Dutch Oven Mine of San Bernardino County

In 1894, Tom Scofield, a railroad worker, was surveying near the Clipper Mountains northwest of Essex, California when he decided to do a little exploring. When he was about three miles up the side of the mountain, he ran across an old abandoned stone house that appeared to have been built years previously.  Continuing along, he hiked approximately nine more miles when he came upon a spring. There, he followed a trail that led over the hill where he came upon a rock atop the peak that he described as being as big as a house. The large boulder was split in two and the trail continued straight through it. Beyond the passageway he stumbled into what appeared to be an old Spanish camp.

The Clipper Mountains are northwest of Essex, California

Tom found himself standing on a high shelf, surrounded by high walls. Through other openings in the rock walls, he could see that the "shelf” was sitting high above the ground at about 500 feet. The only way in or out of the little flat was through the split rock. Scattered about the long deserted camp, Scofield found rusty mining tools, pots, pans, fragments of a bedroll, and an old iron Dutch oven. Also on the shelf was a mine shaft, in which he found the skeletons of seven burrows. Next to the shaft was a mine dump that contained numerous stones still containing rich gold quartz. By the time he had finished exploring the campsite, he realized that it was too late to return to his base camp. Cold and hungry, he bedded down on the shelf planning to leave at daybreak. In the morning, as he was leaving, he tripped over the Dutch oven and out tumbled a mound of pure gold nuggets. Shocked, Tom gathered as many nuggets as he could carry and returned to his base camp. From there he caught a train to Los Angeles, where he spent the next two months in a drunken frenzy, gambling and living the high life. After squandering all the money he had received from the sale of the gold nuggets, Scofield found himself sober and completely broke. It would be two years before he was able to make his way back to the Clipper Mountains to search for the "Dutch Oven Mine.”  Try as he might, it seemed to him that everything had changed and he was completely unable to retrace his steps. Disillusioned, he finally gave up the search. When Scofield was 84, he was interviewed by Walter H. Miller and George Haight in 1936. Living in an abandoned store in the Mojave Desert outside Danby, California, Scofield was at first hesitant to tell his story. After having been hounded for four decades by treasure hunters wanting more information about the mine, he had long tired of the story even though he continued to insist that it was true. Today, the Dutch Oven Mine continues to be lost, or at least no one has ever claimed to have found it.The Clipper Mountains are located in the Mojave Desert of southeastern California. The range is found just south of Interstate 40 and the Clipper Valley, between the freeway and National Old Trails Highway, northwest of the small community of Essex. The range is home to at least three springs, as well as the Tom Reed Mine. © Kathy Weiser/Legends of America, updated November, 2009.

The New Geocache Craze

I see there is a new adventure sport emerging. It is called Geocaching. Geocaching is a real world game that consists of people hiding caches, then others go to find it. Hide and seek for adults basically. There are some sites that offer prizes for finding caches. One asks that you trade a found cache for another one. It is becoming quite a trend.

Now forgive me for being naive - but if you are going to burn gas and energy looking for treasure - why wouldn't it be REAL treasures that you search out? There is so much actual bonified treasure out there to be found - old coins, pioneer artifacts, Indian artifacts, actual lost mines and long buried treasures from yesteryear, and this is not to even mention gem minerals. The attraction of hunting for planted "caches" just escapes me somehow.


Rockhound State Park about nine miles southeast of
Deming, New Mexico.  Photo courtesy Texas Campgrounds
There are ghost towns all over, and in those ghost towns are many lost items just waiting for the fortunate hunter to dig up and bring back to the world. Of course, this is just whole towns. Anyone hiking in areas previously trod by early gold rush era prospectors or pioneers is bound to stumble across lost homesteads at some time or other. Where ever parties of pioneers, wagon trains, or stagecoaches came through, there rests the possibility of real treasures. Pioneers were known to often bury treasures when they were being pursued by those who might steal it, or when the load became too cumbersome to be able to travel with it. I'm sure these people meant to recover these treasures at a later date, but for reasons ranging from untimely death to just lost directions, many of these caches remain buried and waiting for recovery to this day.

What about lost mines? No one yet has found the Lost Dutchman mine, now you want a real thrill, be the first to dig that one up. That is only one mine lost in the archives of history waiting to be retrieved. The Lost Cement Gold Mine still remains lost near the head of the middle fork of the San Joaquin river and the Lost Soldier Mine somewhere in Arizona near the Gila River bend has thus far managed to elude hunters. This is only a couple of mentions out of scores, possibly hundreds, of lost mines just waiting for rediscovery. Pirates and Bandits were well known to bury treasures as well. No report has been made of the Lake George or South Mountain treasures in Colorado having been found yet. Florida itself is not much more than a grand treasure cache, with hundreds of caches having been dug up that were left by pirates, explorers, and people fleeing battles, and who knows how many left to discover - and that is on land. For the adventuresome scuba diver, the gulf is an explorers paradise, hiding wrecks of ships toren on reefs, lost in storms, or sunk in battles.

The South Western portion of the US abounds with treasure stories of lost Indian treasures, caches stolen by invading Spaniards and buried to be lost later, and stagecoach and train robberies that resulted in burial of treasures. While some of these stories can be chocked up to legend, historical evidence exists to support many.

So maybe the fact with the Geocache game is the competition and involvement with others. Real treasure hunting does not necessarily negate these factors. Many a treasure hunt that I have seen revolves around shared research and information, as well as teams of hunters who report back to each other about progresses and failures. Some are undertaken with the spirit of sharing a cache, while others involve shared information but the actual discovery is pretty much a finders-keepers, winner-take-all proposition.

 So simply speaking - while Geocaching sounds like an entertaining way to spend a weekend - for me "ain't nothing like the real thing, baby."

©2005 Sally Taylor
 http://www.prospectorstools.vstore.ca 
http://www.goldseekerstools.com

Outlaw Roy Gardner's Loot

In the early 1900s train robber and gunrunner, Roy Gardner, began his career of thievery inArizona and California. On April 16, 1920 the curly-headed young man stole $78,000 in cash and securities from a mail truck in San Diego, California. Though it was a smooth job, the outlaw was arrested just three days later. Soon his name would become as well known to the lawmen of California as Jesse James.
Sentenced to 25 years in McNeil Island Federal Penitentiary near Tacoma, Washington, Gardner vowed to never serve the sentence, even though no one had successfully escaped this high security prison. On June 5, 1920, Gardner was on his way to Washington to serve his sentence, but when he and two other prisoners were being returned from the diner to their compartment, the outlaws attacked the guards and escaped.
On May 19, 1921, Gardner boarded the mail car of a Southern Pacific train, tied up the clerk and fled the train in Roseville,California, with $187,000 in cash and securities.
Two days Gardner was arrested again while playing a game of cards in a Roseville,California pool-hall. Attempting to reduce his long sentence, he offered to lead the lawmen to the money. However, he must have changed his mind when, after leading the officers on a wild goose chase of the surrounding hills, he announced, "I guess I have forgotten where I buried that money."

Gardner was given an additional twenty-five years at McNeill's Island and on June 10, Deputy Marshals Mulhall and Rinckell set out from San Francisco with their prisoner. Gardner again vowed that he would not serve the sentence and the very next night just before the train was nearing the Portland, he managed to escape once again. However, he was soon recaptured when an alert hotel proprietor in Centralia, Washington alerted the law.

This time a heavily ironed Gardner traveled once again to Tacoma, Washington , on June 17, 1921. Four miles long and two miles wide, McNeil's Island, surrounded by an expanse of icy water and swift tidal currents, would make escape impossible -- no one had ever managed it before.

