Below are some real life stories of the Gold Rush. How nice would it be today to have a 45 pound chunk of Gold today......
Those who found singularly large and valuable nuggets were
few as compared with the number who, while locating remunerative claims, took
out fortunes from coarse and fine pay dirt. These big nuggets form the theme of
anecdote and newspaper record, all with the occasional exaggeration. A great
example of this is the prospecting claim on Carson Hill, from which gold was
chiseled out in big chunks, and which yielded within a short time some
$2,000,000. There are many stories of the treasure troves that were repeatedly
obtained by individual diggers, especially in the numerous 'pockets' of the
Sonora region, including Woods Creek, the richest of its size, the bars of
American, Yuba, and Feather rivers, with such spots as Park Bar, Rush and
Nelson creeks, where the yield of one day's work frequently fulfilled the
brightest hopes of the gold-hunter. The American Middle Fork yielded perhaps
the best steady average of gold dust. All found sooner or later that mining was
a lottery, for adjoining claims even in a reputably rich spot might bring to
one miner a fortune, to others working nearby, nothing; and the most
inexperienced greenhorn might strike a deposit in the most unfavorable place,
while experienced diggers toiled in vain.
Gigantic nuggets were a lottery wherein a vast number of
blanks were overshadowed by the glitter of the few prizes. The great majority
of California gold rush diggers obtained little more than the means to live at
the prevailing high prices, and many not even that. At times they might find a
remunerative claim, but this was offset by periods of enforced idleness in
searching for new ground, by waiting for rains or for the abatement of waters,
by more or less extensive preliminary work to gain access to the paying strata
and making it available, with the aid of shafts, tunnels, ditches, and so
forth. Here are some examples of those fantastic finds and the tales associated
with them:
In 1852 a chunk of gold weighing 45 pounds and worth $8,000
was found near Sonora, Tuolumne county, California. The finder had a friend,
relates S. M. Frazier in Mining Reporter of Denver, who was far gone in
consumption, but who was still trying to work in the mines. The owner of the
nugget saw that the man was fast killing himself. At that time such a mass of
gold was a curiosity which people would flock to see, and he arranged with his
sick friend, who was well educated, to take the nugget to the States for
exhibition purposes. Besides the mass of solid gold, he took some fine dust,
chispas, gold bearing quartz, black sand, gravel and auriferous dirt from the
placer, and delivered lectures on mining operations in California. The
agreement between them was that whenever the owner wanted the nugget or its
value he was to let his friend know of his need. For a time the miner heard
from his friend regularly, then all at once lost track of him. He began after
months to think his nugget lost that his friend had been murdered and robbed in
some out-of-the-way place. One day, however, a letter reached the miner from a
banker in New Orleans, telling him that his friend had died in that city, but
had left the big nugget at the bank subject to his order. The miner wrote to
have the nugget melted down, and in due time he received a check from the bank
for a little over $8,000.
Some years ago a man was literally "kicked" into a
fortune. Louis Roderigo was discharged by the superintendent of the Mistle
Shaft Mine. Every day for weeks he hung around the mine imploring to be taken
back. Finally he was kicked off the grounds. He procured a pick and shovel and
grub enough to last him for a week or two, and started off prospecting in Bear
Creek on the Pine Ridge, some 75 miles northeast of Fresno. Three weeks later
he returned with $9,000 in gold dust, which was panned out in less than a
fortnight's actual work.
Among the mining exhibits in the mining department at the
World's Fair at Chicago was a nugget of pure gold, found in Alpine county by a
young woman. The history of the discovery of this chunk is cherished by every
woman in the gold mining regions in California. Harry E. Ellis and his wife
went to the State in 1874 from Philadelphia because of Ellis' serious lung trouble.
They went to live up in the mountains of Alpine county, miles from any
neighbor. They got their livelihood by hunting and cultivating a few acres of
land about their lonely cabin. Grizzled old gold miners with their jackasses
laden with grimy camp outfits and blankets, came by the Ellis cabin frequently.
One of the men lay ill there for several weeks, while he was nursed to health
and vigor by the Ellises. The miner told them how they might find recreation
and profit in hunting through the canyons and foothills in that region for
"pay dirt” and showed them where he believed there were indications of
gold-bearing gravel. For days at a time
the young husband and wife tramped up and down the gulches in Alpine county,
looking for specks of gold, but all without avail. They abandoned seeking
riches in the placers, and confined their attention to their little ranch. One
afternoon as Mrs. Ellis was driving home the family cow she was seeking stones
to throw for the amusement of the dog. She saw in the coarse gravel a dark,
dull yellow stone and picked it up. "I knew from the moment I picked it
up," says she, "that I had found gold, because it was so heavy, but
as I had never seen a real nugget I was afraid my husband would laugh at
me." The nugget has never been melted down for its gold, and is still kept
for exhibition purposes. It is phenomenally free from any foreign matter and
the size of a croquet ball, but very rough and battered by rolling and tumbling
in water for ages. Mrs. Ellis got $2,250 for this find. Such is life and luck
among the gold hunters of the world.
In 1851, near Knapp’s ranch in Toulumne County a large
nugget weighing slightly over 50 pounds was found by a Mr. Strain. When crushed and melted, and yielded
$8,500. It was a slab shaped piece of
quartz about 14 inches long 9 inches wide at one end and 4 inches at the
other. It was found at the side of the
small trail which ran up the hill from a gulch.
Literally hundreds of miners had walked over it before Strain happened
to see it. The pocket or vein from which
it had come was diligently searched for by the other miners in the area. Golden lumps containing gold worth a few
hundred dollars each were picked up near where it lay, no great pocket or other
source was found.
Two nuggets of gold was an unusual large-size were found
near Columbia in Toulumne County many years ago. One was the property of a Mr. Virgin and the
other miners who were working together found it at Gold Hill. It weighed 360 ounces and was valued at
$6,500 it was oblong, was smooth, and was described as looking like a small
metallic meteorite. It was found twelve
feet below the surface lodged in some red clay.
The other large nugget was found by a Frenchman in Spring Gulch it was a
globular mass of nearly pure gold, somewhat coated with oxide of iron and was
worth over $5,000. The Frenchman who
found it was driven insane by the thought of the gold and was sent to the
Stockton asylum. The French Council took
charge of the nugget and sent the proceeds to the finder's family in France.
A specimen of crystalline gold from the grit mine near
Spanish dry diggings in El Dorado County was sent to the Paris exposition in
1878. The nugget weighs more than 201
Troy ounces and was mined from a pocket 200 feet below the surface where it was
found together with another 200 or so ounces of crystalline gold. The purchaser of the large nugget, but it
sent to Paris was a Mr. Fricot, who had for a time lived in Grass Valley and
was lately moved to New York. The nugget
was never melted down, and is the largest California gold nugget still in
existence.
Another California gold nugget which was exhibited at the
Paris exposition of 1878 was a specimen of crystallized gold from the Banghart
mine in Mad Mule Canyon of Shasta County.
It weighed in at 13 ounces, but on account of its beauty was valued at
far more than the metal it contained.
Want to find out how much your Gold is worth? Contact us at 801.889.7200 and on the web at www.valleygoldminesaltlake.com.
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