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

[Bedrocker]

7 hours ago, GhostMiner said:

   He was with the 1936 - 1937 crew. Names were changed. He didn't drink much at this time and had an occasional smoke. I'd say he had a small drink or two per day. Part of his lifestyle.  He was able to work at a slow pace part of the time. He didn't out dig us but did quite well because he prospected all the time when in Oregon. For someone 85 yrs young he was quite impressive. Read on. 

Was his cabin in SW Oregon?

[Bedrocker]

1 minute ago, Bedrocker said:

Was his cabin in SW Oregon?

Also curious when you say names were changed. Is this the real Jacob a.k.a. Jed's brother that was with you in 2002? Kinda confused ??

[GhostMiner]

6 minutes ago, Bedrocker said:

Also curious when you say names were changed. Is this the real Jacob a.k.a. Jed's brother that was with you in 2002? Kinda confused ??

Yes. They were brothers. Names changed for posting here. Jacob was the younger brother. The older brother was murdered and gold stolen in 1936. No one knows if the killer or killers got all of it. Mystery. 

[GhostMiner]

16 minutes ago, Bedrocker said:

Was his cabin in SW Oregon?

Not far from Medford.

[GhostMiner]

   April 26   2002     Part Two

 

   After looking at the gold in the pan there was no stopping us. Jacob said we were now seeing the beginning of the gold he was digging at this spot back in 1937. Now if we could only find that glory hole. Jacob reminded us that the entire base of the mountain was sprinkled with abundant gold and all we needed to do was put in the time and hard work. He figured we were starting in a good area but time would tell.

   We dug for a few more hours and got ready to call it a day. We were following a downward slope of bedrock. Jacob said we would soon need to make a decision to continue in deeper and cut timber for supports or dig out a wider channel and hope we hit a good spot that hadn't been buried too badly by the slides. I asked Jacob what he thought about the situation. He said we should work our way in deeper for a spell and see what the gravels produced. Jacob advised that we were on bedrock and following it into the mountain. We had begun to hit virgin gravels that were showing some promise. However, he reminded us that the work would be slower and harder from this point forward. He left it up to us. Vern, Jim, and I all agreed to get a drift going into the mountain and see what it held for us. Before we left for the day Jacob took another sample from the gravel sitting on the sloping bedrock where we had stopped digging. He panned it out and set the pan on the table. He had a smile on his face but said nothing. We took a look. The pan had some fines but there was more coarse gold now. We were all beaming from ear to ear. Now I know what gold fever was all about. 

   TO BE CONTINUED .................

[GhostMiner]

   At this point I would like to take a moment to comment on some things I didn't write in my 2002 journal. I was a complete greenhorn as was Jim. Vern was a good prospector. To the horror of my wife, I took the Spring, Summer, & Fall off from a business I ran and went gold mining. I only had the confidence to do this because Vern was a seasoned prospector that had done quite a bit of sampling on the claims. The other thing that convinced me to give this a try was the wild and wooly rich history of this property. I had spent the Winter months of that year doing all the research and made contact with Jim and he was in contact with Jacob. We were pretty sure Jacob would join us in the venture but there was no guarantee until we met with him. My wife was convinced that I would come home penniless if I wasn't murdered on the mine or eaten by wild animals. She had read the old government report on this property with extreme trepidation but reluctantly gave me her blessing as long as I stayed in touch with her as much as possible. I knew I was getting myself into an adventure but had no clue what lie ahead for us. As we began to work the gravels at the old Eastern Drift area I kept a record of the gold we were mining. However, I didn't put any numbers in the journal but instead kept them recorded in a separate record book. For the sake of posting this here, I will include them at the time of the cleanups as I know everyone wants to know what we found.

   Also, as for more on Jacob that I didn't write down back in 2002, I would like to include a bit more information on him. He and his brother were on the old crew back in 1936. In 1936 his brother Jed was the crew leader and was murdered for his gold. At the time of the murder the crew had mined over 1000 ounces. I have no idea how much gold they got when Jed was killed. There was a second incident in 1937 that involved the crew Jacob was leading and three of the crew were shot to death by an unidentified group of men. All of this had been long forgotten and buried away by time just like the gold in the mountain was buried under slides. 

   As for Jacob and what he was like - I found him to be one of the most down to earth people I have ever had the pleasure of meeting. By the time I had found him he was trail worn but very rugged. He loved a good joke and his word was his bond. He worked with us as much as his body would allow. His knowledge of the claims and of mining by old school methods were priceless to us. He was a real character for sure. Even at 85 yrs young he still loved his whisky but had moderated his drinking to a little bit here and there. I never saw him drunk. His favorite drink was Tullamore D.E.W. as well as Jameson and Bushmills. He never drank beer. He rolled his own smokes as I wrote in the journal but rarely did I see him smoke more than 2 or 3 a day. He would get in his moods sometimes where he drifted back in time and we learned to leave him alone on those occasions. Jacob was very spry and I never heard him complain about anything. When he saw gold in the pan his eyes would light up and he'd give us a wink and a nudge. He was one of a kind. The adventure we all had together over the 2002 mining season is something I will never forget. Read on.

[Ken Walls]

This has been the most addicted I have ever been to a story. You have been connected to a time in history that most here will never experiance.

[GhostMiner]

47 minutes ago, Ken Walls said:

This has been the most addicted I have ever been to a story. You have been connected to a time in history that most here will never experiance.

   If you had told me years ago that I would be involved in an adventure on a gold mine in the Sierra Nevada Mts I would never have believed it.

[GhostMiner]

   April 27   2002     Part One

 

   This morning was cold and clear and it was Saturday. Jacob thought we should do some digging until mid afternoon and then go out to the Paxton Hotel for supper and a few drinks with the crew. He seemed to like that place I guess. So we all agreed and headed up to the site after breakfast. I took my Mcculloch Pro Mac 650 chainsaw up there with me. We would need to cut up some downed trees for support logs. There was plenty of deadfall we were permitted to use for our mining operation as well as a part of the plan approved to cut trees as needed for mining. Anything I cut would need to be replaced with two saplings so I preferred to just use deadfall if possible.

   Jim and I worked on the timber while Vern and Jacob went over to our newly opened drift. They dug out some holes to set posts and placed bracing supports overhead. We laid them in where needed and felt secure to drive the drift deeper into the mountain. Jacob told us we would need to keep a careful watch on the tunnel we were forming as we went in further. 

   It was slow going now and we were beginning to hit some decent pay gravels. The bedrock continued to gently slope away from us and we followed it in. By noon we decided to take a quick break and I went down to camp and brought up coffee and sandwiches. Jacob took another sample and it looked promising. We stopped for the day around 3:00 PM and headed back down to camp to get cleaned up. The day had been productive and we were all hopeful of seeing good gold soon. Around 6:00 PM we headed for the Paxton Hotel.

   On the ride over Jacob was telling us about the old days and that place. It was an old railroad hotel and there were once active gold mines along the river there. He said that Saturday nights were pretty wild. There used to be what he referred to as a Saturday night hoot. There would be a band and plenty of girls there. He said this sometimes caused fights to break out. He was wondering if they still had the hoots there. I told him I had no idea but probably not. I think he was hoping there would be something like that going on. When we pulled into the parking area the place looked nearly deserted except for a couple of cars.   

   TO BE CONTINUED ...............