USA > California > Nevada County > Bean's history and directory of Nevada County, California. Containing a complete history of the county, with sketches of the various towns and mining camps also, full statistics of mining and all other industrial resources > Part 9
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Besides the ditches belonging to the South Yuba Canal Company, there are a few others, on a small scale, that water portions of the same region. The Little York, or Gardner, ditch was begun by General A. M. Winn, Captain Chapman and others, in February, 1852, and conveys the waters of Bear River from Bear Valley, a distance of eightecu miles, to Little York.
The Walloupa, or Williams, ditch is fifteen miles in length, commences on Steep Hollow and conveys water to Walloupa, Red Dog and other mining camps. It was projected by Churchman, McConnell, Marsh and others. Work began on it in 1852, and ended three years after.
A small ditch, eight miles long, takes water from Steep Hollow to You Bet and Red Dog. It is known as the Irish Ditch, and is owned by Derham, Hussey & Co.
Jacobs & Sargent have two ditches, one known as the Old Hotaling Ditch, which has one of the oldest water rights in the county, leading from Green- horn to Hunt's Hill; the other, a ditch of considerable capacity, being four
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CANALS AND DITCHES.
feet wide by three feet deep, and conveys the waters of the north, branch of the Greenhorn to Quaker Hill, Hunt's Hill and Scotch Flat. William- son, Churchman & Co,, projected the latter ditch in 1855. It is eight miles long.
W. H. Duryea has a ditch supplying Buckeye Hill with water from the south branch of the Greenhorn. It is six miles long, three feet wide and two feet deep.
In the lower part of the county is another system of ditches, belonging to the Excelsior Canal Company. The property cost, originally, $900,000, but the capital stock of the company is $330,000. The ditches of the company consist as follows : The Tri-Union, began December, 1850, by Montgomery, Dickenson and others, taking water from Deer Creek to Sucker Flat, a distance of fifteen miles, cost $60,000; the Newtown Ditch, five miles in length, leading from Deer Creek to Newtown; the Williams ditch, taking water to Rough and Ready from Deer Creek, and the Bovyer and Slate Creek ditches. Besides these, the company tap the Yuba above Hoit's crossing, obtaining a large supply of water, most of which is used at Smartsville, in Yuba county, and the mining camps round about.
In the above sketch, I have endeavored to give a faithful account of all the ditches and canals of importance in the county. If the notice of any be too briefly and imperfectly given, it must be attributed to the difficulty of obtaining information that could be called reliable. As near as can be estimated, the value of the canals in Nevada county, at the present time, is not far from three and a quarter million dollars. In Eastern markets, where the rates of interest are lower, their value would probably considera- bly exceed that figure.
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HISTORICAL SKETCH
-OF -
NEVADA CITY AND TOWNSHIP.
Nevada City, the shire town of Nevada county, and her twin sister, Grass Valley, are the two most prosperous and populous mining towns in the State of California. They have long enjoyed this reputation, and give evidence of sustaining it in the future. Grass Valley, by reason of her rich and extensive mines of quartz, has gathered a larger population of late years, but the local position of Nevada, and the advantage of being the county seat, have made her a brisk competitor in the race.
Nevada has had an eventful history. The story of her experience would well illustrate the history of the State. Born amid wild excitements and fostered by men from every clime, who chose to ignore many of the customs and laws of civilized society ; almost abandoned at times by the allurements of other and overpraised localities ; destroyed by fires, and her people ruined ; depressed by the failure or exhaustion of mines, what scenes has she witnessed, what miseries undergone, what heroic struggles has she made, what triumphs has she gained ?
The migratory character of a mining population has left few to relate the incidents of Nevada's early life. Men came and went, made few acquaint- ances, were absorbed in the pursuit of wealth, paid little attention to other matters, and treasured up but few facts interesting in the making up of a history. From the few items of interest that come to us from the early period of 1849, we learn that in September of that year, Captain John Pennington, Thomas Cross and William McCaig built the first cabin in the basin in which Nevada now stands, somewhere on Gold Run. Other parties I
