USA > California > Amador County > History of Amador County, California, with illustrations and biographical sketches of its prominent men and pioneers > Part 46
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Everybody was taking and keeping all they could get." It was too much for the old man. He was taken siek with fever and shortly died. It was known by his friends that he had some eighty thou- sand dollars on deposit at Mokelumne Hill, as much more at Sacramento, and also immense sums buried in unknown spots. The Public Administrator took possession of the property and there was not enough found to pay a few small outstanding debts.
TOWNERVILLE,
Or "Hotel de Twelve," as it was sometimes called, was the place of operations of a man by the name of Tow- ner, who was sent up by the San Francisco Philhar- monic Society, during the copper excitement, to make a fortune for each member of the society. He did not manifest much knowledge of mineral veins, but showed uncommon skill in manipulating stocks and mines for his own pocket, the vouchers, when exam- ined, always showing a margin for his benefit; This camp was composed largely of the Irish ele- ment, and true to their reputation, fun was the gen- eral order. When the offieer, appointed in 1863 to enroll the able-bodied men in the county, made his appearance in the camp, a general scampering to the chaparral thickets took place. Scarce a man was to be seen. Several families of children were running about, but they were so well instructed that they did not know their names. The officer ques- tioned a woman who had six little bright-eyed ras- cals running around, as to her husband's name. "I have naw husband." The officer ventured to remark that the circumstances of such a large family with- out a husband was rather unusual. "Oi, there's mony a woman has childer without a husband." A demand was then made of the superintendent for the pay-roll, which, after quite an claborate argu- ment, was shown, which afforded part of the requisite' data. When this had been given up most of the men came back to their work. A general jollification took place, the men seeming to be well satisfied with having bothered the officer for an hour or two. After taking dinner with them, every lux- ury the camp afforded being put upon the table, he left with mutual good feeling. Soon after he was gone the last of the absconding men came in. Now was their time for fun. He had evaded the draft; he was to be fined five hundred dollars and sent to Alcatraz to carry sand bags for a year. A reward was to be offered for his apprehension. A file of soldiers was to be sent after him and much more to the same effect. He might yet overtake the officer and get his name put on. Pat started like a shot out of a gun; he scaled the side of the mountain like a deer, and two miles away from the camp overtook the officer, only to be informed that he had been hoaxed; that his name was already on the roll. Another person in the vicinity, a first-class wag, bothered the officer considerably by putting on a new face every time they met, invariably getting the laugh on him.
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HISTORY OF AMADOR COUNTY, CALIFORNIA.
CAMP OPERA.
This was a small town or camp at the foot-hills in the south-western part of the county, and bad at first a population of only twenty-five or thirty, mostly Mexicans, who worked with batayas, there being but little water. When the Lancaster ditch was brought in in 1853, the population swelled to sev- eral hundred. Camp Opera was known as a rough place, being a resort for desperate whites as well as Mexicans. It is said that Joaquin made it a stopping place in his frequent excursions. The first trading post was kept by a white man from Mexico, by the name of Kemp, and Ike Mansfield. Kemp was charged with stealing some specimens of gold, and was hung up by the miners, who, however, let him down before life was extinct, and let him go on condition that he should leave the country, which he did. Patriek Seulley had a trading post after- wards, and trusted out nearly his whole stock of provisions to the men, who were throwing up dirt for Winter washing. The rains not coming aceord - ing to expectation, he was compelled to take the piles of dirt for pay, and realized very little for his goods. Near Camp Opera is a small graveyard, said to have been peopled with victims to whisky. Several eabins were said to have sent their whole number of oeeupants to this settlement. In 1857, the place maintained several stores, a dozen or more saloons, and two danee houses, and was considered a lively place. It gradually went down, and now only a few men make a living, where hundreds for- merly took out the means for riot and extravagance. The ground in places was quite rich with eoarse gold, which was found in gravel underlying the eoal formation, though it had, in many places, been swept out towards the valley by an over-wash.
FRENCH CAMP.
