Plumas County CA Archives History - Books .....Mineral Township 1882
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Book Title: Illustrated History Of Plumas, Lassen & Sierra Counties

MINERAL TOWNSHIP.

   This with Quartz comprised the two townships into which this section of Butte
county was divided in 1851. It embraced the whole north fork, east branch,
American, Indian, and Meadow valleys, as well as the whole north-eastern portion
of the county. [See Official History.] Mineral township now embraces the country
lying south of the north fork and east branch, west of American valley, and
north of the middle fork. The census of 1880 gives this section a population of
729, of which 240 are Chinese and 47 Indians. For the most part the people are
engaged in mining at various points, the Chinese nearly all following that
pursuit. In Meadow valley and Buck's valley agriculture and dairying are engaged
in, to some extent.

   In the past the most important place in the township, and for a few years
even in the county, was Rich bar, on the east branch of the north fork. It was
the chief mining center, and flourished a number of years as a prosperous mining
camp, and then went the way of all others of its class. A few are working there
now, and at other points along the river; but the days when the stream was lined
with industrious miners, and the busy hum of life filled the air, have gone
never to return. Junction bar, 12-mile bar, Soda bar, and the dozens of others
have been practically deserted, and no one but the few surviving pioneers will
ever be able to realize what once was here, and how great has been the change.
Every bar, bend, hill, flat, and ravine is replete with stirring scenes and
interesting events to the pioneer of thirty years who again revisits the scene
of his early adventures; while to the man of to-day they present but the
ordinary features of nature.

   Rich bar was one of the foremost discoveries in the county, following quickly
upon the heels of Nelson creek and the middle fork, where the disappointed crowd
of Gold lake proclivities had concentrated, and where there were not claims
enough by several hundred to give them all a chance to work. In such a case
extensive prospecting was done, and about the first of July, 1850, these
celebrated diggings were discovered. Who composed the party that made the
discovery is a matter of uncertainty. It is variously stated by different
gentlemen, none of whom claim any positive knowledge on the subject. However,
the date is agreed upon as the last week in June or the first in July. The news
soon reached the crowd of disappointed and impatient men on the middle fork,
Nelson, Hopkins, and Poorman's creeks, and a rush was made for the new diggings.
It is stated that a man named Greenwood, from two pans of dirt, realized $2,900;
and that was the reason for calling the place Rich bar. The same authority gives
Greenwood as the original discoverer of the bar. The crowd that came pouring in
spread all along the stream, making new discoveries and opening up new places
every day. Indian, Missouri, French, Smith, Brown, and Junction bars were
quickly found and covered with claims, till the whole river from the mouth of
the east branch to Rich bar was lined with busy miners.

   Claims were forty feet square, and the amount of gold said to have been taken
from several of them is almost fabulous. Pans of dirt frequently yielded from
$100 to $1,000. One company of four men took out $50,000 in a very brief period.
Enoch Judson, now one of the wealthy men of San Francisco, had a claim on Smith
hill in the fall, from which he carried the dirt in a flour-sack to the river,
sometimes getting as much as $750 from one sack of dirt. Provisions were brought
in by packers, and sold for one dollar per pound, except flour, which was fifty
per cent, higher. One man was accommodated by a packer who was disposing of the
last of his stock, by securing a sack of flour for $95, a pair of brogans for
$8.50, and a bottle of whisky for $7. Beef was brought to camp on mules by some
Mexicans who had some cattle herded where Spanish Ranch now stands. The price
was one dollar per pound. Soon after this old Joe Haywood opened a butcher shop
on the bar, and sold meat for seventy-five cents and one dollar per pound. No
regular traders established themselves at Rich bar that year; but goods were
brought in by packers, who quickly disposed of their loads and returned for
more. At Smith's bar, Moulton & Day, and Thomas J. Taylor & Co., had rival
mercantile establishments in the fall of 1850.

   About the middle of September, 1850, the rain commenced, and continued
falling for three days. As the miners had no houses, and but few rejoiced in the
luxury of tents, the wet weather was disagreeable in the extreme. As a rule,
pine brush laid upon poles formed the only protection from the elements these
people had taken time to provide themselves with. The river raised considerably,
and washed out the only wing-dam that had been constructed, which was at the
head of Rich bar. Thinking the rainy season had commenced, and fearing that the
supply of provisions would be cut off, and that the rigors of a mountain winter
could not be endured with safety, the greater portion abandoned their claims and
made their way out of the mountains. The few remaining ones built log cabins,
and prepared to spend the winter there. The first cabin built was by Doctor
Goodall, Harry Chappel, and Mr. Pool, on the flat where the town was afterwards
constructed. On Smith hill the first cabin was built by the Phillips brothers.
These few who remained were enabled to do considerable work during the winter,
owing to the unexpected mildness of the season.

