Photograph by Jacqueline Ramseyer
Gage McKinney, a purchasing manager with Recognition Systems, holds up his second published book, which took him four years to write. McKinney chose the subject of the Grass Valley Carol Choir after hearing stories, while growing up, from his grandfather, who was a gold miner.
Resident writes about heritage
'When Miners Sang' is Gage McKinney's newest published book
By Amy Jenkins
Ancestry is important to Gage McKinney. So important he has written books about his heritage on both his mother's and father's sides of the family.
The latest book that McKinney wrote was released in mid-October and is called When Miners Sang: The Grass Valley Carol Choir. The book is about a chorus of miners, originally from Cornwall, England, who brought both mining skills and the love of music with them to America.
"My mother, Jackie McKinney, who lives in Sunnyvale now and grew up in Grass Valley, encouraged me to look into this topic," says McKinney, who has lived in Sunnyvale for 20 years and is the historian and former president of the California Cornish Cousins.
In 1900 three quarters of the population in Grass Valley were Cornish. Now there are still a lot but they are rarer, "kind of like cultural relics," McKinney says with a laugh.
Grass Valley, which is 50 miles northeast of Sacramento and is in Nevada County, was the richest gold-mining town in California. Miners produced more gold in Grass Valley than any other town in California, McKinney says. During the Gold Rush, miners would mine deep into quartz rock, rather than just sifting through streams, McKinney says. This tradition lasted more than 100 years, from the time of the Gold Rush until the closure of local mines in 1956.
During the 18th century, Cornwall was the first place to be industrialized, find copper and be developed early on, McKinney says. People from Cornwall brought engineering skills, such as mining at deep levels, when they immigrated to Australia, South Africa and America.
Along with mining, immigrants brought a tradition of making music. Composers wrote music for the industrial age. Miners wrote Christmas music and they sang year-round in churches, hospitals, on the streets and in pubs. Miners have a tradition of singing but Cornish music dates back to the 19th century, McKinney says. He adds that Cornish Christmas carols were inspired by Methodist hymns and Handel's oratorios.
While the carols were first sung in the era of steam engines, rail, pumps and stamp mills, the tunes migrated with the technology, McKinney says. Miners also sang hymns, American worksongs and other popular songs, but Cornish carols were uniquely theirs and reminded people in places like Grass Valley of their homeland, McKinney says.
Since the majority of the Grass Valley population was of Cornish descent, the choir's carols became associated with the town.
"Originally the carols were identified with a particular occupational and ethnic group but now they are the identity of the town and gold country," McKinney says.
The Grass Valley Carol Choir even became somewhat famous when they gave one of their first broadcast performances from San Francisco's Grace Methodist Church in 1927. The choir also performed regularly over regional stations for years. It gave its first national broadcast over NBC on Christmas Eve 1940 from the 2,000-foot level of the Idaho-Maryland gold mine in Grass Valley, and broadcasts continued throughout the war years.
Even though there are no longer miners, the tradition of singing Cornish carols continues in Grass Valley. The Grass Valley Carol Choir, originally made up of Cornish gold miners, still exists today, with some members who are descendants of the miners. They are now called the Cornish Carol Choir.
The publisher of McKinney's book also released a double CD that has recordings of the choir from Christmas 1946 and July 1959, as well as the Cornish Carol Choir singing the same songs in July 2001.
A piece of Sunnyvale history reflects the history of Cornish people--mining and singing. Joshua Hendy, founder of the historic Hendy Iron Works of Sunnyvale, was born in Morwenstow, Cornwall, in 1824 and came to America and developed his talent for mechanical engineering. He established an iron works in San Francisco that manufactured industrial equipment, and it relocated to Sunnyvale in 1906, was purchased by Westinghouse in 1947 and today is operated by Northrup Grumman, McKinney says.
Stamp mills produced in Hendy's plant crushed ore from the Grass Valley mines, and today there is a historic stamp mill on display in Sunnyvale's Murphy Park.
McKinney says his grandfather, Ken Hughs, as well as many other Cornish miners from Grass Valley, came to work at Hendy's during World War II, when the plant was producing engines for liberty ships. Many of Grass Valley's gold miners found work at Hendy's and some continued after Westinghouse took over the plant, McKinney says. He says many miners, including his grandfather, moved back to Grass Valley when they retired.
McKinney says the carols used to emphasize bass because most of the members in the choir were male and the alto part would be sang by the sons of the miners, boys ages 6 to 11. But today there are women in the choir, some members are descendants of miners and some have just moved into Grass Valley and joined the choir because they want to keep the tradition and identity of the town going, he says.
McKinney's book about his father's heritage is called, A High and Holy Place: A Mining Camp Church at New Almaden. It is about the largest mercury mine in the Western Hemisphere, the quicksilver mine at New Almaden, which is now a county park, located 12 miles south of downtown San Jose. According to McKinney, the connection between his mother's and father's heritage is that the Cornish choir came down from Grass Valley and sang carols in New Almaden at Christmas time.
The book and CD set are available from the publisher at 530.273.6220 or 408.739.7503. They are also available at Willow Glen Books, 1330 Lincoln Ave., San Jose, 408.298.8141; Memorabilia of San Jose, 250 West St. John St., San Jose, 408.298.5711; Amazon.com; and Barnes and Noble.com. For more information about the Northrup Grumman facility and the Iron Man Museum, call 408.735.2020. McKinney will speak at the Sunnyvale Historical Society Feb. 18 at 7:30 p.m. in the Murphy Park Recreational Building.
Sunnyvale, California Since 1994
