[R. M. Bucke, Twenty-five Years Ago, The Overland Monthly, June 1883]

 

THE

OVERLAND MONTHLY.

 

DEVOTED TO

 

THE DEVELOPMENT OF THE COUNTRY.

__________

 

VOL. I. (SECOND SERIES.) JUNE, 1883. No. 6.

____________

 

TWENTY-FIVE YEARS AGO.

            IN the summer of 1857 I was a member of a small community who by the aid of rockers, toms, and sluices extracted a precarious livelihood from the placer diggings of Gold Cañon a broad and shallow ravine, dry in summer, but in winter, spring, and fall sending a diminutive tribute of muddy water to the Carson River. Around on all sides sand and sage brush stretched interminably. East, north, and south the outlines of the foot-hills, clothed with scrubby cedar and pine, rose and fell in long, rolling undulations ; while to the west, in full view, the Sierra Nevadas lifted their bald summits against the almost constant blue of the sky. Immediately at their foot lay Carson, Eagle, and Washoe valleys, each occupied by a few ranchers; while the mining population of the Cañon might have been three or four dozen.

            Our total number reached perhaps a couple of hundred souls, scattered over a country thirty or forty miles across in each direction. To the east, our nearest neighbors lived seven hundred miles distant, on the shore of the Great Salt Lake; across the mountains to the west, we reached by a walk of a little over a hundred miles the westernmost mining camps of California; north and south as far as our knowledge extended the barren slopes of the foot-hills were still in the undisturbed possession of Washoe and Piute Indians; along the highlands towards the head of the cañon, where now stands Virginia City, Silver City, and Gold Hill, the mountain-sheep suckled her young, unmolested except by the gray wolf.

            The social state of this small community was genuinely Arcadian in its simplicity. No civil, military, or ecclesiastical organization existed among us. Utah Territory, in which we lived, had at that time no laws or courts, and Gold Cañon possessed no church of any denomination. In spite of the absence of these signs of civilization, I have never known a community the members of which were better disposed or conducted. There was no theft, no violence, and hardly ever even an instance of drunkenness or a quarrel. Each worked steadily all the week, and after a general wash-up on Sunday morning, it was the rule to adjourn to our general headquarters at Johntown, and spend the afternoon and evening over a social game of cards.

            Among the miners of Gold Cañon were two brothers, named Allan and Hosea Grosh. They were Pennsylvanians, and had gone to California through Mexico in 1849. They

554 Twenty-five Years Ago. [June.

were well educated, had a fair knowledge of mineralogy, possessed superior intelligence, were industrious, persevering, and enterprising in a high degree, and devotedly attached to one another. Throughout their life in California they had always lived together, and had worked in many different diggings on the whole, without much good fortune. At first, like all early Californians, they expected to make a fortune gold-mining; later, they abandoned this notion, and for some years it had been their habit to work at this until they accumulated a little money, and then to travel about prospecting for gold-bearing quartz veins, silver, copper, and other metals. As early as 1854 they had extended these explorations across the Sierra Nevadas and into Gold Cañon, had ascertained that native silver existed there, had found silver ore near the forks of the Cañon, and from that time they felt certain that the metal existed in large quantities in that immediate neighborhood.

            It now became the great object of their lives to make such examinations as should convert these moral into physical certainties. Ill health and bad luck in gold-mining made it impossible for them to do anything further in this direction until the autumn of 1856, which they spent tracing the silver veins they had found and looking for others, with the result of making themselves confident that those they had found were immensely rich. Early in 1857 they returned for the last time from California to Gold Cañon, still further examined their silver lodes by the actual reduction of ore and the separation from it of a certain quantity of pure silver, definitely located what they judged the best situations, and took up as much land as they could hold under the mining laws of the district. Their plan was now to go to San Francisco, form a company, come back, erect machinery, and begin at once working the ore. Just at this moment began the extraordinary series of catastrophes which at once ended their hopes and lives, and almost closed that of the present writer, who, becoming associated with one of them, escaped his fate only by a hair's breadth.

