Ls Ba ir aeieass GIFT OF JEROME B. LANDFIELD Bie i" : a Jr) Ff - ze for | NAA eer terme The Autobiography of Charles Peters TT In 1915 the Oldest Pioneer Living in California ‘Who Mined in ““The Days of Old, The Days of Gold, The Days of ’49.”’ Also Historical Happenings, Interesting Incidents and Illustrations of The Old Mining Towns in 77e Good Luck Era The Placer Mining Days of the ’ 50s Price 50 Cents (Sent Postpaid) The LaGrave Co., Publishers P. 0. Box 1077 Sacramento, Cal. 7%e Autobiography of Charles Peters In 1915 the Oldest Pioneer Living in California Who Mined in “The Days of Old, The Days of Gold, The Days of 49.’ Also Historical Happenings, Interesting Incidents and Illustrations of The Old Mining Towns in Z7e Good Luck Era The Placer Mining Days of the ’ 50s Price 50 Cents (Sent Postpaid) The LaGrave Co., Publishers P.O Box 1077 Sacramento, Cal. § LLUSTRATIONS drawn and copied by Miss Lesley Jones, Sacramento, California. Engraved by Commercial Photo Engraving Co., 563 Clay Street, San Francisco, California. Printed by PERNAU PUBLISHING CO. 753 Market Street, San Francisco foe S000 bu 10. 12. 13. 15. ha NA x TF 3L5 r Pus [1lustrations Page Charles Peters... ...... oc... 00... Frontispiece San Pranciseo in 1848..............2. ce." 4 Sacramento in 1850. ...5 ............ 00a. o Charley Peters and partner starting for the MANGE, ovis vrais, Sree 6 The Dry Creek Justice of the Peace, ete..... 8 Washday at Charley Peters’ Cabin, on Jackson Creek, in: '50....4.... .... 10 Charley Peters and ‘Do It’’—Ground SHENG: 0. hae See 12 Charley Peters entering his tunnel on Negro Bl a 15 The Hanging of Hseobar...:............ ..: 18 Charley Peterson Sunday in 58. ............ 20 Belloof the Ballin 58. ..................:. 22 The Jackson Stage the day after Gibbons arrived in Sacramentos .......... ....: 26 The Kemmedy Mine. ......«..iivuisesiniio 28 Jackson in 1888... .... 0... iii aes 30 Charley Peters’ Table at the Pioneer Miners’ Pienie near Jaeksen..................... 32 — M & 8 = Hos B= Mos Ar < pH mo C2 = D on < The Autobiography of Charles Peters Y full name is Carlo Pedro Deogo Laudier de Andriado. It means in English: Charles Peter James Laudier of Andriado. The latter being the name of the city my family originated in. Like an animal encumbered with too long a tail, I found my full name to be unwieldy, so I amputated it at the second joint soon after leaving home. 1 have called myself and have been known for nearly eighty years as Charles Peters. ; I was born on January 12, 1825, on the Island of Fiol, which is off the western coast of Portugal and belongs to the Government of Portugal. My father’s name was the same as my own. Ie held a position in the service of Emperor Dom Pedro when I was born. He was the owner of a large vine- yard, employing about twenty-five men to handle the harvest of grapes and make the wine which he marketed. My mother’s maiden name was Anna Isabel Pellates. My parents were both descendants from the ancient inhabitants of Portugal called Lusitanians; who ruled the land before the Carthaginians under Hannibal and the Romans under Julius Caesar conquered the country. 1‘ was the only child. My father lived his three score and ten, while my mother was 99 years, 11 months and 20 days old when she passed away. It was a great shock to me when I learned of her death in /er prime, for I fully believed she would outlive the nineteenth century and reach the average age of her ancestors of over 120 years. Owing to the continual absence of my father from our home, attending to his official duties in Lisbon, I was almost all of the time under my mother’s care, and looked to her entirely for guidance and instruction. I was sent to school when I was five years old and, while there were one or two studies I was good in, it soon developed I was not born to be a scholar, and I steadily fell behind the other scholars of my age in my studies, until, at the age of ten, I was in an embar- rassing position. The social standing of the scholars was divided into two classes; the children who wore shoes and those who went barefoot. My mother had strong objections to my associating with the poorer children who went barefoot, but, somehow, I preferred to mix with them, rather than with the children of the more prosperous parents. On account of this prefer- ence, my mother caught me in the only untruth I ever told. She accused me of playing with the barefoot children, which I denied, but she had the proof. I got a severe whipping and had red pepper put into my mouth. Then I listened to a lecture on the evil of lying that I remember to this day and I have been truthful ever since. On account of my inability to learn my lessons, 1 began at the age of ten to look for my future career on the deep blue waters of the sea. A desire to emulate the deeds of my famous countryman and ancestor, Magellan, began to kindle the fire of a marine ambition in my brain. One day an American vessel came in and anchored in the bay; the school teacher dismissed school and with about four hundred school children, I went down to the dock and cheered and cheered and saluted the American flag. When I heard that the captain was so pleased with our reception that he had told the Consul he wanted one of the boys to go with him as his cabin boy, I applied for the place. I pleaded with my mother and got her consent to go upon my promise that I 2 would obey her precepts and come back the captain of a ship. The captain promised to be my guardian, and while my mother, before we sailed, regretted her action, yet, she bade me keep my word. My father was now the private secretary of Queen Donna Marie at Lisbon. When my mother sent the document she and the captain had signed, to him, he was very angry and sent messengers to take me from the ship, but they came too late for the ship had sailed, and for the next thirteen years I was with Captain Pendleton on whaling voyages on the Atlantic and Pacific oceans. His home was in New London, Conn., and we delivered our cargoes and obtained our supplies from the New England ports we arrived at and sailed from on our voyages. My experience on board the whaler was uneventful, except in one instance. Of course, for the first few weeks after leaving home, I was seasick and homesick, but the feeling of distress from these causes soon passed off. But, had I had the authority, I would have turned the vessel back and returned to my native land never to be a sailor again. One afternoon the captain and the first mate left a large plug of chewing tobacco, from which each had cut a piece and put in their mouths, on the cabin table. I thought that it would make me more of a sailor if I followed their example, so I took a good sized chunk in my mouth and began to chew. I swallowed the saliva it produced, not knowing it was necessary to expectorate it. The result was I became the sickest boy that ever fell into a bunk on a ship. The captain thought I was going to die but never knew what disease I had, because I was afraid to tell him the cause. I have never tried to chew tobacco since. On a whaling voyage to the Arctic and Pacific oceans in 1846, our vessel entered and anchored a few 3 days in San Francisco Bay. It was a good sized village then, but we had little thought of it becoming the city it now is. SAN FRANCISCO IN 1846 I was in New London, Conn., in 1848, when the | news came of the discovery of gold in California, and | I soon got the gold fever. I sailed in the ship “Elfa’| from New York with several hundred other ’49ers. | Captain Porter was in command and when the vessel | passed the Farralones he sent for me and said:| “Charley, you have been here before, can you pilot. this ship into San Francisco Bay?’ 1 replied : “Yes. ’§ So I took charge of the vessel as pilot and landed it | safely and was given three cheers by the men and | women there when we came to anchor. Captain Porter! said: ‘Charley, that was worth $500 to me,” and he, | Lt 4 in a feeling of great generosity, paid me $20 for my services as pilot. I arrived in Sacramento with two sacks, made from sail cloth, filled with my personal effects. 1 carried the sacks on my back fastened with leather straps under my arms. SACRAMENTO IN 1849 I hired out as a cook for $200 a month and, after working a few weeks, I became acquainted with a man from the mines. He proposed we go to Columbia and go to gold mining and I agreed. We were going to walk and when we got ready to start it required two men to lift my two sacks of things upon my back, they were so heavy. A man standing by said to the crowd around me: ‘‘That man has a load for a jackass.”” 1 replied: ‘You had better carry it, then.’’ Now, like Samson, I have never shaved, but, unlike Samson, a Delilah has never shorn me of my locks— or my pocketbook—but I do not attribute to anything else except my life at sea, the fact that I was blessed with prodigious strength. I carried my load easily for ten miles without stopping to rest and then my partner, who had begun to fag, proposed we take a rest. Although, it was raining, I told him to come along when he was rested and I continued on in my usual stride. About ten miles further on I overtook CHARLEY PETERS AND PARTNER STARTING FOR THE MINES a teamster with a span of horses and his wagon stuck in the mud. ‘‘Hey Cap,’’ said he, ‘‘ain’t you got a big load? Don’t you want a rest?’’ I said: ‘‘No, I haven’t had to take a rest yet.” ‘‘Well,”’ said he, “put your load in my wagon and help push over the bad places and I will give you a ride.” ‘‘All right,” I said, and putting my pack in his wagon I began to push on one of the wheels. In a few minutes he yelled: ‘“Hey! Stop, Cap! You're pushing the wagon on top of my horses.”” He told me afterwards that I was equal in strength to his horses and if he had me with him all of the time, he would never get stuck. I finally reached Dry Creek about eight miles from Columbia. The storekeeper there was the justice of the peace and kept a bar and a boarding house in a big tent. He had forty-six boarders and charged an ounce ($18) a week for board. There was a big, burly fellow there who proposed to go into a partner- ship with me and work a claim. I agreed to it as I was looking for a chance to dig gold. Several of the miners there now began to warn me against the man, saying no man had stayed long with him and all had had trouble with him and he had thrashed two or three of his partners within the past two weeks. As I was not afraid of any man living, I bought a shovel for $6 and started in to work with him. On the fourth day I found my shovel gone. When my partner saw I had no shovel, he began to curse me. I challenged him to fight and the men from the other claims gathered around us. The big bully struck at me, with his fist, a vicious blow, but I dodged and gave him a swat under the ear that sent him flat on his back on the ground. Every time he tried to get up, I gave him another and he, finally, too weak to talk, whispered, ‘‘enough.”” The justice of the peace was his friend and wanted me arrested, but every boarder threatened to quit his house if he did, and he finally subsided. I worked the claim alone for awhile and then a miner came along and induced me to go to Jack- son. I bought a span of horses and a supply of grub 7 = = i \ I THE DRY CREEK JUSTICE OF THE PEACE, ETC. and with my things started for the better diggings. In Forman’s Gulch, about ten miles from Mokelumne Hill, I found a man with his wife and sister-in-law working a placer claim. The man wielded a pick and shovelled the pay dirt into a bucket which his wife carried a couple hundred of feet to where the sister- in-law, a comely maiden, rocked the rocker. I have always been susceptible, and I am now, to the flattery of the female sex, and when this young maiden ex- pressed a wish that she had my physical strength, in order to perform her task easily, I took her place and rocked for about four hours and also aided in an oeca- sional clean up, which showed the claim was paying over an ounce a day. After awhile, I found the young lady was more interested in the result of the clean ups than basking in the sunshine of love, so, somewhat dis- appointed, I resumed my journey toward Jackson. On my arrival in Jackson, in the latter part of 1850, I built a log cabin. The first night I slept in it I had the company of three rats. During the night, I felt something cold moving across my feet and thought it was one of the rats getting friendly. In the morning I found a rattlesnake curled up in a corner of my cabin. It had thirteen rattles, an unlucky number for it, for I quickly sent him where he would cease from rattling and my weary feet could be at rest. On the North Fork of Jackson Creek, I went in partnership with a Frenchman named Douet to work a claim. Owing to mispronouncing his name, we called him “Do it.”’ He was quite an expert, and finding a good flow of water coming down the gulch, he pro- posed to ground sluice the bank. We dug a ditch and soon had the water undermining the bank and caving it down in large chunks which we manipulated in the stream of water with our picks, and, as the stones were washed from their covering of earth, we cast them out. I had only been using the pan method 9 10 | i of mining which gave a frequent result that encouraged and enthused one as the yield was small or large. | | We worked about nine hours ground sluicing, during ~ which time I did not see a color and felt quite dis- couraged. Unless a nugget was as big as a man’s fist, it would hardly be seen in the flood of muddy water. “Do it,”’ at last, suggested we clean up and while I went and turned off the water, he got his pan and a big clasp knife .ready. When the flow of water ceased, he seated himself on the bedrock and with the pan between his knees began digging with his knife the mud out of the crevices and dropping it into the pan. Soon a yellow gleam began to appear in the pan and then my hopes began to rise. Then a nugget, weighing at least two ounces, dropped with a bang upon the bottom of the pan and ‘‘Do it,”” with an exclamation that sounded like ‘‘Kee-ees-Kee-Dee,”’ looked up and smiled. “Have we struck it?’ I asked. ‘Oui, Oui,’’ said he, and then I knew we had. When “Do it”’ finished his cleanup and we started for the cabin to cook our supper, we had over nine pounds of gold dust in our pan. But it was the hardest work I had ever done. My back ached, my feet were wet and cold and my hands were numb. I realized then, that, while there was plenty of gold in the ground, it could not be picked up with ease. Hard labor and often poor results to many, with lucky finds to the few, I could then look into the future and see. A pang of pity passed through my mind as I thought of the many physically weak men I had seen rushing through Sacra- mento to the mines and of the many I had seen on my tramp to Columbia and journey to Jackson, who were totally unfit to cope with the conditions of hard work, exposure and privation it required to mine in the ‘placers for gold. On a Sunday I went over to Butte City prospect- ing and met an Englishman who had been mining in 11 al ee — ett 7 = Zr Jas = yr | 0 pl san hE I Hunt’s Gulch, and he gave his opinion in the follow- ing characteristic language: “By me soul, Peters, this is a great country! Here, a man can dig up as much gold in a day as he ever saw in his life in London. I have got already more of the bloody stuff than I know what to do with and I’ve only been here a week. I came here without a bloody farthing in my pocket. The Frenchman who keeps the shop down on the bottom of the hill wouldn’t trust me for a shilling’s worth of bread. ‘If ye got no money, go dig,’ says he. ‘I’ll not dig on Sunday for any blarsted villain,” says I. ‘Then starve,’ says he. But I didn’t, though I had an empty belly until Monday came, and then I dug an ounce and on Tuesday, two ounces, and on Friday I had two pounds of the bloody stuff with a lump as big as my fist. I got all this luck from not working on Sunday. Peters, did ye ever see such a big country as this?”’ Hunt’s Gulch, referred to by the lucky English- man, was one of the richest placer grounds in the State. It was first located by a Frenchman named Hunt in 1848. He dug a fortune out of its banks in a few months and went back to France. It flows from the ridge about two miles from Jackson, between two steep hills, down into the Mokelumne River. It was worked over for the fourth time in 1852, and it was then estimated that over three tons of gold, valued at a million and a half dollars, had been taken out of it. It was worked for the ninth time in 1858 by Joe Mason, two brothers named Gleason and a man named Daven port, who built a flume and with a big head of water were washing dirt on an extensive scale. In Febru- ary, 1858, they cleaned up, after a six days’ run, 15 pounds of gold valued at over $3000 and in one week in July, 1858, they cleaned up 34 pounds valued at $6900. How many tons of gold and how many mil- lions in value this auriferous gulch yielded, ean only 13 be conjectured and not computed. I passed Hunt's Guleh by when I had a chance to obtain a claim there, because a miner, named Halsey, in August, 1852, found a ten pound nugget worth $2000 near Clinton, on the Middle Fork of Jackson Creek, and I thought there must be a flock of them there and acted accordingly. In November, 1851, a couple of negroes began pros- pecting on a hill near the town of Mokelumne Hill They sunk a hole about fifteen feet deep and found gravel that showed free gold. They filled a flour sack full of this dirt and one of the negroes toted it down to the gulch where there was a flow of water to wash it. It yielded nearly four pounds of gold valued at over $750. Subsequently, they found dirt that paid $10 to the pan. This started an excitement. When the news reached me on Jackson Creek, I, with others, who were making less than an ounce a day, imme- diately joined the rush and went to Mokelumne Hill as fast as our legs wonld take us. When I got there everybody, except the Jews, who never worked a placer, and the prisoners in jail, were gone to Negro Hill, the name given the scene of the new discovery. Nearly all the saloons were closed up. The saloon and bar- keepers all were locating claims. The courthouse was deserted; the county officials, with everybody else in the town, had gone to the place where rich deposits had been found. I proceeded quickly to the place. It resembled a human ant hill. I was too late to secure a location, for locations had been made a mile or two on each side of Negro Hill when I got there, but I secured not one job, but two. I found two men who desired to employ me and I went to work days for one and nights for the other, each paying me an ounce a day. 1 went without sleep for six days and while T was physically able to stand the strain, men- tally, I was not, and I went under a doctor’s care. Tt cost me nearly all of the twelve ounces I had earned 14 to get back into a normal condition again. I had been so successful and honest in my work for one of these men that he soon had all the gold he desired and gave me the unworked portion of his claim, amounting to about seventeen square feet. Out of this I took 4 a (a ba 9&0 RA CHARLEY PETERS ENTERING HIS TUNNEL ON NEGRO HILL nearly seventeen pounds of gold. On parting with him, he said: ‘‘Now, Peters, that I have all the gold I want, I'm going back home to New York and the first 15 thing I'm going to do is to gratify my fondest wish.”’ ‘‘What’s that?’’ I asked. ‘‘Peters,’’ said he, “I'm going to buy a pair of suspenders for each pair of trousers I own.” When I was about fourteen years of age, I was baptized and became a member of a Baptist Church. I suppose it was due to my love of the water that I joined that sect, for all religious creeds look alike to me. There may be some difference in the route taken, but all their paths lead to the same destination, so, on my return to Jackson from Mokelumne Hill, I found the Rev. Mr. Fish trying to organize and build a Methodist church. I turned to and helped him to success. Soon after this church was organized, a big Methodist revival was started in Drytown. Among those converted was an all-round sporting character named John Rix, who was the champion foot racer of this section of the State. His religious ardor started him out in an endeavor to build a church and he sought for subscriptions among his former sporting associates. He, one day appeared at Jackson and there met a man he had beaten in a foot race several months pre- vious and this man challenged him to a hundred yard contest for $100 a side. Mr. Askey, one of the pro- prietors of the Louisana Hotel, with several other strong supporters of all forms of sport, agreed with Rix to meet the defi and if Rix won to let the winnings go toward building the church. The foot race was run on a Saturday afternoon on Water Street in Jack- son and was witnessed by a large crowd. Rix, with the fervor of a supporter of the Lord, won with ease and then his trouble began. The foot race caused a lot of gossip and comment, and when Rix endeavored to turn over the stake, the Methodist minister and the deacons of the church refused to receive it, as it was tainted money. I learned afterward that Rix, unable to apply the money toward the building of the church, 16 backslided and painted the town red in the interest of the devil. The Young American Hotel, built over the Middle Fork of Jackson Creek where the Broadway street bridge spans it, was a great gambling resort in the 50s. It’s spacious barroom had several billiard tables and poker tables galore. One night, I strolled in to look on the rapid exchange of wealth, good and bad luck was causing, and became a witness to a thrilling episode. A sport called ‘‘Blue Dick,”” who always car- ried two revolvers and a bowie knife and had a local reputation of being a man ready to shoot on the slight- est provoeation, was playing poker with three other men. Finally, ‘‘Blue Dick’’ and one of the other players were dealt good hands and began calling and raising each other until ‘‘Blue Dick’’ demanded a sight, having put up his last dollar. This his oppon- ent refused to give him, claiming, he had revolvers and jewelry of value which he could pawn and see the bet. With an oath ‘Blue Dick’’ laid his cards on the table and drawing his bowie knife sunk it into the table an inch deep through the cards, thus fastening them to the table. Then saying he would kill any man who touched his poker hand while he was gone, left the saloon to raise more money. There was a little boy about six years of age who lived next door to the hotel and was a sort of a pet among the gamblers. They had taught him to chew tobacco, to swear and to play cards. He was nick- named ‘‘Shellabark,’”’ after a little Shetland pony that had performed in a circus a year or so before. While the three players were engaged in conversation awaiting “Blue Dick’s’’ return, ‘‘Shellabark’’ climbed upon his chair and unnoticed, pulled three of the cards from the blade of the bowie knife before he was seen and stopped. Two of the players, considering discretion was their best act, picked up their money and de- 17 18 3 5 i 2 2 x 07S fawn lima TNEONRAR 0. Om parted. The other player, recovering from the shock, quickly replaced the cards so that they appeared to be in the same place that ‘‘Blue Dick’’ left them; kept his seat and drew his revolver. This, he carefully exam- ined and cocking it, held it down by his side awaiting the return of his adversary. ‘‘Blue Diek’’ returned in about half an hour. He had been unsuccessful in his effort to get more money to bet. He withdrew the bowie knife, turned over his poker hand and studied it a moment, then, without noticing it had been disturbed, with an oath, threw it aside and gave up the pot. He left the saloon a few minutes afterward and there was a big sigh of relief when he departed. Of course, every pioneer has told of the high prices that prevailed in the early days; how flour sold for a dollar a pound; onions and potatoes a dollar a piece and a can of sardines for two dollars and a half, but the highest priced commodity I saw during this period was raisins. I sat on the counter of a store in Jackson one evening, when a Digger Indian came in with several ounces of nuggets tied up in a rag. He put the package in one bowl of the scales and lacon- ically spoke the word ‘‘raisin.’” The storekeeper leisurely walked around the counter, found a box of raisins and returning to the scales began dropping raisins, one at a time, as if they were too precious to part with, into the other bowl of the scale. When the raisins balanced the gold, he emptied them into a paper bag which he handed to the Indian who de- parted satisfied. Raisins at $16 an ounce would make a Fresno grower turn over in his grave, if he heard of such a price now. Another high priced commodity I once saw was watermelon seeds. A miner, a neighbor of mine, bought a watermelon from an Ione Valley orower for $2 in 1851 and saved the seeds. These he put up in packages of about twenty seeds in each and sold them the next Spring to miners, who wanted to 19 CHARLEY PETERS ON SUNDAY IN 58 | lant them, for $1 a package. He cleared over $30 from his thoughtfulness, but, the distribution killed the business, for next season watermelon seeds were so plentiful they could not be given away. On the night of August 6, 1855, a gang of Mex- ican robbers entered the Rancheria Hotel in Amador County, and after killing five men and the landlady and wounding several other men, robbed the hotel safe of about $10,000 in gold dust and then made their escape. Great excitement prevailed and three Mexicans were lynched by a mob from Drytown. Sheriff Phoenix, with a posse from Jackson, pursued a portion of the gang into Tuolumne County. A battle between the officers and the Greasers occurtred near Chinese Camp in which Sheritf Phoenix and two of the robbers were killed. Rafael Escobar, one of the band, was captured in Columbia by Deputy Sheriff George Durham, and brought to Jackson on August 22nd to be held for trial. Durham and his prisoner were promptly met by a reception committee of citizens and in less than thirty minutes afterwards the picture of the hanging was taken. I was in the crowd, but, 1 am not the man up in the tree. Escobar was the tenth man hung from the limb of the live oak that overhung Main Street. The tree was destroyed in the great fire of August 23, 1862. | | | | | During the 50s the Volunteer Fire Department was a leading factor in celebrations and social entertain- ment. How we ‘tripped the licht fantastic toe’’ then will be shown by the following copy of a programme at one of our grand balls: prs ate N \ Ne) BELLE OF THE BALL IN 1858 22 Grand Ball Given by the Jackson Fire Department, July 4th, 1858 PROGRAMME OF DANCES Plain Quadrille Plain Quadrille Waltz Waltz Plain Quadrille Sicilian Circle . Mazurka Gallop Lancers French Four Polka Polka Plain Quadrille Quadrille (Old Dan Tucker) Schottische Waltz Varsovienne Virginia Reel ~ Quadrille (Basket) Schottische Danish Polka Quadrille (Pop Goes Supper March the Weasel) Waltz Tickets, Including Supper, $5.00 Ladies Free “We won't go home ’till morning; We'll dance ‘till the break o’ day.” ‘While mining on the Mokelumne River, my partner and myself were attacked by a grizzly bear. I fired six shots from my pistol into the Grizzly’s body, which had only the effect of angering him. He chased me down the river until I took advantage of the trunk of a pine tree by getting behind it, and then drawing my sheath knife I awaited his coming. He rose upon his hind legs and struck at me with one of his forepaws. I caught it on the point of my knife and ripped it open. This caused him to turn and run for the brush. The worst tussle I ever had with an animal was with a mastiff, kept by a German merchant in Jackson. It was the largest dog in the county, if not in the State. I entered the merchant’s back yard one afternoon to deliver a load of wood, when the mastiff made an angry rush at me. As he jumped at my throat, 1 23 grasped him by both ears and bore him down to the ground. I then spit in his eye, kicked all the wind out from between his ribs and when he howled from fear, with a final kick, I let him loose -and he slunk to his kennel with his tail between his legs. About fifty people had gathered to see the battle, not one of whom offered me any assistance, but, when it was over, nearly all had advice to give as to how to kill the brute. I said no, he is a whipped cur and that is sufficient. An elderly man, whom we called the Major, and who lived on the creek a short distance from me, one afternoon came over to my claim to have a chat. Knowing he had been on Jackson Creek sometime be- fore I came there, to satisfy my curiosity, I asked him: ‘“‘Major, how long have you been here?’ ‘‘Do you see the Butte over yonder?’’ asked he, pointing to the peak, popularly called by the people of Jackson, ‘‘ Butte Mountain.” *‘‘Yes,”” 1 replied “Well” said the Major, spitting at a piece of quartz about ten feet away: ‘‘When I came here the Butte was nothing but a hole in the ground.”” An amusing part of this statement is, on account of my being young in years and a foreigner I, for some time afterward, believed what he said. Another big yarn spinner, and one who could spit further and straighter than the Major, that I met in Jackson, was a man named Gibbons, who mined on the North Fork near where the Kennedy Mill is now lo- cated. He, with a partner, worked during the summer of ’54 getting out pay dirt to wash when the Autumn rains came. He had a number of large chispas and by exhibiting different ones at various times and to different parties, created an impression he was fre- quently finding nuggets an ounce or more in weight. Ie so impressed a widow, with whom he and his part- 24 ner boarded, that she married his partner and expected to share the fortune the final clean up would yield. Whether, because he had matrimonial intentions him- self and was disappointed, or from some other cause, he, late in the summer, sold out and departed for Sacramento. He tipped off to a few he was going to the mint to dispose of the bag of nuggets he had gath- ered and intended to return, but he never did. On the stage he made such a display of his nuggets and gave such a vivid description of how he could thrust his hand, at will, into the pile of pay dirt he and his partner had dug and draw out a nugget that some of the passengers took passage back to Jackson on the next stage to locate claims. He remained in Sacra- mento two days, during which time his exhibition of nuggets and tales of fabulous richness, caused a couple of hundred greedy gold seekers to start for Jackson, where their arrival astonished the residents of the town who had no information of the rich strike and that the excitement of Negro Hill was about to be repeated. As rumor, with its swift wings, made its flight from Sacramento into El Dorado, Placer and Nevada Counties, and in exaggerated terms, whispered the news of the strike, several hundred rainbow chas- ers, afoot, on horseback and with other means of con- veyance, for the next ten days, began to pour into Jackson, eager to get a portion of the great treasure to be uncovered there. Either in derision or disgust, the disappointed crowd christened the scene of Gib- bons’ labors, ‘Humbug Hill,”’ and those who had the means soon departed wiser but sadder men, while those who came with a shoestring and used it, had to stay and seek other means of existence. The hotelkeepers and the storekeepers were unprepared for the army. Everything eatable was eaten up. Lodgings were in- adequate for the crowd and they slept on the side- walks, in the stables and many laid down to rest on 25 THE JACKSON STAGE THE DAY AFTER GIBBONS ARRIVED IN SACRAMENTO 26 the hillsides. As the latch string on my cabin door always hung on the outside and there was an ample supply of food inside to fill all empty stomachs that applied, I soon had as many boarders as a county hospital and they paid me about as much as the den- izens of a poor farm would. Among the number was a man named Davis who was as regular in his eating as T was and with as healthy an appetite. While he probably ate more than any other of my boarders, he paid less. He stayed over three weeks and then concluding to hike out to new diggings, insisted, as he could not pay in gold, on giving me his note for $50, which he would pay as soon as he made his expected strike. I held his note several years without hearing from him and as he had handed it to me folded up, I had not read it’s contents. One day I did so and found it read: “One day, after death, I promise to pay, ete.” As 1 will never meet Davis here again and don’t expect to see him in the next world, I have cancelled the debt. Now Gibbons, in his romancing, was only a few thousand feet, in a downward direction, from the truth. Had he said there was enormous riches a couple of thousand feet below instead of on the surface, he would have been truthful, for on the slope of ‘‘Hum- bug Hill’ is the shaft and mill of the great Kennedy mine. Kennedy, I believe, and one or two of his partners, came to Jackson with this ’54 rush and remained to prospect and mine in that vicinity. Ken-. edy and Henning located the Kennedy mine in Feb- ruary, 1857. They sold four-sixths at $1000 a sixth, which made the value of the mine $6000 with six part- ners. They worked it a few years and finally sold out for the same amount to Jim Flemming and three other Irishmen, who, with a one-horse whim worked the mine until they struck a quartz horse several hundred feet below the surface and went broke. 27 KENNEDY MINE, JACKSON, CAL. “Humbug Hill’ was not entirely barren of nug- gets, for two miners named Gilbert and Gleason, in February, 1859, cleaned up in one week 12 pounds of gold from their claim on the hill, and a Frenchman, named Charron, in May, ’59, paid $18,000 for a half interest in a placer claim on the Hill and took out three pounds of gold next day. In 1855 some men were employed to sink a well in the rear of Kurczyn’s store on the west side of Main Street in Jackson. One day they struck a seam of gold-bearing quartz, which caused some excitement. but as no one in the town was familiar with quartz veins and a supply of water was considered more im- portant, interest in it soon subsided. One day I stood on Meek’s Hill in South Jackson, and looking at the the Kennedy Mine, I remembered the quartz vein in Kurezyn’s well and it struck me the extension of the the Kennedy vein must pass under a portion of the town of Jackson. I made an eyesight survey and the result was the location by me of the Good Hope Mine, about midway between Meek’s Hill and the mouth of the South Fork of Jackson Creek. I formed a com- pany with three other men and began operations. We were offered $25,000 for the mine on a thirty-day op- tion in 1871, and it would probably have been sold to a company of Chicago capitalists, but the big fire of that year swept them out of existence as capitalists and the deal fell through. I have succeeded in sinking a shaft on the mine to a depth of 140 feet and it has cost me many thousands of dollars since. I located it in July, 1865. I still have faith and hope in the mine. I believe if it was sunk to a proper depth, it would prove to be as rich as any mine ever de- veloped in Amador County and bring prosperity to thousands now unborn. I stopped placer mining late in the ’50s and took up a ranch and have been, ever since, endeavoring to 29 0¢ ALATETS N37 ( RE BE JACKSON, CAL., IN 1855 earn an honest living and prevent many dishonest persons cheating me out of my mining and other prop- erty. While my mother impressed upon me, before I left her, the precepts of always paying my just debts; of telling the truth; of avoiding gossip; of never in- dulging in intoxicating drink or tobacco; of keeping my word and of being kind to my fellow-men and all dumb animals, she never warned me against getting into a lawsuit and this has been the bane of my exis- tence. I roughly estimate my experience with the Code of Civil Procedure has cost me $14,000. I have never begun a lawsuit without believing I was right. I never lost a lawsuit without knowing I was right and d—d be he who says otherwise. I have always been willing to assist in any way I could to add to the enjoyment of my fellow-men. At the big Pioneers’ picnic held near Jackson during the 80s I was selected, on account of my known ability in that line, to cook the pork and beans for the crowd, as that dish was to be the feature of the barbecue. I had two assistants and we cooked four pots, each hold- ing from eighty to one hundred pounds. I also cooked the hams that were to be served cold and sliced. I used a pitchfork to handle the hams and a shovel to serve the beans in large mining pans. Everybody ate them with spoons and didn’t seem to know when they had had enough. My favorite dish is pork and beans with young parsnips. In cooking pork and beans, I first wash and care- fully pick the beans over to remove those having a blemish. I then cover them with boiling water and let stand until cool and then put into a pot and cover with clean water. In a separate pot I cook the pork or bacon until it is tender. Then I put the pork and beans together and cook until done. I, myself, prefer some seasoning with a small piece of garlic, some mus- tard, parsley, pepper and young parsnips. 31 Ge CHARLEY PETERS’ TABLE AT PIONEER MINERS’ PICNIC NEAR JACKSON, SEPTEMBER 9, 1904 At the head of the table, on the right, is Charley Peters; at the end on the left is his son, daughter-in- law and grandchild; seated in the center, wearing his coat, is Col. Wm. P. Peek, a pioneer of Calaveras County and now a resident of Jackson. He is 87 vears of age and as hale and hearty as Mr. Peters. Raising a tin cup in his hand, stands Senator A. Cam- minetti getting ready to make a speech. The others are Amador pioneers who have passed on. I was married in Jackson in September, 1865, te Miss Lydia Parkinson. My wife died when my son, Charles, was born in September, 1866. My son married Miss Ella McGarr. He died in March, 1909, and his wife passed away in July, 1911. I have two grand- children living: Raymond C. Peters is now 14 years of age and Lena Mary Peters is 12. It is my desire to leave these grandchildren something more than my name, and, if I could sink the Good Hope a thousand feet deeper it would be accomplished. I am five feet six inches in height and weigh 195 pounds. I have enjoyed perfect health for many years and attribute it to not only inheriting a strong constitution but to my correct habits of living. I eat my food cold. For breakfast I beat up four eggs which I mix with a quart of milk; for flavoring pur- poses only, I add a tablespoonful of ‘Old Crow’ whiskey. Then I add a supply of bread crumbs. I milk my own cow and my chickens lay my eggs. I usually have pork and beans for supper and only par- take of two meals a day. My favorite beverage is Holland gin, but I have to confine myself to only indulging in it when I am treated and the treating habit seems to be going out of fashion with the younger generation. I am one of the best pedro players in the State but there are only a few of us left. 33 I have never been active in politics. I was a strong supporter of Abraham Lincoln and General Grant, since which time I have only taken an interest in Senator Caminetti’s political aspirations. And now, that I have passed my 90th birthday, I feel confident I can out- fight, run, jump and tango any man of my age in California, and if I was 70 years younger I would not hesitate to aspire to be the ‘White Hope’ of the American people. I challenge any pioneer of my age to cook a pot of pork and beans and make a pot of coffee equal to my own. If he can beat me, I will eat what he cooks. And after a residence of 66 years in our beautiful State I can truthfully say: I love you California; You Sunny Land of Bliss; I love your Mountains and your Feaks, Your Rivers and your Creeks; I love your Hills and your Vales, And your Poppy-covered Dales; I love your Mines and your Vines, Your sturdy Oaks and stately Pines; I love you GQalifornia and your Tulips 1 will Kiss. Yours truly, Crank»? Beng 34 ge oa es ro er Ce The Good Luck Erm The Placer Mining Days of the "50s Chapter. L 11 111. IV. XN. v1. VIT, VIII. TX. X XI. X11. X11. Xv. XV. XVI. XVvir XVII. XIX. XX. XXI. XXII. XXI11. XX1V XXV. XXVI. XXVIL XXXVI XXIX. XXX. Contents SET Page. Introduction +... .