Crawfordsville Daily Journal, Crawfordsville, Montgomery County, 8 February 1890 — Page 2

Occupations Adopted Preparatory Thereto.

PRENT1CK ML'LFOKIVS NOTK HOOK

BM( PtHltlllnff—l'rnvUloii rncklns—Tlie Monntnln Flight of the Mt-xicjui 1 u»tsn|—Tlio Gultl Rockrr—*'CrrvIcing" a

Xlockj Camp—Our Mining Company.

[OopyriKlitenl, 1880, by the Author.] VII.

AVIN'G finished my own tribulations and those I fed as a sea cook, I resolved to go to the mines. I went. By boat and stage I got over the 200 miles in in 'twixt San Franis a

"diggings." I had friends on Hawkins' Bar, on the Tuolumne ri^er, in Tuolumne county. Thither I went. When I "struck" Hawkins' in 1959 it was on its last legs. Still it boasted a store and a dozen houses. Golden hopes were still anchored in the bed of the river. Expensive river claims were then being worked from Red Mountain down to French Bar. But a premature rain and consequent freshet swept the river that season from end to end with tho, bosom of destiuction, and sent for the winter the miners back to their two dollar per day bank diggings.

It was at Hawkins' that I had first "buckled to the mines." My first "buckling," however, was in the capacity of a meat peddler. I became the ag -nt of a firm of butchers up on the mountain for distributing their tough steaks to the Hawkins' Bar miners. Through the instrumentality of a horse, over whoso back was slung a couple of huge panniers, I continued the agency for a week. Then one morning the horso kicked up his heels and ran away. As he ran, at every kick a raw and bloody steak would fly out of the boxes, flash in the brilliant morning sunshine, and then fall in the fine red dust of the mountain trail. I followed hard after, gathering up these steaks as they fell, and when the burden became too heavy I piled them up by the roadside in little heaps of dusty, very dusty meat. At last, dusty, perspiring and distressed beyond measure, I managed to catch that villainous horse. For he, after having ejected nearly the whole load of meat, concluded to stop and be caught. I loaded the panniers again with the dusty, carnivorous deposits, led the horse down the steep trail to the river, then muddy and of a rich coffee color from up country mining sediment. Herein I washed my steaks, rinsed them as well a6 I could of dust, and, as was then the custom, hung up piece after piece in the gauze curtained meat safes tit the miners' cabins. I think Hawkins' got its share of grit that day in its beef. Shortly afterward I went out of tho beefsteak distributing bureau.

Then I went into the service of tho man who kept the Bar store, saloon and boarding house. I was errand boy, barkeeper, bookkeeper, woodchopper, assistant cook and general maid of all work, and possibly worthlessness. One day tho storekeeper's horse, packed with miners' supplies, was given into my charge to lead three miles up the river to tho camp of the Split Rock river claim. The load was strapped to a "cross-jack" saddle. It consisted mostly of flour, potatoes, bacon and a demijohn of whisky. I was advised by the merchant, on setting out, not to let that horse get ahead of me. If he did it was prophesied that ho would run away, "sure pop." But I had not gone forty rods from tho store when tho beast made a rush, got ahead of me, tore the leading halter out of my grasp and set off along the narrow mountain trail at the rate of twenty knots per hour. I followed on a run of about ten knots per hour. Henc« the distance between us soon increased.

As he ran, the motion burst the bag of flour, ditto tho potatoes, and then tho •whisky demijolm broke. It was a fine sight. The flour roso in the air like a white cloud aljovo tho horse, out of and above which flew potatoes, and tho wholo was interspersed with jets of whisky. It looked liko a snow squall traveling on horseback. AVhen the animal had spilt ali the flour, all the potatoes and all the whisky, ho slowed up and allowed himself to lxs caught. His mission was accomplished. I found remaining tho saddle and the empty potato sack. The trail was white with flour for a mile, and so it remained for months afterward. I led the animal back to the •tore. My heart was heavy and his load was light. Tho storekeeper gave me his blessing. I did not thereafter remain long in tho service of that transportation bureau.

