THE CORNISH POPULATION OF TUCSON
Although the state of Arizona has been home to many Cornish immigrants, they were centered mostly in the copper mining areas of Globe-Miami in the north and Bisbee in the south. The Cornish were deep/hard rock miners and invented the first pumps in the world, to remove sea water from deep mines. Their expertise was exported all over the world from the 1700s on. There are still many Cornish family names in the mining districts of Mexico.
A survey of Cornish names in the 2002 Tucson phonebook found of the 1,192 current Cornish surnames, there were 9,215 possible Cornish listings; of the 44 surnames no longer found in Cornwall²but may be overseas², there were 6! A word of caution, some of the surnames are found in other Celtic countries, so the actual Cornish count is probably lower.That is a considerable number, considering the original Cornish here were miners. Where did they go? Most moved on to new mine activity, whether elsewhere in the US, or Australia, South America, Africa or wherever else British interests dictated. There are more recent Cornish residents here, of course, but also some descendants of miners who stayed behind rather than move again, or who had married into local families. |