~...................% 39 Good Luck! What is 112............ 41 The Tirst Nuggel «............ ..... 43 The Father of Placer Mining in Cali- fornia. ic lhe a aa 53 How Placer Mining Was Spread...... 55 The Haleyon Days of 48............ 60 How the Placers Were Worked....... 64 Freak Ideas of Placer Mining........ 69 How it Feels to Find Gold the First me a Le a 71 Some of the World’s Big Nuggets. .... 72 Some of California’s Big Nuggets. .... 76 Trea Shapes of Nuggets............ 92 A Few Smaller Nuggets and Big Pay. 94 Good Lueck in Quartz Boulders........ 103 Good Luck in Decomposed Quartz Seng Jo. aah 112 Good ‘Lueck in Quartz Veins. ......... 123 Good Lack for Mexicans ............ 125 Good Luck for Brenchmen .......... 133 Good Tmek-for Jaws ................ 137 Good Luck for Chinamen ........... 141 Good Luck for An American ........ 147 Luck in Mining Bxecitements ......... 153 Good Luck of Game Hunters ........ 163 Good Luck of Newecomers............ 169 Good Tmek in Towns ................ 176 ““Greenhorns’’ vs. ‘‘Smart Alecks’’.... 182 gustlmelr 2... ls eee 185 Imek in Buried Gold ................ 187 A Big Poker Game .............:... 1997 Incidents of Good, Bad and Indifferent Tek ce vii th a 199 od SEHD OE fit feet td pd pd pd SPO Wot DO = © © P= DO DO BO $2 BD bes DO DO DO BO DO 0 = os Sub 29. 30. 31. 32. 33. 34. Illustrations Page James Wilson Marshall .................. 42 Sutter’s Mill co. oc.. .h aes veins 44 The First Nwggel .......c.c.ouiin.ivi ines 46 Marshall Monument .....................: 50 Hon. Eagene Aram .............. Rg 52 Sutter’s Port dn 1848. ...................: 58 General John A, Sutter.................. 61 Charley Peters Panning ................:. 63 Charley Peters Working a Rocker........... 65 Charley Peters Working a Long Tom........ 66 The First Hydraulie Mine..............-.. 68 Stockiont in 1850... .. 0... 0.00. 00000 a 84 Sivek a Seam... .. nh ee 117 “01d Scotty’ Out of Luek............ 0... 118 Weaverville in the B0s............. cv ens 120 Allison Ranch Quartz Mill in the ’50s...... 122 Grass Valley in the 50s. .............4.0u 124 Mexicans Mining ........ococeananinininess 126 A Mexican Arastre ............ eek nid sean 128 Los Angeles in 1850 ........ci... ovina 130 Mokelumne Hill, California, in 1856........ 136 A Jow Peddler inthe 50s................. 138 Chinese Mining .....c.c.couis voir con ines 142 Amburn In the DOS. ove .s cians cans 146 Marysville in the B0s...........cc 000000 152 Placerville in the 508... oc... on. capa 158 On the Washoe Trail ................0 ee, 160 Morning Battle at Strawberry Over the ‘Lost Socks)! Claim i... 0. ..c.oovnrspnentia 164 Daownieville inthe 0g... ......-.. =: 166 Sonors in the DOR... ....... rns rheseien ants 178 Old Jeremiah .:...... cunts 207 “7 Remember’ ....ivs: vr atnsamstaerninee 217 Nevada City in the 50s... ..ccrvenierce. 226 Yveka mthe 508. ......cc. ies eerecer.. 228 Introduction The period of time from 1848, when Marshall dis- covered the first historical nugget, until the ’60s, was, in California the placer mining era. Nearly every man who came to California in the 50s did so with the purpose of hunting for gold and the State had then, literally speaking, a population of gold hunters. The search for the precious metal was in the oulches, ravines, creeks and rivers; on the tops and sides of hills; beneath the rocks and under the roots of trees, wherever a color could be found and the finding of nuggets from two, four to even ten pounds in weight was almost as numerous as the miners them- selves. Unless a nugget of unusual size, shape and weight was unearthed its exhibition, as a ‘‘find,”” would ocea- sion nothing more than a casual remark, and even the finding of one worth a few thousand dollars in value would hardly cause a thrill of excitement. Nearly every man who mined carried as a pocket piece or wore as a pin fastened on his shirt front a nugget that was a memento of a lucky ‘‘find.”’ The ‘‘buck’’ passing from player to player in a poker game to designate the turn to ‘‘ante’” was often a chispa worth, in value, more than stakes upon the table. Every jeweler’s store displayed in its show window and show cases, quartz boulders, yellow veined with gold, often containing a fortune, and surrounded with a flock of nuggets—it was a sight for the greedy eyes of avarice to feast upon with avidity. Undoubtedly, every man who delved with pick and shovel ; who panned and sluiced in these placer mining days had some interesting incident stored in his memory when good luck camped upon his trail, but very few of them have ever been published. Many of these ‘““finds’’ have had a preponderating influence, not only on the individuals who made them, but upon whole communities as well; sometimes, changing the drift of a human tide to a moving current of gold- seeking endeavor and some have exerted an influence upon future generations that has been felt in the destiny of nations. They are, therefore, of unusual interest to any one who has a desire to study the effect of suddenly acquired wealth upon human nature. It is a long way from the placer, the pick and the pan to the mine, the mill and the cyanide plant; from the long tom to the dredger—mot so much in length of time as in knowledge. The nomadic prospector has given place to the pro- fessional mining engineer; the good luck gathering of the nuggets strewn in the placers by the forces of nature has been supplanted by the systematic extrac- tion of gold from the treasure vaults of the quartz ledges by capital and metallurgical science; hut there will always be an interest felt and an entertainment enjoyed in the good luck incidents of the placer min- ing days. While these days are gone forever and the men who made them what they were are passing away, their influence for good or evil will remain for many a decade to come. Had the placer mining days never existed the others would not have come and to show how they came into existence and benefited or injured those participating in their stirring events, the pages of this book will endeavor to explain. 40 Good Luck! What isIt? ANY of the Good Luck stories of the placer min- M ing era read like tales from the ‘‘Arabian Nights.”” Lueck was a word to conjure with then. In no other pursuit, except actual gambling, was the element of chance a more potent factor. In placer gold mining it was the individual, himself, who had to woo fortune. With gold hunting and gambling the predominating occupations of a majority of the population to the indefinite term of Luck was a change in a man’s financial condition almost unani- mously attributed. Fortuna, the Goddess of Luck, was never a re- specter of persons. Here, as in myth, she showed that neither sex, race, religion nor previous condition influences her bestowal of favors or frowns. Neither science nor sorcery, invention nor inspiration had any- thing to do with the turn of luck during the placer mining days. Poverty was often changed to affluence and destitution to prosperity by the blow of a pick. It was this great uncertainty that gave to placer min- ing a charm words are inadequate to express. Every placer miner worked with a hope and expectation of washing into sight a lump of gold or a yield of nug- oets that would make for him the longed-for stake. With hope burning brightly, he often delved where prospects were poor and results nil, but sustained with the possibility that the next strike of the pick or the washing of the next pan of dirt would be the har- binger of a fortune, he cheerfully toiled on. It is then not surprising that: ‘‘How’s your luck?’’ became a common form of salutation and took the place of ““Gtood morning’’ and other popular phrases of salu- JAMES WILSON MARSHALL This picture of James Wilson Marshall was given to the writer in 1870, by Mr. Marshall personally. He was then 60 years old. He was born in Huntington Co., New Jersey, October 8, 1810. He came to California in 1844, and died at Coloma, El Dorado Co., California, August 10, 1885, being nearly 75 years old. An interesting incident is the fact that now, in 1915, the surnames of the President and Vice-President of the United States comprise a part of Mr. Marshall’s name. = ~ oo tation. It was so with Hebrew and Heathen; with Methodist and Mormon; with Vermonter and Virgin- ian; with a Mongolian John and a Mexican Don; with the Banker and the Bum in those days of uncertain events and Fortuna’s fickle ways. With the motley horde of gold seekers, whether white or black, yellow or mixed, Luck was a factor co-existent with life itself. Good Luck has been aptly defined as being in the right place at the right time and the sequence of events in the Placer Mining Era of the ’50s gave rise to the belief that it depended as much on luck as on personal endeavor to succeed. The aphorism: ‘‘Gold is found where you find it’’ came from this prevailing idea and it is in keeping with the spirit of those times that we publish these facts and incidents herein printed as ‘‘Good Luck’’ stories. THE FIRST NUGGET It was a small chispa that James W. Marshall found. It was worth, he says, about fifty cents. Though small in value, what an immense influence upon the destiny of millions of the human race its accidental finding has wrought! It was an unlucky find for both Marshall and General John A. Sutter, the two men, who, on ac- count of being adjacent should have profited most. Neither was capable of taking advantage of the rapid changes the wild rush of gold seekers brought about and ill-luck seems to have followed them in the train of events Marshall’s famous chispa produced. Had it never been found by him, both he and General Sutter would have, undoubtedly, plodded on in their peaceful ways, contented to pursue their tranquil vo- cations from sunrise to sunset, day after day, their names unknown to fame and unsung by posterity. 43 Py SUTTER’S MILL Marshall’s story has often been published but it must be told again in these pages as it is the one great act in nugget finding that has changed the destiny of nations. Without the gold that has flowed into the treasuries of the world from the sources of supply this discov- ery has opened up, the power of the great nations on the earth, their advancement and condition would be far different from what it is today. Marshall’s story is as follows: “Toward the end of August, 1847, General Sutter and I formed a co-partnership to build and run a sawmill upon a site selected by myself, now known as Coloma. We employed P. L.. Weimar and family to remove from the fort to the millsite to labor and cook for us. The first work done was the building of a double log cabin about half a mile from the millsite. We commenced building the mill about Christmas. Some of the mill hands wanted a cabin near the mill. This was built and I went to the fort to superintend the construction of the mill-irons, leaving orders to cut a narrow ditch where the race was to be made. Upon my return in January, 1848, I found the ditch cut as directed and those who were working on the same were doing so at a great disadvantage, expending their labor upon the head of the race instead of the tail end. I immediately changed the course of things, and upon the 19th day of January, 1848, discovered the gold near the lower end of the race about two hundred yards below the mill. William Scott was the second man to see the metal. He was at work at a carpenter bench near the mill. I showed the gold to him. Alex- ander Stephens, James Brown, Henry Bigler and William Johnston were likewise working in front of the mill framing the upper story. They were called up next and saw the piece of metal. P. L. Weimar 45 and Charles Bennett were at the double log cabin a half mile distant. In the meantime, we put in some wheat and peas, nearly five acres, across the river. In February Captain Sutter came to the mill for the first time. Then we consummated a treaty with the Indians which had been previously negotiated. The tenor of this was that we were to pay them $200 yearly in goods at Yerba Buena prices for the joint possession and occupation of the land with them. They agreed not to kill our stock nor burn the grass within the limits of our treaty. At the time Captain Sutter, myself and Isaac Hum- phrey entered into a co-partnership to dig gold.” Mgrs. WIMMER’S ACCOUNT Next to Marshall, P. L. Wimmer—his name is spelled Weimar and Wimmer in the accounts—his wife and son are most prominently connected with the dis- covery of gold. Mr. Wimmer’s place at Sutter’s mill seems to have been that of assistant to his wife and as he only corroborates what she relates in her statement made in San Francisco in 1871, her’s will be used instead of his. MRS. WIMMER’S FIRST NUGGET The nugget given to Mrs. Wimmer by Marshall and tested in the boiler of soft soap was in size and shape like a lima bean but much thinner. It weighed over 14 of an ounce and was valued at the mint at $5.12. Mrs. Wimmer kept it for many years finally giving it to a friend. 46 CL Mrs. Wimmer was the mother of a family of seven children. They came to California across the plains with fourteen other families from Missouri in 1846. Arriving at Sutter’s Fort, Wimmer enlisted in Fremont’s command and remained with it four months. He was with one of the relief parties that went to the aid of the Donner party. The family was provided with living quarters by General Sutter, and when Marshall started out with his force to build the saw- mill they accompanied him. Wimmer was a sort of a handy man around the camp and looked after the Indians while Mrs. Wimmer cooked and, probably, washed and mended for the white men in the party. Her statement is as follows: “They had been working on the mill race, dam and mill about six months, when one morning along in the last days of December, 1847, or first week of January, 1848, after an absence of several days to the fort, Marshall took Wimmer down to see what had been done while he was away. The water was entirely shut off and as they walked along, talking about the work, just ahead of them on a little rough, muddy rock lay something bright like gold. They both saw it, but Marshall was the first to stoop and pick it up. As he looked at it he doubted it being gold. Our little son, Martin, was along with them, and Marshall gave it to him to bring to me. He came in a hurry and said ‘Here, mother, here is something Marshall and pa found and they want you to put it into sal- eratus water and see if it will tarnish.” TI said: ‘This is gold and I will throw it into my lye kettle.” TI had just tried it with a feather and if it was gold it would be gold when it came out. I finished off my soap that day and set it out to cool and it stayed there till next morning. At the breakfast table one of the workmen raised up his head from eating and said: ‘I heard something about gold being discovered. What about . 47 it?’ Marshall told him to ask Jennie and I told him it was in my soap kettle. Marshall said it was there if it had not gone back to California. A plank was brought for me to lay my soap on. I cut it in chunks but it was not to be found. At the bottom of the pot was a double handful of potash which I lifted in my two hands and there was the gold piece as bright as could be. Marshall still contended it was not gold, but whether he was afraid his men would leave or he really so thought I don’t know. Wimmer remarked it looked like gold, weighed heavy and would do to make money out of. The men promised not to leave the mill until finished. Finally, not being sure 1t was gold Wimmer urged Marshall to go to the fort and have it tested. One day, some time afterward, Marshall was pack- ing up to go away. He had gathered a good deal of gold dust and had it buried under the floor. In overhauling his traps he said to me in the presence of Elisha Packwood: ‘Jennie, I will give you this piece of gold, I always intended to have a ring made from it for my mother, but I will give it to you.” I took it and still have it in my possession.’’ Now, there are two different statements regarding the finding of the first nugget. They would indicate there is more than one first nugget. Both statements are undoubtedly correct, but they refer to separate incidents, occurring, perhaps, on the same day and only a few hours apart. Wimmer and his wife would not know of the doings of Marshall as stated by him unless he told them and he could have conversed and acted with the men, as they say he did, after he had consulted with them. Another striking feature about both statements is the uncertainty as to the date on which the gold was “found. While these people knew the year, the month and the day of the week, because they rested on Sun- day, they evidently had no use for a calendar. They 48 kept no dates and had no concern as to the date of the month as each day came and went. Marshall, by re- membering certain things done before and after, finally cornered the 19th of January and stabbed it, while Mrs. Wimmer knows it was after Christmas Day, be- cause some bottles of brandy, sent by General Sutter for the workmen to celebrate Christmas with, had been emptied before gold was discovered. Our learned savants, after diligent research and historical argu- ment, have determined on January 24, 1848, as the date gold was discovered. A little matter of five days ought not to make any great difference to us at the present time, as the main thing really happened, that is, gold was discovered. So we will let it go at that. Another interesting feature in this incident is the activity of the ubiquitous small boy. Mrs. Wimmer says her son, Martin, was present when Marshall picked up the first nugget and was the messenger who brought it to her to test in saleratus water. One of the work- men on the mill has stated that when General Sutter visited the mill in February to investigate the gold discovery, the men, who had been picking up pieces of gold in the mill race, determined to ‘‘salt’’ it by distributing the pieces so that the General would easily see them and become unduly excited. They did not seem to treat the event seriously or as of much import- ance. The small boy was there and as the party pre- pared to go with the General to look at the mill race, he skipped off ahead, gathered up the pieces of gold distributed by the workmen and spoiled the joke. Then the General, in order to protect his industries from ruin and save what he could from what he sur- mised was impending disaster, exacted a promise from the workmen that they would keep the discovery a secret for six weeks, but he overlooked the small boy. A few days after the General’s visit to the mill, a teamster appeared at the fort, bought a bottle of prandy and paid for it with a piece of gold the small 49 CAL. NT AT COLOMA, E M MARSHALL'S MONU 50 boy, at the mill, had given to him. From that time on the news spread. All hail to the small boy! He is here! he is there! he is everywhere! Another noticeable thing connected with this event is that of the fifteen or more men present, by acci- dent, at the time of the discovery of gold, and who had the opportunity the acquisition of gold is sup- posed to give, not one, in any other way, has left his “footprints on the sands of time.”’ That there were a number of people who found gold in California before Marshall did, history has proven but none gave it to the world and attracted attention. One of the nearest approaches to a discovery that would have taken the luck from Marshall was that of Mrs. Joseph Aram. Her husband, Joseph Aram, and herself starting from New York were members of an immigration party in September, 1846, coming into California and camped at the mouth of a small creek that emptied into the South Fork of the Yuba river near where now is the boundary line between Nevada and Placer counties. Mrs. Aram, in scooping out with her hands, a small hole in the sand for an improvised washtub, noticed and picked up several small pieces of yellow metal which were examined by members of the party and pronounced to be gold. This was an eventful day to the party; not only did Mrs. Aram find several small nuggets of gold, but Mr. Aram killed a bear, another of the party a deer and a messenger arrived from Sutter’s fort announc- ing the breaking out of war between the United States and Mexico. He urged the party to hasten to the fort and get protection from General Fremont’s detach- ment. In the excitement the news caused the gold incident was neglected. Mr. Aram was made a cap- tain of a company and sent to Santa Clara Valley. He was afterwards placed in charge of the construction of 51 HON. EUGENE ARAM OF SACRAMENTO, CAL. a fort at Cypress Point near Monterey and he was there in January, 1848. After Marshall’s discovery, Mr. Aram returned to the old camping ground only to find the ground ocecu- pied by miners who were making big pay. Mr. Aram was a member of the first Constitutional Convention in 1849, and a member of the first session of the Legis- lature. He died in San Jose March 30, 1898. His son, Eugene Aram, was born in Monterey, January 26, 1848, a few days after the discovery of gold, and is said to be the first child born in California of white native-born American parents. He was State Senator from Yolo County in 1895-97 and is now a prominent attorney of Sacramento, California. THE FATHER OF PLACER MINING IN CALIFORNIA John S. Hittell, writing of this event has stated: ‘““Marshall was a man of an active enthusiastie mind and he at once attached great importance to his discovery. His ideas, however, were vague. He knew nothing about gold mining. He did not know how to take advantage of what he found. Only an exper- ienced gold miner could understand the importance of the discovery and make it of practical value to all the world. That gold miner was fortunately at hand. His name was Isaac Humphrey. He was living in San Francisco, when, in the month of February, 1848, Charles Bennett, one of the employes at the Coloma Mill, went to San Francisco to have the yellow stuff tested, as there was still some doubt as to its being cold. . Bennett told of his errand to a friend he met in San Francisco and this friend introduced him to Humphrey, who had mined for gold in Georgia. Ie was, therefore, competent to pass an opinion upon the question. Humphrey knew it was gold and on being 53 informed of the location where gold was being found departed for Coloma and arrived there on March 7, 1848. He failed to induce a number of his friends to go with him and they considered him foolish to go. At Coloma he found some of the men talking about the gold and in a desultory way looking for pieces, but no one was actually engaged in mining and the work on the mill was proceeding in a leisurely manner. On March 8, Humphrey began prospecting with pick and pan and was soon satisfied the ground was rich in gold. He then made a rocker and commenced the first placer mining for gold in California. Others, seeing how to do it, soon followed his example, and as more and more abandoned their regular occupations and began to mine, the country was, in a few months, in the throes of a social and industrial revolution.’’ Mr. Humphrey was in a few days after arriving at Coloma, followed in his mining operations by a French- man, named Jean Baptiste Ruell, who was popularly known as Baptiste. He had mined for gold in Mexico. He had been employed by General Sutter to cut timber with a whipsaw and for over a year had been so employed on what became known as Weber Creek, several miles east of Coloma. His mining experience made him an excellent prospector and his knowledge was of great service in teaching the novices the prin- ciples of placer mining. When he had viewed the diggings at Coloma, he declared there were richer placers on the creek where he had been sawing timber, and he wondered why he had not made the discovery himself. Being of a religious turn of mind, he comforted himself with the reflection, it was the will of Providence that gold should not be discovered until California was in control of the American people. 54 HOW PLACER MINING WAS SPREAD During March, 1848, P. B. Reading, afterwards a prominent and wealthy citizen of northern California and who then owned a large rancho on the Sacramento River. in what is now Shasta County, visited Coloma to take a look. He declared from the appearance of the country there must be gold on his rancho and in a few weeks came the news of rich diggings being found on Clear Creek, where Reading was at work with his Indians mining. About the same time came John Bidwell to Co- loma to take a look. He was then living on a rancho on the Feather River. He went away with the belief that gold was in quantity on his land and soon was heard the news that Bidwell and his Indians were min- ing a rich placer on Bidwell’s Bar. ] On April 26, 1848, the first authentic announce- ment in a San Francisco newspaper was made of the gold discovery. It stated that a man had arrived from the gold region near Sacramento, and had reported many rich discoveries being made, instancing one, where seven men had washed out $9600 in gold in fifteen days and had found one large piece worth at least $6. This started the rush from San Francisco. By August, 1848, placer mining had become an important California in- dustry and a descriptive account of the Coloma min- ing district was published, which said: ‘‘There are now about four thousand white people, besides several hundred Indians, engaged in mining and from the fact no capital is required, they are working in com- panies on equal shares or alone as individuals. In one section of the diggings, called the ‘Dry Diggings,’ no other implement is necessary than an ordinary sheath knife to pick the gold from the rocks. In other parts, where the gold is washed out, the machin- ery is very simple, being an ordinary trough, made 55 of plank about ten feet long, two feet wide with a riddle or sieve at one end, to hold the larger gravel, and three or four small bars across the bottom, about half an inch high to keep the gold from going out with the water and dirt at the lower end. When this trough is set on rockers, it is given a half rotary motion to the water, which carries the dirt inside to the end. By far the largest number use nothing but a large tin pan or an Indian basket, into which they place the dirt and shake it about until the gold gets to the bottom and the dirt is carried over the side in the form of muddy water. It is necessary in some cases to have a crowbar, pick or shovel, but a great deal is taken up with large horns, shaped like spoons at the large end. From the fact that no capital is necessary and a fair compensation to labor is obtained without the influence of capital, men, who were only able to procure a month’s provisions, have now thous- ands of dollars in gold dust at their disposal. The laboring class has now become the capitalists of this country. As to the richness of the mines, were we to set down half of the truth it would be looked upon, in other countries, as a Sinbad story. Many persons have col- lected in one day from $300 to $800 of the finest grade of gold and for many days have been averaging $75 to $150. Although this is not universal, yet, the general average is so well settled that when a man with his pan or basket does not easily gather $40 a day, he moves to another place to find better diggings. These four thousand people at work will add to the aggre- gate wealth of our territory about four thousand ounces or $64,000 a day.’’ In 1853, five years later, the production of gold from California placers was officially reported at $65,- 56 000,000, annually, and $204,000,000 had been sent to the Philadelphia mint in that time. The Coloma district must have been a very rich section and how simple was the process of placer mining is shown by the result of two days mining in 48, by a fifteen-year-old boy named Davenport, who washed out in that short time fourteen pounds of gold worth about $3000. It also must have been very hastily and carelessly worked at that time, as there is a record of a mining company of six men, working a claim in 1855, within a few yards of the Sutter mill and making an ounce a day to the man. Samuel Brannan, a Mormon leader, appears on the scene at this time as the pioneer merchant of this gold region. Ile was the first man to take advantage of the changed condition of affairs and to make a fortune out of merchandising. A few years afterward, he was said to be in receipt of an income of $250,000 a year from his business and real estate investments. He died in 1880, a, comparatively speaking, poor man, his fortune made in the ’50s being lost in unprofitable in- vestments. The general public knew very little about gold at the time of its discovery in California. Only those who handled it in their lines of business knew its char- acteristics and something more about it than its color. Many were fooled with stuff that had a glitter, as the following item, published in The New York Evening Post, of January 26, 1849, shows: ““A (California Damper—We are told that Messrs. Savage and Hawkins, Gold Assayers at 128 William Street, have received a lump of gold that was supposed to be California gold, weighing twenty-six ounces, Troy, to be assayed. It was not affected by acids, but in refining it got evaporated. It proved to be a piece of sulphurets of iron. The owner bought it in San Fran- cisco for $7 an ounce, giving merchandise in ex- change.”’ 57 8G SUTTER’S FORT IN ’48 Cy RATA x of Hb ed SUTTER’S FORT Written by Lucius H. Foote in 1878 I stood by the old Fort’s erumbling wall On the eastern edge of the town; The sun through clefts in the ruined hall, Flecked with its light the rafters brown. And, sifting with gold the oaken floor, Seemed to burnish the place anew; While out and in, through the half closed door, Building their nests, the swallows flew. Charmed by the magic spell of the place, The present vanished, the past returned; While rampart and fortress filled the space And yonder the Indian camp-fires burned. I heard the sentinel’s measured tread, The challenge prompt, the quick reply; I saw on the tower above my head, The Mexican banner flaunt the sky. Around me were waifs from every Clime, Blown by the fickle winds of chance; Knights Errant, ready at any time For any cause to couch a lance. The stanch old Captain with courtly grace, Owner of countless leagues of land, Benignly governs the motley race Dispensing favors with open hand. His long horned herds on the wild oats feed ‘While brown vaqueros with careless rein, Swinging reatas, at headlong speed Are dashing madly over the Plain. 59 THE HALCYON DAYS OF 48 Mexico ceded California to the United States by treaty signed in May, 1848, and for the rest of the year there was an interregnum that gave to the Coloma mining region a peaceful existence as far as govern- mental exactness was concerned. There was a military authority, but no local officials to offensively officiate. There were no taxes to pay and consequently no tax collectors. Everybody was mining. The banker, the barber, the baker and the hundred other occupations that go to make up a well-organized community dis- appeared and all men became of one class. There were no saloons, gambling halls or dance houses, con- sequently, no barkeepers, gamblers or Cyprians. There were no churches, newspapers or theaters, consequently no ministers, editors or actors. No court houses or jails, consequently no crimes or criminals. Society was on a level. There was no 7 o’clock whistle in the morning. The educated college man might be the partner of an illiterate Mexican. It did not require an education to mine for gold. Muscle, energy and per- severance were the requirements. The poorest man in the erowd in the morning had the chance of being the richest when the final cleanup at night was made. The average of nine parasites to one producer of new wealth from the soil, as prevailed in settled com- munities, did not exist here. There was a thousand miners to one storekeeper and no occupations between. General Sutter in mournful tones, deploringly pic- tures in a written account, the situation at this time as he sat alone in his deserted fort. He says: €0 “The first party of Mormons employed by me left for digging gold and very soon all followed and left GEN. JOHN A. SUTTER me with only the sick and lame. At this time I could say everybody left me from the clerk to the cook. 61 Great damages I had to suffer in my tannery which was just doing a profitable and extensive business. The vats were filled and a large quantity of half- finished leather and likewise a large quantity of raw- hides of my own killing were spoiled. The same thing occurred in every branch of business which I car- ried on. I began to harvest my wheat but even the Indians could not be kept; they were impatient to go to the mines.’ On May 19, 1848, General Sutter reports the first rush from San Francisco to the Coloma mines. They filled up the fort, where only an Indian boy and him- self remained. There were merchants, lawyers, doctors, sea captains, sailors and soldiers in the crowd, and the General says: ‘‘Some of them acted just crazy.” (feneral Sutter afterward essayed to mine. With wagons filled with supplies and about one hundred Indians and fifty Kanakas he went forth, finally locat- ing on Sutter Creek, where the nondescript crowd he took with him did not make their salt and he gave up his fitful mining effort in disgust. But the rush of 49 changed all these conditions and (General Sutter probably thought with Goldsmith: “11 fares the land, to hastening ills a prey, Where wealth accumulates and men decay.” With the coming of the best, mingled with the worst products of humanity, from all parts of the world in 62 the mad quest for gold, a phase of civilization developed that had never existed before. CHARLEY PETERS PANNING The census of California in 1860 showed a popula- tion of 379,994. Of these there were natives of the United States 233,406; of China 34,935; of Ireland 63 33,147; of Germany 21,646; of Great Britain 17,159; of France 8562; of Italy 2805; of South America 2250. Of this number 82,573 gave their occupation as mining. Considering that a number equal to those in the State in 1860, arrived and then returned to the homes from whence they came, with fortunes or misfortunes, during the placer mining era; that thousands dispersed, follow- ing mining excitements, into the neighboring territories; that the mortality rate was high through violence, acci- dents, intemperance, exposure and epidemics, it is very probable 1,000,000 people came to California between the years of 1849 and 1861. HOW THE PLACERS WERE WORKED Placer mining is followed in half a dozen different ways, none requiring investment of much capital but all depending upon muscular energy to make a success. The pick and pan, using the hands to gather the pay dirt and washing in a pool of water with a half rotary motion of the pan, is the simplest. Next comes the rocker. This machine has some re- semblance to a child’s cradle, with similar rockers, and is rocked by means of a handle fastened to the cradle box. The cradle box consists of a wooden trough about twenty inches wide, forty inches long with sides about four inches high. The lower end is left open and on the upper end sets a hopper or box, twenty inches square with sides four inches high and with a sheet- iron bottom pierced with round holes a half inch in diameter. When a sheet of iron or zine could not be obtained a sieve of willow limbs was used. Under the hopper is an apron of canvas which slopes down from the lower end of the hopper to the upper end of the cradle box. A wooden riffle bar an inch high is nailed across the bottom of the cradle box about the middle and another at its lower end. Under the cradle box is fastened the rockers and near the middle is placed the 64 upright handle by which the motion is imparted from the clasped hand and arm. When pay dirt and water were adjacent, two men were sufficient to operate a rocker steadily. Seated on CHARLEY PETERS WORKING A ROCKER a block of wood or a stone, the man operating, rocked with one hand and with a long handled dipper, he dipped water from a pool and poured it on the dirt in the box with the other. His partner could keep the hopper supplied by carrying the dirt in a bucket or Indian basket from the bank being mined. When the fine particles of dirt had been washed away through 65 25 : iy. | (=z) > / / wer (cf TT RY + Taw Wl 1 = 7 1 Te, Uy ¢ CHARLEY PETERS WORKING A ‘‘LONG TOM’’ ~ the holes in the hopper, the rocks were cast out and the hopper filled again with dirt to be washed. The gold was caught on the canvas apron and by the riffle bars, while the water washed it free of the fine sand that had passed through the holes of the hopper. In the dry diggings, called such, because water was not available, a method of separating gold from the earth was introduced by the Mexicans from Sonora. The pay dirt was dug and dried in the sun, then pulver- ized by pounding it into a fine dirt. With a batea, or a bowl-shaped Indian basket, filled with this dust, held in both hands, it was tossed skillfully in the air, allowing the wind to blow away the dust and catching the heavy particles of gold in the basket, repeating the process until there was little left but the gold. The ‘‘Long Tom’ was a single sluice with a sieve made of sheet iron, with numerous holes punched in it and a box underneath with riffle bars across it to hold the gold. It was really an enlarged rocker box without the rockers. The pay dirt was shovelled in at the upper end and a rapid current of water washed the earth away, the gold falling into the box below. In the gulches, creeks and rivers where there was not much fall and an ample flow of water, sluice boxes became the vogue. A string of sluice boxes was laid of sufficient length to keep every miner in the employ of the claim working. A sluice box was made of three planks, usually twelve feet long and a foot or more wide. Each sluice fitted into the upper end of the one below and in the lower end of each, riffle bars