USA > California > Siskiyou County > History of Siskiyou County, California > Part 14
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They left the creek, passing through the divide south of Judge Steele's place, and soon came upon the Oregon trail, where they 'were surprised to dis- cover a comparatively fresh wagon track. Follow- ing the trail south, they camped that night near Edson's, came upon the abandoned wagon next day in Wagon valley and camped that night at Berry- vale. The next day they struck the Sacramento river at Soda Springs, and two days later overtook Governor Joe Lane's party, with whom they trav- eled to Shasta. They moved around considerably,
going to Salt creek and Middle or Olney creek, finally settling down for the winter at Middletown, where were also quartered hundreds of others, who penetrated into this region early the next spring.
In the summer of 1850, Gov. Joseph Lane, of Oregon, who had so manfully resisted the onslaught of the gold fever while passing through California in 1848, on his way to organize Oregon Territory, was finally stricken with the malady. Convincing him- self, if not others, that it was necessary to make a protracted official visit to the southern portion of Oregon, he prepared himself for a long journey, and set out with half a dozen white men and thrice as many Indians. He failed, however, to stop when he reached the boundary line, an oversight he can hardly be held accountable for, as the exact location of that line was not determined until many years afterward. He had a wagon, which was the source of a great deal of annoyance and labor and rend- ered the journey slow and tedious.
Upon reaching the Klamath, a little prospecting was indulged in, and then the party passed on. Considerable work was done on Shasta river, near the mouth of Yreka creek, on Joe Lane's bar. After a short stay, not satisfied with the yield of dust, they continued their journey southward, abandon- ing the encumbering wagon in a little valley near Berryvale, which has since 1849 borne the name of Wagon valley. A few days later they were over- taken on the Sacramento river by the prospecting party that had just come up the Klamath river. Governor Lane returne J.here in the early spring at the head of a large company of men, bound for Scott Bar.
To go back a little and follow the course of John- son is necessary. He went down the Klamath and re-organized his party, and again started up the stream. At the mouth of the Trinity he fell in with Charles McDermit, Abisha Swain, John W. Burke, Stevens, Charles D. Moore, and Buck, who went with him as far as the mouth of the Sal- mon, where they stopped to mine, while the Johnson party continued up the Klamath. They prospected in a number of places, and finally came to Scott river and did a little work there. In this party of somne forty men there were Rufus Johnson, -- Dollarhide, -- Duffy, Snyder, and Van Dusen. They left Scott river and continued up the Klamath, overtaking and joining the Jones and Bean party near the mouth of Shasta river.
But a few days after the departure of Johnson's party from Scott river, a small company of men from the forks of Salmon, led by John Scott, arrived there and went to work, the place being named by them Scott Bar. They had, however, worked here but a short time when the Indians made such hostile demonstrations as to induce them, being few in number, to abandon the river. They went up the stream to the valley, and then over the divide to the north fork of Salmon, and thence over to Trinity, where the news of their discovery soon spread and several parties were organized to find the river, some of them led by members of the Scott party. Some of this company went to Trinidad and others to Reading's Springs, and in this way the fame of Scott Bar was rapidly spread abroad, and as it was considered dangerous to winter in the mount-
7. Riley
FRANCIS RILEY,
The only surviving member of a family of four chil- dren, was born in the city of Limerick, Ireland, May 30, 1830. He was the son of Francis and Sarah Ann (Wheeler) Riley. His grandfather was a commis- sioned officer and quartermaster of the Fifty-sixth Regiment, British Infantry, of which regiment his father was also a member, and when but six years of age young Francis accompanied his father and the regiment to the Island of Jamaica. His father died there, and his mother was married to an Englishman named Charles W. Bamfield; but after a short time she also died, leaving him, an orphaned boy at twelve years of age, dependent entirely upon his own exertions. He shipped as cabin boy on a sailing vessel to Halifax, Nova Scotia, and after fifteen months' absence returned, and entered the employ of the proprietors of the Commercial Hotel, at Kingston. In 1850 he started for California, stopped on the isthmus for five months, and after a severe illness, journeyed across on foot, and shipped on board the Fremont as ward steward. He arrived at San Francisco, August 31, 1851, and went at once to Sacramento and opened a restaurant. In less than six weeks he lost $800, after which he took to the mines at Jackson, Amador county, with little success. He returned to Sacramento after fifteen months, and went to Michigan Bar and opened the Franklin House. He also engaged in mining with better success, and established a stage line from Folsom to Jackson. In the spring of 1858 he started for Frazer river, and reached Greenhorn, in this county, May 1st, with twenty dollars in his pockets. Here he entered a store kept by Mr. A. Atkins, to purchase some provisions, intend- ing to go on to the flats at Yreka, but was per- suaded by Atkins to stay and he would show him
