As the project manager of the Tennessee
Supreme Court Records Project, Kim Wires performs daily quality control
and spell checks on the Supreme Court database. In the last year, Kim
had noticed a recurrence of cases involving J. E. Raht and the Union
Consolidated Mining Company. There were multiple entries, with each
entry representing only a tiny fraction of a seemingly much larger one.
The body of Raht case files consisted of exhibits, correspondence,
briefs, and other court maneuvers - but the actual trial transcript
hadn't been located. This led Kim on a mission to pull all the disparate
pieces of evidence together into one case file, to make researching the
case much easier for our patrons.
 |
| Supreme Court Records
Project case file J. E. Raht v. The Union Consolidated Mining Company. Tennessee State
Library and Archives. |
First, a bit of historical context: Julius Eckhardt Raht was born in
1826 in Germany and immigrated to the United States in 1850, where he
made his fortune in the mining industry. In 1854, Raht decided to seek
his fortune wealth in copper mining near Cleveland, in an area known as
Ducktown. After six successful years, he became the chief of operations
for all mines and smelting works in the area.
 |
| Julius Eckhardt Raht (1826-1879) from Ducktown Back in Raht's Time by R. E. Barclay, 1945. |
Shortly after the Civil War began, the Confederates confiscated all
the mines in Ducktown, bringing hardships to Raht and the mining
community. In a letter to the managing director of the company, Raht
wrote
“I have written Cap’t. Tonkin to engage teams to haul the
copper to Cleveland as soon as the Rebels & robbers have left that
section of the country.” Soon thereafter, Raht’s communication with
the mine owners, who lived in the North, was cut off. Raht continued to
try and operate the company until the war made that task impossible.
Raht decided to leave Tennessee for Cincinnati until the war ended.
 |
| The Isabella Smelting Works in 1875, from Ducktown Back in Raht’s Time by R. E. Barclay, 1945. |
After the war, Raht returned to Ducktown mines and began to
personally finance much of the recovery work. He made good progress
until 1875 when things turned sour between Raht and the Union
Consolidated Mining Company. Raht claimed that the company had become
financially indebted to him to the sum of $84,711.61 - equivalent
to $1.7 million in today's dollars! However, the mining company claimed
that Raht had built an illegal personal fortune by converting the
company’s assets to his own. John Baxter, a lawyer for the Union
Consolidated Mining Company, stated:
“This record is an interesting
one. It displays a capacity for original, intricate and far reaching
fraud, beyond anything that has hitherto come under the judicial
observation of this court . . . He never neglected an opportunity to
drain any and every one that came within his reach…”
And so a long trial began. One of Raht’s lawyers later commented:
“The
pleadings and proof make a transcript in the Supreme Court of 6,000
pages, and, together with exhibits, make a record which surpasses in
size any record ever seen in the Supreme Court of Tennessee.” Raht passed away in 1879 before the case was decided. Ultimately, the
Tennessee Supreme Court decided in Raht’s favor and the mining company
went bankrupt.
 |
| Receipt book used as an
exhibit in the court case, J. E. Raht v. The Union Consolidated Mining
Company. Tennessee State Library and Archives. |
After learning about the case history, Kim's next step involved
locating the actual case file with the hope of uniting it with all the
other pieces that archivists had already discovered. She decided to
start with the State Library and Archives' card catalog, which contains a
rudimentary inventory of most unprocessed Tennessee Supreme Court
cases. Kim found a card that identified the case in a box that had more
random exhibit pieces and only volume - No. 8 - of the actual case file.
She still needed the first seven volumes and possibly additional
volumes after the eighth one.
As luck would have it, one of our processors came across the case in
its entirety while shifting boxes soon thereafter. We were able to
confirm Kim's research with the actual case file, and combine and house
everything together. The processed case now resides in five
boxes totaling more than 7,000 pages.
 |
| A page from Supreme Court
Records Project case file J. E. Raht v. The Union Consolidated Mining
Company. Tennessee State Library and Archives. |
The case files of the Tennessee Supreme Court, like this one,
represent an especially valuable resource for historical and
genealogical research at the State Library and Archives. To learn more
and to search our database, please visit our Tennessee Supreme Court
Cases web page at:
http://tnsos.org/tsla/SupremeCourtCases/.
The State Library and Archives is a division of the Tennessee Department of State and Tre Hargett, Secretary of State
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