PROSPECTING FOR GOLD--SOME HARD EXPERIENCES
After we left uncle in the mining district called Fair Play, we crossed
back over the McCosma River to Boland's Run and went over to Four Spring
Valley and prospected for some time before we struck any gold that paid.
We finally struck a claim that paid six dollars a day to the hand, clear
of water. We had to buy water from a dike that was dug around on the
side of the mountain and which cost us four dollars a day. We worked on
this claim about three weeks, when the dike broke between where we were
at work and the head of the dike where the dam was made across the
McCosma River to turn the water out into the dike. We could not work any
more until the dike was mended.
My brother, Crawford Bailey and Wint Crumly went out prospecting. They
went back across the McCosma River into Fair Play district, where we had
parted with Uncle Joshua, a distance of fourteen miles. They struck a
surface digging, and they wrote me and I went to them. We had to buy
water at the same price, one dollar an inch, or four dollars a day. This
claim was richer of gold. We made nine dollars a day to the hand, clear
of water.
We finally heard that the dike was mended over at Four Springs Valley
and I went over and sold our provisions and collected sixty dollars we
had loaned to a miner by the name of Thomas Brison. We did not go back
to Four Springs Valley to work any more, but remained on the claim at
Fair Play, until in June, when the water gave out and we could not get
water to wash any longer. We then concluded to go north on to the
American, Uby and Feather rivers and prospect and see if we could strike
claims where we could get water to wash with.
The American River was the next river after leaving the McCosma. When we
came to the American River, up in the gold region, where we were
crossing, the mountains were very steep and looked like they were
straight up. We had to travel six miles to get from the bottom of the
mountain to its top. But when we got to the American River district,
every place we went, we found it claimed up and plenty of miners at work
to do all the work there was to do. We could neither find claims to work
for ourselves, nor could we hire out to work for any one else.
We left the American River and went over the mountains to the Uby River.
When we got on top of the mountains and started down toward Uby River,
we had a hard time finding the path. There was so much gravel and rock
and so little soil or dirt, it was almost impossible to see where
footmen had made the path. Far toward the west end of the mountain, pack
animals could get on top and then travel east ward from where we were
crossing, but nothing except footmen and Indians could cross on the
trail we were using.
Woodmen had packed their wagons and tools up this mountain somewhere to
the westward, to the point where we were crossing, and had cut sawlogs
and hauled or rolled them nearby. Then by rolling the logs three or four
rods on sloping ground, they would fall straight down to the river
bottom, a distance that took us fellows a half day to go up.
I was hunting for the trail which led down the mountain, when I came to
the sloping ground where the woodmen had rolled these logs off. I walked
carefully down this place, and when I looked down, I saw a yellow streak
straight below me. It looked like I could step across it, but I knew it
was a river. It made me dizzy to look over the precipice and I stepped
backward a few paces and then turned to walk to the top of the mountain
again. If I had slipped there, that would have been the last of me.
After hunting a good while, we found the trail and went down the
mountain. The path was just wide enough for one to walk on. If a person
had stepped off with one foot, the rest of his life's story would have
certainly been very brief. When we got down to the river, that little
yellow streak which I thought I could step across when looking down the
mountain, we had to cross in a ferry boat, the Uby River being a quarter
of a mile wide.
We went north and northeast until we reached Morisson's Diggings. The
snow at this place was over thirty feet deep in the winter. They had to
lay in provisions in the fall to last them all winter and until the snow
melted off, and the mountain dried so the ground on the side of the
mountains got solid enough so that the trail would not slip off from
under the feet of the pack mules.
They built their houses out of round pine or fur logs, a foot and a half
in diameter, and porches built by letting one log at the eaves of the
house run out and logs a foot through, for posts set up under the ends
of these logs. These porches were used to put wood under for winter use.
When the snow commenced falling, they would beat it back with their
shovels and keep it beaten back until they could form an arch overhead,
making a tunnel from one house to another, so they could visit each
other during the winter.
It was the twentieth day of July when we got there and they were just
getting started to wash gold. The gold was mixed with dirt and quartz
rock. These rocks were round and smooth and about the size of a man's
fist. When they were washed in the sluice boxes and thrown in piles,
they looked as white as snow. I have often thought what a beautiful walk
or drive they would make if we had them in Illinois.