E. F. SPENCE, DRUGGIST AND APOTHECARY, BROAD STREET, NEVADA CITY, CALIFORNIA.
A. GOLDSMITH, CORNER OF BROAD AND PINE STREETS, NEVADA CITY, CALIFORNIA.
74 SKETCH OF NEVADA TOWNSHIP.
must soon have worked in the vicinity, since it is well attested that Dr. A. B. Caldwell built a log store near the site of the brick school house in October, and a Mr. Stamps, with his wife, her sister, and the family, arrived the same month and passed the winter. Madam Penn was the name of another woman, who wintered here during that worst of all winters, 1849-50. Mrs. Stamps and sister were the first ladies who ever cheered the region with their presence. Madam Penn is remembered for her determination to make money if hard word would do it. She took her turn with her husband carrying dirt to wash and rocking out the gold. In the spring of 1850 she built a boarding house, on the site of the present Union Hotel. John Truesdale built one of the first houses ever erected in Nevada. Its site was somewhere in the rear of Stumpf's Hotel, on Broad street. Quite a number of buildings were erected in the spring of 1850. Truex & Black- man put up one on or about the site of the office of the South Yuba Canal Company. Womack & Kenzie built a hotel, of cloth, on the site of the brick store of William R. Coe. It was the first hotel ever opened in the place. Robert Gordon built a store on the other side of Commercial street, a little further up. J. N. Turner established the Nevada Hotel, just above the present Union Hotel, in April. Several cabins and canvas houses were occupied on upper Main street, in the spring of 1850, and an occasional cabin, with tents, might be seen early about the ravines that concentrate on the site of Nevada and discharge themselves into Deer Creek.
But, to give an impression of the appearance of Nevada at a very early day, and a picture of life in the mining regions, we append a letter from an eye-witness, Benjamin P. Avery, Esq., late State Printer, but now one of the editors of the San Francisco Bulletin. It is but just to say that evi- dently the letter was not prepared for publication, but, as it gives a graphic view of the childhood of Nevada, and of California, which I have not so far attempted, I can not forbear transcribing it here. It may not be unin- teresting to add that Messrs. Avery and Franchere, the latter now of North San Juan, worked in the ravine that comes down from the site of old Coyoteville, and camped between the two huge bowlders that still left their high heads near the residence of Mr. C. Beckman, in the northwestern part of the town :
SAN FRANCISCO, December 20th, 1866.
FRIEND BEAN : Yours is at hand. I was in Nevada county early, and saw some. thing of its first growth; but my recollections are not of that precise nature which will make them useful to you. They would make an entertaining story by them- selves, if I had time to write them carefully, but possess little historic value. Possi- bly a fact or two may be gleaned for your purpose from what follows. I started from Mormon Island on a prospecting trip to Reading's Springs, (Shasta) in October,- 1849. Rode a little white mule along with pork and hard bread and blankets packed
BANNER BROTHERS, CLOTHING EMPORIUM, COR. BROAD AND PINE STREETS, NEVADA CITY.
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GO TO A. GOLDSMITHI'S DRY GOODS STORE.
SKETCH OF NEVADA TOWNSHIP.
75
behind me. On the way from Sacramento to Vernon-a trading station just started at the junction of the Sacramento and Feather rivers-I encountered a party on horseback who were coming from Deer creek, and who told me big stories about " pound diggings " in Gold Run. As " pound diggings "-i. e. claims, that would yield 12 oz. of gold per day to the man-were just what I was in search of, I in- quired the direction of this El Dorado, followed the old emigrant road up Bear river to Johnson's Ranch, at the edge of the foothills, and there took a trail for the creek, missing the road, or thinking I could take a shorter course, The first night in the foothills I had company-Caldwell, who was after a winter stock for his store on the creck, at a point seven miles below the site of Nevada. and several Southern and Western men. There was an encampment of United States troops near Johnson's at that time, and the Indians were troublesome, some times putting an arrow through a lone sleeper or driving off cattle and horses. In my lonely journey through the mountains for a week afterward I was somewhat afraid of the Indians, concerning whoso character I then had very incorrect notions, based on youthful memories of the scalping savages of the East. My first encounter with a party of them did not tend to reassure me. They gathered about my mule with threatening gestures, one fellow motioning as if he would like to put an arrow through me. Hereupon I drew a pair of double-barreled pistols from the holsters and leveled them cocked at the head of the red devil, affecting to be in joke. He saw the point and slunk away while the rest laughed. I divided my biscuits with them, ordered them to trot off, and rode along myself when they had proceeded some distance, Arrived at Cald- well's store-the only trading post on Deer creek at that time-I found it a square canvas shanty, stocked with whisky, pork, mouldy biscuit and ginger bread ; the