An illustrated history of north Idaho : embracing Nez Perces, Idaho, Latah, Kootenai and Shoshone counties, state of Idaho, Part 9

Author:
Publication date: 1903
Publisher: [S.l.] : Western Historical Pub. Co.
Number of Pages: 1524

USA > Idaho > Kootenai County > An illustrated history of north Idaho : embracing Nez Perces, Idaho, Latah, Kootenai and Shoshone counties, state of Idaho > Part 9
USA > Idaho > Nez Perce County > An illustrated history of north Idaho : embracing Nez Perces, Idaho, Latah, Kootenai and Shoshone counties, state of Idaho > Part 9
USA > Idaho > Shoshone County > An illustrated history of north Idaho : embracing Nez Perces, Idaho, Latah, Kootenai and Shoshone counties, state of Idaho > Part 9
USA > Idaho > Latah County > An illustrated history of north Idaho : embracing Nez Perces, Idaho, Latah, Kootenai and Shoshone counties, state of Idaho > Part 9

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Two towns sprang up in the district about the same time, namely, Oro Fino and Pierce City. The former was built on placer ground, a fact which fur- nishes the probable reason for its short life. At any rate, its business men moved to its sister town in course of a few years, making permanent the com- munity bearing the name of him who pioneered the way for the mining population, while the old Oro Fino City gradually decayed and eventually became a memory. It is a rather strange fact that, though the two towns were very near together, there never was the bitter rivalry between them which has usually char-

acterized communities so situated. Pierce City later became the county seat of Shoshone county, retaining the dignity and prestige incident thereto until the dis- covery of the Coeur d'Alene mines. In June a road was built along the Clearwater from the mouth of that river to Pierce City and by July so many merchants had endeavored to better their fortunes by furnishing the new district with goods that the market was over- supplied. notwithstanding the thousands of men who were seeking gold in all the neighboring gulches and on all the surrounding hills. Two saw-mills were in process of erection to supply the miners with lumber for sluice boxes, etc. But little household furniture was needed as there were only three families in the community.

In an article in the Portland Oregonian of August 31. 1861, G. C. Robbins made the statement that dur- ing that month twenty-five hundred practical miners were at work on Rhodes creek, Oro Fino creek, Canal gulch, and French creek and that four or five thousand men were making a living in other ways. His report on the earnings of the miners was as follows: Jarvis & Company, four men, $10 per diem to the man; James & Company, 5 men, $10; McCarty & Company, 4 men, SI0; Vesay & Company, 8 men, $7 to $8; Hook & Company, 6 men. $10 to $12; Jones & Company, 4 men, $10 to $12; Dunbar & Asar, $10 to $12; Shaffer & Company, 14 men, $60; Paine & Company, 20 men, $70 ; Mortimer & Company, 24 men, $70 to $8; Hatch & Company, 5 men, $16 to $20; Thomas & Campany, 14 men, $18 to $20; Rillery & Company, 17 men, $16 to $20 : Smalley & Company, 10 men, $16; Boone & Company, 8 men, $16; California Company, 9 men, $16: Newland & Company, 6 men, $16; Hickox & Company, 5 men. $16 to $20; Let 'Er Rip Company, II men, $16 to $20: Hoyt & Company, 8 men, $12; Felton & Company, $16; Sparks & Company, $15; Rossi & Company, $15; Rhodes & Company, II men, 300 ounces per diem to the company. On French creek, Antoine Pillir, T. Lapoint, M. Guinon, John Lesot, and Harkum & Quick were making $10 to $12 a day to the man.

It is not in the nature of mining men that they should confine themselves to one mining district, how- ever rich. Pierce himself was of the opinion that his discovery was on the outer edge of an extensive gold- bearing country and there were plenty of others who held like views and were willing to give time and effort to the testing of their theory. In May, 1861, a com- pany of fifty-two such men set out from Oro Fino to explore and prospect the south fork of the Clear- water and tributary streams. The locality was almost as little known as any on the American continent or in the heart of darkest Africa. Remote from the or- dinary routes of travel, it was also distant from the trails of the fur hunter so that probably no white foot had ever before pressed its soil. The gold seekers fol- lowed the north side of their stream for several miles, then crossed over to the south side, proceeding thence to the mouth of the south fork, up which branch they traveled until they reached the Indian village of Chief Coolcoolsneenee. Here their progress was stayed for a

HISTORY OF NORTH IDAHO.

time by the strennous opposition of the chieftain, who emphatically informed them that they were violating the treaty in carrying on their operations south of the Clearwater. Persuasion and argument proving of no avail in pacifying the chief, more than half the party turned back. The remainder crossed to the north side of the stream and continued on east by one of the Nez Perce trails to the point where the three branches of the south fork, American and Red rivers and Elk creek, form a junction. Prospecting in this vicinity re- sulted in the discovery of earths yielding from twelve to twenty-five cents to the pan. The first gold is said to have been found at the bottom of Ternan hill at the mouth of Glass gulch, close to the present bridge over the American river on the road to Dixie.