            The Grosh brothers, as they were commonly called, though friendly to all about them, seldom took any one into their confidence, and only one man shared with them the exact knowledge of their discoveries ; his name was George Brown; he and they were associated in all the business that any of the three did. In the summer of 1857 George Brown was murdered at his trading-post on the Carson River. A party of emigrants from Arkansas, spending the night near his post, lost some cattle, accused him without evidence of having caused them to be driven away by the Indians, and shot him.

            On the 19th of August, just as the Grosh brothers had located their "claims," and were about to leave for the coast to raise the capital required to work them, as Hosea was doing some final work before starting, his pick glanced from a rock, struck his left foot, and passed nearly through it. On the 2nd of September he died from the wound; and Allan, overcome by grief, was left alone in possession of their common secret.

            I had known the Grosh brothers for some time, had seen more or less of them during Hosea's illness, and had assisted at his burial. A friendship now arose between Allan and myself, and thenceforth we were a great deal together. Allan's plans remained the same as before Hosea's death, but that event caused some delay in carrying them out. It was arranged that he and I should go to California together as soon as possible, but it was the middle of November before we were able to leave Gold Cañon ; and after that we were still further delayed until the 20th of November by the straying away of a donkey which we took with us to carry our effects. Upon the afternoon of the last-mentioned day, however, we left Washoe valley, and after a slow and toilsome ascent of seven miles reached a small lake within a few miles of the eastern summit. In the valley we had just left the weather had been warm, with very little frost even at night: here we had to cut through ice more than six inches thick to get water from the little lake on the margin of which we encamped.

1883.] Twenty-five Years Ago. 555

            It will be proper in this place to give some description of the Washoe trail, by which we were now about to attempt the passage of the mountains ; it was used by Indians and by occasional travelers on foot or horseback, but was not practicable for wheeled vehicles. From Washoe valley, going west, it ascends the eastern summit, which has here an elevation of about nine thousand feet ; then runs down this summit to the shore of Lake Tahoe. From the valley to the lake is about twenty-five miles. It then skirts the north-east shore of Tahoe for about ten miles, till it reaches the point of exit from the lake of Truckee River; then runs north down the right bank of the Truckee for eight miles ; crosses the Truckee and runs westwardly up a small stream for about six miles, to Squaw valley, which lies close under the western summit. From Squaw valley the trail runs over the western summit, or main ridge, of the Sierra Nevadas, which is here about eleven thousand feet high; and then descends the long western slope of the mountains into California. From Squaw valley to the first house on the California slope that is inhabited during the winter is about fifty miles; and the whole distance from house to house was at the time of which I am writing about one hundred miles.

            On the 21st we crossed the summit, reached the shore of Lake Tahoe, and kept on till night around the lake. That night it rained where we were, and doubtless snowed on the mountain summits. By the middle of the forenoon of the 22nd we reached the point where the Truckee River leaves Lake Tahoe. It still rained, and was getting colder; we knew it must be snowing on the mountain summits, and we pushed on as rapidly as possible, hoping to cross over before the snow got too deep. We kept on down Truckee River, and crossed it by wading; early in the afternoon passed through Squaw valley, and attempted to ascend the mountain beyond. We soon came to snow, then lost the trail, hunted for it until it began to get dark, and then turned back to Squaw valley, lit a fire, had supper, dried ourselves as well as we could (for it continued to rain), and lay down by our fire until morning.

            November 23rd. It kept steadily getting colder, and this morning it was snowing in Squaw valley. We however, although the attempt seemed -- as it turned out to be --  hopeless, determined to try again to cross the summit. We had not got far up the mountain before we found that in the first place we could not keep the trail, and in the second place the snow was too deep for the donkey -- he could not walk through it. After hunting for the trail until we were quite wet through and very cold, we gave it up for that time, and returned to our camp in Squaw valley. We got back there about the middle of the afternoon, and found the fire still burning.