whisky four bits a drink, the biscuits a dollar a pound. A few tents were scattered over the little flat and about a dozen parties were working the bars with dug-out cradles and wire or raw-hide hoppers, only one or two persons having cradles made of board and sheet iron. I prospected with good success in a claim that had just been abandoned by the notorious Greenwood, carrying dirt in a pan to a dug-out cradle. Went with shovel and pan seven or eight miles up the creek, testing several ravines as high up as the top of the ridges, seldom, in my ignorance, going deeper than a few inches, and always getting gold. A preacher, whose name I forget, was then hauling dirt from one big ravine back of Caldwell's in an ox cart, and washing it at the creek with good success. A few other men were carrying dirt from other ravines in sacks on their own backs or those of mules. All were close mouthed about yields, and regarded me as an interloper. They were Southwestern men, ap- parently, and mixed with their jealousy was a bit of contempt for the smooth-faced " Yorker," whose long brown hair lying on his shoulders ought to have conciliated their prejudice, since it looked like following a fashion set by themselves. In my prospecting I somehow failed to get on the Gold Run side of the creek, and so missed my objective point, but I struck the conjunction of ravines in the little flat known afterward as the site of "Dyer's store ; " and in " Rich Ravine," winding about American Hill, got a prospect that satisfied me to return immediately to Mormon Island for my companions. That locality was then (about October 10th) completely unworked ; I saw no " prospect holes " any where in the vicinity. The dirt I tried I carried a long distance to find water to wash. While camping out alone in the thick forest that covered the place, I woke one night oppressed for breath, and saw a small gray wolf at my feet ; fired at his eye's gleaming among the rocks, but missed him. It was a lonely scene, and the echo of my shot through the woods startled me.
AYER'S MEDICINES AT SPENCE'S
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MILLINERY AND FANCY GOOD3, AT GOLDSMITH'S.
SKETCH OF NEVADA TOWNSHIP.
The scamp was attracted by the bit of pork which I had hung in the tree above me. I fancied he might have been smelling about my face, and thus caused the feeling of oppression. Before returning to Mormon Island I went over to the South Yuba, fol- lowed it to the main stream, and prospected the latter as low down as Owsley's Bar, 'which, as well as most of the river bank below Rose's Bar, was then nnworked. Only one of my partners (Franchere, now at North San Juan) was willing to accompany me from Mormon Island (on the American river,) to the wilds of Deer creek. He and I reached Sacramento on our way to a fortune just as the heavy storms of that memorable winter set in. These detained us. Then the roads, which bad never been packed, were frightfully muddy ; the sloughs were full of water and unbridged, and many packers with their animals were drowned trying to cross them. I could not swim, and preferred to take no risks ; so we waited in Sacramento, engaged in one speculation or another, until the first flood drove us at night out of our tent be- tween Front and Second streets, and compelled us to take refuge on the bark Orb, whose hulk still lies in the same place and is used as a steamer landing. Nine days' board on that vessel, which was improvised into a " hotel," cost us seventy-two dol- lars, and we slept in the forecastle among the rats at that. The first regular San Francisco steamboat, the old propeller McKim, received and discharged her freight on the Orb, and I earned a dollar an hour assisting at this ; but it was dreadful hard work, and the regular " salts " made it harder for me by way of joke. We finally took a steamer for Nye's Landing on the Yuba-the original name of the site of Marysville-intending to go thence to Deer creek ; bnt on reaching Crosby's Bar- by this time (January) a smart mining camp-we learned that the snow was two feet deep at the creek, that thousands of men had crowded in the ravines about " Cald- well's new store," and that provisions were scarce and high, We did not stock our- selves and reach the creek until February, working a quicksilver machine meanwhile on the bar, and packing the dirt to it in half-kegs suspended from a yoke on our necks. We also made a small cradle (valued at seventy-five dollars in those times) which we packed to the creek on a mule with flour, pork, coffee and hard bread. To my intense disgust I found that my ravine was occupied from one end to another by long-haired Missourians, who were taking out their " piles." They worked in the stormiest weather, standing in the yellow mud to shovel dirt into cradle or tom ; one of them had stretched a canvas awning over their claims, which were only thirty feet along the ravine. All the other ravines leading into the flat at the foot of Ameri- can Hill, were occupied almost as thickly. Dyer had a log cabin store in the midst, where whisky and brandy were sold at $6 and $8 a bottle, molasses at $8 a gallon, flour $1 a pound, and pork $2. Caldwell's "new," or "npper," store was on the high bank of the ravine, above the little flat where the city of Nevada afterward sprang into existence.