However, on the afternoon of Labor Day, September 5,1921, as Gardner watched a baseball game between two prison teams, he would once again make an escape. Sitting between to fellow prisoners by the names of Lawardus Bogart and Everett Impyn, Gardner suddenly said "Now," when a batter sent a ball far out into center field. As the guards in the towers had their eyes on the ball and the runners, the three men crawled through a hole in the fence and were on the other side before they were spotted.

Making for a nearby pasture where they could shelter behind the livestock, bullets began to kick at their feet before they could reach the herd. Continuing to dash across the field toward timber, Impyn was shot dead. When Gardner had almost reached the timber, a bullet tore through his left leg and he went down. At almost the same time he saw Bogart fall, waving weakly for him to go on. Within ten minutes after the break prison launches carrying guards scoured the beaches and confiscated every boat on the shoreline. As Gardner hid in the timber darkness came and went and at daybreak he was still at liberty. Warden Maloney believed there was no way that Gardner could have escaped the island, but as two more days passed, and not a single trace of the Gardner could be found, he began to think differently. Two more weeks passed and the authorities had to admit the Gardner had probably gotten off the Island. Nothing more was heard from Gardner until November 3, 1921, when a lone bandit held up the Southern Pacific train at Maricopa, Arizona. Though nothing was taken, the mail clerk thought it was Gardner. On November 15, Gardner attempted to hold up a mail train in Phoenix, Arizona, but the mail clerk was a powerful man and fought back. The gun discharged but no one was hit.

This time there would be no escape. Another twenty-five years were added to Gardner's sentence and he was taken toLeavenworth (Kansas) Federal Penitentiary but was later moved to the Atlanta Federal Prison. While there he attempted yet another escape, but this one was unsuccessful and he paid for it with twenty months in solitary confinement. When he came out of the "hole" he was crazy and ended up spending time in St. Elizabeth Hospital for the Insane, at Washington, D. C., but was later removed to Alcatraz to complete his sentence. Gardner made several futile appeals for clemency, but was not released until 1939. He ended his own life in a small hotel room in San Francisco, explaining that men who served more than five years in prison were doomed and that he was old and tired. Thus ended a criminal career and somewhere, an estimated $250,000 of his loot still remains hidden. Gardner had neither the time nor the opportunity to spend is ill gotten wealth, nor partners to share it with. Legend has it that he hid some $16,000 in gold coins in the cone of an extinct volcano near Flagstaff, Arizona before he was captured during a train robbery in 1921. But, where is the rest? California? Washington? Or somewhere in between? © Kathy Weiser/Legends of America, updated February, 2010.

My New Website is now up and running please give it a look!

CC690 Power Sluice http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vuDKWqC5lJY

It is call  http://wwwgoldseekerstools.com It's new and I will be adding more items soon, thanks Mike

What is a riffle and how do they work?

Story is from our friends at goldfeverprospecting.com


What is a Sluice Box? Sluicing for gold

A sluice box is like a long tray which is open at both ends. Most will have riffles, spaced evenly along the length of the sluice, usually every few inches, perpendicular to the length of the sluice. Riffles cause small barriers to the water flow which creates eddies in the water, giving the heavier material (black sand and gold) a chance to drop to the bottom, behind the riffles. The "upstream" end of the sluice can also have a flare to aid in increased water flow.

The sluice is usually placed in a creek or river and can be held in place by larger rocks, packed in against the sides or one large flat rock on top. The slope or angle of the sluice can be adjusted, by arranging rocks under the sluice. Also the flow of water can be adjusted by placing a large rock in front of the intake end of the sluice, to divert some of the water around the box. You have to adjust these variables several times until you get the material moving through the box at the correct speed leaving just the black sand in the riffles.

When you're ready to stet processing material, drop in material at the upstream end of the sluice. As material piles up at the downstream end, you will have to clear it once in a while, or just move the sluice slowly upstream, as you work the material.

What you will notice when first starting is the riffles will appear to fill up with lighter material. But over time this lighter material will slowly migrate down the box and finally exit out the end of the sluice, washing out from behind one riffle, and then the next. During the flow, as heavier material comes through, it also settles behind the riffles, and as lighter material migrates, the heavier stuff settles slowly to the bottom. This is assuming you have the slope and flow rate adjusted correctly.

Eventually the riffles will fill up with heavy material like black sand. When you see lots of black sand showing in the riffles, you could be in a good spot for gold.

How do riffles work


The reason that riffles work is two fold. First, there is an eddy created behind each riffle, causing a temporary lull in the water flow. The material that is flowing is in a liquid state. This causes the heavies to be at the very bottom of the flow. As the flow passes over a riffle, the heavies will fall to the bottom behind a riffle.

Second, the riffles are spaced a couple of inches apart, and act as a series of small dams, stopping the creep of the heavy material down the sluice. Without them, there would be a slow, but sure creep of gold out the end of the sluice.

Normally most of the trapped gold will be behind the first couple of riffles. This is because the heavies fall fast. Small flour gold may extend several riffles further, and, hopefully, the last few riffles have ZERO gold. If you find gold in the end of your sluicebox you surely have lost mor eout the end.

The riffles are usually hinged at the upstream end, with a latch at the downstream end. So you can release the latch, and swing the riffles up. Usually there will be a 3/16th inch layer of material called miner's moss or carpet, that resembles in texture, a kitchen scouring pad, laying on the surface of the sluice. It is a loose weave matt with lots of air space. It traps and holds the smallest gold particles. On top of that can be a layer of expanded metal. This creates a criss-cross pattern of spaces, each with their own eddies. Then the riffles, that resemble a ladder, with each riffle a rung, when swung up, is lowered into place and latched down.

Each time you clean up, you raise the riffles, and remove the moss. You then wash down the sluice, wash out the moss, and put it back together, all inside a tub, of course. How often you do this depends on whether you want to know what you're getting, whether to move or not. Otherwise, you can probably run the sluice for quite a while, before cleaning (I used to think that you should clean it often, but I tend to think otherwise now). The gold is going to fall out early in it's travels down the sluice, and it would have to fill up with gold, before you started loosing anything.

The way to tell if you have things close to right or not, is to notice whether you are finding gold many riffles down from the front of the sluice. It should be very close to the front, in the first 1/2 of the sluice for sure. One way to always know is to make the miners moss two sections, butted together. All the gold should be in the first mat. There should be nearly nothing in the second. I have divided mine into 4 sections. I pan the last section to make sure that there is nothing in it. I pan the first section to see what I'm getting.


Watch the cc690 Power Sluice at my website: http://www.prospectorstools.com

What Does Gold Sniping Really Mean/How Do You Snipe Without Being Thrown In Jail !!!!

                                                                    SNIPING

By Sam Radding     


Time, like the river in front of our camp, takes some interesting twists. Some years back, I sat on a boulder by a small creek with a fishing rod in one hand and a gold pan in the other. I can still remember wondering whether I looked as foolish as I felt. Was I actually going to put some dirt into the pan and try my hand at gold mining? -- Or was I just going to go fishing?

I guess most would-be miners come to a point like this. Although there was a lot to learn about gold prospecting, the knowledge did seem to come easily to me. I have always been a do-it-yourself person; and within two years, I was already building small-scale mining equipment for several shops in southern California.

For me, building the equipment, and showing others how and where to use it, widened the pleasures found in our gold mining adventures. Since then, some part of every prospecting trip has been devoted to showing at least one beginner how it all works.