Prominent members of this party of discovery were Captain L. B. Monson, Moses Milner, Charles B. Hand and Charles Painter. The return of a third of the men to Oro Fino for supplies caused the news of the find to become spread abroad, precipitating a rush. We are informed that three days after the first dis- covery Philip S. Pritchard, with Samuel Warfield and his son, William, Charles Bogart, Horace Myrtle, Will- iam Kay, John Gamboel and Felix G. Berger, reaching the spot, staked out two claims above Buffalo gulch and eight below it on the American river. They be- gan working together forthwith.

A mining recorder's office was established at once, with Captain L. B. Monson as the first recorder. The first record was dated June 14, 1861, and described placer ground on the American river to be worked by the following men: Moses Wright, Charles Silver- man, Charles Gwin, John Gordon, George Robertson, Mat. Craft, N. Harris, John McKray, G. N. Stubbs and Frank Presley.

Shortly after the discovery two brothers, James and William Galbraith, started an express. Inside of ten days more than three hundred people were en route to or already at the South Fork diggings, but the popu- lation of tlie new eldorado was kept down considerably by the righteous opposition of the Indians to the presence of white men in their reserved territory. Good reports, however, continued to come in and the passion for gold soon overcame any scruples about trespassing, so that by fall a town became a necessity. Elk City was accordingly laid out, its location being between Elk and American rivers, about a mile from the lower end of a small prairie, perhaps five or six miles long by a mile wide.

"On every side of this locality," says Bancroft, rose ledges of pale red or rose quartz. Between the mountains were intervals of beautiful, grassy prairies ; on the mountains heavy forests of pine. Game abounded, the principal being elk, of which there were large bands. The country was, in fact, very different from the California miners' preconceived notion of a gold country ; but experience had proved that gold might exist under barren sands, rich alluvium, or the the frozen mosses of a caribou. The objection to the country was that the mining season, so far up in the mountains, innst be comparatively short, and in order to make up for the expense of a long idle winter, it

was important to secure a considerable sum during the summer. It was also necessary to lay in a stock of provisions to last while the heavy snows suspended travel.'

Joel D. Martin tells us that when he came to the town in the early summer of 1862, he found mercan- tile establishments belonging to Clindinning, Magruder & Wickersham. Straven & Company, Creighton & Company, a man named Claflin and others, besides five saloons and two principal hotels, Ralph's and the Marsten house. The camp's prosperity was at its height during the mining season of 1862, for that fall discoveries in what is now Montana made wholesale drafts upon the population of this and other mining communities in north Idaho. But the years 1864 and 1865 nevertheless witnessed a greater production of gold, as hydraulics were placed in operation during the former twelvemonth, displacing the primeval rocker.

The Elk City mining district was distinguished above all others by the extent of its ditch contruction. The largest of these acqueducts was the American river ditch, which took its waters out of the stream of . that name at a point about nine miles above the camp. Mr. Martin tells us that it was dug with pick and shovel at a cost of between thirty thousand and forty thousand dollars and that between two hundred thou- sand and three hundred thousand feet of lumber were used in the construction of its flumes. For the pro- duction of this lumber a saw-mill was built, operated by a turbine water wheel. The originators of the scheme were E. W., W. P. and Doctor Bell and Ross- well Hewett. Its construction was commenced in 1863 and during the mining season following it was pouring its water upon the placer grounds of American hill.

Next in size was the Elk creek ditch, the waters of which were used in the Buffalo hill mines, valuable placer deposits taken up in 1861-2 by Jake Hoffman, S. S. Shaun, Joseph Nelson, Chatham W. Ewing, John and Abe Champion, Horatio Phinney, - - Mon- tagne and others, and first worked by a ditch from Buf- falo creek. three miles from the hill. The Elk creek ditch was ten and a half iniles long, three feet wide on the bottom and thirty inches deep. The company or- ganized for its construction was capitalized at eleven thousand dollars, but it soon became so embarrassed by lack of funds that its project was all but abandoned. At this juncture Caleb Witt came to the rescue, fur- . nishing enough money to start the ball rolling again and to establish confidence and credit. The company was by this means enabled to push the ditch to com- pletion, and by the spring of 1863 it was available for use. For many years Buffalo hill was very profitably worked and thousands of dollars' worth of dust have been taken out of it. In 1872 the Witts secured con- trol of both ditches and claims, retaining them until 1880, when they were transferred by lease to China- men.