            November 24th. It was still snowing. We saw plainly that, whatever our own fate might be, it would be impossible ever to get the donkey out of Squaw valley. Besides that, we were out of provisions. So we shot, skinned, and began to eat him. We set to work to improvise a tent: we stretched a rope tightly between two trees, about three and a half feet from the ground ; to this we fastened, with a needle and strong thread such as miners are always provided with, the ends of two blankets side by side, and sewed the blankets together; the other ends of them we fastened to the ground with stakes. We thus had a shelter similar in shape to half the roof of a house, and large enough to sleep under. This tent we took down in the morning, and made a fire on the ground that it would cover when put up. In the afternoon we moved the fire so that it would be across the open front of the tent, swept the coals off the ground with a broom made of small branches, and put up the tent. At night we had the warm, dry ground to sleep on.

            November 25th. It was still snowing. In the forenoon we considered carefully our situation. The question to settle was, What to do? Four courses were open to us, and we discussed them all fully. They were as follows :

556 Twenty-five Years Ago. [June,

            First, to keep on at least, to try and keep on and either get to California or die on the way. The great difficulty in that direction was the high western summit, not less than eleven or twelve thousand feet above the sea, and therefore some four or five thousand feet above where we then were; for Lake Tahoe, and consequently Squaw valley, is seven thousand feet above the sea-level. We thought that if we could once cross the summit, we could easily get down the mountains into the inhabited regions of California.

            Second, to attempt to return to Washoe valley. This would involve the same length of journey as to go on. The eastern summit, however, is not so high as the western by about two thousand feet, and therefore it would not be so cold upon it. On the other hand, the eastern summit is densely wooded, while the western is almost bare of trees; it would therefore be more difficult (the trail being hidden by snow) to find a route that would be practicable over the eastern than over the western summit. Upon full consideration we decided that we had as good a chance of reaching settlements in California as in Utah. We decided, therefore, to go on in preference to turning back.

            Third, we might have attempted to follow the Truckee River down to where it emerged from the mountains to the northeast. We both knew something of the lower part of the course of the Truckee, and we knew that if we could get down it to the open plain without being too much exhausted, we should have no difficulty in finding houses. But neither of us knew anything about the course of the Truckee through the mountains, and those who know anything at all about mountain rivers know that they are generally difficult and often impossible to follow. We did not think seriously of adopting this plan, and I do not know to this day what chance we should have had of carrying it out. The fourth and last alternative was to stay where we were until spring. We thought seriously of doing this. We had about one hundred and fifty pounds of meat; it would not spoil, for it would freeze and remain frozen until used. If we could live in Squaw valley and keep in health until March, we could then cross the mountain with comparative ease and safety. We finally dismissed this plan, however, as being perhaps the most hazardous of all. Exposed to the elements, as we then were, we required a large amount of food, and we did not think we could make the donkey hold out. Then we thought that, living such a life and upon such a limited dietary, it was doubtful if we could keep in health. Neither did we know exactly how long we might have to wait for the spring to open. We decided to cross over, or at least attempt to cross over, into California at once, or as soon as possible.

            The next question was, How could this be done? The snow was already quite deep on the mountains, and was still falling fast. Even in Squaw valley the ground was covered a foot or more deep. We should have to find our way across the mountains by the observation of mountain peaks and the general shape of the country. Until it cleared up, we could see nothing. By the time it stopped snowing, it seemed probable that the snow would be two feet deep in Squaw valley, and at least four or five feet deep on the mountains. Would it be possible to travel through such deep snow, over rocks, bushes, and the inequalities of the mountain ground? This was the question, and our lives depended on the answer. We had an ax, knives, the donkey's hide, and plenty of wood. We set to work to make snow-shoes.

            November 26th.--Still snowing. We worked hard at snow-shoes, and finished a pair apiece.

