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

[GhostMiner]

June 18   2002

 

   Jacob had the cleanup done early and there were 1.4 ounces in the jar. Then he went up to the pump to act as watchman while Vern came down to the tom and helped me feed the  beast. Even with the extreme heat we made good progress and by day’s end we had managed to process just over 28 yards. 

   I was beginning to adjust to the heat and hand shoveling. Vern said he actually enjoyed the heavy labor but he is also half my age. I cleaned up down at the creek and the cool water felt good. The cold beer tasted good as well. There is no word on when we will be up and running with the trommel so we will be doing hand labor for the time being.

   TO BE CONTINUED ..............

[GhostMiner]

 June 19   2002

 

   Jim is feeling a bit better this morning and has decided to take watch duty on the mountain. He is far from being mobile however and we had to assist him all the way up to the watchpost. He will not be able to patrol the water line either. At noon we broke for lunch and took the gold weigh up to Jim to cheer him up. There were 3.8 ounces. We all ate lunch with Jim and decided to bring him back to camp and Jacob took over the watch. He makes me nervous with that Thompson and has an itchy trigger finger as well.

   We got some relief from the heat today and actually had some rain. There were no problems with hooligans as Jacob calls them and we put in a good day's work and sent 32 yards of pay gravel through the tom. Jacob was helping us shovel from time to time as well as testing the gravels we were working. He told us we were still on good ground. We are all hoping this rich material holds up for when we get out trommel up and running again.

   TO BE CONTINUED ..................

[Golden_Republic]

New member here. Stumbled on this site while looking through Google at advice and forums about getting into gold panning/prospecting. Saw this story and have read through its entirety over the past few days. Ghost Miner has a definitive way with words and the story of Jed, Will, John, Jacob and Co. is fascinating to say the least. Thanks Ghost Miner for sharing. 

[GhostMiner]

3 hours ago, Golden_Republic said:

New member here. Stumbled on this site while looking through Google at advice and forums about getting into gold panning/prospecting. Saw this story and have read through its entirety over the past few days. Ghost Miner has a definitive way with words and the story of Jed, Will, John, Jacob and Co. is fascinating to say the least. Thanks Ghost Miner for sharing. 

Man, that's a whole bunch of journal entries to read in a few days. It's also listed under how to drink, fight, cuss, & shoot guns LOL. Thanks for reading the journal.

[Golden_Republic]

23 minutes ago, GhostMiner said:

Man, that's a whole bunch of journal entries to read in a few days LOL. Thanks for reading the journal.

Greatly enjoying this thread and the story. The way you have weaved this - it's easy to imagine the emotion and the labor that was done and become invested in each of the characters.

Always have been a quick reader. Still took me about 3-4 days to completely go through though. Looking forward to more, and whatever future adventures you may find yourself writing about. 

[GhostMiner]

   June 20   2002

 

   The heat was back again today. Jacob cleaned up the concentrates from yesterday’s run of 32 yards and there were 2.4 ounces weighed up. Jim was able to take a full day of watch duty while Vern, Jacob, and I did the shoveling chores. Jacob noticed a slight change in the color of the gravel in the deep pit we had been working. The material seemed to change from a gray/red to more of a bluish tint. Vern pulled up a fresh bucket of this gravel with the excavator and Jacob took samples over to the wash tub to test it. He came back over to the tom after taking numerous pans and showed us the results. The pan was absolutely brimming with coarse gold and pickers. He had done a rough calculation of its value based on what he had panned and told us there were over four grams to the yard. High grade he called it. I radioed Jim to give him the good news. We were in a rich spot. By dusk we had processed 36 yards of pay dirt. Maybe we would see glory days at last.

   TO BE CONTINUED .................

[GhostMiner]

More to come I think but we will see. Thank you to all the readers just in case.

[GhostMiner]

   Thank you Steve for allowing me to post my drivel LOL. Writing has to come from somewhere deep inside oneself just like music of which I also do. Today, whatever drove me to write & post the journal vanished. Perhaps it was the argument with Steve & knowing what he really thought of me & my writings. Or perhaps it was something else. All I know is it may take some time for me to get back into it & finish the season of 2002. The journal is very personal to me. Some is fiction & some is true. All of it is based on true events. Some of the characters are real with names changed. Others are fictional as you readers know. I hope I can get back to posting here in time. Until then, God bless and so many thanks to everyone who followed my writings. Cheers, GM.

[Old Miner Don]

5 hours ago, GhostMiner said:

   Thank you Steve for allowing me to post my drivel LOL. Writing has to come from somewhere deep inside oneself just like music of which I also do. Today, whatever drove me to write & post the journal vanished. Perhaps it was the argument with Steve & knowing what he really thought of me & my writings. Or perhaps it was something else. All I know is it may take some time for me to get back into it & finish the season of 2002. The journal is very personal to me. Some is fiction & some is true. All of it is based on true events. Some of the characters are real with names changed. Others are fictional as you readers know. I hope I can get back to posting here in time. Until then, God bless and so many thanks to everyone who followed my writings. Cheers, GM.

Say what?!?!?  You had an argument with the Steve that owns this website?  I can't imagine what the problem would be, unless he thinks...

Well I will just let it go for now because I don't really know what the argument was about. I just hope you can get to feeling better soon and I suppose Steve didn't tell you to quit telling the story of what happened or else you would have told us readers "good bye".

Like I have told you before I can keep a secret. PM me anytime you want to and you better because I want to know what ended up happening in 2002 and especially about Jacob. Remember you promised a picture of him.

God bless you too man.

[dig4gold]

4 hours ago, Bedrocker said:

Say what?!?!?  You had an argument with the Steve that owns this website?  I can't imagine what the problem would be, unless he thinks...

Well I will just let it go for now because I don't really know what the argument was about. I just hope you can get to feeling better soon and I suppose Steve didn't tell you to quit telling the story of what happened or else you would have told us readers "good bye".

Like I have told you before I can keep a secret. PM me anytime you want to and you better because I want to know what ended up happening in 2002 and especially about Jacob. Remember you promised a picture of him.

God bless you too man.

Hi Bedrocker. I guess Ghost Miner is referring to the line of discussion/argument.  On the Freddy Dodge Gold Prospecting Show thread on page 5.

D4G