This place is a mile or two south of Camp Opera, and is mueh like it in character. It has had rather more extensive gravel elaims, however, which are probably a relie of the wash of Mokelumne river in pre-glacial times. It was occupied by a party of Frenchmen in an early day, hence the name, though afterwards mined mostly by Mexicans and Chilenos. Some eoarse gold was found here. The country is threaded by small quartz veins, which are supposed to have helped to enrich the ravines and flats. In 1854, a band of Yaqui Indians, numbering forty or more, mined here. They were wild, savage looking fellows, but lived peaceably with the other miners. They were fond of whisky and eards. In 1854, an old man named Finley, who drove an ox-team to Sacramento, and frequently earried considerable gold-dust, was set upon by a Mexican, who drew a long knife and rushed upon him. Finley having no arms, ran away, taking to the brush. The Mexican eame near enough to strike at him, slitting his eoat and shirt open, without hurting him, however. He made his way into Ione after dark, and recovered
his team the following day. About the year 1856, Joe Septen, an Italian, traeed the gravel range under the hills, finding a rich deposit, taking out, sometimes, several thousand dollars a week. Many theories were advanced as to the source of the gold. Some maintained that a great river formerly run along the foot-hills, that it could be found by sink- ing deep holes in the hills in the vicinity. A hun- dred deep shafts and numerous tunnels attest the enterprise of the miners. Some of the holes were four hundred feet deep. One company struck boldly to the west with a tunnel in the descending strata, and struek a vein of coal, without knowing what it was, however. The only paying place fell into the hands of James Moore and Thomas Barnet, who mined it successfully for nearly twenty years. It is now generally considered that these gravel deposits are the relies of a sea-shore line, which may be traced the entire length of Amador county. Scareely a sign of the eamp remains, and the country is mostly used for grazing.
COPPER CENTER.
This was quite a lively camp during the copper excitement in 1863, having several stores, saloons, and hotels, and any amount of prospective million- aires. The "Star of the West," a company in which Chas. Mcader had an interest, was made the basis of considerable stock speculation. It never proved to be good, although drifting on the vein might have revealed paying ore. The "Bull Run," a claim on the high hill east of the town, had a narrow vein of black oxides of eopper from the top down, but it was never a source of profit. A windmill on this hill was a conspieuous objeet for miles around. The hill is interesting to the geologist, having on its summit a bed of voleanie boulders, a relie of the vast plain existing previous to the glacial erosion. The site of Copper Center is now part of the ranch of J. Q. Horton, two or three miles east of Jackson valley.
CHAPTER XXXIII.
VOLCANO AND VICINITY.
As it Looked in '49-Georgia Claim-Sharp Mining Broker- Rod. Stowell - Agriculture-Society - A Philosopher - Hydraulic Mining-Nature of the Gravel Deposits-China Gulch-Volcano Tunnel-Former Project of Lowering the Outlet-Fires-Largest Fire-Fire of 1865-Year of Fires- Burning of Hanford's Store-Miners' Joke - Nocturnal Visitor-Murder of Beckman-Lynch Law-Stage Robber- ies-Miners' Library Association-Dramatic Societies- Russel's Hill-Fort John-Upper Rancheria-Aqueduct City-Contreras-Ashland- Grizzly Hill - Wheeler Dig- gings-Plattsburg-How Named-Hunt's Gulch-Spanish Gulch-Whisky Slide-Large Crystal Caves.
VOLCANO is situated on Sutter ereek, twelve miles above the town of Sutter Creek, and about twelve miles north-east from the county seat. This place seems to have been discovered in 1848, as a party of Stevenson's soldiers were here about the time that another party was mining on the Mokelumne river. They built two huts on Soldiers' guleh, so named on
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VOLCANO AND VICINITY.
that account, near the place afterward occupied by Hale's sash factory. The party of Mexicans, who were first in the camp in the Spring of '49, found two dead bodies in the huts, and buried them on what was afterward called graveyard hill. How these came to their death, or what became of the balance of the party, is not known. Colonel Stevenson, who resides at San Francisco, full of memories of that day, though at the advanced age of eighty-one, has no knowledge of any of his men ever having mined there. The huts, two in number, formed by set- ting poles endwisc in the ground in the shape of an A, the whole being covered with dirt, were stand- ing during the Summer of '49, but were torn down as the immigration came in. It is difficult to ascer- tain who came first in '49. The first wagon was driven in by William Wiley, now living on a ranch six miles north-east from Jackson, at the foot of tanyard hill. He was of a party of eight, from Dayton near Ottawa, Illinois, consisting of John Green and his sons, Joseph and Jesse, Erick Erick- son, Torkle Erickson, Charles Ewebanks, and Jack- son Beam. They had been camping on Sutter creek near the present town, and represent that place at that time as entirely vacant; not a man, not a hole even sunk there, though the works of General Sutter and his party, who mined there in 1848, might have escaped their attention or have been for- gotten.
