the 20th century. When one large mine closed in 1956 and the owners sealed the entrance, fourth, fifth, and sixth generation Cousin Jacks circulated a petition calling on the mineowners to set the knockers free so that they could move on to other mines. The owners complied. Belief among Nevadan miners persisted amongst its miners as late as the 1930s. Tommyknocker Brewery in Idaho Springs, Colorado owes its namesake to the mythical creature, and began serving in 1859 to meet the needs of the large number of prospectors, as part of the Colorado Silver Boom. Knocker also appeared as a name for the same phenomena, in the folklore of Staffordshire miners. In literature Knockers are a motif found in the science fiction/horror book The Tommyknockers by Stephen King. Tommyknockers are also mentioned in the Hardy Boys book, Hunting for Hidden Gold. "Tommy-clockers" is the title of chapter eight. A benevolent knocker appears in The Ironwood Tree, the fourth book in The Spiderwick Chronicles, in which it helps the protagonists escape from a dwarf kingdom. In the Pulitzer Prize-winning novel Angle of Repose by Wallace Stegner, protagonist Susan Burling Ward first hears about tommyknockers when her husband and his colleagues take her into one of the quicksilver mines at New Almaden. See also References Katharine Briggs, An Encyclopedia of Fairies, Hobgoblins, Brownies, Bogies, and Other Supernatural Creatures, "Knockers", p. 254 . External links BBC page on Devon myths and legends James, Ronald M. "Knockers, Knackers, and Ghosts: Immigrant Folklore in the Western Mines", Western Folklore, vol. 51, no. 2, 1992, pp. 153–177. JSTOR Cornish legendary creatures Devon folklore Welsh folklore American legendary creatures Fictional mining engineers Mining folklore Gnomes