It appears there had been great discoveries in this locality after my visit, the first of October, and as the streams rose in November the miners flocked in from the rivers. American Hill was covered with their tents and brush honses, while a few had put up log cabins. At night, the tents shone through the pines like great trans- parencies, and the sound of laughter, shouting, fiddling and singing startled those primeval solitudes strangely. It was a wild, wonderful scene. Gambling, of course, was common, and fatal affrays were frequent. We pitched our tent by a big pine, using its trunk for a fire place and cooking our pork and coffee out of doors. The woods looked grand when white with snow. Sometimes we had to rap it off the can- vas roof at night to keep it from pressing upon our faces, or breaking down the tent.
BANNER BROTHERS SELL CLOTHING CHEAPER THAN ANY OTHER HOUSE IN NEVADA COUNTY.
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CARPETS AND OIL CLOTHE, AT GOLDSMITHI'S.
SKETCH OF NEVADA TOWNSHIP.
I think a larger quantity of snow fell during the winter of 1849-50 than bas ever fallen since in that locality. The subsequent destruction of timber must have had an influ- ence in modifying the climate. Other considerable settlements had gathered at Gold Run, Grass Valley and Rough and Ready, on the other side of the creek. I think the Nevada miners were the first to use the long tom-which was made of split boards- as well as wooden sluices. The latter were suggested as a continuation of the tom, for convenience to receive the dirt when shoveled up from below. We worked with rather poor success, in the vicinity, until the ravines began to dry in April, and then laid the beginning of that extensive and costly system of mining ditches that has' since made Nevada pre eminent in this, as in every other department of mining in dustry and invention. Small ditches were dug to bring the water from springs and brooks into the rich ravines about Dyer's, and were gradually extended as the water supplies retreated. The mines yielded wonderfully. From an ounce to twelve ounces a day was common, with cradles; while many a long tom party took home to their cabins at night a quart tin pail full of gold, much of which was as coarse as wheat grains. Many a lucky fellow left with a fortune in the spring, and at the same time the embargo of mud and snow was lifted, so that teamsters and packers arrived with supplies from the lower country, and flour fell to thirty cents a pound, while boots that had been worth six ounces a pair could be had for one. It was not long before wagon loads of provisions sold for freight. With this rush of goods, accompanied by fresh crowds of fortune hunters, Nevada city sprang into being. My first sight of the embryo place was a surprise. I had been camping and working some distance lower down the creek, coming over to Caldwell's about once a fortnight, for supplies we did not have-say for pipes, tobacco and molasses, or to pay an expressman two dollars to inquire if there was a letter for me at Sacramento.
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One Sunday, in rounding the point of a ravine running down to the creek from American Hill, (since named,) I saw a big round tent on the little flat, with a flag streaming above it, muffled music resounding within, while around were several canvas stores, and wagons loaded with flour and other supplies-and, in fact, all the signs of a bran-new mining town. Franchere and I christened it "Mushroom City," on the spot. It was afterward called Nevada, and when the first election for local officers was held we were importuned at our cradles, by genteel looking gamblers, who were the "leading men," to vote for their candidates. The population would have scattered rapidly but for the discovery of the famous coyote or drift diggings, which were first opened by a drift run in from Rich Ravine, by miners who supposed they were following a ravine lead for a short distance. I sank a shallow shaft on the slope of American Hill, toward the ravine, during the winter, believing that the gravel bed might be rich, but struck water, and was obliged to desist, though I got a "good color," all the way down. You know how the entire hill has since been stripped to the bed-rock. It was at Nevada that I saw the first ground sluicing in the State, which led by insensible degrees to hydraulic mining.
Not being one of the lucky, I left Deer Creek just after the birth of Nevada, and packing my blankets and some bacon and biscuit on my back, and carrying a pan, pick and shovel, started with two companions for the Middle Yuba, reaching it at a point about fifteen miles above Nevada, The snow was still deep on the top and upper flanks of the ridge, and we walked on its top, the breaking crust making walk- ing very hard labor. The Middle Yuba region was then a terra incognita. None of the bars were named, so high up, and we saw only two small parties working, who refused to give us any information. There was of course no trading post. The deep
E. F. SPENCE, INSURANCE AGENT.
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GOLDSMITHI ALWAYS KEEPS THE BEST DRY GOODS.