At that time, there were no houses in Volcano, except the huts built by the soldiers. Soon after the arrival of the Green party, Jacob Cook and party also came in with a wagon, and the numbers aug- mented until by Winter there were about one hun- dred persons. Some of Green's party had preceded the main body, and staked off claims where the Cross & Gordon claim and Georgia claim were after- ward located.
A VIEW OF VOLCANO
As it then was, would make a great contrast with the present appearance. Standing on the point at the junction of Soldiers' gulch with Sutter creek, toward the east was a flat, terminating near the Griesbach ranch, covered with tall grass, as high as the backs of the animals fceding on it. Large white oaks, with branches drooping nearly to the ground, were scattered over the grassy plain, giving it the appearance of a cultivated and well cared for park. The clear water of the creek meandered along the meadow, rippling over the quartz gravel, warming in the sun on a sandy beach, or cooling itself in a deep hole under a shady bank, where the mountain trout of pounds in weight lurked for the coming of the unwary insect. The gray limestone formed a pleasing contrast to the dark green of the pines, which waved from all the hills around. A spring of the purest and coldest of water, large enough to turn a mill, well remembered by all the residents down to 1856, bubbled out of the rock, on which the Masonic Hall was built, near the junction of Sutter
creek with the south branch. For untold ages the Indian had gathered acorns and pine-nuts, or captured the deer and other game with which the hills abounded. But there was gold in the hills, gold in the flat, in the gulches, everywhere; gold that opens the roads to influence, power, and happiness. The grassy plains have been torn up, the rich soil sluiced through the cañon, and are but unsightly piles of rock, holes of mud and stagnant water. The hills, robbed of their graceful pines, are furrowed into deep gullies, while the clear, limpid waters of the creek, turned from the channel and carried into the sur- rounding hills, are laden with mud, sand, and gravel, carrying destruction to the farms in the valley below. Such was and such is Volcano. It is not intended to find fault with the work done-it is probably well; for until the great balance sheet is made out, who shall say that the activity, the commercial life, the enlarging of man's powers by these operations, may not more than compensate the apparent destruction.
The Illinois party, Green & Co., went to work on the ground staked off. The surface was a reddish clay, evidently a wash from the hill to the west. About eight feet from the surface they came to the gravel, which was so rich that they could pick out gold with the fingers. They carried the dirt to the creek, some two hundred yards away, in buckets, and washed it in a rocker. They made about a hundred dollars a day to the man, some of which was coarse gold, one piece being worth over nine hundred dollars. At a depth of fifteen feet they struck a yellow clay, so tough that they could not wash it, and abandoned the claim as worked out., The same place was worked continually for thirty years. Probably a million of dollars in all was taken out of it, or in the immediate vicinity. Some years after it was known as the Cross and Gor- don claim. They had a pump, worked by several horses, to keep the water out. It is said that they divided thirty thousand dollars profits at the end of a year. It was afterwards known as the
GEORGIA CLAIM.
There were sixteen shares in this company, and the stock was rated as high as three thousand dollars per sharc. It is said that some of the men carried away as high as thirty thousand dollars each. Various devices were used to get rid of the water. One engi- neer, of questionable ability, induced them to put in a pendulum pump, with which one man could do as much as several by the ordinary method. A gallows fifty fect high was erected, and a pine log hung in it as a pendulum. Two stout men could scarcely keep the thing swinging with no machinery or pump attached to it, and the machine was consigned to the tomb of all attempts to manufacture power out of nothing. A stout fellow was hired, for four dollars, to keep the water down during the night, which he did and had time to spare to dance away his wages at fifty cents a round, at a dance house in the vicin- ity. He afterwards found his way to the State
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HISTORY OF AMADOR COUNTY, CALIFORNIA.
prison for the theft of a watch, valued at fifty dol- lars, at a time that stealing fifty dollars was a cap- ital offense. It may be also mentioned that this same fellow belonged to an organization that had agreed to lick any man that would work for less than four dollars a day, The claim was afterwards kept dry by a steam engine and pump. Once, in a · storm, the water got the better of the engine, and rose several feet above all the works, leaving only the smoke-stack above the water. John Goodwin, a waggish fellow, proposed that a man should take some kindling and wood and dive with it down to the furnace, and start a fire. The plan was not adopted.