à claim. He consented, and at once began mining with success. Here he made the acquaintance of Thomas McCann, Dennis Dinan, and D. M. Beem, who rendered him valuable assistance. These gen- tlemen still reside in Siskiyou county, and the attachments thus formed still continue. He soon purchased an interest in the store, and later bought it all, and continued it until 1865, when he removed to Hawkinsville, and bought out a Mr. Sells. He continued in this trade until 1878, when he disposed of his last interest at Hawkinsville to his step-son, Con. O'Donnell, and then bought an interest in the U. S. bakery, at Yreka, with Thomas Jensen, and ran the business as Jensen & Riley, to whom he is now successor. He was married, October 14, 1860, to Mrs. Margaret Adelaide O'Donnell, and by this union there was one child, Sarah Ann, born July 8, 1862; died July 8, 1868. By Mrs. Riley's first marriage there was one son, Constantine G. O'Donnell, who was reared and educated by Mr. Riley, and succeeded him in the business at Hawkinsville. Mrs. Riley died May 8, 1873, and is buried by the side of their daughter, in the Catholic cemetery at Yreka. On January 24, 1875, Mr. Riley was again married, this time to Miss Annie E. Fields. By this union there have been four children: Francis Alexander, born September 21, 1875; Nellie Donahue, July 9, 1877 ; Elijah George, September 30, 1879; Louis Wortman, January 21, 1881. Mr. Riley is a member of Howard Lodge, No. 96, of Free and Accepted Masons; also of Cyrus Chapter, No. 15; both at Yreka; and of Ieka Tribe, No. 15, Order of Red Men. In religion he is a Protestant. He was sheriff of Siskiyou county during the years 1874-75. After returning from Florence, Idaho, where he spent four months in 1861, he began dealing in mining claims on the Green- horn with considerable success. He is now interested in the Siskiyou and Kanaka mines.
I. J.DIGGLES.
RESIDENCE.
GREAT VARIETY STORE CHEAP FOR CASHIT
SEWING MACHINES
BUSINESS HOUSE OF H. J. DIGGLES, FORT JONES, CAL.
.
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HISTORY OF SISKIYOU COUNTY, CALIFORNIA.
ains many made a silent resolve to go to Scott Bar as early in the spring as it was safe so to do.
A few days after Scott's party was chased off the river, Jesse J. Pool was working on the north fork of Salmon river, when an Indian, arrayed simply in a breech-clout, appeared before him and opened a conversation in Chinook, which Pool could not under- stand. "Close tum tum " said he, 'smiting himself on the breast and smiling in a winning way, " Bos- ton man, Hi you, Shasta," pointing over the mount- ains to the north-east. Seeing that he was not fully understood, he took Pool's pan, put in some small stones and began shaking the implement as if waslı- ing dirt, all the time laughing and saying, " Hi yon, Boston man. Hi you, Hi you, Shasta." Pool deei- ded that he was trying to tell him there was a party of white men mining on Shasta river, and that they were finding coarse lumps of gold. That there was such a river as Shasta, all the miners knew, and they expected to find it to the east, in fact when Salmon river was first found it was supposed to be the Shasta. Pool knew of the party that Bean and Jones belonged to having gone prospecting to the east, and of the Johnson and Scott parties, and sup- posed that they had found rich diggings on Shasta river. He is satisfied that the Indian referred to Scott's party on Scott Bar, and by " Shasta" meant over towards Mount Shasta. He told his partner, Moses Dusenberry, what he thought, and they went up the stream a short distance and got eleven more to join them in a trip over the mountains. A care- ful search revealed a fresh trail, but it was impossi- ble to tell which way it led, as tracks faced both ways. This they followed into Scott valley, where they were delayed three days by reason of Indians stealing some of their stock, and then continued on till they reached Scott Bar, where they found a party of about fifty men had arrived but the day before. At the head of this company was Doctor Goodwin, and they had come direct from Trinity river, where they had been informed of the discovery here by some members of Scott's party. It was probably due to their coming over the trail that made the con- fusion of tracks. Doctor Goodwin, Pool, Dusenberry and ten others formed a company and put in a wing dam. This was just below the bridge on the oppo- site side from the present town of Scott Bar. They made hand-barrows of beef hides. From that time till the present day mining has been carried on unre- mittedly along Scott river.
