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CHAPTER VII.

LIFE IN THE TERRITORY.

BY EX-GOVERNOR R. K. COLCORD.

            As a boy of 17 in California I began chasing gold excitements in many parts of that State. When the big rush to Fraser River started in 1858 I made my way North, but met so many discouraged men returning that I turned back. In the spring of 1859 in company with Ab. Black, Bill Stevens and George Smart, I crossed the Sierra Nevada Mountains by the old Emigrant trail from Columbia, Tuolumne County, in search of more gold at Monoville or Mono Diggings, as it was then called.

            It is difficult to give a very good idea of the location of Mono Diggings for the reason that no well known objects were within reach on which to base a description. Now, however, the town of Bodie, sixteen miles north, and Mono Lake, four miles east, are not only well known but rather famous in a way. Mark Twain's "Roughing It" (a book which everybody has read with pleasure) gives a good and true description of many places and incidents which occurred during his stay there. For instance, he tells us that the waters of that lake will take the hair off a dog, which I am quite willing to believe, though the dog must stay in it some time. Really, though, it is quite as strong as a whiskey cocktail in a country hotel. The last time I took a swim in that lake, a few years ago, I took an unintentional drink of some of it through the nose and every time I think of it now it gives me an inclination to sneeze. I am of the opinion it might be a good investment to establish a bottling works there and put that stuff on the market as a catarrh cure.

            Seriously, though, Mono Lake has not received the attention it deserves from the few magazine men who have written it up after camping there a day or two. It is situated in a little valley or basin at the base of, and on the eastern slope of the Sierra Nevada range of mountains, and held in place by low, detached hills of volcanic ash, lava and obsidian. It is about fifty miles in circumference, one mile above sea level, with a num-

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ber of streams flowing into it but with no outlet. It can discount the English Channel in getting up a chop of a sea. A few years ago Mr. James Ney, who kept a station on the lake, together with three companions, all expert boatmen and swimmers, while crossing the lake in a sailboat were caught in a squall and were all drowned. On another occasion the little steam tug used for towing lumber encountered a tornado and was driven so far inland that she has not come back yet.

            The waters of the lake are not inhabited by anything that lives or breathes. On its surface, however, there are millions of insects which may best be described as winged worms. Their origin is unknown, but they are about the same color and just as useful as a rusty nail. These worms, flies, or bugs, as they might be classified, settle on the surface of the water, die, and are blown ashore and piled upon the beach in windrows for miles around. They are of an oily nature and must be very nutritious, as thousands of ducks swarm there every season and become hog-fat in a very short time. Those of us who have had experience do not hunt this game. Occasionally a stranger, or tenderfoot drops down there and fills his bag, but when he gets home and the cook starts the fire on him (the duck, not the tenderfoot) trouble begins. After these birds have feasted on that kind of food for a couple of weeks, the aroma arising from them while being roasted is not that of a camomile bed. I have tried them so I know.

            The waters of the lake are so strongly alkaline that they are very buoyant. If I were to attempt to give a chemical analysis you would say "lie," which would be partly true though incorrectly spelled. The water preserves wood in such a way that many railroad ties were rafted across the lake and allowed to remain in the water a month or two, and are still in use, though the road was built in 1882.

            It is a delightful place to swim providing one has no abrasions on the body, and keeps his mouth shut while in and takes a bath on coming out. It is often twenty below zero there, but ice never forms on the lake.

            The reader may have difficulty in connecting the above with the story I started out on, but that is his stunt, not mine, and does not worry me. Now that I have attempted to do justice to the "Little Dead Sea" in the high desert I will go back to my tale.

            About seventy men had preceded us and I doubt if any one knew or cared whether we were in California, Utah or Nevada. So far as we

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were aware there were no other inhabitants within a hundred miles in any direction. All had crossed the mountains from Sonora, Columbia, and vicinity. Two or three among the crowd I had known slightly in California; Sol. Carter, who was running a pack train over the old Sonora trail, Ex-Senator W. W. Williams, now a wealthy stock man of Churchill County, and Teddy Brodigan, father of our present Secretary of State. I found Mr. Brodigan a genial, jolly Irishman of the old school and retained his friendship for more than forty years. Another, Frank Shaw, who was known as a gentleman gambler in Columbia, had the only sizeable tent where he was dealing monte, taking bets in gold dust, as there was but little coin in camp. Later, Shaw became a wealthy cattle man and for a number of years was County Commissioner of Inyo County, Cal. He was an excellent citizen and a thoroughly honorable man.