After this I borrowed a rocker and started to washing some river bank gravel. It took me several days to become in any degree skilled in the use of the rocker. I had no teacher, and was obliged to become acquainted with all its peculiarities by myself. First I set it on a dead level. As it had no "fall" the sand would not run out But the hardest work of all was to dip and pour water from the dipper on tho gravel in the sieve with one hand and rock the cradle with the other. There was a constant tendency on the part of the hand and arm employed in pouring to go through the motion of rocking, and vico versa.

The hand and arm that rocked were more inclined to go through tho motion of pouring. I seemed cut up in two individuals, between whom existed a troublesome and perplexing differencoof opinion as to their respective duties and functions. Such a conflict, to all intents and purposes, of two different minds insido of and acting on ono body, shook it up fearfully and tore it all to pieces. I was as a house divided against itself and could not stand. However, at last tho physical and mental elements thus warring with each other inside of mo made up their differences, and the left hand rocked tho cradle peacefully while tho right hand poured harmoniously, and tho result was about $1.50 per day. Soon after I found my first mining partner. Ho wandered to the Bar, a melancholy looking man, with three dogs accompanying, and was always in a chronic state of red bandanna and nose wiping. He and 1 joined forces and went up tho riverto "crevice" among the rocks near the Split Rock claim, lie had all the skill, all the experience and all the dogs, and 1 all the general ignorance and incapacity. I deemed it a great advantage to have thus secured a real "old miner" for a partner and felt that such a man must turn up gold.

We built ourselves a rude brush house on a shelf of tho rocky ledge in a canyon whose sides sloped at an angle of forty-fivo degrees. Even this shelf was not level. It pitched toward the river, Hid there was so little of it that during tho night's reposo our legs stuck out of the house entrance. We wore obliged to "chock" all our supply of provisions in their respective packages to prevent them from rolling out of our wigwams over the brink and into the Tuolumne. If a potato got loose it ran like a "thing possessed" over the rocks and down into the muddy, raging current. Wo were obliged to peg ourselves at night while sleeping to prevent a like catastrophe. It was a permanent and laborious existence at an angle of forty-live. To stand erect for any length of time was very tiresome. More frequently, like Nebuchadnezzar, we lived on all fours. "Crevicing" did not prove very profitable. By day tlje bare rocks become heated by tho sun to a blistering capacity.

With pick and sledge and crowbar and bent bits of hoop iron wo pried and pounded and scraped, and scraped and pounded and pried all the hot day long, or else were doubled up in all sorts of back aching, back breaking, body tiring positions, drawing up at arm's length from some deeper "pothole" or crevice spoonful after Kpoonful of yellow mold. It did hold considerable gold, and hoary gold too. But it took so long to get tho mold. This was in the latter part of September. The termination of the dry season was reached. The first rain came. It came at night. It drizzled through our brush house. It sent tiny streams iown the rocky mountains, and some of these streams found their way under us. We had lain and endured the rain from above dripping on our faces and wetting our clothes. In those times one's day suit served for a nightgown. But when tho aqueous enemy undermined our position we had to turn out.

It blew a gale. How tho wind howled and tore up tho canyon! Wo tried to kindle a fire. Match after match was blown out. Finally a blaze was attained. Then the rains descended heavier than ever and put it out. The chief misery was, we could not at night find our way out of the canyon to any place of shelter. Nor could we walk at all to keep warm. There was "standing, room only." All about us were the steeply inclined rocks, molded into every irregularity of shape. We were obliged all through the night to "stand and take it" as it came, shivering in our thin summer clothing. With daylight we made our way to the camp of the Split Rockers. They gave us some gin. It was common gin—very common gin—but the comfortable and soothing remembrance of that gin after such a night exists for me even unto this day. I wore a black cloth cap. The rain had washed out the dye, and this dye had coursed over my brow and cheeks in tiny rivulets of jet. I noticed that I seemed to bo more than a usual object of interest to those about me, and wondered, until a friend advised me to consult a mirror. I did so, and found my face marked like a railroad route map. Such was my inauguration in mining at Hawkins' Bar. What glorious old times they werol What independence! What freedom from the trammels and conventionalities of fashion! Who cared or commented if we did turn up the bottoms of our pantaloons, or wear, for coolness' sake, our flannel shirts outside the trousers? Who then was so much better than anybody else, when any man might strike it rich to-morrow? Who would beg for work or truckle, and fawn and curry favor of an employer for the mere sake of retaining a situation and help that same man to make money, when he could shoulder pick, shovel and rocker, go down to tho river's edge and make his $2 or $3 per day? Though even at that time this reputed $3 was oftener $1.50.