Besides these was the Little Elk creek ditch with a capacity of three hundred or four hundred inches, promoted by Dan Waldo and Bart Whittier ; also a short ditch of three hundred inches capacity, the water of which was taken out of Kirk's fork of the American

HISTORY OF NORTH IDAHO.

river and carried upon Nez Perce hill, there to be used in operating the Hairland mine. This property had been discovered by the man whose name it bore in 1861 and purchased in 1862 by Magruder, Martin and Kirkpatrick, by which triumvirate the ditch was constrticted.

The same causes that impelled the discoverers of the Elk City placer deposits to their successful quiest were operative to keep other parties scottring the coun- try in all directions throughout the whole of the sum- mer of 1861. The theory that the Clearwater mines were on the outskirts of some auriferous region, the center of which would be found wonderfully rich, seems to have taken firm hold on the minds of the prospectors and many were the attemps to verify it. One of the parties engaged in this task succeeded in discovering a gold deposit which far surpassed in richness all former finds, and caused a rush the fol- lowing spring of unprecedented magnitude. One story of this discovery was told in the Oregonian, of October 26, 1861, by a correspondent who signed him- self "T. H. M." Though the account is discredited in some of its deatils by men having good opportunity to know the truth, it is thought advisable to repro- duce it here :

MILLERSBURG, W. T., Oct. 5, 1861.

Editor Oregonian :-

The Salmon River mines, which are now attracting the the attention of miners, traders, and business men generally in this upper country, are located on some small streams and gulches, coming out of a western spur of the Bitter Root mountains, and running into the main stream, distant from fifteen to twenty miles. They are ahout seventy-five miles from Lewiston, in a southeastern course about one hundred and twenty-five miles south from Oro Fino, and nearly seventy-five miles from Elk City.

The discovery of those mines was first made by a pros- pecting party of twenty-three men, who left Oro Fino in the early part of July last, for a tour up Salmon river. They prospected on the bars of this river for a distance of perhaps one hundred miles, with flattering results. When satisfied that good paying mines had been found, they followed the river down, and when opposite this, they were determined on finding a near route to Elk City, for the purpose of ob- taining provisions, which by this time. had become a scarce article with them. When they reached this place, the party separated, nine of them remaining behind to hunt and to find an easy route through the almost impassible masses of dead timber, which lay in the way. Two of the company, while lying in camp, made a wager between them that the 'color' could not be 'raised' in the miserable looking country. The wager was won by the prospector obtaining from a pan of dirt, taken from beneath the roots of an upturned tree, the sum of five cents. The party then prospected several creeks and gluches in the immediate vicinity, obtaining five, ten, twenty-five and even seventy-five cents to the pan of dirt. Satisfied even better with this than with the diggings on the main river, they followed the other party out. After re- cruiting a short time, they purchased a supply of tools, pro- visions, etc. necessary for four weeks' stay, and returned closely followed by some six or seven others to this land of golden promise.

After their return, prospecting was resumed in real earnest, and all here are now satisfied that these will prove the richest and most extensive mines yet found north of California. All claim that the center of the vast gold field has at last been found, and this it is, while the Oro Fino and South Fork diggings are on the outer edge.

Only a radius of about four miles has yet been pros- pected, yet all the gulches, ravines and creeks inside of this

will pay well for working. Miller's creek is perhaps the richest. From the first pan of dirt taken out of the first hole sunk in this creek, twenty-five dollars was obtained. Miller washed out with the pan that afternoon $100. Claims were immediately staked off on this creek and the party went to work. Each claim has since averaged with the rocker from seventy-five dollars to one hundred dollars to the hand. Babboon gulch is next in richness. I have seen seventy-five dollars washed out in ten hours by one man using the pan alone. Nasan's gulch pays well. Five men have just cleaned up seven hundred dollars, the result of ten hours work with the rocker in this gulch. Hall's gulch, Smith's gulch, Pio- neer gulch and Healey's creek will pay each at least three ounces to the hand.

There are at the present time about fifty men here. Pro- visions are not to be had at any price. Parties are now fitting up pack trains and sending out for such articles as are needed. It will require about three hundred weight of flour for each man this winter. The route here is good over fifty miles of an Indian trail; the remaining portion of the trail is now be- ing made. Pack trains can get in here until the 20th of No- vember easily.

We expect a large acceleration to our numbers from Elk City and Oro Fino soon. A town has been laid out the name of which heads this letter.

