USA > Idaho > History of Washington, Idaho, and Montana : 1845-1889 > Part 26
USA > Montana > History of Washington, Idaho, and Montana : 1845-1889 > Part 26
USA > Washington > History of Washington, Idaho, and Montana : 1845-1889 > Part 26
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Owing to the lateness of the season and the hostil- ity of the Shoshones, whose territory bordered on the Salmon River basin, the question of the extent of these rich gold mines was necessarily left undeter- mined until spring should open the roads and
who took out six pounds of gold in two days.' Or. Argus, Nov. 16, 1861. 'William Purvine of Mossman's express writes. . . Men are now making (Oct. 10th) $30 to $150 per day to the hand with the old-fashioned rocker of 1849, and I verily believe that when water and ordinary improvements are brought to bear, that in many of the claims now being worked with rockers $1,000 & day to the hand will be realized as readily as a half-ounce is at Oro Fino or South Fork diggings. These are all gulch diggings, and easily worked. Twenty-five-cent dirt here is worth as much as $I dirt in the old mines.' Or. Statesman, Oct. 28, 1861; Portland Times, Nov. 25, 1861; S. F. Alta, Nov. 4 and Dec. 27, 1861; Boisé City Capital Chronicle, Aug. 4, 1869; Sucramento Union, Dec. 1, 1862.
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MINING AND TOWN-MAKING.
strengthen the hands of the miners. As far as could be judged from external appearances, there was an extent of country comprising a thousand square miles similar to that where the mines ivere being worked. This area was included in a basin rimmed with mountains that seemed, when viewed from a distance, like the broken walls of an extinct volcano, while the basin itself might have been the burnt-out crater. A deep cañion extended around inside and next to the mountain walls, and thrown up in the centre were countless small buttes, overgrown with small pine and tamarack trees. Fires had burned off the growth on some of them; others were covered with blackened stems, where the fire had only partially done its work, and others were green. Where the ground was bare of trees, bunch-grass had sprung up.
Between these buttes were the gulches in which the gold was found, being simply strips of lowland, covered with a tough sod from six to twelve inches in thickness. The lowest parts of these gulches were marshy or boggy. All of them had numerous rami- fications. Under the thick turf was a depth of from one to. six feet of loam, and under the loam a red gravel, in which was the gold, in small round particles and of a red color. Underneath this was a solid bed of white quartz gravel, or hard-pan, in place of bed- rock, of from six to eighteen inches in thickness, and under all another bed of loose quartz gravel mixed with water. Very little clay was found in the mines. The method resorted to for obtaining water for min- ing purposes was to dig holes or wells of a convenient depth, which soon filled from the moist gravel. The rockers were placed beside these holes, and the water used over and over until it became very thick, when the well was emptied and allowed to fill again over night.
The early part of the winter of 1861-2 was not severe. New diggings were discovered at Florence, thirty miles north of the first discovery, before pros-
249
GOLD AND POLITICS.
pecting was interrupted; and all during the month of December companies from the outside were exploring and opening routes to the mines, the most promising of which was by the old emigrant road to the Grand Rond Valley, thence by an Indian trail to Snake River and beyond, after which there were fifty miles to be opened over a range of mountains. December closed with the heaviest storms hitherto known in Oregon, extending over the whole north-west coast and California, snow and floods interrupting travel in every direction. At the time of this interruption to communication there were between 500 and 800 men in the Salmon River mines, and every kind of provis- ions was worth a dollar a pound, excepting beef, which was still cheap.
The sudden migration to Salmon River did not by any means depopulate the Clearwater mines, which continued to yield as well as at first.30 The return of many to winter in Oro Fino, where some mining could still be done, kept business alive in that district. Those who could afford to be idle went to Lewiston, which now, in spite of prohibition, was a growing town; while those who had accumulated large sums returned to the world and society to enjoy their wealth.
Politically, the effect of the Clearwater gold discov- ery was remarkable. Walla Walla county with Sho- shone attached elected four representatives, and with Missoula a joint councilman,31 more votes being cast
30 Or. Statesman, Oct. 14, 1861.
31 J. M. More of Walla Walla was councilman. The representatives were Gillam, Babcock, Beatty, and Smith. From the manuer of keeping the jour- nals of this session, it is impossible to learn to what counties the members of the legislature belonged, or their full names. A contest over a seat reveals as much as is here given; and if Stevens or Spokane county was represented, it does not appear on record. It should be explained that Stevens county, created in Jau. 1858, comprised the greater portion of the territory between the Cascade and Bitter Root mountains. The legislature of 1861-2 reestab- lished it of a lesser size and gave it the name of Spokane. At the following session its boundaries were rearranged and the name of Stevens restored to that portion lying east of the Columbia. The legislature of 1863-4 dispensed altogether with the county of Spokaue, which was reunited to Stevens; but in 1879 another Spokane county was taken from Stevens on the east side, with the county seat at Spokanc Falls.