We stopped at Morisson's Diggings two or three days. We found Uncle
Isaac and his son, Jesse, at this place. We left there and went across
another mountain to a place called Poker Flat, which was fourteen miles
over the mountain. We heard there, that across on the other side of
another mountain, on a stream called Nelson Creek, were new diggings.
Uncle Isaac and his son made us promise, that if we heard of new
diggings being struck, to give them word. I went back the next day and
told them and they returned with me over to Poker Flat, where brother
Crawford and the four others were waiting for us.
We went over the mountain to Nelson Creek. An old Scotchman by the name
of Wright, had struck a rich claim on the side of the creek on a little
bottom. The gold here was coarser than it was in the southern diggings.
The gold that Mr. Wright was getting, looked like small potatoes. Some
were a little less and some a little over one ounce in weight. We
prospected all around there, but could not strike any pay dirt. We
concluded that if there was gold on this bottom, there must be gold in
the creek. We put six men to dig a ditch to turn the creek out of the
channel and then dam the creek and turn the water out, so we could get
to the bottom of the creek.
Old Mr. Wright had packed a whip saw over to make lumber for sluice
boxes. Uncle Isaac and I borrowed the saw and went to work and whipsawed
lumber for sluice boxes. We cut down two trees, up as high as we could
reach, then cut small trees for skids, laid one end of the skid on the
side of the mountain and the other end of the skids on the stumps of the
trees we cut off, then rolled the log up on these skids. Then with pick
and shovel, a level place was dug underneath, the length of the sawlog,
barked and lined it on two sides, then sawed to the lines. One stood on
top of the log, the other under it, or in the pit, as it was called. The
whipsaw is shaped like one of the common key saws, wide at one end and
narrow at the other, only the whipsaw had handles on both ends. It took
nice work to whipsaw lumber and keep it true to the line.
We got our lumber sawed, our sluice boxes made, our ditch dug, our creek
damed and the creek turned out of the channel, prepared to work in the
bed of the creek.
Late one evening, we just had time to roll over a large bolder and get a
pan of sand and gravel, and pan it out. We dried the gold and weighed it
and there was seventy-five dollars worth of gold in that one pan. We
worked out this claim, but it proved to be a slate rock bed and was
smooth and sleek, and the water washed all the gold away, only where a
huge bolder was imbeded in the slate bed and the gold settled around the
bolders. We did not get any more gold out of the rest of that claim,
than I got in that one pan.
We left Uncle Isaac at this claim and followed down Nelson Creek. Our
party was composed of Crawford Bailey, Winston Crumly, Jack Alberts,
Guss Parberry, Bird Farris and myself. There was a nice path beat down
on the side of the creek, but the mountains on both sides stood almost
straight up. We went down the creek, fifteen or twenty miles, when we
suddenly came to a waterfall where the water dropped straight down about
forty or fifty rods. There was no way for us to get down. We then
thought the people who made the path, had to climb the mountains. We
looked up on our right hand and could see the dirt crumbling out from
between the rocks. It was straight up. We saw there was no show to go up
on that side. We looked up on our left and could not see any dirt or
rock crumbling off this mountain.
We concluded that they must have climbed up over this mountain to get
out. We started up. We could hardly keep from falling backwards. We held
to little vines or little fine brush which grew out from between the
layers of rock. Finally, after we had gone up a distance of perhaps a
couple of miles, we could see above us a shelf of rock extending out
over our heads. It then dawned upon us that the path we had followed
down the creek, had been made by people who had come that far and were
compelled to go back and that no one had ever gone up this mountain.
We looked as far as we could see each way, but that shelf of rock stood
out over our heads from three to six or eight feet. We were sure that
when we got up to that shelf, we could not get over it, neither could we
go back down again; for one can go up when one can see where to stick
their toes, but cannot see to go down without falling. We began to think
we were where we could not get away alive. We looked off to our left and
saw one place in this shelf that was narrower than the rest, and we
concluded to make for that place with the possibility that we might be
able to break off some of the rock and get above. It was still a good
ways up from where we were. We made for the narrow shelf, but when we
got there, the rock was so hard that we could not pierce it with our
picks, but the mountain was not quite so steep under this piece of
shelf. My brother said to me:
"If you will pick in the side of the mountain and stick your toes in so
you will have a good foothold, and hold against my back with my shovel,
and two of the other men, one on each side of me, fix their feet so they
can lift me on their picks while I hold to the shelf, I will try and see
how it looks above."