were placed to hold the gold. Sometimes a piece of blanket or a supply of quicksilver was used to catch the fine particles. The sluice line, as the dirt was shovelled away, was placed on either wooden trestles or stood on pinnacles of earth left stand- ing to support it. As the pay dirt was shovelled into the sluice boxes, a sluice head of water washed the fine 67 particles away. A miner with a pitch fork, at intervals, straddled the sluice line and travelled up and down it, removing the rocks too large to be carried away by the flow of water in the sluices. Ground sluicing, where a head of water with suffi- cient fall was obtainable, was an effective adjunct to all = He — AR UT h hy [1 THE FIRST HYDRAULIC MINE forms of placer mining, by rapidly removing large quantities of dirt and letting the gold, separated from it, drop upon the uneven surface of the bed rock. 68 Hydraulic mining, evolved from an idea of a Frenchman named Chabot at Nevada City in 1852, and the introduction of arastres and quartz mills, was the beginning of capitalization to handle the mining indus- try, and they rapidly took the place of these simple aids to muscle in obtaining gold. FREAK IDEAS OF PLACER MINING While the tools and other requirements for placer mining are simple and inexpensive, few people had any knowledge of them at the time the discovery of gold in California became known to the world, and Yankee ingenuity, in the Eastern States, at once, solved a number of imaginary difficulties. Inventors who had never seen a river bar, a placer bank or a nugget of gold in a bed rock crevice, designed, built and shipped in vessels around the Horn or con- veyed on wagons across the plains, some of the most extraordinary arrangements of machinery with which to mine for gold the world had ever seen. While these useless machines lay rotting on the beach and other vacant places, where they were dumped, after arrival in California and were found to be worthless for gold mining, they were the cause of many a droll remark. Yet, they represented many a financial tragedy and many a bitter disappointment to their inventors and investors. Some of these inventors appeared to have an idea, probably derived from hearing grains of gold spoken of, that gold was found in shape like grains of wheat and should be separated from the earth as wheat is separated from chaff. Machines for accomplishing this object were made of wood, combined with all kinds of base metals, operated by cranks, treadles and other means of imparting motion, and one provided an arm chair for the operator to sit in comfort while working. One machine that came around the Horn was invented 69 and built in Cambridge, Massachusetts. The inventor brought two negroes with him to operate it. It was, in shape, like a huge fanning mill with sieves arranged for sorting the gold; the small pieces were to drop into bottles and the large pieces into barrels attached at opportune places to the machine, the theory being that the bottle could be carried and the barrels could be rolled, when filled, from the mine to the camp. Another idea centered upon an immense tub, made of staves, which was to be placed at the mouth of a gulch or a creek, and catch all the pay dirt washed down. When filled, the gold was to be separated by stirring the mass around, the gold falling to the bottom and the dirt flowing out with the water from rows of holes arranged around the tub, to be opened when desired. Another inventor brought a supply of diving helmets and apparatus with an idea of organizing a company of divers, who would pick up the gold lying on the bottom of lakes and rivers, too deep to be drained or diverted. A newspaper reporter in San Francisco in 1851 wrote the following: “We yesterday saw upon a vacant lot in this city a few tons of patent gold-mining machinery brought to California by some unfortunate inventor. It is offered for sale cheap. A portion of the apparatus is admirably adapted for the churning of butter or the extraction of dirt from foul linen and the balance would puzzle a smart engineer to say to what it could be applied.” Possibly the following parody on ‘‘Susannah,’”’ a popular song in the ’50s, was written in honor of these ardent rainbow chasers. “I soon shall be in Frisco, And then I’ll look all round; And when I see the gold lumps there, I'll pick ’em off the ground, I'll scrape the mountains clean, my boys, 70 I’ll drain the rivers dry; A pocketful of gold bring home, So brothers, don't you ery! O California! That’s the land for me! I'm bound for San Francisco, With my wash bowl on my knee.”’ HOW IT FEELS TO FIND GOLD THE FIRST TIME The ecstacy a novice feels when beginning to mine for gold and first uncovers the object of his search, must be akin to what a young California father feels on the birth of his first native son or daughter. E. Gould Buffum, a young miner who was on Weber Creek in 1848 and was afterwards the editor of a San Francisco journal, describes his experience as follows: “I shall never forget the delight with which I first struck and worked out a crevice. It was on the second day after our installation in our little log cabin. The first day we were employed in locating ourselves and prospecting for the most favorable places to commence operations. I had slung pick, shovel and bar upon my shoulder, placed my pan under my arm and then trudged merrily away to a ravine about a mile distant. With pick, shovel and bar I did my duty and soon had a large rock in view. Getting down into the hole I had dug I seated myself upon the rock and commenced careful search for a crevice. I finally found one that extended across the rock. It was filled with a hard bluish clay, mixed with gravel, which I took out with my knife. At the bottom of the crevice I saw strewn along its entire length, bright yellow gold in nuggets of the size of a grain of wheat or a bean. Eureka! Oh, how my heart beat! I sat still and looked at the treasure some minutes before I could touch it, greedily drinking in the pleasure of gazing upon gold for the first time in my life within my grasp. I felt a sort of bravado 71 in allowing it to remain there. When my eyes had suf- ficiently feasted upon it I scooped it out with the point of my knife and an iron spoon into my pan and ran with it to my camp delighted. It was about two ounces in weight.”’ SOME OF THE WORLD'S BIG NUGGETS GOLD ! There is magic in the word ‘‘Gold’’ to a civilized people. History shows that the desire for it has brought about all the great events on record that have made important changes in the habitations of the civilized peoples on the earth. The first search for the precious metal was that of the Argonauts, the famous Greek heroes who, according to tradition, lived before the Trojan War and acquired fame by an adventurous journey to unknown seas. In the ship Argo they sailed, under the command of Jason in search of the Golden Fleece. This was the first rush of gold hunters on record. They had Hercules, Theseus, Castor, Pollux and Orpheus in the crowd, so it was a mixture of char- acters, equalling in diversity, the rush to California in ’49. The trip was noteworthy, because it was successful, but as to what has become of the Golden Fleece history is silent. The first mention of gold in the Bible is in the second chapter of Genesis, 11th and 12th verses, where is mentioned the land of Havilah: ‘where the gold groweth and is good.”” This was before the time of Noah. Next we find in Genesis xxiv, where Abraham has sent to Rebecca, jewelry in the form of ear rings and bracelets, showing that jewelry and the Jews are coexistent. The great science of chemistry owes its first develop- ment to the efforts of alchemists to find the secret of nature and make gold. The hieroglyphics of Egypt show that ancient power in its zenith had a revenue 72 equal to thirty million dollars of our money per annum from its gold mines. Savages have no use for gold other than occasional ornamentation. The aborigines of Brazil made fish hooks of gold because they knew nothing about iron and they stand as an exception to the general conditions as regards the use of gold by the American Indians. The Diggers of California gave gold no more consideration than they did the pebbles in the streams. The ancients used gold in quantity, at first, for ornamental purposes only, but as civiliza- tion progressed and pockets in clothing came into use, the indestructible, unchanging characteristic and mobil- ity of gold made it of a constantly increasing value as compared with other metals. It finally displaced the use of iron as money in (Greece, where at one time, if a man wanted to pay a grocery bill he had to hitch a yoke of oxen to a chariot and take a ton ingot of iron to make the payment of a small bill. The people of the world will stop a moment to take notice when a lump of gold is found as large as a man can lift and too heavy to be easily stolen. The largest nugget on record in the world, previous to 1872, was found in Chili. It was exhibited in London at the World’s Fair in the ’50s in the Crystal Palace. It was found at considerable depth and carried to the surface on the back of a Chileno miner. It weighed forty-nine hundred ounces or a little over four hundred and eight pounds, Troy, and was valued at over $88,000. Australia had second honors, until 1872, in size, but has always had first place in the number and value of the large nuggets discovered in the world. The largest nugget found in the world, of which there is a record, was one unearthed by two miners named Ryer and Haultmus at Hill End, New South Wales, Australia, on May 10, 1872. The finders were 73 in debt for the grub they were eating at the time and they were raised from poverty to wealth by the stroke of a pick. It was four feet, nine inches long; three feet, two inches wide, but only four inches thick. It was like a big gold slab. It weighed six hundred and forty pounds and was valued at $148,800. The ‘‘Sarah Sands’’ nugget, named in honor of the ship its finder came to Australia in, was found in the Ballarat, Victoria placers of Australia, in 1859. It weighed two thousand six hundred and eighty-eight ounces or two hundred and twenty-four pounds, Troy, although another account claims two hundred and thirty-three pounds for it. It was valued at $52,000. A nugget was found in the Ballarat district, Austra- lia, on June 9, 1859, that weighed two thousand two hundred and seventeen ounces or nearly one hundred and eighty-five pounds, Troy, and was named ‘The Wel- come.”” It was found at a depth of one hundred and eighty feet and was valued at $44,356. It was raffled for $50,000 at $5 a chance and was won by a young boy, who worked in a barber shop. Another nugget with a similar history and named ““The Welcome Stranger’ was found on February 9, 1869, in Mount Moligel district, Australia. It weighed one hundred and ninety pounds, Troy, and was valued at $45,000. It was raffled for $46,000 at $5 a chance and was won by a driver of a bakery wagon. The ‘‘Blanche Barkley’’ nugget was found in Kingowa, Victoria, Australia, in 1855. Being one of the first large nuggets found it had the greatest renown. It weighed one hundred and forty-six pounds, Troy, and was given a value of $34,000. It was taken to London, caressed by Queen Victoria and finally melted there. The ‘Precious’ nugget was found in Berlin, Vie- toria, Australia, and weighed a little more than one 74 hundred and thirty-five pounds, Troy. It was valued at $35,000. A nugget named ‘‘The Leg of Mutton,’’ on account of it, in shape, resembling that object, was found on January 31, 1852, in Ballarat district and weighed one hundred and thirty-five pounds, Troy, and was valued at $31,000. The ‘‘Lady Hotham’’ nugget, weighed ninety-eight pounds and ten ounces, Troy, and was valued at $23,000. It was found on September 8, 1854. The ‘Viscount Canterbury’’ weighing ninety-two pounds, Troy, and the ‘‘ Viscountess Canterbury’ weigh- ing nearly sixty-four pounds, Troy, were found in the same district as the ‘‘Precious,’’ and they were named in honor of their Lordships who were conspicuous per- sonages at that time. Together these nuggets had a value of $48,000. In 1851, in New South Wales, Australia, on a stream named Louisa Creek, the first large mass of quartz and gold was found. Its glint had been noticed by a native lad before the discovery of gold, by white men, made it known to the boy that the yellow glitter was from a thing of value. It was taken out of the creek in three pieces. It was either so broken when being removed or had been so fractured when it fell into its resting place in the bed of the stream. It contained twelve hundred and seventy-two ounces or one hundred and six pounds, Troy, of gold, and was valued at $24,000. In 1858 a mass of quartz and gold was found at Burrondong, near Orange, in New South Wales, Aus- tralia, that yielded eleven hundred and -eighty-two ounces when melted or ninety-eight and one-half pounds, Troy, of gold and was valued at $22,600. A number of other nuggets were found that were considered of sufficient size to be given names to dis- tinguish them by, among the largest of which are: 75 The ‘‘Kohinoor’’ weighing sixty-nine pounds, valued at $16,000 and found July 27, 1860. The ‘Kum Ton’’ weighing nearly sixty pounds and valued at $14,000. : The ‘‘Canadian Gully’’ found in Ballarat district, January 23, 1853, weighed eighty-four pounds and three ounces and was valued at $19,000. A large number weighing less than fifty pounds are on record. The only other large nugget found outside of Cali- fornia, besides those mentioned as being on record, is the one called ‘The Ural.”’ It is in the Museum at St. Petersburg and belongs to the Czar of Russia. It was found in 1842 at Misak, Russia. It weighs eleven hundred and fifty-two ounces or ninety-six pounds, Troy. Its assayed value per ounce is not given, but assuming it to be $18 an ounce, its value is $20,736. SOME OF CALIFORNIA'S BIG NUGGETS No official record was ever kept of the big nuggets found in California during the placer mining era. They were not named after notables or incidents by their finders as was done in Australia. Hundreds of nuggets weighing from five to fifty pounds and enriching their lucky finders beyond their fondest “dreams of wealth were unearthed during the ’50s and have left no record behind them. They may have been a subject of local gossip for a transient period and then the recollection of them passed away with the nomadic miners who found them. Many were found by the Chinese, French and other foreign miners, who quickly hid their find away and went home with it to the foreign land from whence they came. Another confusing factor is the misuse of the word “nugget.” 76 The word is derived from a mispronunciation of the word ‘‘ingot’’ and means a piece of free gold. The word ‘‘nugget’’, during the ’50s, is used indiserimin- ately to describe any large mass of gold and quartz, consequently, unless a find is followed to the assay office or the mint, its actual value is undetermined. It is doubtful if a real large nugget, that is a piece of gold free from quartz and one that will compare with those found in Australia, has been found in Cali- fornia. But, for the purpose of comparison, we will call a mass of gold and quartz with the metal in excess, a nugget; where the metal and the quartz are about equal, it will be termed a lump, and when the quartz is in excess it will be named a boulder. When it comes to quartz boulders carrying a treasure in gold, Califor- nia holds The Blue Ribbon. The placer mining belt of California extends from the Klamath River on the north to the Kern River on the south. It is about four hundred miles long and thirty to forty miles wide. It extends along the western slope of the Sierra Nevada mountains and generally not within 2000 feet of the average summit altitude of 7000 feet. Ome view of its formation is that gold was thrown up by voleanic action through the fissures in the rock; another is, that the earth was rent into fissures by a violent internal force and quartz and gold in liquid form rushed up and was deposited and became solid in the same manner as mineral springs now leave their deposits in the fissures they flow upward in. The gold found in the Kern River section is about half silver while that in Butte and Sierra counties has a fine- “ness of 990. The largest nuggets were found in Sierra, Tuolumne and Calaveras counties. An ounce of gold averages in value $17.75, and a pound, Troy, at this value, is worth $213. What few records we can find of large nuggets are those that have been mentioned in the local papers or 77 were made the subject of an item by some newspaper contributor; and, in many cases the record is mislead- ing, as well as incomplete, as regards details. The first nugget of attractive size that was found in California, was that picked up by a young soldier who belonged to the famous Stevenson Regiment, which hap- pened to be in California when gold was discovered and gained its renown from the circumstance. This soldier, in 1848, was riding along the Mokel- umne River at a point believed to be now in Calaveras County, when he dismounted from his horse to obtain a drink of water and stepped upon a nugget of gold weighing twenty-four pounds and worth over $5000. He took his find to Col. R. B. Mason, then acting Military Governor of California, at Monterey, for safe keeping and this nugget cut nearly as important a feature in creating the rush of ’49 as did Marshall’s find of the first nugget. Col. E. F. Beale had been sent to Washington, D. C., with a few ounces of gold dust to report to the Administration the discovery of gold in California. His report received but little concern nor did it enthuse the people elsewhere as might have been expected. To confirm the statements, which he surmised would be considered exaggerated, Col. Mason sent the soldier’s nugget to Col. Beale and when he placed it on exhibi- tion in Washington and afterwards in New York, the gold fever broke out. A second nugget was found in Tuolumne County in 1849 or ’50, by a Frenchman, that weighed either twenty-eight or thirty-four pounds and was worth nearly $8000. It is said the finder went crazy over his good luck and could not look at the nugget without going into a spasm. Fortunately, he had friends who aided in securing for his family in France the wealth of his find. The largest nugget claimed to have been found in California is that which a contributor to a San Fran- cisco journal describes in 1890. He states that on August 21, 1856, James Finney, alias ‘‘Old Virginia,’’ - found near Downieville, Sierra County, a nugget weigh- ing five thousand one hundred and twenty ounces or nearly four hundred and twenty-seven pounds, Troy. It was sold to Decker and Jewett, bankers, for $87,500, although worth over $90,000. It was sent to the Phil- adelphia mint and there kept on exhibition several years. If this statement is true, Finney not only found the largest nugget in California, but the second largest on record in the world. It would be four hundred and twenty-six pounds and eight ounces in weight and worth $92,000. There is a Baron Munchausen pungency hovering over this story which ean only be removed by verifica- tion. It was not heard of before 1890. Finney was a well known prospector and rendered first aid in uncov- ering the Comstock Lode in 1858. He died in the early ’60s and in his career as a prospector, published after his death, there is no mention of this big nugget find- ing episode. Again, it is hardly possible Finney could squander $87,000 in two years around Downieville and other Sierra mining towns and not