A case in point happened over our last three sniping trips to the Mother Lode. Sniping has two related meanings in a mining sense. To the old-timer, sniping meant using light, portable equipment to work the high-grade deposits along the banks of gold-bearing streams and rivers. These banks were sampled quickly. When a suitably-rich deposit was found, it was worked as fast as possible and the miner was off to the next spot.

Today, sniping also means working gold-bearing waters with a mask and snorkel and a few hand tools. Higher-grade spots are still worked quickly and the miner is off to the next hot spot. The equipment must be light, because the sniper usually has to cover a large area.

Over the years, I have gravitated to this type of mining. There is nothing quite like the thrill of spotting gold sitting on the exposed bedrock, right there for the picking. This is where my love of sniping, joy in teaching, and my friend Howie all came together.

We first met Howie at the Mineral Bar Campground on the North Fork of the American River. We pulled into our camp spot and within an hour there was Howie, the itinerant camp-greeter. He was living out of his old Dodge van and finding a little gold with his gold pan.

Over the next few days, Howie watched me don my wetsuit and head up the river. In the evening, he would watch me clean up the gold. On the third evening, I asked if he would like to try his hand at sniping. I would supply the tools and a day's instruction. As it turned out, we worked together for about four days. In that time, Howie learned to look for bedrock cracks, but not just any cracks. We wanted cracks that were fed by other features surrounding them. Low spots and shallow channels were examined for cracks. Areas downstream from large obstructions, like trees and boulders, were worked. Any patch of broken or rough bedrock was investigated. We hand-fanned away shallow overburden, looking for hidden gold-bearing spots. There were a lot of places to look!

We found lots of flake-gold and a few small gold nuggets by splitting small cracks with my four-pound hammer and a one-inch chisel. We cleaned other spots with small hook tools. At times, we just picked the flakes off the bedrock with our fingers.

By the end of the fourth day, Howie had the basics down, but he was still leaving a lot of gold in the spots he worked. The best I could do was to tell him to be more thorough in the areas that showed good potential. Those tiny cracks can hold as much gold as the larger, easier ones do; and there are a lot more of them.

One year later, we met again. Howie's old van was now a truck, but camping still was home. We worked together for a few days, and I did see progress. He was finding better spots and working them more diligently, but he was still leaving some easy gold for me to find when I checked his spots.

That was last year. This year, Howie is an accomplished sniper. A few hours spent together in the water proved that. Somehow, between this year and last, Howie got thorough. At an evening get-together, Howie turned to me and quietly said "I really have gotten better at sniping." I already knew that. The gold in his bottle said a lot.

If this type of mining seems appealing, don't just sit on a boulder with a fishing rod in one hand and a pan in the other. Find yourself an old wetsuit, mask, snorkel, crack hammer, a few crack hooks, and jump in. As soon as you uncover your own first piece of gold, you will know how I feel about sniping.

 
 
You Can Follow Texas Pete To See The Sniping Tools Pictured Above.
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Advantages Of Using Drywashers

Thompson 12volt Drywasers

Dry washers have been discredited; criticized and distorted far too many times that it is difficult to get at the truth. To a certain extent in all honesty, only large scale mining operations which use sophisticated equipment are flourishing in recovering fine gold by dry methods in amounts which are large enough to make it cost-effective. On the other hand, there are a very large amount of individual prospectors who make use of the small kind of dry washer. These are with no trouble transportable and are either hand-operated or drive by a little motor. They are used for the most part to test an area to see if it would guarantee more investigation. a lot of prospectors use them for outings on the weekends, but it would be reasonably complicated to make a living by using one of them. The people who take pleasure in searching the dry desert areas, either as a leisure pursuit or for authentic prospecting explorations, will discover that the Garrett Gravity Trap pan with its portability and non expensive advantages will also work completely as a dry washer, but on a small scale to a certain extent. A prospector in one occasion had the good luck to be seated, unnoticed, at the back of a lecture hall during a prolonged debate on gold pans and the methods for dry panning. The spokesperson was a writer who is known nationally and is a dealer in mining provisions, but this man did not have too much wide experience in the mining field, with the exception of perhaps in his own area. This spokesman made an observation that the Garrett Gravity Trap gold pan did not in the slightest make dry panning achievable. Since this prospector who was hearing this debate did not have the aspiration of embarrassing the spokesman in public, made no comment whatsoever, and did not recommend to show the spokesperson how uncomplicated and trouble-free the pan is to use. Nevertheless, this prospector, as well as many other prospectors, is still a very strong believer in total truthfulness on the subject of facts and equipment, and will keep his mouth shut when it comes to something he knows nothing about. A few people may possibly just insist on showing them how to do so by using their own equipment, or invite him to carry out the same demonstration by using the sand and the gravel which is supplied from their own diggings. It is very obvious to see that this is no place for show boaters and fakers who make use of a carnival environment to pro­mote their products. Whichever kind of equipment used for mining will in the long run have to stand on its own merits, and knowledgeable counselors will at all times stress unhurried, but positive results, particularly in the case of using new methods or tools for the first time.

The dry washer uses a table which is built very much like the average sluice box. It is a four-sided figure which is just about six to twelve inches in width, and has a succession of riffles to fence in the gold. The riffles are positioned in an upright position at an angle of 90 degrees and at right angles to the long box or trough. The dry gravel or sand, which is required to be completely dry, is gradually fed into the trough which is positioned on a slight descending incline. The trough or box is afterwards shaken, or vibrated by means of a small hand crank or a motor, which causes the material to slip bit by bit over the 90-degree riffles. The heavier gold settles to the bottom of the trough and is, in sequence, stopped by the upright riffles. With continuous shaking, vibration and forced air it will cause the lighter sand and gravel to travel in a downhill direction, this lighter sand and gravel will slip over the top of the sharp riffles, and then move off onto a tailing pile. The gold which is heavier and the black sand concen­trates will stay securely trapped at the rear or in the front of the up­right 90-degree riffle.
This that you have recently read is furthermore an exact description of the operational function of the famous Garrett Gravity Trap pan. The Garrett pan uses the identical sharp riffles, which is constructed in the plastic at a true 90 degrees, and performs precisely the same function. The portable dry washer is four-sided, and is either shaken or vibrated by mechanical means. The Garrett Gravity Trap pan is round in shape and is shaken or vibrated by hand. The dry washer will process a larger amount of gravel or sand, but it is also much heavier and more difficult to transport, in addition it costs much more. The Gravity Trap pan will definitely not process nearly so much dry material, but it is exceptionally light in weight, it is small, and easy to transport, plus the price is almost nothing in comparison. The results or the amount of the recovery, from whichever device depend completely upon the knowledge and the methods which are used by the operator. With this information you can now understand how unreasonable the declaration which was made by the unknowledgeable dealer of mining supplies sounded.
We put a very strong emphasis that in wet panning the material has got to at all times be in a liquid or suspended state; otherwise, the gold will by no means settle down through the damp or simply wet sand. The contrary holds true at the time of using the dry method of recovery. The sand or the gravel must be completely dry. It cannot be even a little damp because the gold will not settle down through the dense material without much agitating and the gold must be in the loose suspension of the dry sand or gravel. Dry panning is to a certain extent complicated when it is used as a method of recovery on fine gold. If the operator has the patience and employs the accurate meth­ods, it can be accomplished at the same time of using the Gravity Trap pan. As is natural, at the time that the gold is heavier and in bigger pieces, it is much easier and much more practical. It is only mentioned in passing that it is completely feasible to pan light or flake gold. Gold panners with experience have used the dry panning method for quite a few years with only pans that are conventional, even though this requires a large amount of experience, ex­pertise and time. The Gravity Trap pan is in point of fact a diminutive dry washer with the same riffle design but it is constructed in a shape that is round. It is operated by power that is hand-controlled, in the same manner as the small portable dry washers are. It remains only for the prospector to put its potential to appropriate use.