The passage of the Joe Lane party and the united companies of Johnson, Bean and Jones, up Shasta river, aeross Yreka flats, prospecting on Greenhorn, and finally down the Sacramento river, has been related. The next to penetrate into that little-known region was a party of eleven that left Scott Bar early in December. They went up the Klamath to Shasta river, then up that stream nearly to its source. Returning, they camped on the flats of Yreka, near the spring, for a few days. Once J. J. Pool was left alone in camp, and took a pan of dirt from near the spring and washed it, find- ing a piece of gold as large as a buckshot. When the others returned to camp the prospect was dis- cussed, but they thought there was too much grass there for good diggings. Many of the old miners of Yreka will remember the luxuriant growth of
grass on the flats, and how little scales of gold fre- quently clung to the roots when a bunch of it was pulled from the ground. The company was also out of provisions, and what was still worse, out of tobacco. It is a well-known peculiarity of those times, that when the tobacco gave out dissention and bickering at once commenced. The party divided, six of them going by way of the Forest House to the valley, and thenee to Scott Bar, while Pool, D. C. Ingalls, Smith, Foote, and one other, went up Greenhorn. On the last day of the year 1850, they prospected a little gulch just above the month of the north fork of the Greenhorn, since known as Ingalls gulch, and found four dollars and one-half in the first pan. The absence of anything to eat compelled them to go to Scott Bar for pro- visions, with the purpose of uniting some of their friends with them and returning to work the bonanza they had found.
A short time after the Goodwin company began work in earnest on Scott Bar, Edward Wicks, Wil- liam R. Pool and a few others took up a land claim in the valley where Goodwin's ranch now is, for the purpose of grazing stock, as no grass could be had at the bar. They built a large corral of logs and guarded the stock there at night from the pilfering savages, herding them in the valley during the day. As every miner who came to the river had one or more animals for which they paid these men a good price to keep, the enterprise was both necessary and profitable. Here Pool, Ingalls and their companions left their stock while they went to the bar to pre- pare for the trip to Greenhorn. Notwithstanding the secrecy with which they organized a party of nine men and purchased supplies, they were sus- pected of having found something and their move- ments were watched. They were ready about the middle of January, and sent two men after their animals, who met others going after theirs when they came back. The little party of nine was soon ready and started over the trail, meeting the others on the mountain, coming back with their animals to pack and follow them. They hastened on and traveled all night, going up Indian creek, crossing to McAdams and Cherry creeks, and thence over to Greenhorn, arriving about four o'clock in the morning. Hav- ing no idea that they could be followed in the dark- ness, they stretched their tired limbs upon the ground, and the pine-covered slopes of Greenhorn soon echoed the snores of nine slumbering men. The sun was just reaching its warm rays into the cañon, when a party of twenty-four men that had been following their trail all night came upon the s'um- bering forms. They saw where the work had been done on the gulch, and took in the situation at once. Noiselessly they staked off claims, unpacked their animals, and took possession, and when the others awoke they found the enemy occupying the ground. The successful party called a miners' meeting at once and passed laws fixing the size of a claim at fifty feet, thus appropriating nearly the whole of the gulch to themselves. No prospecting was done at other points on Greenhorn, and Pool, Ingalls, Johnson, Thomas and three others left for Oregon in disgust, while two of their party remained and worked with the others. From the time this work was commenced in Ingalls gulch about the middle
62
HISTORY OF SISKIYOU COUNTY, CALIFORNIA.
of January, 1851, mining has been constantly carried on along Greenhorn. Members of parties that came up from below in January, February and March, or down from Oregon, all speak of men being at work on Greenhorn.
