibly remote town around the start of the Mexican Revolution.
Fortunately, the historical value of Shepherd’s book was noted by the American Council of Learned Societies and digitally reformatted for the Humanities E-Book project, making it available from many libraries. This, however, does not mean “The Silver Magnet” is a scholarly work. Not at all. What we have here are rambling memoirs: the recollections of a man who, over a period of 60 years, lived life to its fullest in a remote corner of Mexico that — even today — is difficult to reach.
Anyone interested in Mexico and silver mines will find many a rich nugget here. Let’s take a peek at a few of them.
How to carry a piano down a canyon wall
In Shepherd’s day, to reach Batopilas, Chihuahua from the U.S., you had to ride 241 kilometers in wagons or oxcarts and then brace yourself for a further 300 kilometers on the backs of mules, ending in a narrow switchback trail down the labyrinthine gorges of the Copper Canyon, an elevation difference of 1,708 meters — greater than the average depth of the Grand Canyon.
So when the family decided to buy an upright piano, they faced the problem of how to transport it in one piece to Batopilas, a name that in Rarámuri means “river in a box.”
“All you need to solve a problem like this,” says Shepherd, is “a clever Mexican and an Indian … and if you leave it to them with no suggestions on your part, that cumbersome box will eventually arrive, and arrive right side up.”
Here’s the solution: Cut two long, straight pine poles. Put one on either side of the piano in its wooden box and tie them in such a way that the weight is balanced with no tendency to be top-heavy. Now put two men at each corner of the box.
“They get under the poles in a squatting position. At the word ‘Vámonos!’ they straighten up. The piano is off the ground, and the carriers move off with inward satisfaction of knowing that all they have to do now is to carry this great box for 185 miles in 15 or 20 days.”
For this, Shepherd adds, the men were paid US $1 a day plus first-class meals, which they considered fabulous pay for such an easy job.
How to filch silver from a mine
The ore at the Batopilas mines was very high grade, so there was always a chance that a miner would try to take a little of it home.
“Say, for instance, you wear your hair quite long … and you clean your hands to rid them of the mud caused by the cutting of the drill bit moistened by the water you squirt from your mouth into the hole; if you succeed in cleaning your hands by wiping them on your head, the long hair will get full of mud. When you go home and wash your hair in a basin, you will find that there remain in the basin fine particles of silver. After you become expert at it, you will be able to run it up to as much as 50 cents worth a day. If you are diligent, this will increase your weekly income by about US $3.”
Note that an unskilled laborer was paid a minimum wage of US $1.50 per day.
How not to turn on a lightbulb
Unbelievable as it may sound, in 1889, little Batopilas, population 6,500, was the second city in Mexico to get electric lights (after the capital), thanks to the Americans running the mines.
Shepherd recalls: “One of the men was told to go out and touch a button to light up the place that first night the electric light plant was put into commission. He got a box of matches and tried to screw off the glass bulb so he could apply a match to the wire — and put the bulb into the vise to hold it. There was a pop and a crack. He sprang back from this mysterious thing, fell over a wheelbarrow that was directly behind him, and broke his arm! For a long time afterwards, he was known as Luz Eléctrica, Electric light.”
How to remain invisible while bathing
Shepherd also describes customs of the day unrelated to mining:
“The extreme modesty of the Mexican women was never more apparent than when they were bathing in the river. They carry an ordinary sheet, squat down with the middle of the sheet on top of their heads, spread it out over them, remove all of their clothing, put on an ankle-length cotton slip. (All of this is done underneath the tent made from the sheet.) Then, walking down into the river in this squatting position … they perform their ablutions. No one ever saw so much as the point of one of their toes!”
Cardsharps and Pancho Villa
“The Silver Magnet” touches on many other subjects: buried treasure, dynamite, cockfighting, cardsharps, the vileness of Pancho Villa and the excellence of Porfirio Díaz, plus everything you ever wanted to know about saddles, stirrups and chaps … but not a word about silicosis, which killed the majority of full-time miners before middle age.
The book ends with the death of Shepherd’s father, whose body was hand-carried 300 kilometers up the winding trail by local people who volunteered to do this without pay.
“The Silver Magnet” was reprinted many times. With luck, you may find a physical copy on a dusty shelf of your local bookstore.
John Pint has lived near Guadalajara, Jalisco, for more than 30 years and is the author of “A Guide to West Mexico’s Guachimontones and Surrounding Area” and co-author of “Outdoors in Western Mexico.” More of his writing can be found on his website.