            At that time no one knew where the boundary line was which separated Nevada Territory from California. I found little encouragement to prospect for gold in the district as there was scarcely water enough for rockers after September, though a few men made money sluicing earlier in the season. Nearly the entire outfit left the country before the storms commenced and returned to the western slope, crossing the Big Meadows, near where the town of Bridgeport now stands.

            The following summer the mines at Aurora were discovered by J. M. Corey, James M. Braly and a man named Hicks. Mt. Corey, near the town of Hawthorne, and Mt. Braly, south of Aurora, were named for the two former pioneers. These men made the first mining locations in that district. The first location was made on the high outcrop at the base of Mt. Braly and was named the Montauk, since known as the Old Esmeralda. The first man to discover gold in the Bodie District was W. S. Body, for whom the town was named, though the spelling was changed. This man Body, if my memory serves me rightly, was a camp fellow of Brodigans at Mono during my stay there. Body worked some placer ground at the base of Silver Hill and late in the fall of '59 located the first quartz claim in that famous district which is twelve miles south of Aurora. In the early spring of the following year he was caught in a Bodie blizzard in Cottonwood Canyon, lost his bearings and perished in the snow. His remains were found a few months later, taken to camp and given a Christian burial by the miners who, by that time, were quite numerous in the camp.

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            My next venture in these regions, after taking in Washoe City, Galena, Carson and Virginia City, was Aurora. This town enjoyed its greatest boom in the early spring and summer of 1863. Men swarmed there from all quarters by stage, fast freight, horseback and on foot. My first night's slumber was in a corral, and the next few nights I hit the straw in a quartz mill. It was a wide open town and everybody was happy with the possible exception of those who were sticklers for a more generous supply of law and order. One of the two newspapers published there claimed a population of 10,000, but about half that number, would, in my judgment be nearer the mark. Last Chance Hill was the bonanza, and the Real Del Monte and the Wide West were the big producers, both yielding enormously rich ore, though 100 feet in depth was the limit of milling ore. Nothing of value at greater depth has since been found in that hill, though the main shaft is down nearly 900 feet. This is not true of other localities in that district as the Humboldt, Middle Hill and Silver Hill have all been good producers at considerable depth. The limit of quartz mills was reached that year, fifteen or sixteen in all, with approximately about 200 stamps. The average recovery of bullion was about 80 per cent, and no tailings were saved. Big fortunes went down the canyon into Walker River. It would have been impossible then, nor has it been possible at any time since, to estimate, even approximately, the amount of bullion the camp has produced. The big yield lasted only about two years, and in my opinion $10,000,000 would be the maximum, yet others equally familiar with the district, have placed it much higher.

            The town that year became notorious as a refuge for the rough element. Two crowds of toughs located there, one from San Francisco, and the other from Sacramento, and they did not mix in anything approaching friendship. The good people of the town paid little or no attention to their killing and maiming among themselves, but when they committed a foul murder upon the person of a good citizen, W. R. Johnson, a Vigilance Committee was immediately organized with Captain Palmer as its chief. Then it was that the vigilanters got busy and under his leadership they worked so quickly and quietly that the entire gang found themselves locked up together before they knew what had happened. The place was surrounded by a guard of a hundred armed and determined men and there was no chance for escape.

            The primary cause of the necessity for lynching these men was the

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killing of one of their gang by a young fellow named Johnny Rogers, who died a few months ago at Reno. Rogers was in the employ of Johnson, who owned a ranch at Smith's Valley, when three hoboes on their way to Aurora, while passing through Wellington Station, took a saddle horse belonging to Johnson. As soon as the discovery was made, Johnson told Rogers to saddle the best horse, take a Colt's Navy and capture the stolen horse if he had to kill all of the three men. Rogers struck out at a pony rider's gait and came up to them near Sweetwater Station. He ordered them to halt, and they replied with bullets. Brave little Rogers limbered up his battery without delay and the two who were riding, immediately dismounted. One of them, Jimmy Sayres, is there yet. The others broke for the willows, and Johnny returned with the stolen horse without a scratch. Sayres was an active member of the San Francisco gun men and was greatly missed, and though they appeared to hold no grudge against Rogers, they notified Johnson that it would not be healthy for him to show up in Aurora. He did not heed their warning and made several trips to town selling produce. He, however, went once too often, and late that fall his body was found one morning lying in the street.