Jpven then reports of the paying capacities of claims were as apt to be watered as are stocks nowadays.

PRENTICE MULFORD.

Something Liko IL

One of our neighbors, a little boy of 0 years, had learned his verse at Sunday school, "I have planted, Apollos watered." Tho next Sabbath the verso was called for no one in the class could remember it. Our little friend, however, had a glimmer of light, and holding up

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hand said: "I can't remember exactly what it was, but I know it was something about Apollinaris Water."— Babyhood.

A Lady in South Carolina Writes: My labo: was shorter and less painful than on twe former occasions physicians astonished I thank you for "Mother's Frlond." I is worth its weight in gold. Address Tho Bradileld Rog, Co., Atlanta, Ga., for particulars, Bold by Nye & Co.

Interesting Points on the nutiae Thereof..

Mi-

PRENTICE SULFORD'S NOTE BOOK

Log Hut Ufa—Getting Breakfant—Corn Whiftky at 11 a. m.. Noon, Dinner, After* noon—Home After Work—Wood to Cut,

Water to Bring and Sapper to Cook.

[Copyrighted, 1889, by tho Author." VIII..

7

E GOT out of a heavily. Legs and back were apt to he a little stiff in the

morning. Or if not stiff, they lacked action. Working all the day previously, possibly in the water, or with it splashing all about, tugging at heavy boulders, shouldering wet sluices, to say nothing of the regulhr pick and shovel exercise, would make itself felt even when tho limbs and blood were younger than now. Dressing was a short job. A pair of damp overalls, a pair of socks, a pair of shoes, or possibly the heavy rubber mining boots. Flannel shirts we slept in. A face swabbing with cold water in the tin basin outside and a "lick and a promise" for tho hair with the comb. That was about all for week days. Vanity of apparel there was little for the working miner, Who was there to dress for? Womai Tho nearest was half a mile, 50 years o: age, and married. Then breakfast. The fire kindled in the contrary little stove. Possibly it was necessary to attack with an axe that dried old stump near by and hack off a few chips to cook with. The miner's wood pile was generally small.

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He got in fuel on rainy days, or at the odd intervals to be spared from work. You put on the worn tin teapot, lowered the gauze covered meat safe from \he tree, cut a steak from tho chunk* of bull mahogany within called beef, slung a dab of lard in the frying pan, put therein the meat and let it sizzle. Two or three boiled potatoes might lie sliced, fried more or less brown in tho gravy, and this, with bread and tea, formed the breakfast. The bread was the bread of your own laborious baking, the loaf of an irregular shape, the crust very hard and thick, the color often "pied," being black where it had burned, brown where it had baked, and of a pallid whiteness where it had not baked at all. Within the loaf might bo close, heavy, and in color either a creamy or a canary yellow, in proportion to tho improper amount of yeast powder used.

The table is a broad shelf against the wall. There is no tablecloth. You did not always wash up after breakfast, for the dishes, as they stood, were all in place for dinner. Some fastidious miners washed their dishes after each meal most of us did not. It was too much to expect of hard worked humanity. The cabin door is Open while you eat and from it you look forth on the claim. There lies the bank of red earth as you left it yesterday after tho "cave." There is the reservoir full of coffee colored ditch water which had run in during tho uight after being used for washing in a dozen claims "up country." Then you draw on those damp, clammy rubber boots

either to the knee or hip.

cut is scarce and must be economized, so the ever accumulating bowlder pilo is "faced up" with a neat wall, laid without mortar, but with some caro and skill. Tho bed rock is under our feet. We aro undermining the bank and keeping tho stream turned in as much as possible to the part undermined. The gravel for afoot or six inches is pretty hard, and the stones here are harder and closer packed than those neater tho surfaco. There the gravel is lighter. Many of the stones are light and rotten a blow with the pick dashes them to pieces. This streak just above the ledgear.il for a few inches in tho crevices of the ledge is our "pay streak," where ages on ages ago some stream ran, depositing, as all streams do, the heavier gravel on the bottom and tho lighter above. Occasionally the pick strikes a firmly iinlwdded bowlder hard and square on its point, in such a way as to send the vibration liko a shock along tho iron, up the handle and into one's arm and "crazy bone. Our bank of dirt is about eight feet in height. A few inches of tho top is a dark mold, below that are three or four feet of "hard pan," below the "hard pan" light sandy gravel and rotten bowl tiers, and near the ledge is tho pay streak. This order of formation has varied as we havo worked up and into tJle bank. At first, near the river's edge, there was only mold on a very light alluvial sand. This was readily washed off and paid 54 or $5 per day. A little farther back we struck the edge of the red gravel streak. This for a time paid better. Farther still came the deposit of light sandy gravel, and lastly came in the accursed "hard pan."