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MINING AND TOWN-MAKING.
in the counties of Walla Walla and Shoshone than in any two west of the Cascades. A new county called Nez Percé was organized by the miners in the Oro Fino district during the summer,32 which was legally created and organized by the legislature the following winter, along with the county of Idaho, and the terri- tory was redistricted in order to give a federal judge to this region. The judicial districts as newly defined made the 1st, or mining district, embrace Walla Walla and the counties east of that, P. Oliphant presiding; Chief Justice James E. Wyche being assigned to the 2d, or Columbia River district, and C. C. Hewitt to the 3d, or Puget Sound district.33
The legislature found itself much embarrassed by the situation. Three judges had no more than sufficed when the business of the courts was confined to the region west of the Caseades, when suddenly the popu- lation east of the mountains became sufficient to re- quire, with the great extent of territory, two if not three more. One of the expedients proposed was to grant the probate courts of the several counties civil and criminal jurisdiction, provided the supreme court then in session should give a favorable opinion upon
32 The sheriff was Gillespie, the clerk Bradley, the justice of the peace Stone. Ralph Bledsoe was the first councilman elected frem Nez Percé county. Idahe county was was first called El Dorade.
33 McFadden, who was associate justice until 1858, was then made chief justice until 1862, with William Strong and Edmund C. Fitzhugh associate justices for the same period, and Charles S. Wced U. S. marshal. Fitzhugh, whom the reader will remember as identified with the development of coal and other interests about Bellingham Bay, aud as special Indian agent and aid of Gov. Stevens during the Indian war, was indicted and tried and ac- quitted, after his appointment, for killing a man named Wilson several years before in a quarrel. He was one of the seconds in the Broderick-Terry duel in San Francisco, a southerner, and having the convivial habits of his class, but withal considered a good man. The republican administration appointed Wyche chief justice, with Oliphant and Hewitt associates. Wyche was a Mississippian by birth, aud a union democrat. He was appointed frem Mieli- gan. His wife was a daughter ef W. W. Bancroft of Granville, Ohio. The clerk of the court in Walla Walla district was Bennett Sexton, whose wife was a sister of Mrs. Wyche. Sexton died in 1869. Wyche died of consump- tien Aug. 28, 1873, en the cars, while en route to the east. While residing at Vancouver he lost his eldest daughter; his wife and remaining daughter survived him but a short time; thus all the family passed rapidly away, and the old Harney Castle which they inhabited was soll. The United States district attorney appointed by the republican administration was John J. McGilvra of Chicago.
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COURTS AND ROADS.
the right of the territorial assembly, under the organic act, to confer such jurisdiction. By the advice of the federal judges, acts were passed establishing a district eourt at the county seat of each county, said court to have concurrent jurisdiction within its own boundaries, except in those cases where the United States was a party, in the same manner and to the same extent as before exercised by the federal district courts, with right of appeal to the supreme court of federal judges ; 34 the counties to pay the expenses of these eourts.
The assessed valuation of taxable property in the county of Walla Walla in 1861 was nearly half a mil- lion dollars, which must have been much less than the real value at the close of the year. Two steamboats were now running upon the upper Columbia, built at a cost of $60,000. Paek-trails had been opened through the hitherto inaccessible mountain regions, wagon-roads projected and to some extent completed to the most important points, and ferries established on all the rivers they intersected, and all chiefly by private enterprise.35 A company was incorporated to
3+ Wash. Ter. Stat., 1861-2, 9. A bill passed the council 'creating Judges of the Plains in Walla Walla county.' As the bill never became a law, the qualifications of this high-sounding order of judiciary are not known. Wash. Jour. Council, 1861-2, 213.