To return to '49. About the first of October two houses were built, one near the Odd Fellows' Hall, there being a spring in that vicinity, and also a brush and pole shanty, covered with dirt, not far away. Besides the Green company, there were Dr. Kelsey, afterwards President of the First National Bank, Stockton, also Treasurer of San Joaquin county, who was afterwards found dead in a boat on the slough; Bunnel, from Ohio; Ballard, of Illinois; Kelley, from Ohio; Jacob Cook, now living at Pine Grove; Henry Hester; Jim Gould, now at Jackson; Philip Kyle, now of San Joaquin county ; Mills, P. Fellinsbee, McDowell, Rod. Stowell, and other names not remembered, making a population of about fifty. Most of the mining was in Soldiers' gulch, the dirt being carried to the creek for wash- ing. A number of men made hand-barrows, on which they earried the dirt. Finally a cart was rigged up, and, with a yoke of cattle to draw it, readily rented for eight dollars per day.
Cook & Co., got a barrel of syrup, one of whisky, and one of vinegar, from Sacramento, and started the first store. Syrup was worth five dollars per gallon, vinegar the same, and whisky was fifty cents a drink. They also kept a few boarders, at twenty- one dollars per weck.
The Indians worked in Indian gulch, hence its name. A Missourian jumped an Indian's hole, throw- ing out his tools. The Indians came around and ordered him out. Upon his refusing to leave, they drew their bows, and prepared to enforce the eom- mand. He ran away, going to Soldiers' gulch, where a party was raised to pursue and chastise the Indians. When the party came in sight, the Indians ran, and the whites fired at them, Rod. Stowell, a Texas ranger, killing one. They followed them towards Russel hill, occasionally getting sight of them and firing, though no more were killed. The following day, one of a party of three or four men, traveling from Jackson to Volcano, stopped to let his horse eat grass at the flat where Armstrong afterwards built a saw-mill. When the others of the party had got out of sight, the Indians fell upon him and killed him; stripping off his clothes, they partially concealed the body by laying it by the side of a log, and burying it with brush. Being
missed, search was made, and his body discovered, the Indians having left one foot sticking out. He was buried at the graveyard hill. This murder was supposed to have been in retaliation for the kill- ing of the Indian by Stowell,
On the approach of Winter, Green's party, with others, numbering about twenty in all, built a log cabin containing several compartments, making it compact to avoid attacks of the Indians, who were evincing some signs of hostility, stealing all the stock they could. They got it all except a mule, which was saved by locking a chain, fastened to a log by a staple and ring, around its neck. There was only one house between Volcano and Jackson, and that was on the top of tanyard hill. Two of the men in the big cabin dicd of scurvy during the Winter. Captain Updegraff had a cabin near the Consolation or present Union House.
The rains commenced in the latter part of October. Green's party sunk a hole in Clapboard gulch. at the beginning of the rainy season, and got two ounces to the pan, but were obliged to abandon the place on account of water. They afterwards mined in the heads of the gulches, and by the first of January had accumulated about seventy-five pounds of dust, worth about sixteen thousand dollars, when they abandoned the eamp as worked out. It may be here remarked that that was the saying when the writer came in 1850. It was said in 1848 that the middle of a few little ravines paid a spade wide and no more. In 1853, when the writer eame to Volcano, Fred Wallace, one of the lucky miners, said the camp was worked out, and Jacob Cook, now of Pine Grove, says that in '49 they would have abandoned Volcano if their cattle had not been too poor to draw their wagon up the hill.
During the Winter, Rod. Stowell, a Texas ranger, killed Sheldon, a Missourian, by stabbing him with a long knife. The statements concerning this transac- tion are very conflicting. Stowell claimed that on entering the cabin, which was a kind of public house, Sheldon shut and locked the doors, making him (Stowell) a prisoner, and then drew a knife to kill him, and that he acted in pure self-defense. Jim Gould, an eye-witness, states the house was not closed; that Sheldon drew a small knife and jocu- larly told Stowell he was going to kill him ; that the killing of Sheldon was uncalled for and wanton. It may be observed that the habit of retributive justice was gradually adopted by early miners as a kind of necessity, and had not grown into a practice at this time, or Stowell might have fared hard at the hands of the miners, who were much shoeked at the affair.
In the Spring and Summer many additions were made to the population. Mann, afterwards of Jack- son, opened a restaurant-meals one dollar. The Hanfords opened a store, with W. I. Morgan as man- ager, which stock was afterwards increased until it was the largest in the county. The Fourth of July was celebrated by the reading of the Declaration by
PHOTO. BY C.SUTTERLET
WITH BRITTONEREKBE.