To find the truth concerning this famous discovery and be sure one has it is not an easy task. The differ- ent stories are so hopelessly at variance that they can never be harmonized, but one apparently worthy of credence was published in the Free Press of July 5. 1889, on the authority of Nathan Smith, who claimed to have led the party which made the discovery.

"Mr. Smith and a partner named Jack Reynolds," says the paper referred to, "Left Oro Fino on a pros- pecting trip towards the little north fork of the Clear- water and found prospects, but as the water was too high for them to continue farther they returned to Pierce City for supplies, intending to return to their prospects later. Arriving at Pierce City they found a company organizing for an extended exploring and prospecting trip toward the Salmon river country, and as they were afraid of the Indians who had driven back several small parties, they were waiting for re- inforcements, and Mr. Smith was considered such an admirable recruit that he was elected to command the expedition. They pulled out of Pierce City, twenty- three in number, crossed the Clearwater at the mouth of the Lolo and went on across Camas prairie to the Sal- mon. They continued up the Salmon to the mouth of Slate creek, where Mr. Smith found a good prospect of shot gold, but as it was intolerably hot in the can- yon he decided on taking the party into the mountains and prospecting for gold on the headwaters of Slate creek. Here dissensions arose, as the majority of the company wanted to keep to the river and prospect for bar claims. The outfit hung together, however, and continued up the Salmon to the mouth of Meadow creek, and there they climbed the ridge to the summit, pretty much as the Warren trail runs today, and made their first camp on Sand creek, then a marsh. The next morning the majority of the party under the lead of a Frenchman had decided to return to the river, de- claring there was no gold in the basin. This was August 20th and they were going to break camp and take the back track at noon. Smith and a few others decided to remain and prospect further. That same

HISTORY OF NORTH IDAHO.

morning Joe Richardson got a four-bit prospect on Pioneer gulch and Smith also panned out six bits in another gulch. Upon returning to camp at noon the other party were speedily convinced that there was gold in the basin, and that same afternoon, George Grigsby, the biggest kicker in the outfit, saw some fine looking gravel at the roots of a fallen tree in Bashaw gulch from which he washed four bits to the pan, and on the strength thereof has claimed for him- self the title of the discoverer of Florence, which rightfully belongs to Mr. Smith. Enough was now known to convince them that they had struck it big and after staking claims enough to go around they started for Elk City for supplies."

Joshua Fockler, who was one of the earliest set- tlers in Florence, discredits both these accounts. He says he remembers distinctly the story told him by several reliable men shortly after the find and that it was to this effect : Florence was discovered in August, 1861, by a party of five persons, three of whom were John Healey, James Ayers and a man named Grigsby. They were a detachment of a party of nineteen which started from Elk City and the Clearwater to prospect the Salmon river country, traveling via Camas prairie and White Bird creek. When they reached a point six miles above the mouth of Little Salmon river where August Berg now lives they undertook to cut across and reach Elk City again. They found the country too rough, so returned to the Salmon, which they ascended to Kelley's creek, going thence up that stream. On Little Slate creek the party disagreed and divided. The five referred to above continued to prospect the region. When they reached what after- ward became known as Pioneer gulch, John Healey saw a tree that had been uprooted by the wind. He noticed that the gravel exposed showed good indica- tions, so he tried a panful and found it very rich. After testing the ground in numerous places, the party started back to Elk City. At what is now known as Buffalo Hump they fell in with the fourteen who had separated from them and told these of their good for- tune. All went to Elk together, agreeing among them- selves to tell nobody of the discovery until spring, when they would return and locate the best ground for themselves. But none of them lived up to this agreement and soon all started back with their friends. In September of the same year Nathan Smith, Miller, Graham and others from Oro Fino made a discovery on Miller's creek, in the Florence country, but they were a month later than the Pioneer gulch dis- coverers.

The news is said to have reached Oro Fino in September. Soon that town and Elk City were almost deserted. By the Ist of November, the creeks and gulches of the new district were swarming with men. The merchants, in accordance with the usual custom, had begun hurrying in supplies, but the impossibility of getting enough into camp to feed the multitudes before the snowfall had stopped the passage of trains was plainly apparent, and by the middle of November many perceived the necessity of returning to Oro Fino to winter. The snow was even then two feet deep

and the cold so severe that travelers were frequently frostbitten seriously.