SKETCH OF NEVADA TOWNSHIP.
chasm was in its native wildness, and heard no sound but the roar of its own pines and the dash of the foaming rapids. We had to fell trees to cross creeks, and the feat was often diffleult and dangerous. Threading our way through the canons was often extremely hazardous. The water was too high to prospect the bars, but we found gold in paying quantities on the shelving rock, and thought we might go back in the summer. On our return to Deer creek we got out of food, traveling thirty-six hours on empty stomachs, mostly over the snow, and without water, being on top of the snow-covered ridge. Yet I enjoyed with a sense of grandeur the Arctic scenery of those magnificent pine forests, and the stars at night through the tops of the moan- ing trees had for me a thrilling fascination. When I again reached my tent near the Sugar Loaf I reeled like a drunkard. How Nevada county and city developed and obtained a nomenclature after this I need not say. Suffice it to add that after May, 1850, I did not visit that section until 1856. How little I dreamed while on my foolish prospecting trip through the savage solitudes of the Middle Yuba that in eight years I should be publishing a newspaper for a populous and intelligent town in that very region ; that carriers and expressmen would be scattering it where only the grizzly and wild cat roamed then ; and that the lofty ridge, drawing its purple line against the sky four thousand feet above the sea, would be dotted with villages, with churches and school houses, with orchards, vineyards and gardens ; that three or four daily newspapers would proceed from the town on Deer creek, and that the untamed region generally would be one of the most prosperous, intelligent and patriotic in the State.
Looking back on the foregoing necessarily hasty scrawl, I find it very slovenly, imperfect and egotistical. But it is the best the pressure of other duties will permit me to do, and it will certainly convince you-if you have the patience to wade through it-that I was right in saying I could not help you. I had no idea of writing so much. Old memories thronged on me after beginning, and now I regret that I cannot find time to make a connected and full narrative of the wildest and most stir- ring period of my California experience.
Yours, truly, B. P. AVERY,
The winter of 1849-50 was an exceedingly severe one, snow falling four feet deep. The roads were new and bad, and provisions and goods of all kinds sold for fabulous prices. Pork and beef commanded 80 cents a pound; flour 44 cents ; potatoes 75 cents ; onions $1 50; saleratus $1 per oz .; boots $40 ; shovels $16; candles 50 cents each. The cost of getting a letter from Sacramento was $2 50, and a newspaper $1.
The site of Nevada was a remarkably rough and unpromising one at first, and it has " held its own " very well ever since. It consisted of several tongues or ridges of land lying between ravines, all converging to one point on Deer Creek. These ridges were covered with pines and oaks, intermixed with bushes about the margins of the streams. A thick clump of small pines stood on the spot now occupied by the Court House and yard. The site of lower Main street, and where the buildings on both sides now stand, was wet and swampy, and covered with hazel and other brush. It was a locality that produced no insignificant number of rattlesnakes, if the reports of early settlers are to be credited.
BUY YOUR CLOTHING AT BANNER BROTHERS, CORNER OF BROAD AND PINE STREETS.
79
GOLDSMITHI ALWAYS KEEPS THE BEST GOODS.
SKETCH OF NEVADA TOWNSHIP.
Up to March, 1850, Nevada went by the appellation of "Caldwell's Upper Store," or " Deer Creek Dry Diggings." But, some excesses hav- ing been committed, it was determined to establish authority to punish violations of the rights of others, and an election for an Alcalde, under Mexican law, was called, and Mr. Stamps was chosen. About 250 votes were cast. On that day it was proposed, in the crowd, that a better name should be given to the place, and it was christened " Nevada." The ac- counts of how the name came to be chosen, differ somewhat; but as the mountains were called " snowy," and the winter had been a "snowy " one, it is not very strange that the idea was suggested by calling the place " snowy," or " Nevada," as the word is in Spanish.
Stamps acted as Alcalde till May, when the discovery of rich deposits in the old gravel hills to the north of the town, created an excitement and filled the Nevada basin with miners, when a new order of things began. The authorities at Marysville, the county seat, ordered an election for Justice of the Peace, and a man named Olney, who had been Secretary of State of Rhode Island, under the revolutionary government of Dorr, was chosen. Olney was a singular man, of capability, but disposed not to be bound by any old forms of dispensing justice. His decisions were often original and sui generis. He is remembered as a person with the right arm but half the length of the other, a good penman, and a man after his own pattern. He died of consumption a few months after his election, and when called on, in extremis mortis by a clergyman, he indicated a wish that the " boys " might take what money he had over and above funeral expenses and have, as he expressed it, "a jolly good time with it." He may be set down as the representative of a large class of the times.
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