            November 27th.--Still snowing and cloudy. We tried to cross the summit, but failed.

We could not see the peaks. After some hours' walking, we did not know which way to go. With a good deal of difficulty, and at last by following a stream down into Squaw valley, we found our camp again. Our snow-shoes were not well made, and as neither of us was accustomed to their use, we could do nothing with them, and after a short trial we threw them away.

1883.] Twenty-five Years Ago. 557

            The 28th was a fine, bright day. We took as much meat as we could conveniently carry, and started. We climbed all day. The snow was about three feet deep. During a great part of the ascent the ground was too steep for walking. In such places our mode of procedure was to clear away the snow, catch hold of the bushes, and with hands and feet together climb up. By about four o'clock in the afternoon we reached a high summit, and found that a ravine at least one thousand feet deep, with perpendicular walls, divided it from the main ridge which we had to cross. Our day's labor, however, was not thrown away, for from the lofty point where we now stood we could see plainly the course we must take to reach the true summit. As soon as we had fixed upon our minds the route we should have to follow in order to gain this, we started back to camp, which we reached, tired out, about ten o'clock at night.

            November 29th.-- Another fine, bright day. We made an early start, and after a terribly hard up-hill walk of some ten or twelve miles, through deep snow and over rough ground, we gained the western summit about two o'clock in the afternoon. At the very top of the ridge is a broad plateau about three miles across; over this the wind blew hard from the west, and therefore in our faces. The cold was intense. I thought we must be frozen to death before we could get to the western edge of the ridge and begin the descent. However, we did not freeze When we reached the western slope, which is pretty steep at this point, we ran down it for our lives. In a very few minutes we were a thousand feet below the summit, sheltered from the wind, and safe from the frost for that day. Before dark we reached a small cabin that had been occupied the previous summer by some men who had herded a drove of cattle in that part of the mountains.

            To make this part of the narrative perfectly intelligible, I ought to say that Allan Grosh, though he had crossed the Sierra Nevadas many times, had never before crossed by the Washoe trail, but that I had crossed by it in the previous August ; and at that time I had stayed some days with the men I have mentioned, who lived in the hut we had now reached. While I was with them a violent snow-storm came on, which soon covered the ground four or five inches deep; although it was midsummer, the weather became quite cold, and it seemed that the snow would lie on the ground for some time. The men were afraid that their cattle would surfer, so drove them down the mountains, and . I went with them. They left behind them, hidden in the cabin, some flour and bacon. I knew of this, and we had counted upon these provisions. When we reached the hut we found the Indians had been there and the provisions were gone. However, we were over the summit and within twenty-five or thirty miles of settlements, and we supposed that we had seen the worst of the journey. We were terribly mistaken. In Squaw valley our matches had got wet and spoiled. We had a gun and some powder and caps. When we got to the cabin we started a fire with the gun, had supper, and made ourselves tolerably comfortable.

            The 30th it snowed hard. From where we now were the trail ran for some miles along the side of a high ridge ; it then followed along the top of the ridge for twenty miles or more, down to a place called Robinson's Flat, where there were people living. The mountains here are wooded, and the trail marked by blazes on the trees. These afforded us our only chance of keeping the way. To follow the trail by the blazes, clear weather was necessary. We stopped in the cabin all this day, and worked at some more snow-shoes.

            December 1st. Still snowing hard. We stayed in the cabin and finished two pairs of snow-shoes. The 2nd was a beautiful, bright morning. We had put ourselves on short allowance of meat while we were in the cabin, but still what we had brought with us from Squaw valley was now almost gone; this morning we had only about half a pound left. We might possibly have carried more, but we had a hard road to travel over the

558 Twenty-five Years Ago. [June,

summit, and dared not try to take much; then, also, we had counted upon the provisions that I had seen left in the cabin; and besides, we had hoped to keep on right down the mountains, if we once crossed the summit alive; and if we had been able to do this, we should have reached settlements the second day after leaving Squaw valley.