Texas Pete Say Follow me To Drywasher Heaven ! http://www.prospectorstools.com/

Article source by the Mineral Prospector

LEGENDARY LOST TREASURES

By Frank Pandozzi








Oh yes, the idea of searching for and finding a buried treasure has been thought about and dreamed by both young and old. Some have followed their hearts and have gone on treasure hunts that have resulted in locating buried treasures both beneath the ground and under the water. Others have located caches of all sizes inside homes and barns. Treasures are out there, just waiting to be found, and some of them may be closer to you than you think. Older homes that date back one hundred years or more have a very good chance of holding a treasure; and these old homes are in cities and towns across America.

Many people did not trust banks. Also, many of our first settlers were very independent individuals, they wanted total control of their lives, and their possessions, including their money and valuables. It was common for those individuals to bury their valuables for safekeeping.

Old home site.



This practice of hiding their possessions was a constant as this country moved into the nineteenth and twentieth century. The stock market crash of the 1920's only bolstered the lack of confidence people had with financial institutions, and to this day, people are still hiding their money. And the safest place to hide their money and possessions was in and around their home.







However, often times the person doing the hiding would not tell the family. Husbands and wives many times never told their spouse that they buried a cache beneath the old oak tree. Therefore, when the spouse who did the burying dies, the other has no idea of the stash. And when both spouses are gone, or the family, not knowing of a hidden cache on the property moves away, the house with the treasure becomes the property of a new owner. There are buried treasure in old homes across the U.S.



Whether you live in an older home that you purchased from someone else, or if you want to search for a treasure on the property of an old home, here are three places that have proved to be popular hiding places around old home sites.



Beneath The Old Oak Tree



As I mentioned in the illustration above, the old oak tree, or any large tree for that matter, has been a popular hiding place for buried treasure. Perhaps the reasons why are shade and a marking.



Burying a treasure large or small requires work. It's easier to dig a hole while doing so beneath the shade of a large tree. Also, many people used tree's as a marker for their cache. You may not think a marker would be needed. After all, what person would forget where they buried their valuables. However, markers for treasures were also used at times to lead a family member to a buried treasure upon a death. So if you live in an old home, and there is an old tree on the property, especially behind the home, it's a good place to begin your search.







Near The Well



Another popular area where treasures have been located is near the well. The well was used often and it was a perfect place to bury a treasure. Most wells were also located behind the homes, so it would be secretive and easy to hide valuables time and time again.



The Outhouse

Outhouse in "Shantytown," Spencer, Iowa, Lee Russell, 1937.

This image available for photographic prints and downloads HERE!

I love digging in old outhouses. Yes I've been called crazy for climbing into these old cesspools. However, they hold a wealth of valuables from old pottery, bottles, buttons, coins, and yes even treasures.


There have been treasures found inside the outhouse, and beneath the wooden thrones. One individual located an old metal container fastened beneath the throne, held there by a few nails and a metal strip. Inside the container was hundreds of silver dollars dating from the mid 1800's.



Think about all of the old abandoned homes you drive by on a weekly basis. Then think about how many of those old homes have a treasure lurking on it's property. All you need to do is ask for permission from the owner to search the property. Of course you will tell them that any buried treasure you may find, will be shared with them.


A metal detector is a useful tool for locating buried treasure. You don't have to spend a lot of money for one. A good detector costs between three hundred and four hundred dollars. It could end up paying for itself.

© Frank W. Pandozzi, June, 2010

About the Author:

Frank W. Pandozzi is an author, TV Producer and well known treasure hunter. He began his "treasure hunting" days twenty-five years ago metal detecting parks and schoolyards. Today Frank Pandozzi is the Producer and the host of Exploring Historys Treasures TV series. He is married and has one son.

For more information please visit http://www.metal-detecting-ghost-towns-of-the-east.com/

Article Source: Ezine Aricles
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NEVADA LEGENDS Early Mining Discoveries

  
Written by Sam P. Davis in 1912, compiled and edited by
Kathy Weiser/Legends of America, November, 2009.



The story of the first discovery of gold at Sutter's Mill, California, was the beginning of a marked event in the history of the United States which led to the mad rush of fortune hunters to the Pacific Coast, and gave the world a romance of sudden wealth which has never been duplicated in the history of mining. For the next ten years, the record was one of tragedy and greed, of gilded adventure and extraordinary happenings, in which the soldiers of fortune from the uttermost parts of the earth plunged into the seething melting-pot of fate and fought for spoils so vast and so easily acquired that it made the tale of Aladdin's Lamp a jest and mockery.
The romance of California gold mining needed a sequel, and the opening chapter was written when the Grosh brothers, of Philadelphia, who first discovered silver in Nevada, on the eastern slope of Mt. Davidson.

Miners were always quick to "pick up" their homes and
move to the next big mining strike.

Now and then, a hand reaches down and brings up some fragment which calls to mind the incidents which cluster about that tremendous discovery which helps make a new State and contributes a page to the history of the world.

After the bloom had worn off the gold excitement in California, some of the men who had rushed to the Coast doubled back along the trail and began to hunt for the precious metal in Nevada.

Gold is not a modest metal. It makes its presence known whenever it can and is always seeking recognition. When, in its original location, it is always subject to dislodgment from the attrition of the elements, the convulsions of nature, and the thousand and one disturbances arising from the industry of man. The moment it is loosened from its original home it becomes subject to the law of gravitation, and every movement is downward. Every storm which beats upon it helps to disintegrate its prison walls, and at every turn, the stones of the stream fall upon it and hammer it flatter, while the wear of the water takes away its sharp edges, so that when a practiced prospector picks it up from the bottom of his pan scores of miles from the original ledge, the appearance of the little grain of gold gives him a tolerably good idea of the distance it has traveled.

Early in the 1850s, prospectors found gold in the Carson River, near present-day Dayton, and they followed the indications up the ravine which carried away the wash of Mt. Davidson. They found the precious metal in paying quantities all along this gulch, which were washing out gold on the eastern slope of the mountain. Gold hunters from Placerville, California had come to the river as early as 1854 and earned good wages with pick and pan in what is now known as Six-Mile Canyon.

The Grosh Brothers

In 1857 E. Allen Grosh and Hosea B. Grosh, sons of Reverend A. B. Grosh, a Unitarian clergyman of Philadelphia, were working on the Comstock. From the testimony of many miners who knew them, they were men of considerable scientific attainments, being chemists, assayers and metallurgists. In addition to all this, having quite an outfit of assaying implements, they also brought with them to a spot afterward occupied by the Trenck Mill, quite a formidable library of scientific works. Captain Gilpin and George Brown were also regarded as partners of the Grosh brothers. 

They went to the Comstock region from Mud Springs, California in 1857, and prospected for nearly a year. When they came across a young man named McLoud, they took him along with them. He was a Canadian, about twenty years of age, and had crossed the plains with some Mormon emigrants. 

Now and then, a hand reaches down and brings up some fragment which calls to mind the incidents which cluster about that tremendous discovery which helps make a new State and contributes a page to the history of the world.

After the bloom had worn off the gold excitement in California, some of the men who had rushed to the Coast doubled back along the trail and began to hunt for the precious metal in Nevada.

