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

[GhostMiner]

   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 ...................

[Bedrocker]

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?

[GhostMiner]

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. 

[GhostMiner]

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. 

[GhostMiner]

   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. 

[GhostMiner]

   Then there was one more story I heard that supposedly took place in 2012. This came from what I would consider a very credible witness who claims to have seen some of the gold. The area was just off my claims at the southern end of the mountain. According to the witness who was not involved in any way with mining or treasure hunting, a crew had dug up a cache of 50 ounces. The funny thing is, I was actually there talking with this crew several times. They were digging areas at the base of the mountain with an excavator and also using metal detectors. They were out of Nevada and had been hired by the claim owner to do some prospecting to see if the claim had any good gravels to mine. At least that's what they told me.

   The crew looked pretty rough. The first time I met them I walked into camp unannounced and was met by two big dogs who they called off. They were sitting at a wooden table drinking whisky and smoking dope. I told them I was the claim owner of all the adjoining areas to their claim. They were all wearing guns and told me it was a good thing I told them and now that they knew I was up there on the mountain they would shoot their guns the other way. They lent me one of their detectors which was a Fisher Gold Bug. It was the only time I ever used one. It was darn friendly of them as they didn't even know me. 

   Eventually I returned the detector with a new battery to boot and thanked them. A week later I went down to their camp but they had packed it up and were gone. Later on, I was talking with a guy who knew these guys. He said I was real lucky they took a liking to me or I would have had my throat slit. For real. This is the kind of crazy stuff that happens out there. One night while camped up near one of the old dig sites by myself I awoke to gunfire at around 2:00 AM. It was a ways off and lasted for at least 15 - 20 minutes and there was a lot of it. I have no idea what was going on.  

[GhostMiner]

   April 29   2002     Part One

 

   This morning we got a bit deeper into the drift and hit a rocky area that we couldn’t penetrate. Jacob said it was some kind of a very unusual fault line  that was running east/west and highly unusual. We all took turns swinging a pickaxe against the wall of rock but couldn’t make any headway. Jacob advised we move out of the drift and start a dig a bit to the west. It was disappointing as we had seen signs of gold before we came to the dead end. Jacob thought the area might have been mined out in that area by the people who ran him off in 1937. 

   When he started thinking about that night he became agitated to say the least. He told us that he still had nightmares about it. He now wished he had tried to find out who the gang was and shot it out with them even if it meant dying. I tried to get his mind off the subject and asked him where a good spot might be to start digging again. We had a look around and ended up moving about 300 feet west. 

   The base of the mountain looked about the same and we started a new site. Jacob said we would need to keep prospecting this area until we found a good place that hadn’t been worked. He figured there was gold all along the base of the mountain up there and it ran for half a mile. I was thinking to myself that we might be up here all Summer trying to find a place to mine. This might be harder than I had thought. 

   TO BE CONTINUED .............

[GhostMiner]

   April 29   2002     Part Two     Jacob Loses His Cool

 

   We started working the new site hoping for the best. Around noon or so we had a visit by one of the government agents who wanted to clarify something on my paperwork I had submitted for our plan to explore and possibly mine with heavy equipment. Evidently,there was an area near one of the creeks that needed to be protected and monitored if we used an excavator there. Jacob was looking at the plan that the agent was holding in his hand with the area circled. The agent told me that part of the plan was going to be temporarily set aside for review. He said the paperwork had a notation as to that change and I needed to sign it. 

   At this point Jacob decided to speak up. I could tell he didn’t like paperwork. He said that sense when does a government agent have anything to say about what a miner does or where he works on his claim? Before I could intervene he told the agent he could stick his government paperwork up his ass and light it on fire. Then he told him he wouldn’t give a bucket of piss for a job like his.

   Well, needless to say, that didn’t go over too well. I got a hold of Jacob and asked him if we could have a talk. I kind of explained how things had changed since he worked the claims and told him everything will eventually be approved and we can keep working as we are until then. He calmed down some and I apologized and told the agent Jacob was pretty touchy about paperwork and things like that. Lucky for us the guy was pretty understanding and actually laughed it off and Jacob even ended up shaking his hand before he left. Now I knew Jacob had a temper that was quick to flare just like his brothers. Even though he was 85 years old, I didn’t want to get on the wrong side of him. I could only imagine what Jed, Jacob, and the crew were like back in their day.

 

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

[Bedrocker]

9 hours ago, GhostMiner said:

   Then there was one more story I heard that supposedly took place in 2012. This came from what I would consider a very credible witness who claims to have seen some of the gold. The area was just off my claims at the southern end of the mountain. According to the witness who was not involved in any way with mining or treasure hunting, a crew had dug up a cache of 50 ounces. The funny thing is, I was actually there talking with this crew several times. They were digging areas at the base of the mountain with an excavator and also using metal detectors. They were out of Nevada and had been hired by the claim owner to do some prospecting to see if the claim had any good gravels to mine. At least that's what they told me.

   The crew looked pretty rough. The first time I met them I walked into camp unannounced and was met by two big dogs who they called off. They were sitting at a wooden table drinking whisky and smoking dope. I told them I was the claim owner of all the adjoining areas to their claim. They were all wearing guns and told me it was a good thing I told them and now that they knew I was up there on the mountain they would shoot their guns the other way. They lent me one of their detectors which was a Fisher Gold Bug. It was the only time I ever used one. It was darn friendly of them as they didn't even know me. 

   Eventually I returned the detector with a new battery to boot and thanked them. A week later I went down to their camp but they had packed it up and were gone. Later on, I was talking with a guy who knew these guys. He said I was real lucky they took a liking to me or I would have had my throat slit. For real. This is the kind of crazy stuff that happens out there. One night while camped up near one of the old dig sites by myself I awoke to gunfire at around 2:00 AM. It was a ways off and lasted for at least 15 - 20 minutes and there was a lot of it. I have no idea what was going on.  

I want to go camp out there, but I don't want to either.