Our claim, on being first prospected was reported to pay three cents to the pan from the top down. We believed it at first, not having learned that "three cents to the pan from the top down means tho biggest kind of luck. If you get an average of half a cent a pan from the top down, and the dirt would wash easily, we should make money. It was hard even for an "honest miner" to give as a result of a prospect anything less than "three cents to the pan." But "hard pan" is our foe. "Hard pan" is tho essence of brickbats. Its consistency is about that of chalk. It seems the finest kind of sand cemented and pressed together. It can bo carved into any form with a knifo. It takes as much time to work off a square foot of hard pan as ten square feet of soft gravel. When, after half a day's labor, we succeed in getting down a cave, it goes into __he ground sluice in a few great lumps, which must be battered to pieces with our picks before the water will slowly dissolve them into mud. And it doesn't hold a "color" of gold. The work in tho ground sluice goes on hour after hour. Pick and shovel and scrape, scrape and shovel and pick, the water meantime tumbling and roaring over the bank and making it difficult for UE to hear one anothers' voices. The sun climbs higher and gets hotter. The water pail is frequently visited. The backs of the gray shirts are wet with perspiration. In an easy, companionable claim, where the partners aro all good fellows and on good terms and not too insane in the matter of getting an enormous quantity of dirt through the Bluiccs each day, there may bo more or less brief suspensions from the work, when all hands lean on their shovels and talk politics, or horses, or last night's poker game, or have a short service of tobacco smoke, with the usual solemn preliminaries of cutting the plug and filling pipes. But if the majority of the "company" are a mean, crabbed, close fisted lot, tho misery goes on without cessation.

A queerly assorted group are we thus laboring together. Jack Gwin's impelling hopo and life's idea is to earn enough to pay his passage home to Philadelphia and buy him a suit of clothes. A decent suit he has not earned these five years. Ho would betho terror and distress ol iiis relatives if evor he got back, for with him $5 in his pocket over expenses and sobriety are an impossibility. McFadden dreams of a cabin, a cow, some geese and goats, a horse and a wife, and is in a fail- way of realizing tliera all. He saves most of his earnings, gets drunk wisely only on holidays, pays his debtt regularly, hates the English, lives in that little black, brownish cabin up yonder,

high, the outside splashed with tho dried does all his oooking in two tin pots, sleeps one pair of ancient blankets and a

reddish mud, and smelling disagreeably of rubber as you pulled them on and smelling worse as you became heated and perspiring. In these you waddle to the claim. I forgot Breakfast over, one of the most important acts of the day was next on the programme. That was the filling, lighting and smoking of your pipe. Nothing could hurry you through this performance. Tho filling was cut in slivers with a careful and solemn consideration tho weed was carefully bestowed in the bowl the match was applied with a deliberation savoring of a religious act the first puff rose in the air as incense to the early morn, and smoking thus you waddled in your big boots to tho claim. There you met your three partners, all likewise smoking. There they stand on tho bank, looking into the ground sluice. There is no' 'good morning" or other greeting if anything, grunts. There lay tho tools—shovels picks, crowbar and sluice fork—help-, black bottle, lessly about, as left last evening. A little muddy water trickles through the line of sluices. One of us goes to tho reservoir, a few hundred yards off, and turns on tho water. Another goes to tho tail of tho sluices with tho sluice fork. Then is heard the clicking of the pick and the grating of the shovel against

most disreputable bed quilt, and $3 will cover tho cost of all his domestic fittings and utensils. Bill Furnea, a French Canadian, has drifted here into this hole in the foothills very much as he drifted into the world—without aim or object in life save present enjoyment. He is good worker and works because he was brought up to it and can't help it. He is a good boatman, a good logger, a skilled woodcutter, a devotee of poker and generally a successful one, an entertaining scamp, full of wit and originality, quick to take in the peculiarities and eccentricities of others, something of a dandy, as far aa dandyism can be indulged in this out of the way place, and a born scamp, glib of tongue, unreliable, and socially the best man of the crowd.