Soon after the inception of the camp a miners' meeting was held at which it was decided to lay out a town on Summit flat at the head of Babboon gulch. Among those present was Dr. Ferber, one of the oldest men and first arrivais in the camp, and he was called upon to suggest a name for the town to be. He sug- gested Florence, the name of his adopted daughter, then in California. The word seemed to have a pleas- ing sound to the ears of the miners. It was adopted forthwith and from the richness of the ground around it soon became a household word in Washington, Oregon, California and many parts of the east. John Creighton, Ralph Bledsoe. and S. S. or Three-Fingered Smith were among the earliest merchants in the camp.

The number coming into camp was far in excess of those departing, far in excess of the number that could be well fed, and the result was great suffering and hardship. The prices prevailing for all kinds of provisions were enormous. Mr. Pierce says the prices of commodities were $75 for a fifty-pound sack of flour ; gum boots, $50; camp kettles, $30; bacon, $3 a pound ; ordinary tin cups, $3 each ; frying pans, $10 to $12 ; sugar, $3 a pound ; beans, $3 a pound, and all other provisions and supplies in proportion. Vegetables were not to be obtained at any price. Many were with- out other means of support than the gold obtained from their mines, so that notwithstanding ten feet of snow, they must dig down to pay dirt and wash out enough of the precious metal to purchase at enormous prices the means of subsistance. Sometimes boiling water was used to soften the frozen earth, as has been done in Alaska during recent years. The exposure and hardship resulted in rheumatism, throat, bronchial and lung diseases, which caused a high mortality There was a large representation of the ruffian ele- ment in Florence during the winter. Plummer, Stand- ifer, Mat Bledsoe, Cherokee Bob and others of like character were there, demeaning themselves accord- ing to the dictations of their own unrestrained wills. The sufferings were enough to drive even good men to acts of desperation and it was stated that the store- houses of the merchants were more than once in danger of mob violence.

By great effort men forced their way into Florence until February ; then the trails became so badly oblit- erated or blocked with snow that the feat of reach- ing the mines was no longer possible and the Florence community was completely isolated from the rest of the world. But long before this the entrance of pack trains was all but an impossibility. It is related that G. A. Noble started late in December on a trip from Oro Fino to Florence with a small pack train. For ten days he toiled through snow drifts before reaching his destination, being indebted for his life to assistance rendered by the Indians.

Even before communication was completely barred, the only article of food that could be purchased was flour at $2 a pound, and as time proved there was no hope of a change in conditions until May. By the first of that month, however, pack trains managed to

HISTORY OF NORTH IDAHO.

force their way to within ten miles or so of Florence, and the starving miners were glad to transport the goods the rest of the way on snow shoes for the price offered, forty cents a pound.

But no tales of hardship could deter the hosts of eager wealth seekers in all parts of the Northwest and in California and Nevada from flocking by the thousands to this new land of gold. Little they thought of the harships endured already by men in the Flor- ence basin, or of those which they themselves might be called upon to endure in the pursuit of mammon. Their imaginations were fired by the stories of for- tunes made in a day. And indeed the success achieved by miners was such as might well appeal to the avarice of men. A correspondent of the Portland Times stated through the columns of that paper that while he was at the Salmon river mines in October, 1861, he had known of his own knowledge that some claims yielded thirty to eighty dollars to the pan. It was stated that a man named Weiser, after whom the town of Weiser in Washington county was named, took out one thousand eighteen hundred dollars from his claim in three hours, with a rocker, two men operating it ; also that a single panful of dirt from Babboon gulch was found to contain one hundred and fifty-one dollars and fifty cents. George W. Pierce told the writer that Three- Fingered Smith, who owned about the richest claim in the camp, kept three rockers at work all winter and that each of the rockers averaged a thousand dollars a day. "It was no uncommon thing," says Bancroft, "to see, on entering a miner's cabin, a gold washing pan measuring eight quarts, full to the brim or half filled with gold dust washed out in one or two weeks. All manner of vessels, such as oyster cans and yeast powder boxes or pickle bottles, were in demand in which to store the precious dust. A claim was held in small esteem that yielded only twelve dollars per day, as some claims did, while hundreds of others yielded from one to four ounces for a day's labor." Many of the stories which gained currency at the time seemed like veritable fairy tales, but men who were in Flor- ence during the fall and winter seem to have no hesi- tancy in fully crediting them. The gold deposits were so very rich that the would-be boomer, if any such there was, was outdone by the simple truth itself.

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An illustrated history of north Idaho : embracing Nez Perces, Idaho, Latah, Kootenai and Shoshone counties, state of Idaho, Part 9

Author: Publication date: 1903 Publisher: [S.l.] : Western Historical Pub. Co. Number of Pages: 1524

Author:
Publication date: 1903
Publisher: [S.l.] : Western Historical Pub. Co.
Number of Pages: 1524