Two of our strongest men lifted him on their picks while I held against
his back with the shovel until he was high enough to look above the
shelf.
"The mountain," he said, "is not steep above here, and it is not far to
the top, if we could only get over this shelf. Let me put one foot on
one pick and the other foot on the other pick and you fellows lift me up
as high as you can. Wash, you hold against my back and if I can get a
little farther up, I can catch some brush and pull myself up over the
shelf." They lifted and I held him to the shelf, while he climbed up
over it. We reached him a shovel and a pick. He dug a good place in
which to set his feet, and then reached the shovel over the bench, for
one of the boys to catch hold. We lifted one of the boys, while Crawford
pulled him up. We kept this process up until all were up but one. We
left the lightest one to the last. He was down where he couldn't see any
of us and he got scared and trembled and claimed that he did not believe
he could hold to the shovel for us to draw him up. We dug holes to set
our heels in and then held others by the feet so they could look down
over the shelf and see and talk to him. He was pale and greatly
frightened. I got some of the men to hold me by the feet while I
encouraged him. I told him to take a good hold of the shovel and as soon
as he came to where I was and got him by the arm, he could count himself
safe. I don't believe that there ever was a white man or an Indian, who
ever went up that mountain before, nor since the last man we got up.
About two miles from where we got on the top of the mountain, we came to
a mining town, called Poor Man's Diggings. We could not get work there.
We prospected for a few days, but could find no gold, although there
were a good many good, paying claims belonging to other men. We left
there and went to what was called American Valley, where a man struck a
rich claim. This was called a rich claim, because it would pay one
hundred dollars or over to the hand a day. We tried to hire out and work
by the day, but they had all the hands they could work. Everywhere up
north, they paid a man at least five dollars a day.
We left the American Valley country, which was on the headwaters of the
Feather River, and struck for the Sacramento River Valley. We thought we
might find work on a ranch.
We went down to Marysville. The Uba River enters the Sacramento below
Marysville and the Feather River above. Farming was all done when we got
down there, so we could not find work. We then struck for Sacramento
City. As a fellow would say, we were getting "about strapped," that is,
running short of money. We walked from Marysville to the American River
bridge one night, about fifty miles. We ate breakfast there, walked
twenty miles up the American River and about three o'clock that day,
hired to work for the next morning at two dollars and seventy-five cents
per day, and board ourselves. I worked for a man by the name of Stewart.
I was to work two weeks, but I worked ten days.
We went from here back to Fair Play, from where we had started. We
stayed there until November. The weather kept dry--had no rain, so Uncle
Joshua came to us and wanted us to work for him on a ranch in the
Sacramento Valley, above the city of Sacramento something like three
hundred miles, between the towns of Tehama and Red Bluffs. We worked for
him ten months at fifty dollars a month.
My brother got sick and went to the mountains and I worked one month for
a man by the name of David Jorden and his partner, Joseph Moran, in a
brick yard, for fifty dollars. When uncle paid us, and I received my pay
for working at the brick yard, I went to my brother, sixty miles
southeast of Sacramento, to a mining town called Volcano.
We remained in Volcano for about two weeks. We then went to Sacramento.
From there we took a steamboat to San Francisco, where we stayed for two
weeks. We then got on a steamship and sailed for Panama. We landed once
at a town in Mexico, called Acapuco, to take on beef cattle. We were
four day on the way from San Francisco to Panama. We remained in Panama
one night, and then took a train and crossed the isthmus by railroad,
which was the first railroad train I ever saw.
The next day we arrived at Aspinwall, now called Colon, where we stayed
until the next day, when we boarded a ship bound for New York. We were
nine days on the way from Aspinwall, or Colon, to New York City. We then
took a steamboat and went up the Hudson River to Albany, where we took
a train to Buffalo; from there to Cleveland, Ohio; to Indianapolis, and
then to LaFayette, Ind. I then went to my home in Fountain County, and
later came to Cheney's Grove, Illinois, on horse back. I landed at
Cheney's Grove on New Year's Day, 1856.
ERRATA
--Page 5, 2nd paragraph, "Peter House" should read, "Peter Hughs." In
next line, "John Feril" should read "John Teril." Likewise same name in
1st line, 2nd paragraph, page 19.