leave a red streak of notoriety following him through the rest of his days. We wrote to the superintendent of the U. S. Mint at Philadelphia, Penn., for information and received a reply that he could give no information regarding the nugget. An item in a Grass Valley paper in 1878 evidently mentions the finding of such a nugget, but says it was broken in two when taken out and that the finder is still prospecting for more gold. If it was broken in two it must have been a quartz boulder and as Finney died some fifteen years before this item was published the writer was not fully informed. This 79 statement was disputed by an old settler of Downieville, but, as the statement made in 1890 has not been disputed we have gone thus far in the matter because, as we can neither affirm nor deny, therefore, deem it advisable not to omit mentioning it in all its details. The next largest nugget claimed to have been found is the one which a miner named John Dodge says he dug out of Castle Ravine, near Downieville, in 1853. He mined on the North Fork of the Yuba in ’51, 52 and 53. He and his partners kept concealed their find, giving the very plausible reason that, owing to the many high- waymen and frequent stage robberies in that section, at that time, they feared the publicity their find would receive would excite the cupidity of these knights of the road and cause it to be appropriated by them. It was not until 1858 that Dodge made a statement to a friend detailing the incident, and if his assertions are true, the nugget weighed two hundred and twenty- seven pounds and was worth about $49,000. His story is a good one, anyway, and is as follows: “YT worked in the summer of 1852 on the Middle Yuba. There I heard of a rich claim on Castle Ravine, one mile above Downieville. Bill Haskins, myself and a Dutchman went quickly to work there and in the summer of ’53 we occupied an old cabin that had been deserted and we began working an abandoned claim. We stripped the claim in a different direction from that which it had been worked and came across the lead, containing coarse gold, that I had heard about and we made for two weeks, from one to three ounces a man, per day. As the ground was getting deeper and heavier to strip, I started a small drift to see how wide the lead was before we went further ahead. Tt was on a Saturday about noon. The ground con- tinued to pay and we were down in a soft slate crevice, 80 when I struck into a bright lump of gold that seemed to run into the solid gravel. I tried to pry it out but it was too firmly imbedded in the gravel. Then I worked carefully around it and it appeared to grow larger as I dug the gravel away. We placed the Dutch- man on the lookout to see that no one surprised us and, I can say, we were excited. After some time I got it loose and by hard lifting got it out and there it lay, almost pure gold in the shape almost of a large heart. It fitted exactly in the bottom of the crevice. Some quartz attached to it was crystallized, but, would not exceed five pounds in weight. We got it into the cabin as quick as possible and put it into a sack and con- cealed it under a bunk, intending to examine it more thoroughly at night. We stayed away from Downieville that night and also on Sunday. We brought the nugget out at night to feast our eyes upon it and guessed at its weight. We all thought it would weigh over two hundred pounds. We concluded not to take it to town to weigh it, but divide it in some way there, for if it were known there would be intense excitement. We had gold scales, but they would weigh only up to one and one-half pounds. After some time spent in consul- tation Haskins suggested a rough pair of original scales. We piled on rock and iron weighed by the gold scales until we got a balance with the nugget. It balanced at two hundred and thirty-one pounds gold weight. We burnt the quartz and thoroughly picked it out with the point of a sheath knife. The nugget then balanced at two hundred and twenty-seven pounds, and it looked more beautiful than ever. If we had taken it to Lang- ton’s express office, in Downieville, there would have been the wildest excitement, which we did not want. On Monday we cleaned up the remainder of the crevice and it paid big, but to us now it seemed very small in comparison. 81 Now each man had enough. We had at least $50,000 to divide which was enough to make us all comfortably rich. No doubt we could have made more money exhib- iting the nugget but we would have run a great risk of losing it. We finally came to the conclusion to cut it up into three parts, roll each man’s share in his own blankets and start for the Atlantic States on the next Panama steamship. I went to town on Monday, got a sharp cold chisel to cut and divide our prize in equal parts. It took us all night to do it. It seemed like vandal- ism to destroy the grand precious specimen of Nature’s work. At the first blow on the chisel it sank deep into the yellow metal, it was so soft and yielding. By morning we had made our dividend. We then caved down the bank near the mouth of the drift I had run, took a brief sleep, cooked our breakfast, rolled up our blankets and departed. After passing Goodyear Hill and Nigger Tent, the rendezvous of the road agents, we breathed easier and arrived in San Francisco in time to catch the Panama steamer for New York where we landed our treasure safely. I have always since then, regretted the way we cut up the grand nugget.’’ As John Dodge was working as a teamster in Aus- tralia in 1858, it must have been in his case, as with many others, ‘‘Riches have Wings.”’ The next largest nugget found, and probably the largest that has been found in California, is what is known as the Calaveras nugget. It was found in November, 1854. Our historians and other writers have written various statements regarding its weight and value. One places it at twenty-three hundred and forty ounces, or one hundred and ninety-five pounds and a value of over $40,000. 82 i rai ee SAE SC Another writer places it at one hundred and sixty pounds and a value of $33,000, while a third makes it one hundred and forty-one pounds and a value of $29,000. Fortunately, for historical purposes, we have found the statement of a Stockton journalist who saw the nugget weighed on November 29, 1854, and also we have been able to follow it until disposed of by its original owners. The nugget was found on November 22. 1854, about dusk, fifteen feet below the surface of a claim at Carson Hill, Calaveras County. The claim was being worked by four Americans and one Swiss miner. The nugget was fifteen inches long, nearly six inches wide and of irregular thickness, averaging four inches. Attached to one side and one end were pieces of quartz, but over 80% of the lump was gold. It was weighed on Adams Express Com- pany’s scales in Stockton and balanced at twenty-five hundred and seventy-six ounces or two hundred and fourteen pounds and eight ounces, Troy. It was valued at $17 an ounce and estimated to be worth $38,000, making due allowance for the quartz attached to it. Now this journalist after making a valuation at Troy weight, published its weight in pounds as one hundred and sixty-one, which is avoirdupois weight. This is probably where the difference in weight and valuation arises between the various writers. They have mixed Troy and avoirdupois ounces and pounds. Mr. Perkins, the principal owner, stated he came to California from Lexington, Ky.; had mined a few years, but, before this streak of good luck came his way, had never had over $200 in gold dust in his pos- session at any one time. The nugget was eased and shipped by the express company to New York, Mr. Perkins and another of the finders accompanying it on the steamer. At some point on their journey they met a citizen of New Orleans 83 STOCKTON, CAL., IN 1850 who purchased the nugget from them for $40,000. It was taken to New Orleans and deposited in the Bank of Louisiana in January, 1855, there to remain until the owner was ready to take it to Paris, to be exhibited at the French Exposition in 1856. It was carefully assayed in New Orleans and its real value given as $38,916. At $17 an ounce this would give a Troy weight of one hundred and ninety and three quarter pounds of gold in the nugget. As an instance of the ecapriciousness of luck the experience of Captain J. H. Carson in connection with this big nugget and other finds can be cited. Captain Carson was a sergeant in a New York regiment stationed at Monterey in 1848. He left there for Coloma shortly after becoming satisfied gold had been discovered. From Coloma, via Weber Creek, he, in company with a party of Indians and whites, departed for the Mokelumne River. In the party was Angel, who gave his name to Angel’s Camp. They finally located on Carson Hill and Carson Creek. These two places were named after the Captain who first found and opened the rich placers existing there. He was taken ill with rheumatism soon after locat- ing the claims and was disabled for eighteen months. He was able to resume mining after a short time in ’51, but was again stricken and died in Stockton in 1853, shortly after being elected to the State Legis- lature from Calaveras County. He died in straitened circumstances, at a time, when on Carson Hill, was being worked the richest ledge of quartz that had been found in California. The vein was so rich the gold had to be chiseled loose from it and one lump chiseled out weighing one hundred and twelve pounds was valued at $16,000. Over $2,000,000 was taken from the Morgan mine in two years’ time. 85 Five hundred miners were working the rich placers of Carson Hill and gathering fortunes through Captain Carson’s original discovery, while he was lying ill at Stockton. The finding of this big nugget and the publicity it received is said to have originated the first gold brick swindle accomplished in this country. Shortly after its discovery was published throughout the East, a man posing as a returned California miner deposited a nugget weighing twenty-three hundred and nineteen ounces or one hundred and ninety-three pounds, Troy, very near the reported weight of the big nugget, in a New York assay office and desired an assay to be made of its value per ounce. He requested that the assay be made from small particles removed from places on its irregular surface that would not mar its appearance. This was done and showed it to be gold of usual California fineness. He then appeared to be in a dilemma. Did not know whether to send the nugget to London to be exhibited and sold or forward it to the mint at Philadelphia to be coined. While waiting to make up his mind he obtained a loan of $6000 from the assayers, leaving the nugget in their care as security. After a time of waiting the assayers became impatient and then made an investigation that showed the lump was made of lead coated with a heavy covering of gold leaf and a few small nuggets attached worth only a few hundred dollars. In April, 1855, there was published an account of a shooting affray in Columbia, Tuolumne County, between a number of miners, in which Charles Jarvis, who was acting the role of a peacemaker, was believed to be fatally wounded. Whether this affair had any- thing to do with bringing him to Poverty Gulch in 86 January, 1857, history does not say, but here he began the New Year, ground-sluicing a bank of earth and washed into view a nugget of gold weighing one hun- dred and thirty-two pounds and valued at $28,000. In the latter part of 1854 Mrs. H. H. Smith, in French Ravine, Sierra County, who, in addition to at- tending to household duties assisted her husband a few hours daily in mining, washed into view a lump weigh- ing ninety-seven and a half pounds. It was about two- thirds gold and was estimated by Langton and Com- pany, bankers, at Downieville, by whom it was ex- hibited in January, 1855, to be of nearly $13,000 in value. During the ’50s there was a local character living around Columbia called ‘‘Put.”” He was of the good- natured class who are too lazy to work and too honest to steal. He preferred to loiter around the saloons, coloring a meerschaum pipe by continual smoking and playing desultory games of bean poker for a small ““ante.”” He managed to eke out a dubious living, but when his funds got extremely low and his credit was gone, he would take an outfit of pick, shovel and pan and go to Wood’s Creek, a few miles from town, where he asserted, he owned a claim. He generally returned in about a week with a sup- ply of gold dust sufficient to meet immediate demands and enable him to resume his loafing habit. One summer day he was again driven, by necessity, to gather up his mining outfit and hie away to his gulch. On the third day after his departure he returned to Columbia with a nugget he had found in a mass of boulders, weighing seventy-two pounds and worth $15,000. 87 Without making any fuss over his good luck or endeavoring to attract undue attention, he shipped it by express to San Francisco, departed on the same stage with the nugget and never returned to Columbia. Oliver Martin was mining near Camp Corona, in Tuolumne County, in 1854. His partner was drowned in the river and he had to perform the painful duty of digging the grave in which to bury his body. While doing this and having the grave nearly dug, he un- covered a nugget weighing one hundred and four pounds worth $22,270. In June, 1858, a company of Mexicans was mining a gravel deposit in Salt Spring Valley, Calaveras County, and found lying on the bed rock a wedge- shaped nugget that was twenty inches long, seven inches thick at the largest end, sloping down to half an inch in thickness. It weighed eighty pounds and was valued at $17,000. Ira A. Willard, mining on the North Fork of Feather River in August, 1858, unearthed a nugget weighing fifty-four pounds and worth $11,700. A company of miners, calling themselves the Eagle Company, working a claim on Oregon Creek in Sierra County, in February, 1856, found a nugget weighing forty-two pounds and worth $9,000. Near Sonora in 1852, a miner found a nugget weigh- ing forty-five pounds and worth over $8,000. He had a friend, who had through exposure, become afflicted with consumption and was slowly failing. He gave the nugget to his friend to take East and exhibit there, as it was understood the gold fever had made it profitable to exhibit large nuggets, and 88 thereby attempt to regain his health. He heard from him regularly as he went from place to place and pros- pered, then suddenly all communications ceased. Some years later he received notice from a banker in New Orleans that his friend had died and the nugget was in the bank’s possession subject to his orders. Near Hornitos, in Mariposa County, in August, 1856, two Chinamen, working in a gulch with a rocker uncovered a nugget that weighed thirty-four pounds and was worth nearly $7,000. In describing his feel- ings, one of the Chinamen said: ‘‘Me workee tlee week, makee sixee bitee one day. One day him come big splashee. Foy Toy’’ (good luck). John Ward, mining at Vallecito, Calaveras County, in February, ’53, found a nugget weighing forty-five pounds and worth nearly $9500. R. Turner, a miner, near Sonora in January, 1855, found a nugget weighing thirty pounds and worth $6400 and the next week found another weighing six pounds and worth over $1200. A miner named Reynolds, working a claim ip Holden’s Gardens, Sonora, Tuolumne County, in Oec- tober, 1851, found a nugget weighing twenty-eight pounds and four ounces that was valued at $6120. Sailor Diggings on the North Fork of the Yuba, three miles from Downieville, was very rich in nuggets when it was mined by three English sailors in 1851. The largest nugget found was one weighing thirty- one pounds and many were found weighing from five to twenty pounds each. The sailors kept all the large nuggets they found and went to England with two large canvas bags filled with them. 89 They arrived in England at a time when the public | mind was filled with the reports of gold discoveries in California and Australia. They began exhibiting, for an admission fee, their nuggets in the principal cities man an attack of gold fever that sent him sailing away to the gold: fields. of the Kingdom and gave many a phlegmatic English- | | The largest ingot known to be cast in California was that produced by the Kellogg and Humbert Assay- ers in San Francisco, who, in October, 1859, cast a gold bar twelve inches long, five and one-half inches wide and four inches thick, weighing 2251 ounces, or one hundred and eighty-seven pounds, Troy. It was 915 fine and valued at $42,581.71. Of the nugget finds later than the ’50s a few good ones are on record. One of the strangest freaks of good luck is that which fell upon a man named Daniel Hill, who was about as near down and out as a man could get to be, according to the statements of those who knew him. In 1866 he found in Plumas County a nugget weighing about sixty-six pounds for which he received $14,000. The money remained with him only a few months. He went to San Francisco and squandered it at the rate of $5000 a month. When broke, he returned to the interior, and one day near Dutch Flat, he stooped down to wash his hands in a pool of water and saw at the bottom a lump of quartz about the size of a child's head, that had a small streak of gold across it. From this lump he obtained $12,300. The money did him no more good than the first find and it is said he died a pauper. It is seldom good luck visits a man twice and why should it ‘‘waste its fragrance on the desert air’’ is a mystery unexplainable. 90 J. D. Colgrove at Dutch Flat in 1866 found a nugget weighing twenty-seven pounds and worth $5760. In 1871 it is claimed a nugget weighing one hun- dred and six pounds and two ounces was found on Rattlesnake Creek and another weighing ninety-six pounds was found on Kanaka Creek, Sierra County, but neither the names of the finders nor the value of the nuggets is given. A beautiful lump was found in a hydraulic mine near Forest City, Sierra County, in August, 1871. The mine was in litigation so it could not be said who were the owners. It was placed in charge of Charles N. Felton, the U. S. Sub-Treasurer in San Francisco. It weighed seventy-seven pounds and its water weight showed fifty-eight and a half pounds of gold in value about $12,000. In 1883 the Rainbow Mine in Sierra County, at a depth of two hundred feet, found a slab of quartz and gold that yielded $20,468. It was part of a pocket from which $120,000 was obtained. In July, 1886, it was reported that a company of Chinamen, who were working a claim near Dutch Flat, which they had bought from a banker of that town, named Nichols for $300, had found a nugget weighing one hundred and twenty-three pounds and worth $26,000. Richard Steelman and Philip Hayes mining in Gold Valley, fifteen miles from Sierra City, found in July, 1886, a lump weighing thirty-seven pounds con- taining thirty-two pounds of gold and worth $7000. 