35 A reference to the local laws of IS61-2 shows that J. R. Bates, who was a member of the legislature at this term, was authorized to construct a bridge across the Spokane River on the road from Walla Walla to Colville. The right to keep ferries was granted as follows: To D. W. Litchenthaler and John C. Smith across Snake River opposite Powder River; to Green White and C. R. Driggs across Snake River at the mouths of Grand Rond River; to John Messenger and Walter H. Manly across Salmon River on the Nez Perce trail to Fort Boisé; to Gilmore Hays across Snake River within one mile from the junction of the Clearwater; to E. H. Lewis and Egbert French across the Columbia near The Dalles; to J. T. Hicklin across the Yakima between the mouths of the Ahtanaham and Nachess; to W. D. Bigelow across Snake River on the territorial road from Walla Walla to Colville; to Lyman Shaffer and W. F. Bassett across the south branch of the Clearwater on the main wagon- road from Lewiston to Oro Fino; to Orrington Cushman on the same strean at or near the camp of Lawyer; to W. W. De Lacy and Jared S. Hurd on Snake River at some point between Grand Rond and Powder rivers, to be selected by them; to W. W. De Lacy and his associates on Salmon River; to George A. Tykel to grade a bluff of Snake River in constructing a wagon-road and establishing a ferry over the same near the mouth of Powder River; to Richard Holmes and James Clinton across Salmon River on the Indian trail from Lapwai to Grand Rond Valley; to John Drumhaller on the main Clear- water two miles above Lewiston; to W. Greenville at or near the mouth of Slate Creek on Salmon River; to Sanford Owens to build a bridge across the
252
MINING AND TOWN-MAKING.
construct a railroad from old Fort Walla Walla to the town of that name, which was eventually built and operated. Printing-presses had been taken to Walla Walla, and public journals established,36 and the place became an incorporated city, and a county seat by act of legislature in January.
Two thirds more population was contained in the counties east of the mountains in December than in the whole lower Columbia and Puget Sound region, settled sixteen years before. And the empire-makers, believing that they had no interest in Puget Sound, but that Olympia was too distant a capital, instructed their representatives to endeavor to get a memorial to congress from the legislature, asking that the east- ern division of the territory might be set off and organ- ized as an independent political entity. The council, however, declared that no good reason existed for a separation, which could not benefit the transmontane portion, and would seriously retard the growth and improvement of the Puget Sound region, in which all had a mutual interest as a seaboard,37 and refused to sanction the prayer to congress. It consented, instead, to ask that body to establish a land-office at Walla WValla for the convenience of those desiring to take farms in either of the new counties east of the Cas- cades, which in due time was granted.
It would be impossible to imagine greater hardships than were endured by a certain number of over-san- guine persons who took the risk of remaining in the Salmon River Mountains without an adequate supply of food. Men continued to force their way in until February. After that for several weeks the trails
south branch of the Clearwater on the road from Lewiston to Elk City. The rates for foot-passengers on these ferries were generally 50 ets, loose cattle 50 cts, two-horse wagon $2.50, four-horse wagon $3.50, six-horse wagon $4.50, horse and buggy $2.25, pack-animal 75 cts.
36 The Walla Walla Messenger, hy R. B. Smith; the Northern Light, by Daniel Dodge; and the Washington Statesman, by Northup, Rees & Co. The latter afterward became the Walla Wa'la Statesman.
37 Wash. Jour. Council, ISG1-2, 312-13.
253
SNOW AND STARVATION.
were obliterated or blockaded by snow, and those who had neither money nor provisions suffered all the hor- rors of slow starvation. And this state of affairs lasted until May. G. A. Noble started on the 21st of December to go from Oro Fino to Florence,39 the latest new town which had sprung up in the Salmon River district, having with him a small pack-train. He was ten days toiling through snow-drifts a distance of 125 miles, and would have perished but for assist- ance from Indians.
He found a town regularly laid out, with building lots recorded and fenced in, all under a city govern- ment. The buildings were of logs, dragged half a mile on hand-sleds. By the last of January nothing to eat could be purchased, excepting flour at $2 a pound. Some of the miners earned enough to keep soul and body together by warming water to wash out the gold from earth, obtained with much exertion and ex- posure by digging down through several feet of snow. The consequence of this, and of insufficient food, was rheumatism, scurvy, and diseases of the chest.33 Dur- ing the latter part of winter the snow was from seven to ten feet deep; yet some men who lived on a scanty supply of bread and weak coffee without sugar, in trying to provide themselves with these necessaries, were compelled to remove this amount of snow from their claims in order to work them enough to pay for such food.