It is near 11 o'clock. There stands in a cool corner of tho claim and carefully shielded from any stray flying pebble, a

tho red dirt down comes the muddy It quenches despair. It gilds tho nionotwater over the bank and the day's work ony of our lives. It was ever thus, and hao fairly commenced. possibly ever shall be, world without

Wo stand in a rpw, allowing sufficient end. It is high noon. The sun is over room between gach for swinging the pick. AVe are undermining tho bank, tho water running at our feet and-be-tween us and the bottom of tho bank. Each chunk of red dirt dislodged by the pick falls into the running water, and If

it bo hard and will not readily dissolve it must be broken,, up by pick or shovel to keep tho stream clear and unimpeded. The large bowlders are picked out by hand and thrown behind us—not in disordered fashion, either. Room in th*

It is nearly full of whisky

—very common corn whisky. It is most welcome at this hour. Poison it may be, but a draught from tho tin cup brightens up and makes all things new. The sunshine is more cheerful. All nature smiles. Tho picks descend with increased force and a host of new day dreams start into being. It revives hope,

our heads and tho shadows aro at their shortest length. Ono of our number trudges wearily up to the reservoir to shut off the water. So soon as its flow lessens we trudge off in wet overalls or heavy rubbers to our respective cabins. Wo are now ground sluicing at or about the year 1800, when miners generally had abandoned "cabining" in squads and each man kept house by himself. Cause —general incompatibility of temper, temperament, disposition, and habit. Tho

SOMERVILLE BROTHERS

Everybody Has a Chance

Beginning Saturday, February 8th, we will begin selling $13,000 worth of Boots and Shoes at manufacturer's cost. This is no blull'or reduction of stock, but genuine closing out sale- Our burgains are too numerous to mention, but if you will call at the store, we will convince you of the fact. We also have some $2,000 w^orth of Ladies' Fine HandSewed and Hand-Turned Shoes of Large size that will go for 25 to 75 per cent, less than cost. This is strictly cash sale.

sober miner found it disagreeable to live permanently with the spreeing miner, and tho miner nice in his domestic economy and particular about his food soon became tired of a companion who never aired his blankets and didn't care whether his broad was light or heavy, sweet or sour. Trudging to our cabins, we pick up the dried twigs in our path. These aro to kindle tho dinner fire. Dinner is very much liko breakfast, beef or bacon, bread, tea, dried applo sauce. The boots are kicked off and thumped into a corner. The temperature is up to that notch that induces perspiration without any exertion at all, and the ugly little stove makes it hotter still.

We sit down to the noon meal in a melting condition, and rise from it in tha same state. Dinner is eaten, the "nooning" is over, back again to tho claim, turn on the water, pick, shovel, scrape, pry, toss back bowlders and prop up sluices slipped from their supports. Between 2 and 3 o'clock a snowy white cloud rises over a distant peak" to the eastward. It seems like a great bank of snow against tho blue sky, and the longer wo look at it the farther we seem to peer into its translucent, clear-white depths. It rises over that peak at almost tho same hour every afternoon, and is almost of the same shape. It is the condensed vapor of the snow melting on the higher Sierra summits, eighty-six miles distant. It is imposing in its silent imperceptible rising, its wonderful whiteness, its majesty, its distance. It seems a fit bed of snowy jplendor for fairies or some sort of ethereal beings to bask and revel in. It seems to be looking down, half in scorn, half in pity, at us four weary, miserablo worms of the dust, feebly pecking at a bit of mother earth, muddy, wet, and feebly squirming in and about this bank of dirt.