Sometime during the winter a party of thirteen left the north fork of Salmon and crossed the mount- ains to Scott valley. They had one little mule with them which they had to let down the steep places on the mountain sides in their blankets. They came over the divide to Yreka creek and pros- pected in various places. They went some distance up Long gulch and found seventy-five cents to the pan in one small place, but failed to find anything elsewhere, though they prospected in many places. They therefore abandoned the attempt and went to Scott Bar. In this party were E. K. Anderson, of Ashland, Oregon, J. F. Anderson, of Anderson's Ferry, in this county, and John and Isaac Boyle.
Although Scott returned to Scott Bar in Decem- ber with eighty emigrants from below, still so great was the fear entertained of the danger of wintering in the mountains without a large supply of provis- ions, that in January there were only about twenty- one men there. Many had gone to Reading's Springs, and in February began to return with large parties of others who had waited all winter for a chance to come in. Among those who came in the early spring, and well-known in the county, were James H. Lindsay, Hon. Elijah Steele, Edmond Bean, Benjamin Jacobs, John C. and William Burgess, John Haislip, Hon. Silas J. Day, Gen. Joseph Lane, J. M. C. Jones, Capt. Ben Wright, Benjamin Davis, and many others. Parties came up the Sacramento, over Scott mountain, across from Trinity and Sal- mon and down from Oregon. The country was alive with men, all well supplied with provisions and animals, the majority of them bound for Scott, river, though many in search of the " Lost Cabin ," and all ready for anything that might offer itself. The first party down from Oregon that season arrived at Yreka creek on the twenty-sixth of Feb- ruary, and contained Dr. F. G. Hearn, Jacob Wag- ner, James Thornton and others, who had met Pool and Ingalls and heard of Scott Bar, Ingalls gulch and Lane's diggings on Shasta river. They divided, some of them going to Scott Bar and others con- tinuing down to Reading's Springs, but only getting as far as Strawberry valley. The great snow-storm which caused the starvation times on Salmon river occurred early in March, overtaking this party at Strawberry valley and the others, who had united with the Burgess train, in Scott valley. As has been stated, parties were passing through constantly and Yreka creek was a favorite camping place, and it was by a party of Oregonians who were here temporarily that the discovery was made on Yreka flats that brought two thousand men to the spot in less than six weeks.
The writer has found but two men who claim to have been at Yreka when this discovery was made, and they are Dr. F. G. Hearn, of Yreka, and Hon. Silas J. Day, of Jacksonville, Oregon. The writer has talked with them and a dozen others who were near, most of them at Scott Bar, when the discovery was made, and they nearly all agree that the Yreka diggings were struck late in March, 1851, although
one puts it much earlier in the month and another as late as the middle of April. The news reached Sacramento and was published in the Placer Times on the eighteenth of April, and three or four weeks are ample time to allow for the intelligence to reach that city, especially as pack trains started for Shasta but a few days after the discovery. Judge Day, with two brothers named Garfield, had come back from Scott Bar, and were camped on Yreka creek when the discovery was male, being on their way to Oregon. The majority of Dr. Hearn's party hid also come back from Scott Bar dissatisfied1, with the intention of going to Ingalls gulch, and fell in with a party that had just come down from Oregon. On the morning of the discovery the united companies were going from the creek up to Greenhorn, when one of them, Abraham Thompson, bore off to the right and was separated from the others. He con- cluded to prospect a little, an I washed three pans of dirt in the water running down a little ravine that has since been generally called Black gulch. The result was a gool prospect of coarse gold. He com- municated the intelligence to his companions, and the whole party visited the spot to see for them- selves. The amount washed out by Thompson was not very great, but the coarse gold convinced them that they had found a good place, an impression that was deepened when they observed little scales of gold clinging to the grass roots.
The men were nearly all new arrivals in the mines and were ignorant of mining methods and customs, but two or three who had been in the mines told them they must organize a district and make regulations. A meeting was therefore held the next day. The new diggings were called Thompson's Dry Diggings, and the size of claims was made thirty feet, the latter action being taken in deference to the superior wisdom of the favored few who had been in the mines and knew all about it, though they afterwards learned that they could have made them much larger. Thompson and his partner, Bell, were given three claims, the extra one for the discovery. Thus was launched upon the mining world the celebrated diggings of Yreka flats. How men poured in from all directions, an l Shasta Butte City sprang into being is detailed in the more particular history of Yreka, given in another por- tion of this volume.