--Page 18, 1st paragraph, should read, "We trailed westward across the
Pacific Springs toward the Bear River." Also 3rd sentence, "When
northeast of Salt Lake City" etc.
--Page 28, last paragraph, should read, "'Hold on to them, boys," uncle
said, "Hold on to them." I holloed back, "Start up the fires so we can
see where to come," and the fires lit up mighty quick.'
--Page 45, 3rd paragraph, 6th sentence, should read "We were 'fourteen'
days on the way from San Francisco to Panama."
APPENDIX
The foregoing chapters conclude the excellent narrative concerning the
remarkable trip of Mr. Bailey to California from 1853 to 1856. Mr.
Bailey also kindly consented to give for publication in the LeRoy
Journal, a description of the gold regions and the crude methods of
mining practiced in that early day, which is placed in this volume as a
brief appendix. His comments were as follows:
I will now give you a description of the gold region where gold was
found, where I traveled and where I mined.
The McCosma River headed up toward the summit of the Sierra Nevada
Mountains toward the northeast and runs a little southwest until it
empties into the Sacramento River. Gold was found in what were called
bars, that is, where rock, gravel and sand had lodged on either side, or
across the river. Some of these bars would be very rich in gold.
There were, also, what were called gulches, running out from the river
on either side. They often headed the valleys. These gulches ran out
between mountains and when they headed pretty well up toward the top of
a large mountain, that divided the rivers, into what were called
ravines. All of these ravines would have gold in them. The bed rock
would raise up on both sides and the lowest place in this bed rock, was
called the lead. Some would be richer in gold than others, taking the
name of rich lead or poor lead. Often there were places up on the sides
of the mountains where the bed rock was almost bare, and in these places
were cracks or seams down in the bed rock, where the gold would be found
mixed with sand and dirt.
When the first miners came, they did not know how to save the gold and
they had no tools to work with. They used their jackknives to dig the
gold out of these crevises and carried it in their pans to where there
was water and washed out the dirt and sand. When the miners had picks
and shovels, they made rockers. They were made just like the rocking
beds of the old fashioned kind to rock babies in, only one end was out,
except about two inches at the bottom, for what they called a riffle, to
lodge the gold against. They put another of these riffles up higher in
the rocker for the same purpose. They made a box four square that set on
top of this rocker with a sheet iron bottom with round holes punched in
it to let the gold and sand through. They would then fill this box with
pay dirt, dip water from the creek or river, and pour it in on the pay
dirt with one hand and rock with the other. They would then gather up
the gold and what little sand remained from behind the riffles, place it
in their pans and wash it out, leaving nothing but the gold and some
black sand.
Another plan used and a better and faster method, was to use what they
called the long tom. This was made of plank on the sides about six feet
long and three feet wide. The planks were cut curved on the lower end,
so that the sheet iron with the holes in it, would turn upward. The
upper end of the tom, was made of planks sawed sloping and drawn in
until it was wide enough to lay their water hose in, which furnished the
water for washing.
When they washed the gold with pans, they would throw all the top dirt
away until they got down deep enough to find it sufficiently rich to
pay, then they would pan out the rest of the dirt to the bed rock.
When we mined in California, we washed with sluice boxes, whenever we
could get plenty of water. Sluice boxes were made by sawing the bottom
board two inches narrower at one end than at the other so we could place
the end of every box in the upper end of the next box. We had slats
nailed across the top of the boxes to keep them from spreading. There
were slats for riffles, two and a half or three inches wide, fitted down
tight on the bottom, for the gold to lodge against. The gold, with the
sand and dirt would then be removed and panned out as in the other
methods mentioned above.
* * * * * *
List of transcriber's corrections
- so be [we] would strike the lower end of the island.
- This was the "pipe of of [pipe of] peace"
- huddled and and asked [and asked] uncle
- and then skirt the [Rattlesnake] Rattlsnake
- Grand Canyons, of world renoun [renown]
- and he would do some of thier [their] work in exchange.
- a nice place to pull out on the side. [period added]
- River, cutting a canyon through it. [period added]
- in the same fix." [replaced period with comma] was the reply.
- fill it two-thirds ful [full] when their backs were turned
- where the dam was made across the McComa [McCosma] River