Gold is not a modest metal. It makes its presence known whenever it can and is always seeking recognition. When, in its original location, it is always subject to dislodgment from the attrition of the elements, the convulsions of nature, and the thousand and one disturbances arising from the industry of man. The moment it is loosened from its original home it becomes subject to the law of gravitation, and every movement is downward. Every storm which beats upon it helps to disintegrate its prison walls, and at every turn, the stones of the stream fall upon it and hammer it flatter, while the wear of the water takes away its sharp edges, so that when a practiced prospector picks it up from the bottom of his pan scores of miles from the original ledge, the appearance of the little grain of gold gives him a tolerably good idea of the distance it has traveled.

Early in the 1850s, prospectors found gold in the Carson River, near present-day Dayton, and they followed the indications up the ravine which carried away the wash of Mt. Davidson. They found the precious metal in paying quantities all along this gulch, which were washing out gold on the eastern slope of the mountain. Gold hunters from Placerville, California had come to the river as early as 1854 and earned good wages with pick and pan in what is now known as Six-Mile Canyon.

The Grosh Brothers

In 1857 E. Allen Grosh and Hosea B. Grosh, sons of Reverend A. B. Grosh, a Unitarian clergyman of Philadelphia, were working on the Comstock. From the testimony of many miners who knew them, they were men of considerable scientific attainments, being chemists, assayers and metallurgists. In addition to all this, having quite an outfit of assaying implements, they also brought with them to a spot afterward occupied by the Trenck Mill, quite a formidable library of scientific works. Captain Gilpin and George Brown were also regarded as partners of the Grosh brothers. 

They went to the Comstock region from Mud Springs, California in 1857, and prospected for nearly a year. When they came across a young man named McLoud, they took him along with them. He was a Canadian, about twenty years of age, and had crossed the plains with some Mormon emigrants. 

until they returned. 

While preparations were being made for the departure of the Grosh brothers to Philadelphia, Hosea, while prospecting, ran a pick in his foot, which eventually resulted in lockjaw, from which he died from on September 2, 1957. He was buried near their camp and his grave marked by a few large rocks. Years later, his father would send a slab from Philadelphia to mark the grave.

With his brother, Hosea, dead, Allen didn't go to Philadelphia, but would soon travel along with McLoud to Last Chance, California. About November 1st the pair started across the mountains for Mud Springs by way of Georgetown. They crossed into California by way of Lake Tahoe, then known as Lake Bigler. While they were crossing the Sierra Nevada Mountains, they were caught in a succession of snowstorms, suffering terribly and nearly freezing to death. However, they finally reached Last Chance, in Placer County. By this time, both men's feet were frozen. McLoud had his feet amputated but Grosh refused. He died in December, 1857 and was buried in the area. Neither one of the Grosh brothers, nor their families, ever realized a dollar from their discovery which added to the world's wealth over seven hundred million dollars and saved the American Union in the Civil War.

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Development of gold recovery techniques

 Development of gold recovery techniques


Because the gold in the California gravel beds was so richly concentrated, the early forty-niners simply panned for gold in California's rivers and streams, a form of placer mining. However, panning cannot be done on a large scale, and industrious miners and groups of miners graduated to placer mining "cradles" and "rockers" or "long-toms" to process larger volumes of gravel. In the most complex placer mining, groups of prospectors would divert the water from an entire river into a sluice alongside the river, and then dig for gold in the newly exposed river bottom. Modern estimates by the U.S. Geological Survey are that some 12 million ounces (370 t) of gold were removed in the first five years of the Gold Rush (worth approximately US$7 billion at November 2006 prices).



Gold miners excavate a gold-bearing bluff with jets of water at a placer mine in Dutch Flat, California sometime between 1857 and 1870

In the next stage, by 1853, hydraulic mining was used on ancient gold-bearing gravel beds that were on hillsides and bluffs in the gold fields. In a modern style of hydraulic mining first developed in California, a high-pressure hose directed a powerful stream or jet of water at gold-bearing gravel beds. The loosened gravel and gold would then pass over sluices, with the gold settling to the bottom where it was collected. By the mid-1880s, it is estimated that 11 million ounces (340 t) of gold (worth approximately US$6.6 billion at November 2006 prices) had been recovered by "hydraulic process." This style of hydraulic mining later spread around the world. An alternative to "hydraulic process" was "coyoteing. This method involved digging a shaft 6 to 13 meters (20 to 40 feet) deep into bedrock along the shore of a stream. Tunnels were then dug in all directions to reach the richest veins of pay dirt.

A byproduct of these extraction methods was that large amounts of gravel, silt, heavy metals, and other pollutants went into streams and rivers. Many areas still bear the scars of hydraulic mining since the resulting exposed earth and downstream gravel deposits are unable to support plant life.

Quartz Stamp Mill in Grass Valley crushes the quartz before the gold is washed out

After the Gold Rush had concluded, gold recovery operations continued. The final stage to recover loose gold was to prospect for gold that had slowly washed down into the flat river bottoms and sandbars of California's Central Valley and other gold-bearing areas of California (such as Scott Valley in Siskiyou County). By the late 1890s, dredging technology (which was also invented in California) had become economical, and it is estimated that more than 20 million ounces (620 t) were recovered by dredging (worth approximately US$12 billion at November 2006 prices).

Both during the Gold Rush and in the decades that followed, gold-seekers also engaged in "hard-rock" mining, that is, extracting the gold directly from the rock that contained it (typically quartz), usually by digging and blasting to follow and remove veins of the gold-bearing quartz. Once the gold-bearing rocks were brought to the surface, the rocks were crushed, and the gold was separated out (using moving water), or leached out, typically by using arsenic or mercury (another source of environmental contamination).Eventually, hard-rock mining wound up being the single largest source of gold produced in the Gold Country.

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Gold Pan.US - Gold Prospecting Blog: Keep an Eye on Your Prospecting Equipment

Gold Pan.US - Gold Prospecting Blog: Keep an Eye on Your Prospecting Equipment

The Gold rushes

 Gold rush

In the United States and Canada prospectors were lured by the promise of gold, silver, and other precious metals. They travelled across the mountains of the American West, carrying picks, shovels and gold pans. The majority of early prospectors had no training and relied mainly on luck to discover deposits.

Other gold rushes occurred in Papua New Guinea, Australia at least four times, and in South Africa and South America. In all cases, the gold rush was sparked by idle prospecting for gold and minerals which, when the prospector was successful, generated 'gold fever' and saw a wave of prospectors comb the countryside.

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Historical methods gold prospecting

Historical methods gold prospecting

The traditional methods of prospecting involved combing through the countryside, often through creek beds and along ridgelines and hilltops, often on hands and knees looking for signs of mineralization in the outcrop. In the case of gold, all streams in an area would be panned at the appropriate trap sites looking for a show of 'colour' or gold in the tail.


Once a small occurrence or show was found, it was then necessary to intensively work the area with pick and shovel, and often via the addition of some simple machinery such as a sluice box, races and winnows, to work the loose soil and rock looking for the appropriate materials (in this case, gold). For most base metal shows, the rock would have been mined by hand and crushed on site, the ore separated from the gangue by hand.

Often, these shows were short-lived, exhausted and abandoned quite soon, requiring the prospector to move onwards to the next and hopefully bigger and better show. Occasionally, though, the prospector would strike it rich and be joined by other prospectors and larger-scale mining would take place. Although these are referred thought of as "old" prospecting methods, these techniques are still used today but usually coupled with more advanced techniques such as magnetic surveying and gravimetric analysis.