91 This was the second large lump they had found within a few years. The first was worth $2200. FREAK SHAPES OF NUGGETS B. F. Wardell, mining on the Middle Fork of the American in 1850, found a nugget weighing six pounds, that had a round hole in the center just the size for a candle to fit in it. He used it for several years on his cabin table as a candlestick and when he econ- cluded to sell it the assayer had to remove about half an inch of candle grease from it in order to obtain its correct weight. In French Ravine, Sierra County, in 1855, a Mis- sourian named Smith, found two nuggets that were called the Siamese Twins. One weighed fifty pounds and was attached to an- other that weighed fifteen pounds, by a small band of gold about half an inch in diameter. Unfortunately, as far as their being kept for a curiosity was concerned, they were finally broken apart. Together their value was over $13,000. In 1851 a miner named Chapman found in his claim, on the Middle Fork of the Yuba, a nugget shaped exactly like a horseshoe. It weighed twenty- eight pounds and was worth $6000. Tt was first purchased by Major Jack Stratman, a celebrity of San Francisco, whose mustache was a conspicuous advertising feature when he was in the heyday of his career. At Corral Flat near Mokelumne Hill, in December, 1853, a nugget was found that was an exact counter- part of the hook on the end of a log chain. It weighed six and one-half pounds and was valued at $1400. 92 In September, 1854, a nugget was found weighing two and one-half pounds, near Coloma, which was de- clared to be the most beautiful formation of virgin gold ever seen. It was ten inches long, three inches wide and a quarter of an inch thick and resembled a bunch of fronds of a fern. In February, 1853, at Curtisville, Tuolumne County, a Mexican company unearthed a lump of quartz and gold weighing seven pounds, four of which was gold, that was spread over one side of the quartz in the shape of a mistletoe branch, showing the twigs and leaves in perfect duplication. C. F. Holmes in December, 1855, found on the North Fork of the Cosumnes, a nugget four inches long, that was the perfect shape of a small boot. It weighed over one pound and was worth $240. A miner named Wiley at Butte City, Amador County, in 1856, found a lump of quartz that had the gold running through it like gossamer lines and was a perfect representation of a spider’s golden web. It was spoken of as a remarkably beautiful specimen. The gold taken from several bars on the Mokelumne River resembled cucumber and pumpkin seeds and a bushel measure, filled with these nuggets, would not vary in size and shape any more that such a measure filled with real seeds would. The cause of gold being in this form has never been satisfactorily explained. In 1848 a young man named Taylor at Kelsey. eight miles from Coloma, picked up in the bed of a gulch, a red stone about six inches long that was 93 inlaid on the under side with about two pounds of gold. The work was as perfectly done as though a gold- smith had done it. The contrast in colors made it a rare and beautiful specimen. A nugget was found at Bald Mountain, near Forest City, that was almost a perfect image of a human being. It weighed eight ounces. The legs and feet were there; the left hand had only four fingers and was placed on the breast; the right hand hung down and the head was erect and in such a dignified position, a Cockney, on seeing it, said, it looked to him like an image of the Lord Mayor of London. A nugget, looking like a cluster of arborescent crystals, was found in August, 1865, in the Grit Claim at Spanish Dry Diggings, in El Dorado County. It weighed eight and a half pounds and was worth about $1800, but it was such a beautiful specimen of dendrite gold, a Mr. Fricot, living in Grass Valley, paid $3500 for it and took it to Paris to place on exhibition. A FEW SMALLER NUGGETS AND BIG PAY Thousands of nuggets from one to thirty pounds in weight were found during the ’50s of which no men- tion was ever made. From the few that were we have selected the follow- ing to record: A miner named Stevenson, working in Mariposa Diggings on April 18, 1851, found a nugget weighing fourteen and one-half pounds; the next day one weighing four and one-half pounds and on the day after that another weighing over three pounds. His claim yielded over twenty-five pounds of gold that week. 94 In October, 1851, a miner named Reynolds, found in his claim in Holden’s Garden, Sonora, a nugget weighing twenty-eight and one-fourth pounds and worth over $6000. A miner named Kelley, in March, 1852, found a nugget weighing seven and one-half pounds in the stage road near Lower Springs, Shasta County. In April, 1852, W. L. Durham, near Bayecito, Tuolumne County, picked a twenty-five and one-half pound nugget valued at $5500. In March, 1852, a couple of miners near Valle- cito, Calaveras County, dug out a twenty-eight pound nugget worth over $6000. In June, 1852, a miner called ‘‘Ben the Boatman,”’ tried to sell his claim for $75 at Whiskey Creek, on the Yuba River. Being unsuccessful, he began to work it himself and dug out an eighteen-pound nugget. In August, 1852, Geo. Van Brunt, mining near Downieville, found a fifteen-pound nugget and took out $4000 in one day. A miner, working in Mad Ox Canyon in Shasta County, in October, ’52, found a nine and one-half pound nugget and a four-pound nugget during the same week. In April, 1853, a miner named Weems, in Indian Gulch, Tuolumne County, found a seven and three- quarter pound nugget and the next day one weighing nine pounds both valued at $3800. 95 In May, 1853, a miner named Clark in Tehama Ravine, Shasta County, uncovered a nugget weighing fourteen pounds and two hours later another weigh- ing oom pounds, making nearly $4000 for his day’s work. On June 10, ’53, a miner named Gilman in Paca- yune Guleh, near Mokelumne Hill, found a sixteen- pound nugget worth $3300. Two good little boys attending a Sunday School picnic at the head of Algerine Gulch, near Sonora, on May 2, ’54, while throwing stones at some birds, picked up a nugget weighing one and one-half pounds and worth over $300. “Uncle Joe’’ Sweigart at Rough and Ready in June, ’54, found an eighteen-pound nugget. An Italian miner in Three Pines Gulch near Columbia, picked up a nugget weighing twenty-three pounds worth $4800 in May, 1854. Frank Cook went to Kanaka Creek, broke, in April, 1855. He took up a claim and worked clearing off the top dirt until May 18th, when he made his first washing. There was one nugget weighing twenty pounds and another worth over $200 in his clean up. In September, 1856, a miner named Brown, found a nugget weighing sixteen pounds in French Gulch, Shasta County. on Cress brothers, mining in Big Canyon near Diamond Springs in March, ’57, found a twenty-four-pound nugget that was valued at over $4800. 96 A lump of gold quartz weighing seventeen pounds was found near Columbia on Christmas Day, ’53, that was worth $1700. Many a pocket and crevice were uncovered during the ’50s from which gold was scooped in handfuls and panfuls. Among those reported were these: Three tipsy sailors in September, 1850, made their appearance on Murderer’s Bar on the American River, and while they knew how to weigh an anchor they did not know how to weigh an ounce of gold. They began to mine with pick and pan and on the first day took out twenty-nine pounds of gold. They worked their claim a little over one month and then went back to San Francisco with over five hundred pounds of gold valued at $105,000. In April, 1851, Gregoric Contreras and his partner took their horn spoons and bateas to Sullivan’s Gulch near Sonora, and inside of twenty-four hours washed out a nugget weighing eight pounds, and enough chispas to make a yield of twenty-eight pounds, worth $5700 from a hole four feet square. Dr. Gillette on his way to Mokelumne Hill, while resting in the shade of a tree at noon in May, 1851, carelessly struck his pick in the ground and turned into view a two-pound nugget. He and a companion dug out fourteen pounds of gold from that spot during the afternoon. In October, 1851, two negro brothers worked a claim at Mokelumne Hill, and cleaned up in four weeks over $80,000 which they took East with them. 97 ~ In January, 1852, three miners working on Mis- souri Bar on the American River, washed out in three days with a rocker gold to the value of $4650. Ten miners working a river claim on the Stanislaus at the mouth of Jackass Gulch, Tuolumne County, took out seven and one-half pounds of gold in two hours in September, ’52. One bucket of gravel yielded $350. They had found a rich crevice that extended entirely across the river bed. In January, 1852, the miners of Volcano, Amador County, cleaned up $150,000 and shipped it to San Francisco in a wagon guarded by nine men. A miner named Perry, working on Park’s Bar on the Yuba in October, ’52, took out in one day eighty-six pounds of gold, worth $18,300. Five sailors working a claim at Gold Bluff, near Downieville, in October, ’52, cleaned up twenty-six pounds of gold in one afternoon. Four miners had a claim on Douglas Flat, near Murphy’s and sold it February, ’53, for $3000. They had taken out five hundred pounds of gold in seven months and left for the East. H. C. Carpenter on September 9, ’53, took out from under Stockton Hill, near Mokelumne Hill, six pounds of gold worth $1200. A negro mining in Indian Gulch, near Columbia in October, ’53, panned out in two days seven and one- half pounds of gold worth $1521. 98 The Alleghany Company, on Texas Bar on the Yuba in October, ’53, took out in three days thirty- six pounds of gold worth over $7600. On Randolph Hill, near Grass Valley, $2650 was washed out on October 17, 53, some of the nuggets weighed two pounds. Caldwell’s Garden, near Columbia, was a famous rich placer in the ’50s. In December, ’54, four miners struck dirt that paid twenty ounces to the pan. They took out $4000 in two days and then sold their claim for $5000. In January, ’55, this claim yielded seventeen pounds of gold in one day. In March, ’56, this claim was reported as having paid $15,250 in fifteen days, and in 1858, the Gardens made a record of $100,000 in four months. Walton & Company took out $10,000 in one day at Snow Point near Grass Valley in January, ’55. The Red Tunnel Company, at City of Six, Sierra County, took out ten and a half pounds in three days in February, ’55. Norris and McFadden, mining under Stockton Hill, near Mokelumne Hill, on February 18, ’55, took out thirty-two pounds of gold. They obtained $28,000 in the next three months. Woolzy and partner on Jackass Gulch took out $15,000 in three months in ’55, and Martin & Com- 99 pany, mining on Stewart’s Hill, Calaveras County, found $8000 on May 10, ’55. Page & Company on Rattlesnake Bar, Placer County, in May, ’55, took out in one day seven pounds and a miner named Armstead, nearby, took out six pounds. Ryan at Eureka, Sierra County, cleaned up six- teen and a half pounds from three days’ work in May, 55. A company of Chinamen, mining on the American River in Placer County, took out $20,000 in one week in June, 1855. The Wisconsin Tunnel Company, at Iowa Hill, using a rocker, washed out six and one-quarter pounds of gold on April 3, ’5D. Dan Stevens, at Downieville, took out in one day in April, ’55, five and one-quarter pounds of gold. Four miners, working on Douglas Flat, on October 17, ’55, took out one hundred and thirty pounds of gold valued at $27,600. The American Star Company, on Negro Hill, Sierra County, took out thirty-three and a half pounds of gold in one week, during December, ’55. The January Claim on Iowa Hill on December 7, ’55, washed out thirty-five pounds of gold valued at $7250. Michael Talbot, in Sherlock Guleh, Mariposa County, in December, ’55, took out $3200 in two days. 100 In December, 1855, Bowan & Bond took out five pounds of gold in five hours and a company of Frenchmen, working in the Tuolumne River, found a crevice and took out $3500. On the next day they had to quit work on account of the riffles in their sluices becoming clogged with gold and they could hold no more. What this last clean up amounted to, cannot be conjectured. A company, working under Table Mountain, Tuol- umne County, took out seventeen pounds of gold in February, ’56. A Chinaman, working alone with a rocker near Oroville in February, ’56, washed out $674 in one day. Twenty-one miners left Shasta in April, 56, for the east, taking $141,000 worth of gold dust with them. They had shipped more than that ‘‘home’’ during the few years spent in California. Four men on Scott River, Siskiyou County, took out thirteen and one-half pounds of gold in one week in ' August, ’56. At Butte City, Amador County, in January, ’57, Dr. Harris, with two partners, took out $8000 in one day and $5000 on the next. An Italian company, working on Brown’s Flat, Tuolumne County, in January, 57, found $12,000 in four days and took out $18,000 more during the month. Big yields were reported in April, 57, from the hydraulic mines on Smith’s Flat, Sierra County. The Knickerbocker Company washed out eighty-four pounds; the Alleghany Company, one hundred and 101 twenty pounds, and the Pacific Company, seventy-five pounds. On Sucker Creek near Yreka, four miners washed out $75,000 in one week in April, ’57. The Monumental Company, at Forest City, took out one hundred and thirty-five pounds of gold worth $28,000 in April, ’57. During 1858 the five principal gold dust buyers of Placerville bought 6,626 pounds of gold produced by the placer miners in that vicinity. They paid to the miners $1,431,244. Other buyers bought prob- ably half a million more so that about four tons of gold was washed out and $2,000,000 obtained during the year. The Dunning Claim, on a buried channel on an ancient river bed near San Andreas, cleaned up forty- two and a half pounds of gold in January, ’59. The dirt was a cement which had to be exposed to the air for some time before washing. More than thirty com- panies were sinking to strike this old channel. Corcoran and Forest, at San Andreas in July, ’59, struck a crevice and from two pans of dirt obtained two and a half pounds of gold. Several ounce pieces were found. The crevice yielded over $1000 in one day. At Mugginsville, McGillicuddy Bros. in May, ’59, took out $3000 in one day. One nugget weighed four pounds. 102 Philip Arnold and one man mining on Willow Creek near Galena Hill, washed $22,500 in ninety days in May, ’59. One day $1600 was gathered in. Hess & Company, at Brownsville, El Dorado County, ground sluiced their claim in October, ’59, for twenty days and cleaned up thirty-seven pounds of gold worth $8177. J. Howell and the Linn Bros., working a quarter of a mile from Mariposa, struck a pocket in August, ’59, from which they took $30,000 in one day. An editor said: ‘‘The sight of this gold makes us sick of editing a one-horse paper in a one-horse town surrounded by a lot of one-horse Politicians.”’ With the advent of the ’60s there was a decided change in the character of the press items from the placer mining counties. The development of deep mining, hydraulicking, in- troduction of machinery, formation of large compan- ies and their capitalization was causing a great change. There were more items detailing accidents to miners employed by companies than of good luck finds and strikes of individuals. The Pioneers of the ‘‘fall of ’49 and spring of 507” now began to mourn the departure of the good old times. GOOD LUCK IN QUARTZ BOULDERS Full many a boulder, moss covered and gold lined, The deep ravines and rocky gulches bear; Full many a weary miner, will, unsearching, find, The gold, Good Luck, is hiding there. To the fact that many quartz boulders, seamed with gold, were broken away from their mother ledges and 103 \ scattered by glaciers, slides and floods, throughout the placer districts, was due many Good Luck finds. These quartz boulders were at first given slight attention. They were regarded by many of the first miners, as obstructions and were moved aside, with other bould- ers, without giving them any inspection or concern. But, when, with the knowledge gained by experience it became known that full many a lump of gold these silicated masses concealed, they received the close in- spection their possible value deserved. Many a miner found unexpected wealth in the quartz boulders that some ignorant and careless miner had previously handled and moved aside as a thing of no value. The first quartz boulder, seamed with gold, that yielded a treasure to its finder, of which there is a record, is one found by Wm. Gulnac, in Wood’s Creek, Tuolumne County, in 1848. He had only been in the country a few weeks when he unexpectedly landed it. It weighed one hundred and fifty pounds and yielded seventy-five pounds of gold worth nearly $16,000. The largest detached gold-bearing quartz boulder found in California was unearthed in December, 1855, in a drift claim being worked by Fennely and Cody at Minnesota, Sierra County. It was fifteen feet and six inches long, ten feet wide and eight feet and six inches thick; about half as large as an ordinary box car. It was estimated to weigh eighty tons. When it appeared in the drift the miners first went over it, then around it, before they ascertained it was rich in gold. They had cursed their luck on account of it being in their way. Pieces broken off its uneven surface, amounting in weight to about one thousand pounds, yielded thirteen pounds of gold, worth over $2700. The boulder had to be carefully blasted, in order to remove it, and was estimated to contain all the way 104 from $20,000 to $100,000 worth of gold. We are un- able to ascertain what it did yield. This Minnesota Mining District in Sierra County, near Alleghany, and between Kanaka Creek and the Middle Fork of the Yuba River, was a place prolific with these rich quartz boulders. In February, 1857, the Juanita Company rolled one out of their mine that weighed one hundred and sixty- two pounds and was found to contain thirty-five pounds of gold, worth over $7000. Near the center of this Loulder was found a lump of solid gold weighing over two pounds. The boulder was round and smooth show- ing it had been rolled and submerged a long time before it had a resting place in the ancient river bed where it was found lying. Another quartz boulder found there a short time afterward, but not so large, yielded $5300 worth of gold and a third came in view during ’57 that held a treasure of $1400. In April, 1857, the Wisconsin Company, nearby, found a quartz boulder that yielded $5349. In the Blue Tunnel Company, in this district, in May, 1854, a miner was running a car of dirt out, when it jumped the scantling railroad track and struck against a quartz boulder sticking a few inches out of the side of the tunnel. The collision of the car with the boulder broke a piece of it off and disclosed the gold it contained. It yielded $1400. Starling and Company, ground sluicing on Coyote Gulch, near Vallecito, in May, 1854, washed out a quartz boulder, weighing thirty pounds, which econ- tained twenty-two pounds of gold worth $4700. Two Mexicans, coyoting in the bank a year before, had tunneled two feet below it and consequently, missed the chunk by a few inches. This gulch was 105 quite prolific with large nuggets. In ’52 one of twen- ty-six pounds and in ’53 a number weighing forty- five, eleven, ten, six and three and a half pounds were found. Down in Mariposa, in February, 1854, after a heavy downpour of rain, a negro named Duff and a German lad called Fritz entered into a mining partnership and went out prospecting in a gulch about a half mile from the town. During the afternoon Duff seated him- self to take a rest on a quartz boulder standing partly out of the ground. While seated upon it, he glanced down and saw the gleam of a narrow streak of gold beneath a part of its uneven surface. They pried it out and had a prize in a boulder weighing one hundred and ninety-three pounds, from which was taken thirty- seven pounds of gold worth $7600. In 1851, a miner named Strain was walking up a trail from a gulch about a half mile from Columbia, Tuolumne County. In the trail, about half way up the hill, was a slab-shaped boulder of quartz, fourteen inches long and nine inches wide, upon and over which hundreds