            We left the cabin on our snow-shoes ; but after a trial of them for an hour or two, we found that we could not advantageously use them, and threw them away. The snow was three to four feet deep, and in places even more. We could not keep the trail, but kept finding and losing it, and finding it again. We got on slowly; but we worked hard, and we got on. In a couple of hours we reached the top of the ridge, some five miles from the cabin. Here there was very little snow, as the wind blew hard and, swept it off. It had become terribly cold, blowing hard from the west. We continued down the ridge until the middle of the afternoon. All at once it spread into a broad plateau. As long as it was wooded we followed the trail by the blazes, but toward evening we came to a place where the ridge, continuing very broad, was also bare of trees. Here we had nothing to guide us. It had become intensely cold. We kept on and on. It must have been nearly sundown when I saw fresh tracks just before us. My first thought was that there were other people in the neighborhood, and that perhaps we were near help. A moment afterwards the truth was plain. These were our own tracks. We had gone in a circle. We had been afraid that we were off the trail, and here was the proof of it. What to do next? It was snowing hard. We could not see a hundred yards. Our first thought was to build a fire. We tried this, but our gun had got damp, and we could not get it to go off. We worked with it for some time, until we were almost frozen -- in fact, until we were frost-bitten.

            Then we saw that our only chance of life was to find shelter immediately. We threw away our gun, and everything that we had brought with us from Squaw valley, including Allan's papers. We kept nothing but our blankets, a butcher's knife, and a tin cup in which was the miserable remains of our meat, and ran for our lives. We struck south. In a few minutes we reached the edge of the ridge. The descent was very steep, but the snow was deep upon it. We ran down it full speed. When we got to the bottom of the hill, we found ourselves in a tolerably broad, flat valley, well wooded with evergreen trees. These, and the high land about us, protected us from the wind, and we found the temperature quite pleasant as compared with that of the top of the ridge. In the valley it was already beginning to get dark.

            Our first thought was how to pass the night without being frozen to death. There was only one way, and that was to bury ourselves in the snow. This we proceeded to do at once. We cleared it away with our hands and feet from a piece of ground as large as a bed. We then covered the ground three or four inches deep with green boughs, cut from small trees. Upon the boughs we spread our blankets, and covered these about a foot deep with snow. We ate about half our meat, then crawled, feet first, under the blankets, and lay there until morning. We slept very little. The warmth of our bodies thawed the snow, and before morning our clothes were wet. We had not been perfectly dry for a good many days, and we did not get dry again during the remainder of our wanderings.

            December 3rd. When we got up in the morning the first thing we did was to consider what course we had better adopt next. It was still snowing, so we knew it would be useless to attempt to find the trail on the ridge. We did not know what mining camp was nearest, nor did we know the direction of any one in particular. All we really knew was that if we could get down the mountains far enough we should come to mines and miners. Our conclusion was to keep down the ravine we were then in to the river, which we knew it must fall into not many miles away ; then follow the river down, and if we came to any small stream falling into it that

1883.] Twenty-five Years Ago. 559

was muddy, follow up this. For if the stream was muddy it would show that there were miners at work up it. We traveled all day down the ravine, but did not reach the river. The snow this day was about two and a half feet deep, and the surface of the ground very uneven. We often walked into low bushes hidden by the snow. The walking was exceedingly laborious, and exposure, want of sleep, and want of food were beginning to tell upon our strength. We might have made this day at the most ten or twelve miles. In the evening we finished our meat, which amounted to not more than two or three mouthfuls apiece, made our beds as the night before, and lay down.

            December 4th. About noon we came to the river. I learned afterwards it was the middle fork of the American. This day we suffered a good deal from hunger. We were still pretty strong, however. The snow was not so deep. We probably traveled as far this day as on the third. We kept down the river till night, and then made our beds as before.