In most countries in the 19th and early 20th century, it was very unlikely that a prospector would retire rich even if he was the one who found the greatest of lodes. For instance Patrick (Paddy) Hannan, who discovered the Golden Mile, Kalgoorlie, died without receiving anywhere near a fraction of the value of the gold contained in the lodes, the same story repeated at Bendigo, Ballarat, Klondike and California.

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BIG GOLD NUGGET WOW !

WOW !

Gold Fact: Did You Know
Sadly almost all gold nuggets found prior to 1990 have been melted down. At the time of the gold rush, even the largest nuggets were melted down, formed into bars or coins and assayed to determine their gold value so that payment for goods and services could be easily obtained. The Great Depression and the raw gold price spikes during the 1980's saw many of the best surviving nuggets held by state governments, museums and private collectors being melted down for cash. What a terrible loss! Only very recently has appreciation of geological rarity, uniqueness and nostalgia replaced the greed and fear that determined the fate of placer and lode nuggets in the past.



Gold Nugget Pricing: natural gold nuggets typically sell for a premium price over the spot gold price because they are valued similarly to gem stones and are much more rare than fine gold dust. Much of the gold bullion traded on the stock market is made from refined and melted down gold dust to form coins; 95-98% of the world's native gold is actually in the form of gold dust and not gold nuggets.

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Old Prospectors Lessons

The Old Prospector's Lesson

(source unknown)

An old prospector shuffled into the town of El Indio, Texas leading an old

tired mule. The old man headed straight for the only saloon in town, to

clear his parched throat. He walked up to the saloon and tied his old mule

to the hitch rail. As he stood there, brushing some of the dust from his

face and clothes, a young gunslinger stepped out of the saloon with a gun in

one hand and a bottle of whiskey in the other.


The young gunslinger looked at the old man and laughed, saying, "Hey old

man, have you ever danced?" The old man looked up at the gunslinger and

said, "No, I never did dance... never really wanted to."


A crowd had gathered as the gunslinger grinned and said, "Well, you old

fool, you're gonna' dance now," and started shooting at the old man's feet.

The old prospector, not wanting to get a toe blown off, started hopping

around like a flea on a hot skillet. Everybody was laughing, fit to be

tied.


When his last bullet had been fired, the young gunslinger, still laughing,

holstered his gun and turned around to go back into the saloon. The old man

turned to his pack mule, pulled out a double-barreled shotgun, and cocked

both hammers. The loud clicks carried clearly through the desert air.


The crowd stopped laughing immediately. The young gunslinger heard the

sounds too, and he turned around very slowly. The silence was almost

deafening. The crowd watched as the young gunman stared at the old timer

and the large gaping holes of those twin barrels.


The barrels of the shotgun never wavered in the old man's hands, as he

quietly said, "Son, have you ever kissed a mule's ass?"

The gunslinger swallowed hard and said, "No sir..... but... I've always

wanted to."

There are two lessons for us all here:

Don't waste ammunition.

Don't mess with old people.

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Donkey Baby Sitters ??? LOL !

Ranchers who raise horses often have a donkey or two on the property. The donkey will serve as a calming agent when around horses, especially foals. While a foal will not willingly approach a human, unless trained to know that it is all right to do so, a foal is normally quite comfortable around a donkey, and when the donkey approaches a human, the foal is likely to do so as well.


One of the best of the donkey facts is they make fine pets and companions. Donkeys tend to be well-behaved, and can be very loyal.

They are sometimes called stubborn, but most experts believe that they are simply being cautious, and careful.

If a donkey doesn't believe it’s a good idea to go somewhere, it won't go there.

All in all, for work, as a babysitter, guard animal, or companion, a donkey can usually fill the bill.

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Old Texas Pete A security Guard ??

The most interesting donkey facts relate to those things the donkey is good at, a few of which may surprise you. A donkey can be saddled and ridden like a horse, and is a very good mount for small children.


The donkey will generally run no faster than it wants to, which is not very fast. The donkey, as we have said, can be used as a beast of burden, and as it often bonds to its owner, and to humans in general, can be used as a pack animal without requiring a lead rope.

Donkeys are also used as security guards for herds of cattle or sheep. A donkey does not like animals such as wolves or coyotes, and will aggressively defend the herd against them. Besides a powerful kick, a donkey will bite and stomp a foe. Most donkeys do not like dogs for that matter, and are apt attack a ranch dog, though they can usually, if not always, be trained to coexist.

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More About Those Donkey's

No set of donkey facts would be complete without the following: The male donkey is called a jack, the female a jenny, and donkeys under one year old are collectively referred to as foals. A foal is a colt if male, and a filly if female.


Different species of the horse family can usually interbreed, with the most common example being that of the horse-donkey hybrid, which we know as the mule.

The mule is the result of a male donkey mating with a female horse, and in general, carries many of the finer features of both species. A male horse can also mate with a female donkey. Here the offspring is called a hinny. A cross species less frequently encountered, and generally considered to be a less desirable or useful animal than is the mule.
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The Donkey's tail

The donkey's tail is more like that of a cow, and there are a number of other differences which set the donkey apart from the horse, largely differences in conformation. While the typical donkey is usually smaller than a horse, the donkey comes in sizes ranging from miniature to around 14 hands, the height of a medium-sized horse. A very pronounced difference of course, is the donkey's unique sound, the bray.


Donkeys have been domesticated for several thousand years, and continue to be used as work animals, or beasts of burden, in many parts of the world.

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Donkey's Better Friends Than Jackasses !

 I wanted to tell you the story of The Donkey So Here Is the first thought!

This Is My best friend and he is no Jackass !

Donkeys were introduced to North America by Columbus, and were extensively used by the Spanish conquistadors during their explorations and settling of the New World.



As the preferred beast of burden for miners and prospectors, the donkey enjoyed a heyday of sorts in the 1840's. And some will tell you they are a whole lot more faithful than those two legged Jackasses !

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MARK ANSON UTAH'S OLDEST SHERIFF

Part Two

I was not lacking in confidence. I had several times in the past proven myself the superior of grown men in mountaineering skills. There was not a doubt in my young mind that I could not lose this old man in the dust.


But still he came on. I watched as he stooped and examined the tracks, then mounted his horse nimbly and headed straight in my direction at a trot. I realized that I would have to resort to more stringent efforts to cover my tracks.

Mounting my horse, I rode her along the hard-pan where, I was convinced, no trace of passage could be seen. I stopped beyond the crest of a hill a mile or so away and secluded myself beneath the shadow of a cedar to watch. Sheriff Anson arrived at the hard-pan and stopped; he dismounted. He walked slowly around the area in a full-circle, stooped once to do something I couldn't quite make out, then mounted again. Without further hesitation, he rode directly toward me!

I rode hard for several hours, using every ruse I could imagine or remember to lose the old tracker, to no avail. Every zig-and-zag was followed unerringly; every back-track discovered; every blind-trail ignored and by-passed. My respect for the "old man" was growing by the hour.

By nightfall my horse was tired and thirsty. She was a young mare, heavy with colt, and I knew I couldn't push her. But it did give me an idea. Riding up to an escarpment where a cedar tree grew out from an overhang some eight feet above the ground, I pulled myself up into the tree from atop my horse, and spooked her down the trail. I then climbed to the top of the cliff, took up a post, and waited.

The old Sheriff came riding leisurely along and I smiled to myself as he by-passed my hiding place and continued along the trail left by the riderless horse. But, no more than half a mile away, I saw him stop, dismount, examine the trail again, and take a drink from his canteen. At last he remounted, just as the sun began to sink in the western sky over the rim of Hogsback Mountain, and I was relieved that he would be moving on: but he didn't. He turned around and rode straight back toward me. Who was this guy?