It was not until the first of May that pack-trains could come to within ten or twelve miles of Florence. For the remainder of the distance the goods were car-
38 According to Elliott's Hist. of Idaho, Florence was named after a step- daughter of Furber, formerly of Siskiyou co., Cal., who came with her mother to Salmon River in May 1862; but as the town was laid off and named some months before that date, this statement seems questionable.
39 Noble says that in one case of sickness the patient had lived for five weeks on flour, and tea made by steeping the young leaves of the fir. Another had lived on flour and snow-water for two months. A young man whose home was one of plenty complained of 'nothing but a kind of weakness all over,'which prevented his getting out of his cabin. He had lived two weeks on four pounds of flour and the inner bark of the pine tree, with snow-water for drink.
254
MINING AND TOWN-MAKING.
ried in on the backs of men, at forty cents a pound trans- portation, and the starving were glad to perform this labor for the wages.40 These were only incidents of mining life, and did not affect the reputation of the mines, which in the spring of 1862 drew a wild crusade of gold worshippers toward them from every hand. The steamship Cortés, as early as February 13th, landed 700 California miners at Portland, and proceeded to Bellingham Bay with still another company, destined for Cariboo. There was plenty of ground from which to choose, for eastern Oregon as well as Washington and British Columbia was now known to be a gold-field. In April the regular line carried 600 or 700 on each trip, and on the 5th of May three ocean steamers, the Panamá, Oregon, and Sierra Nevada, were at Portland together, their passengers crowding up the Columbia day and night as fast as the river steamboats could carry them, and on the 6th the Brother Jonathan arrived with another 600.
It was in vain that the newspapers in California and Oregon endeavored to check the rush, at least until the roads in the upper country were opened to travel. The Portland Advertiser of the 14th of March published a fair warning, that the snow at The Dalles was still two feet deep, and from one to four feet be- tween there and Lewiston, with a greater amount in the mountains east of Lewiston; that provisions along the whole distance were exhausted, and no entertain- ment could be had, nor any transportation, not even on riding or pack animals, the cattle being all either frozen or too thin to travel; that the weather was still severe, and no wood along the route from The Dalles to Lewiston, except at long intervals a few willow poles; and those who should undertake to walk would be in danger of perishing with cold. But miners had been pouring into Oregon for a month when this no- tice was given, and they were not likely to stop then, when spring was so near. Nor did they. The Dalles
" Or. Argus, March 22, April 12, and May 31, 1862.
255
WAITING FOR SPRING.
was at one time so crowded with people unable to pay the high prices of provisions that a mob was raised, who proceeded to help themselves at the stores. In general, however, men bore their privations with dogged endurance, hoping for better things.
Nor were the Oregonians more prudent than strangers who knew less of the country, the climate, and the phenomenal effects of the floods and frosts of the winter of 1861-2. Some had mining claims to which they were anxious to return; others, farmers, had lost heavily by the floods of December, and were in haste to retrieve their fortunes. Traders were de- sirous of being first to bring their goods to a market where gold-dust was more plentiful than flour, sugar, or bacon ;41 and all had good reasons for their precipi- tancy in the matter of getting to the mines. Most of those crowded into The Dalles began moving for- ward about the 17th of March, when a saddle-train arrived from Walla Walla, bringing the first passen- gers that had come through since the disasters of January. 42 They brought 400 pounds of gold-dust, sufficient apology for the haste of the crusaders. By the 22d a change in the weather had left the roads in an almost impassable state, and the streams too high to be forded. Fortunately for those not already upon the way, the steamboat Colonel Wright succeeded about this date in forcing a passage from Celilo to old Fort Walla Walla, where J. M. Vansyckle had laid off a town called Wallula, and was making improvements at the landing,43 and regular navigation to this point was soon resumed, although the water in the Snake River was still too low to admit of a passage to Lew- iston. At this place during the winter the suffering had been great from want of adequate shelter, most of the population living in tents. Fuel was scarce,
41 Flour sold at Walla Walla on the 3d of March for $24 per pound. Or. Statesman, March 24, 1862.
42 Ilist. Or., ii., ch. xix., 484, this series.
43 ' Mr and Mrs Charles Pope recently held a "drawing-room" entertain- ment at Wallnla, in the cabin of a wharf-boat, the only building of any note in that city.' Or. Statesman, May 26, 1862.