            For the murder of Johnson the Vigilance Committee arrested about a dozen of the worst characters, gave all a fair trial, which resulted in the conviction and hanging of Daly, Buckley, Masterson, McDonald and one other whose name I have forgotten. Irish Tom Carberry escaped the hemp by one vote. He was reported killed a few years later in a gun fight at Austin.

            Immediately following the hanging, and disbanding of the Committee the town became as quiet and uninteresting as the face of a professional mourner. In 1886 I was engaged in the erection of a quartz mill, now known as the Syndicate Mill, on the road from Bodie to Aurora, and among the laborers I discovered Tom Carberry, "Irish Tom." He had never ventured into town and the story of his experiences while in the hands of the vigilanters was most amusing. He said that when the gang was led out of the pen, one at a time, the presumption was that they were to hang singly. He was one of the first taken out, but when they put him back he concluded it was all off and he would hang with the others. This, together with the sight of a gang of carpenters putting up a gallows frame was the last straw. Their courage gave way and Johnny Daly asked Three Fingered Jack McDonald, "Jack, do you know any prayer?

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If so, turn it loose before it's too late." Tom said, in explaining his own feelings that his first sensation was a dizziness in the knees, then his stomach felt as though a whole family was moving out. His under jaw sagged and the lump in his throat was the size of a billiard ball.

            The organizing of this Vigilance Committee in Aurora was Captain Palmer's second experience in that line. I was a witness of his work in getting together a search party on the night of July 4, 1857, when one of his chief lieutenants, Bill Carder, captured the murderer of John Leary, city marshal of the town of Columbia. After due trial they hung him to the flume which crossed the road on the divide between Columbia and Gold Springs.

            Some years later this same Bill Carder was killed by Mose Brockman at Aurora. I may explain that the killing of Bill Carder was a necessity. The bravest fighters of that day feared the man who could push his hat off the back of his head, draw, and put a bullet through it before it reached the ground. Brockman had been repeatedly warned that he must face this man or be killed at sight. He decided to take no chances and, watching Carder's movements, saw him enter the saloon in the Novacovich building, then secreted himself in -an unused doorway. When Carder appeared, Brockman gave him both barrels of buckshot, which resulted in the placing of a tombstone in the Aurora Cemetery bearing the name of Bill Carder. This affair occurred long after the other fighting gangs had left the country and had no connection with them.

            The conditions at Aurora were practically the same as at all other mining camps. A few men became rich quickly and were ruined later through speculation in stocks and dissipation. Alec. Gamble, who had been a college president in Maine, was one of the original owners of the Wild West Mine, and during the first stock boom sold his holdings for $275,000, and bought a bunch of Real Del Monte at a low figure. This stock within a few months sold up to $500 a share and Gamble became a rich man. A few years later he was wearing an unlaundered shirt and living at a two-bit restaurant in San Francisco.

            Another instance of a change of character and clothes as well as fortune was that of Pat. Reddy. He was the terror of the town in 1863, and became one of the most brilliant and successful lawyers of the Coast. James Starke, a noted actor of that day, together with J. W. Tucker, a Montgomery Street jeweler, owned a ten-stamp mill on the ground where

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the Del Monte Station now stands. A forty-stamp mill was erected that summer of 1863 for the Real Del Monte Company, just below the Starke and Tucker Mill under contract with the Miner's Foundry, owned by Howland, Angell and King, for $250,000. All freight was transported by team from Sacramento at 10 cents a pound. I put in five months on that job as millwright and one of my fellow workmen was Alec. Tannahill, father of our present State Senator from Storey County.

            It has been the custom for all old-timers at Aurora to claim acquaintance with Mark Twain. Unfortunately for me I did not know him at all except to nod in passing. Many claim to have been partners with him in mining claims, others that they had loaned him money, etc. I was loaded with wild cat stocks and much more likely to want to borrow than to lend and when he lived at Aurora he did not look like a promising subject to tackle for a loan, though it was there that he believed himself a "millionaire for ten days," therefore I missed coming in contact with him.

            I was well acquainted with Bob Howland, who was a nephew of Territorial Governor Nye, a chum of Mark Twain's and a royal good fellow. Bob was city marshal at a time when it required nerve to hold down the job. Politics ran high that year of the war as it was a case of union or secession. Not knowing whether we were in California or Nevada we held one of the most unique elections ever held in the country. Polls were opened in two places and all hands voted twice the same day ; the California ticket at one precinct and for the territorial candidates at the other. Something over 2,300 votes were cast at each.

