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** Lost Gold At The Dead Man's Mine ** A Miners Journal **


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   April 28   2002     Part Two     Deeper Into The Mountain

 

   We got back to digging gravels. Jim and I had the privilege of working with Jacob in the drift while Vern bucked up small diameter deadfall for tunnel supports. This is not what I expected when I came out here to mine. I figured we would be opening trenches or pits and doing surface mining. However, if Jacob believes we need to drift into the old river channels buried in the mountain we will give it a try. 

   The digging was steady and not particularly easy and Jacob worked a bit as well as giving us guidance. No one felt like stopping for lunch and we continued working straight through to 5:00 PM. We were bushed. I was fascinated at the way the bedrock continued to drop and slope away from us as we gained ground. Jacob had taken a few samples throughout the day and had the results sitting in three pans on the wooden table next to the wash tub. The entire crew went over to have a look at them before we headed back down to camp. There was some nice coarse gold. Jacob had calculated some numbers based on bucket samples he panned out. He told us the best sample was around 15 grains to the yard and the worst was around 6 grains to the yard. This was encouraging. Jacob believed the numbers would improve soon. He said we just need to keep going deeper into the mountain.

   TO BE CONTINUED ...............

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1 hour ago, dig4gold said:

No gold is easy gold.

D4G

Unless it was the gold the thieves stole. 

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   April 28   2002     Part Three     Jacob Talks About The Old Days On The Claims

 

   We sat around the fire after supper tonight and listened to Jacob talk about water pumps, the tom, and running water lines. He was going on about how John wouldn’t let anyone near the tom. He took us over to the edge of the creek and pointed to where the tom had been set. When the creek dried up where the tom was located  back in late Summer of 1936 a Myers pump was set up to the north where the creek still had water and they ran line down to the tom. He was telling us how they ran two pumps in series spaced 1000 feet apart to get the water up to the southern kettle dig site. Jacob said the crew let out a cheer when water arrived at the dig site higher up on the mountain from all the way down below. 

   Then Jacob turned the conversation to the big gold strike on the northern fault line. He said the crew was going crazy with every gold weigh. His brother had somehow stumbled onto a big kettle on the west side of the fault line and there were a couple of smaller ones as well. They had glory holed the entire area up there until the gold was gone. He said he thought there was still a good amount of gold still up in that area waiting to be discovered. It was most likely deeper down in the ground to the north and south of their old diggings. He was reminiscing about the drinking that went on. Mostly, he said, it was kept under control. However, there were nights that it got out of hand. One of the crew would get out a gun and start shooting cans off a rock with only the light of the campfire to go by and then the rest of the crew would start in. Sometimes it would go on for an hour or more and the drinking would continue as well. Mostly though, they had always been able to work the next day although with some hangovers.

   He said they were all fairly young and wild. They felt like they were a rough and ready crew and proved it on many occasions. They had gotten a bad reputation in the neighboring towns but there were some townsfolk that admired them. He said that’s when the crew started to make mistakes because they were getting pretty big heads. They carried guns and felt like outlaws. They had gold. The law, or what there was of it, left them alone. He said they looked out for themselves and made their own rules.

   Jacob told us about his older brother Jed. He said he was short tempered and would fight at the drop of a hat. He said that the crew respected him and he was a good leader even if he did drink too much on occasion. Once Jed started a dig he was relentless. Nothing could stop him. Jacob mentioned working in what he called the big heat. It would be 110 degrees or higher some days in July and August. Their clothes would be soaked in sweat and they could never drink enough water to keep up with it. Yet Jed would dig away, cursing up a storm when he’d hit a big rock that needed a pry bar and giving a big hoot and holler when the crew cleared it out of the way. Jacob said his brother was just plain tough.

   I asked him about the prospectors up on the mountain back then. Jacob shook his head. He said when word somehow got out about their crew being up there and getting gold the mountain suddenly saw lots of activity. Some of the people were ok and some were rif raf as he called them. He said there were a lot of greenhorns like us who came out there with no idea as to what they were doing. He said the old crew didn’t make much of any of them as long as they stayed off their claims. If they didn’t, all hell broke loose. He said that Jed and John beat the hell out of more than a few of them. Those were lawless days. 