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MINING AND TOWN-MAKING.
and provisions both scarce and high.44 At length, when the snow melted in the upper country, the Co- lumbia rose to a stage which in May inundated Lew- iston, The Dalles, and the lower portions of Portland.
The first trains reached Powder River about the last of April; the first that arrived at Salmon River not before the middle of May, the goods being carried, as I have said, on the backs of starving men the last twelve or fifteen miles, many of them becoming snow- blind while performing this labor. When the product of the winter's work, with all its disadvantages, began to appear, it increased the mining furore. The differ- ent gulches in the Florence district were found to yield per day to the rocker from $30 to $250. Some great strikes were made, as when Weiser took out of Baboon Gulch $6,600 in one day, and half that amount in another, one panful of dirt yielding $500. The average yield of these placers was $75 per diem.45
Prospecting began by the middle of May. In the latter part of June there were thousands of men ranging the country in every direction. Some put their number at 25,000. It is more probable that in the autumn, after the emigration from California and the east was all in, there were 20,000 persons in the
44 S. F. Bulletin, March 31, 1862.
43 A few items may be worth preserving as a part of the country's physical history. Baboon Gulch was named after an old Dutch miner known as Baboon, who left the diggings in the spring with 75 lbs of gold-dust. The claim was purchased by Gideon Tibbits while it was still yielding $1,000 daily. Miller Gulch, named after one of the discoverers, Joseph Miller, yielded him $7,000 and he sold it for $4,000. Claims on the creek were held at from $15,000 to $30,000. Wells, Fargo & Co. brought down from these mines on the 20th of May 120 lbs of gold-dust, and about the same amount from the Nez Perce mines, besides that in the hands of eighty passengers. It was estimated that $500,000 passed through The Dalles every week. Or. Statesman, June 2 and July 7, 1862. The Julia brought down from The Dalles 1,000 pounds of the dust on the 30th of July. Portland Oregonian, July 31, 1862. There were 186 claims on Miller's Creek, worked by 538 men, the yield for 8 months being $2,785,536. A general average of the product of the Florence mines would give 3,000 miners something over $1.000 for a season's work. But there really was no general average, some getting little and some much, as in every other business; the newspapers contained stories of individual success that would fill a volume. Gold-dust was weighed by the pound at Florence. Farnham's Florence and Warren, MS., i. 'I saw two inen walk out of Millersburg with 50 pounds of gold-dust ' Mrs Schultz, in Early Anecdotes, MS., 3.
257
POWDER RIVER MINES.
mines of Clearwater, Salmon, Powder, and John Day rivers. 46
From these mines, the accounts received were gen- erally flattering, though occasionally a disappointed adventurer expressed his disgust at adverse fortune in terms more forcible than elegant. As to Powder River, after it had been pretty well prospected it was set down as rich, but not of the extraordinary richness of Salmon River. Water was scarce, and until ditches were constructed to carry water from Elk Creek to the flat below, where the claims were located, no sluicing or rapid work could be accomplished. There were about 1,000 persons in the Powder River mines by the middle of June. Among them were many from the mines of Washoe in Nevada.47 Others followed during the summer, and a considerable proportion of these settled in eastern Oregon,48 in the neighborhood of the mines.49 They found a beautiful country of rolling plains, and long sunny slopes partially wooded with stately pines, of fertile valleys, and free-flowing streams of excellent water at frequent intervals; and last, but not least, unlimited grazing, making this the stock-raiser's paradise. Several important discoveries
46 Ind. Aff. Rept, 1862, 422-3; Or. Statesman, June 2, 1862; Bristow's Rencounters, MS., 15.
47 The most famous man on the Pacific coast, after James Marshall, was H. M. Comstock, who tried his luck in Oregon, which had failed to make him rich in Nevada. He was very active locating both placer and quartz mines, constructing ditches, and making other improvements. He surveyed a road from Powder River shorter and better than the old one, expending $8,000 upon it, and petitioning the Oregon legislature for a charter. The matter was placed in the hands of J, M. Kirkpatrick, elected from Baker county, organized by the mining population in 1862, who was not admitted to a seat, and the charter was lost. Comstock and Lytle opened the first quartz vein in which free gold was visible, on Powder River. Or. Statesman, June 16, 1862. On the 11th of August he discovered another lode, from which he took $450 the same day. S. F. Bulletin, Aug. 27, 1862. It does not appear that this mine mnade Comstock rich, or that any mine ever could.
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