of miners had stepped during the years the trail had been made and used. Curiosity, to see how deep the quartz boulder set in the ground, prompted Strain, with his pick to move it out, and on turning it over he found it was about as thick as it was wide, weighed about fifty pounds and was streaked with gold on its under side. The boulder was pounded up in a hand mortar and yielded $8500. There was no quartz ledge in the vicinity that it could have been broken from and from whence it came and how it was moved there remained a mystery. Tadpole Creek in Shasta County was a busy scene of mining operations in 1850 and was carelessly and 106 hurriedly warked by the placer miners of that early period. In 1856 a company began reworking portions of the creek and in doing so moved a pile of tailings deposited by the miners of 1850. Amongst the rocks and boulders of this pile was found a quartz boulder about the size of a man’s head weighing nineteen pounds which had been handled several different times before it was discovered to contain gold. It yielded seven pounds of gold worth $1500. In 1857 some Frenchmen, mining in French Gulch, Shasta County, found a mass of quartz weighing three hundred pounds. Throughout was spread seams of gold in such a peculiar and even manner that it was decided to cut it into equal parts with a bucksaw and give each man his share without delay. One of their number was selected to do the dividing and the sawing. He was allowed to keep the golden sawdust that dropped from the boulder as his pay for his trouble. He realized $150 from it. It was never known what the value of this boulder was, as most of the French- men sent their portions direct to France. E. H. Virgil, working a claim with a partner named West in French Gulch near Columbia, Tuolumne County, in 1857, sold it to go to Fraser River in British Columbia, following the rush that went from California to that excitement. They afterwards returned and bought back the claim. While working on the bedrock a few weeks afterwards and wielding a pick. Virgil felt the point strike something hard which caused him to investigate. He disclosed a part of a lump of gold attached to a quartz boulder. He tried to raise it but it was too heavy and in his excitement he had little strength anyway. He called to his partner, West, and while 107 he, too, had an excitement weakness, they finally re- leased the find and had it lying before them. The good luck alarm spread and miners from adjacent claims gathered to view the discovery. Finally a pro- cession was formed and they all escorted Virgil to the express office where he deposited his boulder. It weighed ninety-eight pounds, was over half gold and Virgil received $11,750 for it. Two men named Dayton and Buckmier, with two partners, had been mining near Pilot Hill for several months during 1857 and had made little more than expenses. The two partners, in a feeling of disgust, sold out for three hundred dollars apiece and quit. Two days after they left the two owners had to remove a large quartz boulder that had laid in their claim for some time and was now in the way of operations. On account of its size, they had put off its removal as long as possible. It weighed over half a ton. In an attempt to pry it over with a crowbar a piece weigh- ing about seventy-five pounds was broken off and dis- closed the fact the boulder was composed of quartz and gold. $1750 was obtained from the seventy-five pound piece and the whole boulder yielded over $15,000. In July, 1858, at Stewart’s Flat, in Placer County, a company composed of six men who came from Ohio and called themselves ‘‘The Buckeye Company,’’ were working adjacent to a quartz ledge which projected out of the side of the hill above their claim. One day they dislodged a large boulder from it which rolled down and broke into a number of pieces, revealing the gold concealed within it. They got $8000 out of the mass. In the summer of 1856 several miners were work- ing with varying success a placer claim in El Dorado 108 County. The returns finally became so discouraging they were about to move away and find better diggings. ‘While laying down his tools to go to his dinner at the cabin one day, one of the men looked down at a quartz boulder lying on the bedrock at his feet and struck it a vicious blow with his pick to vent his grouchy feelings on the inanimate rock. The pick point broke it in two. Streaks of gold were shown across the fractured sides and it was pounded up in a hand mortar, yielding twenty-five pounds of gold worth over $5000. Down in Mariposa, during the ’50s there was a miner named Wm. Blixan, who made a specialty of hunting for quartz boulders and so successful was he that he gained the sobriquet of ‘‘Boulder Bill.”’ Like the hunters of big game ‘‘Boulder Bill’’ would disap- pear for a time from around the town and then re- appear like a hunter with bear meat with the object of his hunt ready for disposal to the gold dust buyer. Boulders yielding $1000 and more, were frequently found by him and small finds of a few hundred dollars in value were so numerous as not to be considered worth mentioning. During 1858 he found four quartz boulders of unusual size and richness; one that weighed two hundred and forty pounds, contained four and a half pounds of gold yielding him nearly $1000 and the others gave him a couple of thousand dollars more. In February, ’58, a citizen of Mariposa, named Nichols, found in his back yard a quartz boulder weigh ing fifty pounds that contained $2000 in gold. A quartz boulder forty-two pounds in weight was found five hundred feet below the surface in the Jenny Lind Mine in Placer County in February, ’58, and was worn smooth by erosion of water and contact. It 109 vielded twelve and a half pomnes of gold valued at $2600. In May, 1858, a miner named Stewart, at Moore’s Flat in Nevada County, found in his claim a quartz boulder that weighed one hundred and seventy-five pounds. On reaching over to grasp it, so as to roll it out of the way, he took hold of a piece of gold projecting several inches from its surface and his surprise can be imagined when he saw what he had hold of. This lump of gold, when broken away from the quartz, was worth over $1000. The boulder yielded $4060. A quartz boulder found at Forest Hill, Placer County, in May, ’58, weighing forty-four pounds, was over half gold and was valued at $5000. It was placed on exhibition at the Forrest Theater in Sacramento at twenty-five cents a peep. A quartz boulder found near Columbia in May, ’59, was bought by W. O. Sleeper who crushed and melted it. It weighed thirty-seven pounds and he ob- tained twenty-nine pounds of gold from it worth $6750. In 1859, Jerry Green and his brother were working a claim at Remington Hill, Nevada County. They had a gang of men employed and were developing on a large scale. Part of a quartz boulder was found that was oval in shape, very like an immense egg. It had been broken in two near the middle. The fractured end was worn smooth by the action of water which indicated that the parts had separated many years previous, therefore, when the missing part was not immediately found, it was not considered strange. In- structions were given to all hands to watch carefully for the missing part as work progressed. The part 110 found contained eighteen pounds of gold worth $4000 and it was expected that the missing part was a prize equally as valuable. A week passed without the missing part being found. At this time an old miner, who had worked for the Green Brothers a long time, announced his intention to quit mining and go to the valley to live on a farm. Incipient rheumatism was given as a reason. Rolling up his blankets one morning he de- parted. Several hours after he had gone, one of the Greens became suspicious of the old miner’s move- ments and went after him. He was overtaken several miles away and compelled to unroll his blankets. In the middle of the roll was found the other part of the quartz egg. It yielded fourteen and a half pounds of gold worth over $3000. The egg-shaped boulder when put together contained thirty-two and a half pounds of gold worth over $7000. On August 18, 1869, a quartz boulder was found in the Monumental Mine, near Sierra Buttes, Sierra County, that can probably be classed as a nugget. It originally weighed one hundred and forty pounds, but a few pounds were broken off in getting it out. It weighed, when seen in San Francisco, one hundred and thirty-three pounds, Troy. It is described as being like a rice pudding filled with raisins; it was a lump of quartz filled with nuggets instead, rather than a solid mass. Wm. A. Farrish and three others were the owners and they sold it to R. B. Woodward, proprietor of Woodward’s Gardens, a popular San Francisco resort, who bought it for exhibition purposes and paid $21,636, its estimated gold value, for it. Subsequently, it was crushed and melted and yielded $17,654 in gold. Farish has stated that two hundred and fifteen pounds of gold, worth $46,000, was taken out in one day from this mine. 111 In August, 1897, it was reported that two brothers named Graves, working what was called the Blue Jay mine in Trinity County, found a lump of quartz which had to be broken in pieces to get it out, that con- tained gold to the value of $42,000, but this has been shown to be a pocket and not a boulder. That ‘‘all is not gold that glitters,’ was proven by the experience of a miner on Snake Bar, Shasta County in 1859. He discovered a quartz boulder streaked with yellow veins on the Bar, which he carried to his cabin. and it was estimated by himself and a number of experienced miners to contain not less than $5000 worth of gold. It was so announced in the papers and for several days, while the lucky finder stood guard over his treasure, it created quite a furore in that section. When he finally obtained a hand mortar and prepared to crush and secure the gold in it, a few blows, with a sledge hammer, dis- closed it to be only a mass of barren quartz. It had lain a number of years adjacent to a Chinese gambling house on the Bar and the Chinese gamblers had been using it to brighten their yens—the small brass coins with a hole in the center, which are used in the game of Fan Tan—and this had yellow-streaked the surface of the quartz boulder. GOOD LUCK IN DECOMPOSED QUARTZ SEAMS Not one man in ten thousand of those who came to California to mine for gold in the ’50s knew there was an affinity between quartz and gold. To ignor- ance of this fact was due some of the most stupendous streaks of good luck during the placer mining era. To searching for placer deposits or doing something in connection therewith to improve conditions and get better results, was due the accidental uncovering of 112 many of the auriferous veins of the decomposed quartz seams found. These treasure deposits were narrow, shallow, ribbon-like seams, not of great length but of great richness. When near a well-defined quartz ledge, they were called stringers, but they were oftener discovered in the most unexpected places. The quartz, that the seam contained, was by the action of frost in winter, heat in summer, air and water so disintegrated, it was called rotten stone, and it hung to the threads of gold in such a manner that it could be easily separated from the metal. Evidently, the silicified mass, impregnated with liquid gold, was forced up by the internal forces of the earth, filled the fissure and then became solidified countless ages ago. Its dis- integration had slowly progressed until now its hidden treasure was ready for the hand of the miner to grasp. One of the first men to stumble upon a fortune from this source was a young man named Jenkins who was mining, in the summer of 1851, near the head of Missouri Gulch in Placer County. Tis claim, high up in the ravine, lacked a sufficient head of water and to obtain the use of all that could be had, he built a small dam across the gulch to hold the water that flowed down at night, for use by day. Noticing a small spring on the hillside near the head of the gulch, the water from which wasted itself in a small marshy flat and did not reach the gulch at all, he dug a shallow ditch from the spring, along the side of the hill and brought the flow from the spring to his dam. About ten days after completing the ditch he noticed the water from the spring was not reaching the dam and concluding a gopher hole must have caused the break, he shouldered a shovel and proceeded along the ditch to investigate. Near the head of the ditch, at the spring, he saw a bright yellow streak along the bottom of the ditch extending for a distance 113 of twenty feet. The glitter came from a decom- posed quartz seam about three inches wide, that he had uncovered when he dug the ditch and which the water, from the spring, in washing away the particles of de- composed quartz, had now left exposed in full view. In three days he extracted $41,000. He was doubly lucky in that during the days the vein was visible, none of the numerous prospectors, searching for diggings, had made the find. Not having located a claim on this ground, he could not have maintained an ownership. Three Frenchmen went to remove a stump from a wagon road that had been laid out on Weber Creek in 1851. As the stump interfered with the delivery of supplies to their cabin, the removing of it was a duty that was forced upon them. After prying it loose from its roots and turning it over, they found ex- posed, a seam of decomposed quartz from which they obtained $5000 in a few hours and as much more before it was exhausted. Four Dutchmen were reworking an old claim on Jackass Gulch, Tuolumne County in April, 1853. As the ground was paying poorly, they began to sink prospect holes in the bank to find, if possible, where there was better pay. On the 17th, one of the com- pany sank a hole about six feet from their cabin door and uncovered a vein of decomposed quartz. It was a new formation to them and not understanding it, they called to a prominent citizen of Sonora, named Colonel Ingersoll, who was strolling by, to come and look at it. He offered them $400 for a fifth interest in their claim, which they accepted and then under the colonel’s direction proceeded to work the seam. One hundred and seventy pounds of gold was ex- tracted within the next week. Colonel Ingersoll, by 114 being in the right place, at the right time, had over $8000 as his share with more to come. The season of 1856 was a dry one in California and water for mining purposes became hard to get, especially, for the miners who were working claims in the so-called ‘‘Dry Diggings.”” This was severely the case in the vicinity of Georgetown in El Dorado County. Two young Swedes there had a claim which they were unable to work on account of the water supply failing. They decided to dig a ditch nearly a mile long, along the sides of the hills to where a supply of water could be got and brought to their claim. After working a week or more, one of them cut across a decomposed quartz seam about one foot below the surface. The first pan of stuff yielded $120. They took out $1200 the first day, $5000 on the second and cleaned up over $20,000 from the seam. On Jackson Flat, Tuolumne County in October, 1857, three miners were working a claim, which for over a week, showed indications of petering out. An animated discussion had been going on be- tween the partners, at intervals, for several days, over the question of what they should do; whether to quit or prospect in some other direction. One day, at noon, as they quit for the noonday meal, one of the three named Houston, who had his shovel on his shoulder, stopped at a place they had mined over and remarking: ‘‘Here is where we got our best pay,’”’ pushed his shovel, with his foot, down into the soft bedrock and turned over a chunk. To his astonished gaze, there was revealed, glistening in the hole, a seam of gold an inch wide. He had uncovered a seam of decomposed quartz. They took out $2500 worth of gold that afternoon and had thousands more in sight. 115 In August, 1857, P. H. Pierce, and a partner, lo- cated a quartz claim near Oroville. They put up the necessary notices defining the extent of their location, but, before doing any work upon the eroppings, Pierce received the appointment of a government position in Oregon, and preferring the emoluments of office to the chances of mining, took his departure to the North. His partner did not do any development work and the right to the location lapsed by limitation. Several months afterward two prospectors from Oroville, passing by, read the notice put up by Pierce and his partner. Changing the date and the names thereon, to fit a location by themselves, they set to work on the croppings to do the necessary amount of work to hold the claim. Unexpectedly, they un- covered a seam of decomposed quartz, from which on that day they extracted $7500 worth of gold and obtained over $25,000 from the vein before it petered out. Spanish Dry Diggings in El Dorado County was a place abounding in decomposed quartz seams. In 1859 a seam was found that yielded in one day forty- six pounds of gold worth over $9000. A single pan of the material contained eleven pounds of gold worth $2300. { Three miners named Rodgers, Barr and Croston located a claim there and on March 2, 1860, found a seam which yielded $7000. Rodgers came to the con- clusion that it had petered and sold his interest to his two partners for $1000. The next day they either struck the original seam again or uncovered another from which one pan of stuff yielded twenty-seven pounds of gold worth $6000. They obtained from this one day’s work $11,550. The seam of decomposed quartz was about two inches wide and they followed it for five days, making a drift seven feet long, three 116 feet wide and that deep. From this they took out one hundred and eighty-three pounds of gold, worth $38,360. STRUCK A SEAM During the summer of 1859, a man named Burns, living in Nevada City, took a stroll along a ditch 117 J ‘‘oLp scorTY’ IN HARD LUCK 118 down Deer Creek. About a mile from town he came to a sluiceway which was used frequently to scour the ditch of slickens. The water from the ditch rush- ing down the steep hillside to the creek had washed a gully several feet deep down to the bedrock. Across this sluiceway had been placed a board for footmen to walk over the opening on. When Burns stepped upon the board it broke and he had to jump down into the gully to prevent a bad fall. He landed upon his feet, but the slippery bedrock caused his feet to slide from under him and he dropped to a sitting position in the gully. He tried to save himself from falling and getting hurt by grabbing at the sides of the gully with his hands. In doing this he grasped in one hand a piece of decomposed quartz from a small seam ex- tending up the side of the bank. It showed specks of gold. He went back to town and obtaining a pick and a sack returned to the sluiceway. Here, in a few hours he filled his sack with specimens from the narrow vein that yielded over $2000. The Ditch Com- pany took possession of the find the next day as they were the owners of the land. One of the richest decomposed quartz veins struck in the State was that discovered by the Rawhide Ranch Company near Columbia, Tuolumne County in August, 1860. It yielded $60,000 in three days and thousands afterwards. “Old Scotty’ was a prospector, who, coming from Scotland in 49, had been called after his native heath in every camp he mined from Mariposa to Yreka. He often declared that he and his jackass had found and ate and drank up three fortunes but would always be able to find another. T+