“It is the night of the Fourth [of July] and I am working the same as usual,” complained Rush McCargar, a 25-year-old American employed by the Oriental Consolidated Mining Company (OCMC) in northern Korea in 1900. “The engineers, machinists, carpenters, miners, and office force had the day off, but we who are unfortunate enough to be mill men have to work just the same.”

But it wasn’t work that irritated him the most; it was a toothache that kept him awake throughout the night. The tooth had been bothering him since December, and though he tried all the home remedies available to him at the mine, none had brought relief. He had even contemplated pulling it out himself, but the nearest forceps were more than 20 miles (32 kilometers) away. There was nothing he could do but try to “grin and bear it.”

Fortunately for McCargar, at the end of July, an American dentist from Nagasaki paid a temporary visit to the mines and offered his services to the miners, for a price. It was readily accepted, and when he left he was much richer for the experience.

In a letter to his family, McCargar described his experience:

“He [the dentist] attempted to save one of my big lower molars the nerve of which had been killed before but the filling had come out and foreign matter gone down through the canals. But after two days of treatment and terrible aching he decided it was useless so pulled it out yesterday.”

“He did not bring his gas apparatus up here so I could take nothing and the pain was terrific. I have to laugh since at the encouraging (?) remark he made just as he put the forceps in place, ‘Hang onto the chair.’ It didn’t take long to find that that was a necessary precaution.”

“I haven’t felt very well since the raw gum makes me a little sick to the stomach all the time. I had one amalgam filling put in the first day, two gold ones today and will have another amalgam one tomorrow and I hope I won’t suffer with tooth-ache this winter.”

After the dentist left, there were other toothaches, but McCargar was not the victim — he was the solution. In October 1901, he performed crude dentistry upon one of his fellow miners with a pair of glass pliers — removing the offending molar with a hard jerk.

In the spring of 1905, the OCMC’s management extended an invitation to Robert H. Ivy, a 24-year-old British American dentist temporarily working at his father’s office in Shanghai, to spend two weeks at the concession attending to the miners’ dental needs. Ivy readily agreed.

All of the things he needed — “a portable dental chair, engine, drills, sterilizer, vulcanizer, blowpipe, rolling mill for making gold plate from coin gold in the preparation of gold crowns, a large selection of artificial teeth, rubber for vulcanite dentures, gold foil, amalgam and other filling materials, root canal fillings, tooth extraction forceps, medicines, etc.” — were packed into three or four strong boxes. Then, accompanied by Chong, his Chinese assistant who acted as his personal servant and interpreter, he boarded a small Chinese steamship bound for Jemulpo (modern Incheon).

They arrived at Jemulpo the following day after an uneventful voyage. They were fortunate. According to Ivy, the “little steamer was sunk on a later trip by a floating mine and all hands were lost” — another casualty of the 1904-05 Russo-Japanese War.

Ivy, not one to let an opportunity pass, made a short stay in Seoul, where he “opened an office in the hotel, doing a little work for the missionaries, and visiting various points of interest.” Considering that Harold Slade, the “resident dentist of Kobe,” had paid a professional visit just a couple of months earlier, I suspect Ivy did more sightseeing than drilling.

Ivy and Chong returned to Jemulpo, where they resumed their journey to the gold mining concession. First by a small coastal steamer, and then aboard the OCMC’s steam launch — commanded by “an old American salt named Captain Barstow,” the company’s transportation superintendent — they sailed up the Chongchon River to the ancient fortified city of Anju. After spending the night in a missionary’s home, they set out early the next morning.

From Anju, it was about 35 miles by mule and pony through the “most rugged country” to OCMC’s main mining camp. The steep “saw-tooth mountains” were infested with tigers, wolves and bandits. In many places, the fast-moving streams and rivers were crossed by wooden trestle bridges only wide enough to permit the passage of pack animals. These bridges were only temporary, each spring washed away by the floods and then rebuilt. Not being accustomed to riding, especially a mule, Ivy later admitted he was rather stiff for several days after his arrival at the mines.

His arrival at the camp was greeted with relief and cordiality by the miners — some needed dental care, while others craved outside news and a diversion from the monotony of the small community. Ivy was provided with an office, and for the next two weeks — assisted by Chong, who laboriously powered the “foot dental engine” — he drilled, filled and pulled teeth. “I was never so busy in all my life,” declared Ivy.

In the evening, after dinner, Ivy visited the miners in their homes and dormitories. “The hours passed pleasantly; listening to phonograph records and various musical instruments — mandolins, [and] banjos.” Cards were also popular — especially poker, but bridge and whist were also frequently played. Of course, tall tales, yarns and storytelling were plentiful, and, according to Ivy, “some of the same old jokes [were] still told as new ones.”

Many early Westerners — especially those who suffered from dental problems — enviously described Koreans as being blessed with strong, white teeth. Considering the miners, both Western and Korean, were responsible for their own dental fees, which tended to be expensive, it is unlikely Ivy had many, if any, Korean patients. Judging from his account, however, he appears to have formed a favorable impression of Koreans, whom he described as being kind and “more receptive of American ideas than either the Chinese or especially the Japanese.” Most Koreans whom he encountered were dressed in white — “a sign of mourning for a member of the royal family” and as the mourning period was so long, “mourning dress was perpetual.”

He was also impressed by Korean craftsmanship and metalwork — especially the beautifully decorated brassware, even on the most mundane household items. Long after he left Korea, Ivy recalled:

“Each Korean man carried his pipe, and his ‘chamber pot’ of brass. I brought home one of these handsome brass vessels and gave it to my aunt, but did not explain to her what it was used for. She put it on the piano in the living room where it was greatly admired as an ornament.”

Before leaving the mining concession, Ivy had the opportunity to descend into the depths of one of the mines. Some of the mine shafts were nearly 600 feet (193 meters) deep, and the Korean miners worked practically naked, loading the mining cars with ore which was crushed in the nearby stamp mill. The gold was then separated from the crushed ore and melted into bars which were transported to Anju once a month on the bullion run, “a buckboard convoy” carefully guarded by a heavily armed escort.

When Ivy and Chong finished their term on the concession, instead of riding back to Anju on a mule, they rode back on one of the bullion run’s buckboards. Although Ivy claimed the buckboard was transporting $100,000, I suspect that was an exaggeration. He later explained: “While I was well paid for my services at the mines, the remuneration was a very small fraction of $100,000.” It may have been only a small fraction of the bullion run, but it was no paltry sum — most likely in excess of $500, a princely sum in 1904.

Ivy eventually returned to the United States, where he became a leading oral and plastic surgeon, famed for his treatment of cleft lips and cleft palates in children. Yet he never forgot Korea.

In the 1950s, nearly a half century after leaving the gold mines, he described his experience in northern Korea as perhaps the most interesting part of his years in Asia.

My appreciation to Diane Nars and the Blain and Meece families for their invaluable assistance.