            Among other amusements that year we were treated to a real display of arms on the field of honor. It was no French affair, on the contrary it was a genuine pistol duel for blood. Two of our most prominent citizens violated the laws of the land, or would have done so were it not for the fact that it was neutral ground in the absence of a boundary line, where neither sheriff could prove jurisdiction. The principals of this affair were Dr. Eichelroth, and the editor of the Times, whose name I do not recall. The Doctor was of medium height and weighed close to 220 pounds, while the editor was a six-footer with the build of a telegraph pole. "Doc" made his reputation as marksman by clipping a piece out of the shin of that live wire, and the honor of each was appeased. Captain Teal, our sheriff, was on hand, but did not interfere.

            Ex-Judge Jim Hardy, who was impeached for treasonable utterances

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while District Judge of Calaveras County, Cal., was quite an important personage in the town. Also Judge Quint, a noted attorney of California. Pauling & Kendall was a law firm of note. Kendall was elected to Congress after Nevada became a State.

            The first telegraph line to reach Aurora was in June, 1863. The town was strongly Union in sentiment, though some of the leading men were rank Secessionists, among whom being Col. L. B. Hopkins, Superintendent of the Real Del Monte ; Harry Newton, a prominent mining man ; Milt. Elstner, a mill superintendent; R. B. Sanchez, of the banking house of Howard & Sanchez, and others of lesser prominence. Mrs. Sanchez was the leading spirit in all good works, moral, social, educational and religious —a most charming lady. She was the daughter of the famous lawyer of San Francisco, A. P. Crittenden, who was shot to death at the ferry landing by Laura D. Fair.

            To the best of my recollection, John Neidy was the only man who located at Aurora in 1860 and lived there continuously until his death—about forty years. John was a California pioneer, a natural optimist, genial, jolly, generous and companionable. Horace Marden was another early settler there, but left about 1892. He was a member of the Legislature in 1889. He is still living and actively engaged in the logging business in the Siskiyou Mountains. He looks and appears like a man of 60, but he is over 80. Doubtless there are others living who were witnesses of these strenuous scenes and who could render a more vivid account of the lively doings, though I cannot now call to mind one, except Mr. Marden, with whom I had an acquaintance there in the early days.

            In 1890, while campaigning throughout the State, it was my privilege to renew my acquaintance with Capt. J. A. Palmer, mentioned above as chief of the Vigilance Committee, who presided at our meeting held at Carlin, Elko County. His introductory remarks in presenting me to the audience, were quite characteristic of the man, though rather shy on polish. Here is his speech :

"Friends and neighbors : Something like thirty-five years ago I met a green hayseed of a boy over in Tuolumne County who had just landed on the Coast. He looked as though he wanted to go home. Now, after all these years he shows up here, six feet high, with broad shoulders and a big head. It's up to you to judge if there's anything in it. Ladies and

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gentlemen, I take pleasure in introducing your candidate, Mr. R. K. Colcord, of Esmeralda County."

            Within less than ten years from the first discovery of gold at Aurora, practically all active mining and milling operations ceased, and more than half of the buildings in the town were vacant. Since that time at least three attempts have been made to bring it to the front again, involving the expenditure of more than a million dollars with very slight returns. The first of these was made by a corporation with a capital of $5,000,000, and a board of directors consisting of H. M. Yerington, N. K. Masten, R. M. Graves, Daniel Cook, and A. J. Ralston, all men of wealth, not one of whom is now living. This company installed heavy machinery, and started to sink a thousand foot shaft on Last Chance Hill. The flow of water became so great that their seventeen-inch Cornish pumps could not cope with it, and the enterprise had to be abandoned before reaching the 900-foot level.

            This ended all operations for a few years, causing the practical abandonment of the place a second time. The next outfit to take hold was an English company, promoted by A. E. Ann, and under the management of W. G. Tiffany, a society man of New York, London and Paris. This company spent about $400,000 and shipped about $120,000 in bullion. The town then took another vacation for a few years, causing such a thinning of the population that the Post Office was abandoned. Later a company of Nevada and California men spent something over $100,000, recovering very little in the way of returns and finally selling out their interests to a power company at a profit.

            I trust and sincerely hope that this is not the final ending of the dear old town, for I hold the kindest feelings toward the place and the people whom I have known there, living and dead.

            This account may appear somewhat overdrawn to those who are not familiar with frontier life. To these I will say that, to the best of my knowledge and belief, it is substantially correct. Necessarily allowances must be made for lapse of memory.