There is one other element that entered into the development of this region that must not be over- looked, and that is the Gold Bluff excitement. In the month May, 1850, B. Nordheimer, J. H. Stinch- field, Charles D. Moore and a number of others were going up the sea-shore from Trinidad to the new town of Klamath City, when they observed gold in the sand on the ocean beach. They took some of this, but it was so mixed with fine gray and black sand that they could do nothing with it. They passed on, and no attempt was made to work the sea-shore deposit. In the fall, J. M. Maxwell and - Richardson went to the bluff and began operations. They soon found that it was but occa- sionally that the gold was visible. The bluff is sev- eral miles long and four hundred feet high, with but few feet between it and the sea. In times of storm at high tide the surf beats against the bluff and washes down the quartz that partially composes it.
63
HISTORY OF SISKIYOU COUNTY, CALIFORNIA.
The fine grains of gold that thus become mixed with the sand are sometimes brought to the surface by the action of the water and sometimes buried out of sight. Maxwell and Richardson watched their opportunity, and when the glistening particles appeared on top of the sand, they filled buckskin bags with the mixture of sand and gold, and car- ried it back on the bluff to be worked over at their leisure. The gold was so fine and the sand so heavy that they only saved a small per cent. of what the mixture contained. News of the wonderful beach of gold went to San Francisco, and a company was organized, that chartered the steamer Chesapeake, to explore the place. She arrived off Gold Bluff on the twenty-third of December, 1850, and the next morning sent a boat ashore. This was broken up in the surf, but the occupants succeeded in reaching the beach in safety. The others, not wishing to land in such a damp and dangerous manner, sailed for the mouth of the Klamath, but could not cross the bar. They then returned to Trinidad and went up the coast on foot with pack-mules owned by J. C. Campbell. The Chesapeake then returned to San Francisco to report the success of the expedi- tion. The Alta California contained the following, January 9, 1851 :-
A NEW EL DORADO .- We have been all along prepared to hear marvelous accounts of discoveries of gold; that it would be as abundant as lead seemed not altogether improbable; and we have looked forward to a time when a man would have to give a cart- load of the precious metal in exchange for a barrel of wheat. But there is nothing left for credulity now. The world has never heard of such wealth as lies on the shores of the Pacific.
It is well known that the steamer Chesapeake, with about thirty adventurers, left this port on the twenty-first ultimo, for the Klamth, and in yesterday's paper we gave some account of her progress. Scarcely was our paper issued when the Chesapeake came into port, bringing back five or six of the "prospecters," General John Wilson and John C. Collins, Esq, among the number. A meeting of the stockholders was called, to hear the result of the expedition, which meeting we attended, and if we can bring our ideas down to anything like reason, after hearing the wonderful details, we will let the public into the secret.
Twenty-seven miles beyond the Trinity, there is a beach sey- eral miles in extent and bounded by a high bluff. The sands of this beach are mixed with gold, to an extent almost beyond belief. The sands are of two kinds, a fine black sand and a gray sand. The gray sand can be separated very easily from the black sand, and this seems to be a desirable object. The gold is mixed with the black sand in proportions from ten cents to ten dollars to the pound. At times when the surf is high, the gold is not easily discovered, but in the Spring of the year, after a succession of calms, the entire beach is covered with a bright and yellow gold. Mr. Collins, the Secretary of the Pacific Mining Company, measured a patch of gold and sand, and estimates it will give to each member of the company the snug little sum of forty-three million dollars, and this estimate is formed npon a calculation that the sand holds out to be one-tenth as rich as observation war- rants them in supposing.
The Pacific Mining Company (the adventurers of the Chesa- peake have banded themselves together under this title) found some nineteen men at these diggings. The men had no disposition to dig, for the gold was all ready for them whenever they felt dis- posed to take it. Besides, such is the character of the roads, that they cannot take away more than seventy-five to one hundred pounds apiece-an amount too trifling for their consideration. They had erecte l a comfortable log cabin, and designed watching this claim till Spring, and then take a ship-load of the gold and travel to some country where the metal was not so abundant. Mr. Collins saw a man who had accumulated fifty thousand pounds, or fifty thousand tons-he did not recollect which-of the richest kind of black sand.
General Wilson says that thousands of men cannot exhaust this gold in thousands of years, and he gives all who doubt his statements the liberty of going and ascertaining these facts for themselves.
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