            December 5th. We kept down the river until about the middle of the day, when we came to where it ran through a deep cañon with very steep, rocky sides. We could not follow the river through this cañon, so turned up the bank to the right, to the top of the ridge between this stream and the next. We followed down the ridge some little distance, then kept again to the right, and descended to a large stream to the north. We waded through this stream, and prepared our bed a little up its northern bank. We had hoped that it would be muddy, showing that there were miners in the neighborhood, but it was quite clear.

            This day the weather was bright and warm. The snow did not average a foot in depth, so that the walking was much easier; but we were getting very weak, and we could hardly have made more than six or eight miles. We did not feel very hungry, but we had a sinking feeling much worse than hunger. Allan was manifestly weaker than I was, so I walked in front that he might place his feet in the tracks that I made. Though I was the stronger, Allan was the more courageous and determined; for this afternoon, when, exhausted and despairing, I sat down, and weeping, proposed to give up and lie down and die where we were, he would not consent to it, but said, "No, we will keep going as long as we can walk"; and represented to me that, as we had left no friends in Utah who would look for us, and had none in California who would take much pains to try to find us, should we die where we then were our friends in the East would never know what had become of us; and so, after a little, he persuaded me to make another effort. When we reached the stream in the evening where we were to camp, I said to Allan:

            "Let us make up our bed for the last time, for we shall never leave this place."

            But Allan said he thought we should get in somewhere yet. We did not talk much. We were too weak. We made our bed and lay down. For my part, I felt so exhausted that evening that I hardly expected to live until morning, and I thought even if we did live till then we should probably not be able to walk.

            December 6th. We slept a little, but only to be tortured by horrible and extravagant dreams. In the morning, rather to my surprise, we were able to stand. The snow here was only a few inches deep. We were getting down the mountains, and the last few days had been warm. If there had been much snow we certainly should not have been able to walk ; as it was, we were barely able to crawl along, and went almost as much on our hands and knees as on our feet. We went northwest, in a direction slanting up the bank of the river we had lain by. About ten o'clock we reached a flat piece of ground. About eleven o'clock Allan said he heard a dog bark. But I did not hear it, and did not believe it. I thought he only fancied he heard it. He was so positive, however, that we went in that direction, and had not gone far when we came to a ditch with water running in it. This showed that we were close to mines that were being worked. We followed the ditch, and in a little while saw houses. I

560 Athletic Sports at Harvard. [June,

can recollect distinctly to this day that even then I did not feel sure that we should find men in these houses; but a few minutes later Allan said, "There is smoke"; and I saw a thin blue column slowly rising from one of the chimneys. Then I felt certain that our troubles were over. This was the worst delusion of all. Our troubles had just fairly begun.

            When we reached the houses it was nearly noon ; and upon talking to the men we found in them, we learned that we had walked or crawled just three quarters of a mile that day. We were no longer hungry, and when food was offered us we found we could not eat. A very small quantity which we took made us feel sick. The next day after we got in we could not walk. Our feet were badly frozen. We could not sleep. The miners were kind ; everything that could be done for us as far as it lay in their power they did. We got worse and worse. After a few days we became delirious. The miners sent down the mountains for medical and surgical assistance.

            On the twelfth day after we reached the mining camp, Allan died. Thus, by the most extraordinary concurrence of circumstances, the details of their discovery were entirely lost. The three men (all young and healthy) who shared the knowledge of these details perished almost simultaneously, though by deaths that had no connection with one another ; and the papers containing the records of their discoveries were lost in the heart of the Sierra Nevadas. No knowledge survived of the work of the Grosh brothers in Gold Cañon and its neighborhood, except the bare fact that they had found silver.

            Two years afterwards, in 1859, this knowledge, by making the miners watch for indications of silver, led to the finding of the Comstock lode, and that discovery to others, until the faint and soon almost extinguished spark of knowledge, struck from the rocks of Utah by the intelligence and perseverance of these two young men, resulted in the enormous silver-mining industry of western Nevada.

R. M. Bucke.