I traveled all night on foot, then made a dry camp and went to sleep. Before the sun rose I was up, scrambling up a promontory to scan the back trail. There, on the horizon, leisurely plodding along, was the old sheriff. It was nearly beyond belief

I had one last chance. About a mile away, in a wall of ledges overlooking South Valley, I knew of a crevice high on the cliff-side - where once I had explored an eagle's nest - where I could hide in complete concealment. I soon nestled in there, feeling quite secure.

The old Sheriff, whom I watched intently from a niche in the rocks, wound his way across the valley and stopped his horse directly beneath my hiding place. I held my breath as he unscrewed his canteen and took a drink, less than fifteen feet below my roost.

"Hot day,, isn't it boy?"

I jumped. How could he know I was there?

"Imagine you could use a drink of cold water just about now?"

He was right about that.

"Come on down, boy," he said. "I might be too old to climb up after you, but I can damned well out-wait you. " I knew he could. I climbed down. We rode double back down the valley to where my parents waited in a war-surplus Jeep. By the time we arrived, the Sheriff had gleaned my story from between parched lips. Before turning me over to my parents, he asked their permission to take me home with him: "I'd like to give him a little talking to," I heard him tell my father. "He ain't a bad boy. He just needs a little change of direction. "

"I ran away from home once," Mark told me, back at his house. "Damn near got me killed," he said. He leaned back in his leather chair and looked up at the pine rafters, as if his past history was displayed there, upon the mists of time.

"I was a little older than you are now," he began. "Maybe sixteen or seventeen. And I thought I knew everything there was to know. Nobody could tell me anything, you see."

"Why did you run away?" I asked, genuinely curious. His old wife Sarah brought us hot rolls with butter and honey, and hot chocolate to drink, fresh from a half-gallon tin of Baker's Brand Chocolate. While I dug in ravenously, he answered my question.

"My dad wanted me to hold up my end of chores around the ranch," he replied. "I thought there was a faster and easier way to make money. Must of have been about 1885..."

In about 1885 a notorious horse rustler named "Dutch" John Henselini came through Burnt Fork with a stolen herd; he needed an extra hand and hired the teen-aged Mark Anson to go along with him as a "gingler," or horse-wrangler. Unhappy at home, Mark went with the rustler without bothering to notify his family.

They drove the stolen herd into Utah, across the Green River at Cottonwood Crossing near the Flaming Gorge, and out onto the cedar flats above Red Canyon (where Flaming Gorge Dam on the Green River is presently located; Dutch John Flat, named for the rustler-chief, is today the town of Dutch John, Daggett County, Utah).

The Dutch John Gang consisted of about six or seven men. They rustled stock in northern Wyoming and Montana and drove them to Dutch John Flat. Here they had erected corrals of cedar- posts where they corralled the stolen animals for brand alterations before driving them further south for sale.

"It was my job," Mark told me, "to herd the horses on Dutch John Flat when the gang was away. I would be left alone there for weeks on end, but when they came back, their pockets would be jingling with gold, and old Dutch John paid me good. I had no complaints. I was feelin'pretty cocky about myself I was thumbing my nose at the law and making more money in a month than my dad made on the ranch in a whole year. Yeah, I thought that runnin' away was the smartest thing I ever done."

Then one day, while the gang was camped on the Flat (where the town now stands), some of the horses strayed over the ridge and Dutch John sent young Mark to fetch them back. He had only barely left the camp when "all hell broke loose."

A sheriffs posse from Vernal had crossed the river at Little Brown's Hole about five miles to the east, and had slipped up on them stealthily by way of Dripping Springs. A running gunfight ensued, during which all five or six members of the gang - including Dutch John - were killed. Mark watched from a pinnacle above Dutch John Gap.

"I was never so scared in all my young life," old Mark said, taking a sip of his cocoa. "My life had been saved by only a few minutes, but I knew, too, that if they saw me, I could still be killed, or spend years in prison. I high-tailed it out of there. I swam the Green River and walked over forty miles up Henry's Fork to my dad's ranch. No place ever looked better to me than the old home place did at that moment."

Subsequently, I learned, Mark enlisted in the U.S. Cavalry: his father thought it would help to mature. He had been one of the guards who watched over the famous Sitting Bull, following his arrest upon his return from Canada where he had fled following the Battle of Little Big Horn.

"We got to be pretty good friends," Mark told me, getting up from his comfortable chair, surprisingly agile for his age - and considering that he had been chasing me in the hills for two days - he opened an old trunk near his bedroom door and removed an old 45-70 Cavalry rifle and handed it to me. It was heavy. On the stock were brass studs, imbedded in the wood in the shape of a cross.

"Sitting Bull gave this to me," he said, replacing it carefully in the trunk. He handed me a 45- 70 cartridge and told me I could keep it. "Sitting Bull was murdered, you know," he added reflectively. "They said he was killed trying to escape, but he wasn't. He was murdered. I Know- I was there."

When his cavalry term ended he returned home and not long afterward became a deputy sheriff under Sheriff John Ward of Uinta County, Wyoming. His co-deputy was Robert Calverly, formerly foreman of the Carter Cattle Company, but more renowned as the only lawman ever to capture the notorious Butch Cassidy and send him to prison (1894).

In 1898 his biggest coup as a lawman occurred when the Union Pacific flyer was robbed at Bryan Station, about mid-way between Fort Bridger and Green River City, Wyoming. The Red Sash Gang, to whom the robbery was attributed, escaped with $85,000 in heavy-gold coin and bullion, carried away in the panniers of several pack-mules. The robbers, six or eight in number, passed through the buttes just east of Burnt Fork. Deputy Anson organized a posse and set out in hasty pursuit, hoping to head them off before they reached the high Uintahs.

The outlaws stopped briefly in Connor Basin to steal one of George Solomon' s best horses Solomon was away at the time, serving as flag-bearer for Torrey's Rough Riders in the Spanish- American War. Then they proceeded up Sol's Canyon, still encumbered by the gold.

"At Half-Moon Park," Mark said, a grin breaking his face, "old Charley Brant came riding along in the opposite direction. Just as he rode out into the Park out of the timber, he spots the outlaws comin'his way. 'Hey,'he yells out. 'Where the hell you fellers going to with old Sol's horse His answer was hot lead, and he beat it back into the timber with his tail between his legs."

Five miles east of Half-Moon Park, in a small meadow in the heavy timber, the outlaws abandoned the pack-mules - emptied other burden. The place ever after became known as "Jackass Park. "

Deputy Anson's posse was now hot on their heels. A telegram had been sent over the mountain to Sheriff Bill Preece of Vernal, who was already underway with another posse to head the robbers off. The two posses converged upon the outlaws in Dowd's Hole and a desperate gunfight ensued. Four of the robbers were killed, two wounded and captured, and two others escaped. The gold was never recovered.

"The gold had to have been hidden within the five miles between Half-Moon Park and Jackass Park," Mark lamented. "They had less than two hours to do it. Two of the captured men died in prison in Illinois. The gang's cook, a black man, before he died, told the story to another black man called Nigger Turner. He had half a map to the place where the gold was buried - smuggled it out of prison drawn on the instep of his shoe. I knew old Nigger Turner well in later years. He lived in a cabin at McKinnon (Wyo.) and hunted for the gold. One day his horse came back with blood on the saddle. Nobody ever seen him again."