 

   TO BE CONTINUED ...................

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18 hours ago, GhostMiner said:

   April 28   2002     Part Three     Jacob Talks About The Old Days On The Claims

 

   We sat around the fire after supper tonight and listened to Jacob talk about water pumps, the tom, and running water lines. He was going on about how John wouldn’t let anyone near the tom. He took us over to the edge of the creek and pointed to where the tom had been set. When the creek dried up where the tom was located  back in late Summer of 1936 a Myers pump was set up to the north where the creek still had water and they ran line down to the tom. He was telling us how they ran two pumps in series spaced 1000 feet apart to get the water up to the southern kettle dig site. Jacob said the crew let out a cheer when water arrived at the dig site higher up on the mountain from all the way down below. 

   Then Jacob turned the conversation to the big gold strike on the northern fault line. He said the crew was going crazy with every gold weigh. His brother had somehow stumbled onto a big kettle on the west side of the fault line and there were a couple of smaller ones as well. They had glory holed the entire area up there until the gold was gone. He said he thought there was still a good amount of gold still up in that area waiting to be discovered. It was most likely deeper down in the ground to the north and south of their old diggings. He was reminiscing about the drinking that went on. Mostly, he said, it was kept under control. However, there were nights that it got out of hand. One of the crew would get out a gun and start shooting cans off a rock with only the light of the campfire to go by and then the rest of the crew would start in. Sometimes it would go on for an hour or more and the drinking would continue as well. Mostly though, they had always been able to work the next day although with some hangovers.

   He said they were all fairly young and wild. They felt like they were a rough and ready crew and proved it on many occasions. They had gotten a bad reputation in the neighboring towns but there were some townsfolk that admired them. He said that’s when the crew started to make mistakes because they were getting pretty big heads. They carried guns and felt like outlaws. They had gold. The law, or what there was of it, left them alone. He said they looked out for themselves and made their own rules.

   Jacob told us about his older brother Jed. He said he was short tempered and would fight at the drop of a hat. He said that the crew respected him and he was a good leader even if he did drink too much on occasion. Once Jed started a dig he was relentless. Nothing could stop him. Jacob mentioned working in what he called the big heat. It would be 110 degrees or higher some days in July and August. Their clothes would be soaked in sweat and they could never drink enough water to keep up with it. Yet Jed would dig away, cursing up a storm when he’d hit a big rock that needed a pry bar and giving a big hoot and holler when the crew cleared it out of the way. Jacob said his brother was just plain tough.

   I asked him about the prospectors up on the mountain back then. Jacob shook his head. He said when word somehow got out about their crew being up there and getting gold the mountain suddenly saw lots of activity. Some of the people were ok and some were rif raf as he called them. He said there were a lot of greenhorns like us who came out there with no idea as to what they were doing. He said the old crew didn’t make much of any of them as long as they stayed off their claims. If they didn’t, all hell broke loose. He said that Jed and John beat the hell out of more than a few of them. Those were lawless days. 

 

   TO BE CONTINUED ...................

So now that you know the place on the creek where the tom was set up have you done any prospecting or panning just downstream from that location?

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3 minutes ago, Bedrocker said:

So now that you know the place on the creek where the tom was set up have you done any prospecting or panning just downstream from that location?

Yes. But there have been so many floods over the years and the lower creek has even changed course several times. More about what we found will be in the 2002 journal. 

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4 minutes ago, GhostMiner said:

Yes. But there have been so many floods over the years and the lower creek has even changed course several times. More about what we found will be in the 2002 journal. 

Also, wait until my journal gets to the part of trying to locate the gold caches they hid. Crazy. 

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   Another weird thing that happened but not in any journal. A guy stopped by one of the claims one day and was talking with Vern. He asked him if the claim was his. He said he was one of the partners. Supposedly, according to this stranger, a friend of his had one of the claims back in the 1980's and found a cache of 80 ounces of gold buried not far from one of the creeks. He even showed him the approximate location. Then, according to a guy we talked to who was from Nevada, he personally witnissed someone who was prospecting the claim before we had it find a cache buried into the lower side of a mountain south of where John had the tom set. He said it was 60 ounces. The two of them went wild digging up the area for weeks without finding anything else. 

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