At 4 clock there are longer pauses in our labors. Tliero is more leaning on shovels and more fiequent glances at our timepiece, tho sun, as ho sinks in the western heavens. The shadow of the hill opposite creeps slowly down its side. It is a cool, welcome shadow. The strongest worker secretly welcomes it. Though he be a "horso of a man," his muscles all feel the effects of tho long day's labor. It is more his strong will than his body which keeps him swinging the pick. Wo are in duty bound to work till 0 o'clock. Everybody works till 6 o'clock. Everybody is more or less tired at 4 o'clock, but it is not the capacity of the body for labor that fixes the time. It is custom, stupid custom. The gauge is the limit of physical strength, not for tho weakest, but tho strongest. The great, brawny armed, big boned Hercules of our company doesn't feel it much. He may walk three miles after supper to the bar store, play cards and drink whiskey till fl o'clock, and then walk back again and be up fresh for work next morning bv 5:30 o'clock. This is 1860.

In 1870 he showed ft, however, and in the marks of age was ten years ahead of his time. You can't keep up this sort of thing—digging, tugging, lifting, wet to tho skin day after day, summer and winter, with no interval of rest, buta steady drag twelve months of tho year—without paying for it. There's dissipation in the use of muscle as well, as in the use of whisky. Every old miner knows it now and feels it. Don't you? How does the muscle of 45 years in 1882 compare with that of 25 years in 1862? Of course, man must live by the sweatof his brow or the

S-"-~

Respectfully,

Somervill© Bros.

•I

ms W

sweat of his brain, but many of you sweat too long in those days, and I heat you all saying, "That's so!" Start anew tho firo in tho littlo stove thump the wet 1 toots in the corner drag your sell down to tho spring a few hundred yards distant for a pail of fresh water hack a few more chips from tho dried stump mix some flour, water and yeast powder for the day's baking sit down a minute on your flour barrel chair and look on your earthly possessions. The worn ami scarred trunk you brought years igc from the states it holdg your best suit oi a forgotten fashion, two or three white shirts, a bundle of letters from home, a few photographs, a Bible not worn out witii use, a quartz crystal, a few gold "specimens," a tarantula's nest, the tail of a rattlesnake and six vests. Do you remember liow vests would accumulau in the mines? PantB, coat, everythinj else would wear out—vests never.

PRENTICE MULFORD.

Beware of Ointments for Catarrh That Contain Mercury. Mercury will surely destroy tho sense of, smell and completely derange tie whole system, when entering it through the mucus surfaces. Such articles should never be used except on prescriptions troii reputable physicians, no the damage they will do are ten fold to the good you can possibly derive from them. Hall's Catarrh Cure, manufactured by P. J. Cheney A Co., Toledo, O., contains no mercury, and is taken Internally, and acts directly upon tho blood and mucus surfaces of the system. In buying Hall's Catarrh Cure be sure you get the genuine, it Is takon internally and made in Toledo, Ohio, by P. J. Cheney A Co.

Sold by druggists, price 75c per hot-' tie.

Como and see the new styles of cloaks at D. W. Bountree's.

A Woman'! -oovery,

'Another wonderful discovery has en made and that too oy a woman In hJs county. Disease fastened its clutches upon her and for seven years she withtood Its severest tests, but her vltel 1 rgans were undermined and death seemed Imminent. For three months she coughed Incessantly and could not sleep. She bought of us a bottlo of Dr. King's New Discoveiy for consumption and was so much relieved on taking one dose that she slept all night, and with one bottle has been miraculously curedHer name is Mrs, Luther Lutz." Thus write W. C.. Hamrick & Co., of Shelby

N. B.—Get a free trial bottle at Nye 4 Cl drugstore.

Take! Takel Take Simmon's Liye* lator for dyspepsia, conspitation hartburn.

Heart Diwuc.

If you get short of breath, have flutter lng, pain in side, faint or hungi spells swoolen ankles, eto., you

havehe&rtdls*

ease, und don't fall to take Dr. Miles New Cure. Sold at Nye fc Co's drug store

The effect 01 using Hlbbard's rheumatic syrup is unlike all medicines containing opiates or poisons, it being on* tlrely free from them. It oures rheumatism By purifying the blood. For 6ale and highly recommended by Mofiattr Morgan & Co.

From Geo. H. Thayer, of Bourbon Ind.,says: "Both myself and wife owe6 our Hfo to Shlloh's Consumption Ctro. For sale by Moffett, Morgan & Co.

Shlloh's Cure win immediately relieve Croup, Whooping Cough and BronchitisFor sale by Moffett, Morgan & Co.