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

[GhostMiner]

   The sad thing for me in posting the journal is that they are all gone now except for Vern. Sometimes when I am on those claims at night and alone I still see them and hear them talking about the dreams of gold. There's no one left to tell the story now but me. 

[snakejim]

1 minute ago, GhostMiner said:

   The sad thing for me in posting the journal is that they are all gone now except for Vern. Sometimes when I am on those claims at night and alone I still see them and hear them talking about the dreams of gold. There's no one left to tell the story now but me. 

I hear you. All my old mining partners are gone also. I do have a couple of good partners now. But there is no way to replace the memories of the ones that are gone. Best wishes to you and yours! snakejim

[GhostMiner]

1 minute ago, snakejim said:

I hear you. All my old mining partners are gone also. I do have a couple of good partners now. But there is no way to replace the memories of the ones that are gone. Best wishes to you and yours! snakejim

Many thanks. Yes, my wife Lindy has been reading all the posts and it's taking her back in time as well. She's been on the claims several times and helped work them with a crew. She says the old mine gives her the creeps and refuses to go back to the original dig site of 1936. I guess I don't blame her. I camped there alone several times but won't do it anymore. Not by myself. It's almost like they are all there watching. Hard to explain. Then I recall the last day of mining in 2015. One of my closest partners was the last one to leave except for me. I'm always the last and take one last look around before heading out. We shook hands and for some crazy reason my last words to him were "God's Speed." A few weeks later I got a call that he had died of heart failure. Only 53 years old. That was a tough one to take. 

[Mike Furness]

GhostMiner I know how it is when your friends and partners are dropping around you. I lost a good one in 22 and another in 23. Hoping no more in 24 but we are all getting up in age. I just turned 75 a week ago . Some of my friends are the same age and some a bit older into their 80's. We all are heading there I just don't want to be next ... at least for the next 15 years or so, maybe more. Thankfully while we are still of this earth we have memories of all those old friends. 

[GhostMiner]

2 hours ago, Mike Furness said:

GhostMiner I know how it is when your friends and partners are dropping around you. I lost a good one in 22 and another in 23. Hoping no more in 24 but we are all getting up in age. I just turned 75 a week ago . Some of my friends are the same age and some a bit older into their 80's. We all are heading there I just don't want to be next ... at least for the next 15 years or so, maybe more. Thankfully while we are still of this earth we have memories of all those old friends. 

I hear you Mike. My great grandmother lived to 111 and my grandmother to 103. My great grandmother always said she lived that long because she stayed away from doctors. I expect & am hopeful of making the century mark. Got a ways to go though. Take care.

[GhostMiner]

 August 22   2002     Part Three

 

   I left Conor to his detecting work and went back down the mountain to camp. I told Jacob what had happened. He wasn’t surprised that we had a run in with Nick Allen but he was surprised to hear how Conor had reacted to Allen’s insults. Jacob said Conor had more of Jed in him than he thought he had. I was concerned that Allen might go to the sheriff and report the incident. That might be trouble for Conor. Jacob didn’t think he would because according to him crooks don’t ask the law for help. They deal with things on their own. If that was true then we might be in for more run-ins out here. Jacob just shrugged it off saying he’d been through plenty of run-ins with thugs and  we’d deal with it if and when the time came. I couldn’t be so easy about all this as Jacob was but he really didn’t seem to care one way or the other.

   When we finally got back to work we had lost most of the morning so we worked straight through until 6:30 PM before shutting down. We had made up some time and washed 180 yards of gravel. I didn’t say anything to Jacob but I was getting sick and tired of having our mining operation stopped or delayed over and over. It was frustrating. All we wanted to do was mine for gold but for whatever reason we had to fight something or other every week. I was starting to look forward to the end of the season out here. Jacob was actually talking about staying the Winter and working at the upper drift mine where the ore samples had been so good. He figured he and Conor could work the vein and stockpile ore for Spring when I came back out. Jacob really didn’t want to go back to Oregon and sit in a cabin by himself all Winter. He wanted to work the mine. I asked him if Conor was up for that and he said he hadn’t asked him yet. I am not sure if that is a good idea or not but I am good with whatever Jacob wants to do here. 

   TO BE CONTINUED ................

[Mike Furness]

I think what Jacob is really saying is he doesn't want to go back to the cabin in Oregon only to die alone. At least if he is mining no matter how cold and snowy it gets in the mountains he is better off there. And if Conor is willing he would have at least one person to converse with even though Conor is a much younger generation. But he is showing signs of growing up ... at least by the standards of Jacob and Conor's father if he were alive.

[GhostMiner]

4 hours ago, Mike Furness said:

I think what Jacob is really saying is he doesn't want to go back to the cabin in Oregon only to die alone. At least if he is mining no matter how cold and snowy it gets in the mountains he is better off there. And if Conor is willing he would have at least one person to converse with even though Conor is a much younger generation. But he is showing signs of growing up ... at least by the standards of Jacob and Conor's father if he were alive.

If you recall, Conor is retired from a position on the railroad & is either 66 or 67 at this time. He's not a kid even though he acts like one at times. Remember, he was Jed's son. Jed died in 1936.  

[GhostMiner]

  August 23   2002

 

   Conor worked with Jacob and I today. Our tailings piles were in a mess and Conor pushed them with the skid steer while Jacob and I mined. This helped us out quite a bit and it would be great to work together like this and run more yardage before the season ends. We leave that up to Conor who is still hell bent on finding a hidden cache of gold somewhere up on the mountain.

   We have a good trench working north and into the mountain. Jacob doesn’t think we are digging old timers tailings but he says it’s lower grade virgin gravel the old boys passed up. Jacob said the crews from the 1800’s usually high graded the best and easiest material and left the rest for scavengers like us. I don’t mind being a scavenger if it makes me wealthy by today’s standards. 

   I was running the excavator this afternoon and pulled up some old logs. Then a bunch of old tin cans. We had hit another old miner’s cabin that was buried by the mountain slides over the years. I stacked the logs in a pile and kept pushing north deeper into the mountain pay zone. I was wondering about how that old timer who built the cabin did out here back in his day. Hopefully he did ok but left us some gold. Most likely he was working the lower pay zone by pick and shovel and using a rocker box to wash the gravel at the creek. Hard work for sure. It seems like the more we dig and work the mountain the more history we uncover. Jacob took some pan samples and said there was some gold so we should do fine on this cut. We ended the day with 260 yards of washed gravel and it was one of our better days as far as smooth running. We pulled the mats and will spend tomorrow cleaning up the concentrates from a total of 670 yards of pay gravel. That’s a big cleanup for a crew like us.

   TO BE CONTINUED ..............

[GhostMiner]

Like Jacob told Conor  --  Buck Up.