It was apparent that the Red Sash gold was one of the old man's favorite topics. He assured me that he had been searching for the gold for more than fifty years. "It's gettin' o little late," he surmised, "but I still have hopes that somebody will find it before I die." They didn't.

The leader of the robbers was a man called Red Bob. He escaped. It was later learned that he was none other than Harry Alonzo Longabaugh - better known as The Sundance Kid. What the wizened old Sheriff could not have known then was that Longabaugh removed the gold in 1908.

Mark Anson was a font of information on early law enforcement in Wyoming and Utah, having known both the famous and infamous on both sides of the law. His memory was an encyclopedia of history. One story interested me greatly.

"I knew Butch Cassidy," he told me, "both before he went to South America, and later, when he came back."

This wasn't exactly a revelation to me. The usually accepted version of Cassidy's fate was that he and The Sundance Kid had been shot down in a gun battle with Bolivian soldiers in 1908 or 1909. My grandfather, Willard Schofield, who had grown up with Butch in southern Utah, and knew him later, had informed me that Butch survived and returned to the United States. But I was interested in Mark Anson's version.

"Butch was back here in 1908. He met his father down at Smith & Larsen's Mercantile that fall and they had a long talk about Butch reforming his ways before it was too late. I met him again about 1919 or 1920. 1 ran into him face-to-face as he stepped down from the Price stage, coming to Vernal. We recognized each other right away. 'You still a lawman? He asked me. I said, 'Hell, yes.' 'Well,'he says to me, 'I'm counting on our friendship. I hope you won't mention that you've seen me."'Mark paused for effect. The suspense got to me: I had to ask: "What did you tell him?"

"I told him," he grinned, "that the last I heard of Butch Cassidy, he was killed in South America. We shook hands and went our separate ways. I never seen him again, but I heard that he was around. "

"You see," the old sheriff added, "I chased Butch Cassidy when he was on the wrong side of the law, but when he quit the Outlaw Trail and went straight, we could meet as old friends. It's called giving a man a break. "

I could see he was leading up to something.

"Now you can say that you was trailed by the lawman who trailed Butch Cassidy. I gave him a break, and son, I'm gonna give you one, too. You just go on back home now, and if you don't ever do it again, it will be something you look back upon one day as a story to tell your grand-kids. But if you ever do run away again... " - he leaned forward and gave me a cold stare I have never forgotten

come after you again, and next time, I'll have your ass!"

Mark Anson remained an active lawman until he turned eight-seven. He had given me a break, taught me a lesson, and like Butch Cassidy, we became friends. Mark encouraged me to write about the history of northeastern Utah, and I began doing so at about the age of twelve. When the old sheriff died, several years into his nineties, I went to his funeral. Before the earth was heaped upon his coffin, I tossed the 45-70 cartridge into the open grave. Somehow, it seemed a fitting tribute.

Sources:

1. Personal interviews with Mark Anson prior to his death, and access to his papers in later years.

2. Flamina Gorize Country, by Dick Dunham.

3. History & Biography of Southwestern Wyoming Pioneers, Wyoming Historical Society.

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GREAT 4TH OF JULY STORY

Kerry Ross Boren


MARK ANSON

UTAH'S OLDEST SHERIFF

by Kerry Ross Boren

His house, in which he lived with his wife Sarah, was a huge, oblong building, constructed of peeled-and-squared pine logs which had been cut and hauled from the nearby Uintah Mountains during the 1920's. The house had a green tar-paper roof and sat on the crest of the high knobby hill looking down upon the little town of Manila, Utah, like an overlord and his fiefdom. The only access was by a graded road which snaked its way around the hill from a swinging gate at the intersection of a frontage road.

Few people ever saw Mark Anson, the sheriff of Daggett County, Utah. For that cause he was held somewhat in awe by the local populace, and remained something of a mystery. Part of the reason was due to his age, for Mark was past eighty-five. If the criminal element should think of this as an advantage, however, it was always to their detriment. Sheriff Anson always got his man.

Daggett County, during the late 1940's and early 1950's, when I grew into boyhood there, was the smallest, least-populated, and most isolated county in the State - a virtual throw-back to the Old West. Many of the county's older residents - Willard Schofield, Tom Welch, Tom Jarvie, Minnie Rasmussen, Jim Lamb and others - had been personal acquaintances of Butch Cassidy; so had Mark Anson.

Mark was not originally a resident of the county. He was the son of Tom Anson, an early pioneer of the Henry's Fork country in southwestern Wyoming. Mark was born at Burnt Fork, Wyoming, on his father's ranch, during the late 1860's. Burnt Fork was, however, barely across the Utah-Wyoming border, some thirty-five miles, as the crow flies, west of Manila.

I came to know Mark Anson, and to learn his life's story, in a very unusual way.

When I was ten or eleven years of age - in about 1951 or 1952 - I followed in the footsteps of many an earlier errant child and ran away from home. My older brother had taken a new litter of kittens belonging to my pet cat, put them in a gunny-sack, weighted it with rocks, and drowned them in the pond. I felt badly abused and determined to run away and live as a hermit in the nearby mountains.

Our family ranch was some six miles south of Manila, on the lip of Sheep Creek Canyon, in the foothills of the massive Uintah Mountains - Utah's highest. I had grown up in the Uintahs and felt perfectly at home there. I had been hunting, fishing, and exploring the canyons and rivers of that region since the age of five or six, and lived like a prodigal wild child in their midst without apprehension or concern.

I bridled my horse - "Jewel," a pinto - and rode off bareback into the hills south of the ranch, feeling simultaneously unloved and yet elated at my new-found sense of freedom and independence. It didn't last too long.

I hadn't gone many miles when I discovered that, in my haste to leave, I had overlooked provisions. By day's end I was hungry and had nothing to eat. I hadn't even considered until that time how I was going to provide for myself in the mountains.

I happened to be near my uncle Roy Boren's ranch in South Valley. I knew that he and my aunt were away on a visit, so I dropped by the ranch and helped myself to food from the pantry, my uncle's best fishing rod, and, for good measure, I took a pocket watch from a dresser - in case I needed to know the time of day. I was to learn that the watch had belonged to my aunt's father, Charles Potter, and was an heirloom. I felt bad then, but at the time I took it, it was the least of my concerns. I had never stolen anything before, and because of the lesson I was about to learn, never would again.

I camped that night on Sheep Creek, caught trout for my supper, to supplement some of my aunt's bottled fruits and vegetables, and made my bedroll next to a campfire. In the middle of the night I was awakened by the sound of an automobile coming up the canyon. I doused the fire, bundled up my few belongings, and climbed upon Jewel's back. Nearby was a branch of old Outlaw Trail, winding its way up the cliff-side for some two thousand feet to the crest of the canyon. It had been constructed in the 1890's by Cleophas Dowd, whose grave lay at the bottom of the trail: he was murdered in the canyon in 1898. Few people could navigate the trail in daylight, especially with a horse, but I did it by night, and was feeling quite proud of the accomplishment.

What I didn't know, but strongly suspected, was that the car contained members of my family, frantically searching for me. The next morning my worried mother went to elicit the aid of Sheriff Anson to find me. By noon the old man was on my trail.

I spotted him early on, several miles down the valley, slowly walking along in front of his horse, pursuing my tracks. I rode hard toward an escarpment, hid my horse behind an outcropping of ledge, and climbed to the top of the ridge to watch his progress. At this point the "game" was enjoyable, like cowboys and Indians - or Butch eluding a posse. I didn't know it then, but Sheriff Anson had once pursued members of the Wild Bunch, over this same terrain. Had I known it, I might not have been so smug.
 
PART TWO COMMING SOON!
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