James Duncan Hague (1836 – 1908) was an American mining engineer, mineralogist, and geologist.
Early years
Hague was born in Boston, Massachusetts, to the Rev. William Hague and Mary Bowditch Moriarty.[1] He attended school in Boston and Newark, New Jersey, before enrolling at the Lawrence Scientific School at Harvard University in 1854. The following year, he headed to the Georg-August University of Göttingen in Germany to study chemistry and mineralogy for a year before studying mining engineering at the Royal Saxon Mining Academy in Freiberg for two years.[2]
Career
After returning to New York, Hague was selected by financier William H. Webb to explore several equatorial coral islands in the Pacific Ocean. Webb was involved in the guano business, and Hague examined and documented phosphate deposits on Baker, Howland, and Jarvis Islands.[3]
In 1871, he headed to California to work as a consulting expert on mining engineering, working with both private and governmental clients throughout the western U.S. and Mexico. In 1878, he was a member of the U.S. delegation to the Exposition Universelle in Paris, writing a report on the mining companies and innovations on display.[2]
In 1887, Hague acquired the North Star Mining Co. on Lafayette Hill near Grass Valley, California, which he had helped develop during his time in the state. He reorganized the company in 1889 and acquired several other mines, including Gold Hill.[4] Working with his brother-in-law, Arthur De Wint Foote, he grew North Star's operations, eventually deciding to commission North Star House as an event space for the company and home for the company's supervisor, Foote.[5]
In April 1872, Hague married Mary Ward Foote (1846 – 1898). They had three children: Marian (1873 – 1971), Eleanor (1875 – 1954), and William (1882 – 1918). He died August 3, 1908, at his summer home in Stockbridge, Massachusetts, and was buried in Albany Rural Cemetery in Colonie, New York.[2][5]
^ abcdHarrison, Mitchell C., ed. (1902). "James Duncan Hague"(PDF). New York State's Prominent and Progressive Men. Vol. III. New York Tribune. pp. 143–144. Retrieved March 19, 2022.
^McQuiston, F.W. (1986). Gold: The Saga of the Empire Mine, 1850–1956. Grass Valley, California: Empire Mine Park Association. pp. 37, 43. ISBN9780931892073.
^ ab"James Hague". The North Star House. Retrieved March 19, 2022.
^"Obituary: James Duncan Hague". Bulletin of the American Geographical Society. 40 (9): 576. 1908. JSTOR198377.