PHOTO BY D. S. BO
UTH BRITTON ENEL. S.P
ROBERT STEWART.
MRS C.A.STEWART.
THOMPSON & WEST, OAKLAND.
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VOLCANO AND VICINITY.
McDowell, who afterwards resided at Jackson. Mann got up the dinner for five dollars a head. A family camped near Grass Valley about this time, and many of the miners walked out, a distance of three or four miles, to catch a glimpse of a woman.
In the Summer of 1850, Billy Rogers, Sheriff of El Dorado, passed through Voleano with his party of men with whom he had been hunting Indians in the mountains. They purchased some beef, some- where in the vicinity, of a man by the name of Rhodes, who, dissatisfied with the payment, followed Rogers' party into Volcano. Meeting Skaggs, one of the party, in a saloon kept by Ingalls, a dispute ensued, during which Rhodes shot Skaggs in the wrist, but while eoeking his pistol for another shot, Skaggs fired, killing Rhodes. As the matter was evidently in self-defense, nothing was done about it. F. M. Whitmore, still resident in Volcano, and James L. Halsted, afterwards member of the Legislature from Santa Cruz county, came early in 1850.
The graveyard was fenced in during the Summer with shakes taken from the roof of the Green cabin, which, it seems, had been abandoned by the owners when they left the camp in January. Volcano had a kind of sleepy existenee during the Summer of 1850. It was evidently waiting for an infusion of more active blood into the population. There was some carting to the creek, and Captain Graham and Biggs were enterprising enough to rig up a water- power to run rockers. It was a wheel, of the sim- plest construction, turned by water carried to it in spouts or troughs chopped out of logs. It would keep five or six rockers on the move, the charge being sixteen dollars per day, each. This was thought to be a great stride in mining improvements.
In the Autumn of 1850, many persons came in by the plains, and Volcano began to assume the appearance of a permanent settlement. The Jeromes, three in number, onc of whom is still in Volcano, came this season. Jerome, Hansen & Smith opened a store with a respectable stoek of goods. The first religious service in the town was in a building of theirs, by Mr. Davidson of the ministers' company at Amador, being the same Davidson who afterwards built the church now going to ruins on the hill. Henry Jones' family was the first to settle herc. Hc was a shrewd, sharp man, with one eye half shut; this half-closed eye, in the opinion of the people, being gifted with the remarkable quality of seeing " clean through everything." Two little children (girls) always looked neat as dolls. When they got a speek of dust on their clothes, she would wash and spank them, and put on clean dresses. Mrs. Jones had a mania for neatness, and her puncheon floor would not soil a lavender kid. She met a man calling to see Mr. Jones, with: " Don't come in here with your dirty feet." The red dust certainly was very annoying to a neat housekeeper. At the opening of a saloon in 1851, the good-natured, but rough miners cut a hole in the lining of the roof, chucked the
owner up through, and kept him there until he came to terms.
At the election this year, when Joe Douglass and Colonel Collyer were the candidates, the friends of the former voted a rancheria of Indians.
During the Winter, portions of the graveyard were found to be rich, and the gulches were worked much deeper. It now began to be suspected, or rather learned, that the deposits of gold were enor- mously large, and that they extended to great depths. Henry Jones, L. McLaine, Fred Wallace, Dr. M. K. Boucher, Doctor Yeager, Ike West, -- Thomas, Ellec Hayes, and others, had claims in Soldiers' gulch that were enormously rich. A cart- load of dirt would have two hundred and fifty dol- lars in it. Sometimes a pan of dirt would contain five hundred dollars. Men who never in their lives had a hundred dollars, would make a thousand dollars a day. A company of Texans would make a hundred dollars each in a day, and gamble it away every night, and come to their claim in the morning broke. This was their way of having a good time, and gambling saloons came in for a large share of the profits. Clapboard gulch also paid good wages; though not so rieh as Soldiers' gulch, the pay-dirt was easier washed and near the surface. Indian gulch was also found to be rich, especially at the head. The Welch claim had a mound of dirt a few feet across that had more than a hundred thousand dollars in it. Some of the gold was found in a tough clay that defied washing by any ordinary method. Boiling was found to disintegrate the clay, and boilers were erccted in many places to steam it so that it would come to pieces. It was observed that when left in the sun to dry hard, the clay would fall to pieces, and drying yards were established where the rich dirt was dried and pounded.
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