   Early in the spring came a vast throng of miners upon the east branch, and
towns sprang up with magical rapidity on all the bars of importance. At Rich
bar, Kingsbury, Hall, & Co. opened a store in February, the only one on the bar
at that time. In the spring and early summer quite a number of trading houses
were established, the more prominent ones being Hunt & Lindley, C. A. Bancroft,
and Clark & Wagner. Considerable prospecting had been done the year before on
Indian bar, but nothing of importance had been developed. Along in the winter
months a party of Missourians sank a shaft near the head and back part of the
bar, and obtained very rich prospects. They sold out to Frank Ward, H. W.
Kellogg, M. H. Presby, W. V. Kingsbury, and H. A. Chase, the ground proving very
rich. In the summer of 1851 quite a town sprang up, and Indian bar became for a
time the liveliest camp on the east branch. Among the stores opened there were
Bartlett, Brown, & Co., Kingsbury, Hall, & Co., and Mayer & Helbing. It was not
long before Rich bar surpassed all the others, and became the general
headquarters for the whole river, which then swarmed with miners. The first
express by Herman Camp and John R. Buckbee, spoken of elsewhere, ran to Rich
bar, as did their successors for years afterwards.

   The river, at the head of Rich bar, having prospected so richly in the summer
of 1850, another wing-dam was constructed in the summer of 1851, and paid
immensely. From this point for miles down the stream the river was taken up that
season, and wing-dams put in. The first below the old dam was an Illinois
company, composed of Major John S. Love, Peter Bailey, Richard Thompson, Richard
Irwin, and others to the number of eighteen. Next to them was the Virginia
company, composed of Clem. Davis, Nat. Cruzen, Paul Jones, Joseph Kent, Thomas
Moore, Doctor Cronan, and F. B. Whiting. This claim was worked five weeks, and
paid $1,500 to the share. The next season it failed to pay more than one-third
that amount. The remaining river claims paid little or nothing, with but a few
exceptions. The bars and benches all paid richly for working, but as a rule the
river claims were barren of golden fruit, and many a miner left the east branch
in the fall of 1852 bankrupt.

   Among the pioneers who were at work along the east branch in 1850, besides
those who have been mentioned, are remembered the names of Dr. J. W. Bidwell,
James and William Phillips, Thomas Orton, Colonel James Fair,------Townsend,
Jack Harrington, Richard Garland, Samuel and Bradford Colley, Hiram Hill,
Hubbard Moore, Stephen Moore, Dr. Smith, Thomas Beatty, Peter Bailey (who died
in the Stockton asylum in 1873), Ripley C. Kelly, Andrew Kelly, and Robert A.
Clark. Mr. Orton is still mining on the north fork, at Cariboo.

   Mr. Ripley C. Kelly relates the following account of the way in which the
first discovery on Rich bar was made, which, he says, is a big story, but every
word of it true: In the fore part of July, 1850, three Germans, one of whom was
named Spreckles, came down to the river and camped at the head of the bar, or at
the mouth of French ravine. In going to the river for water to use in cooking,
they passed over the high, barren bed-rock at the head of the bar, when one of
them descried a piece of gold which weighed two ounces. They very soon set to
work, staked out three claims of forty feet each, and during the ensuing four
days took out $36,000. Mr. Kelly and his brother Andrew were the first to work
on Willow bar. He took out seventeen ounces the first day, and in a short time
made a "small pile." He was one of the first assemblymen from this county, and
is still mining in the county.

   A gentleman who is still living on Rich bar, honored and respected at the
ripe old age of seventy-six years, is Joshua Brown McShane, affectionately
called Pap by his early associates. He is a native of Pennsylvania, worked in
the lead mines of Wisconsin, and came to this state in 1851. It was on a hot
spring day of that year that Pap first descended Rich bar hill, crowned with a
silk hat, and holding aloft an umbrella to pretect himself from the warm rays of
the sun. The unusual spectacle filled the miners with astonishment. Down dropped
their tools, and a crowd soon gathered about the curiosity to take a look at it.
Pap was eminently sound on the social question, and invited the boys in to take
a "smile."    They went, and the smiling was several times repeated, finally
winding up by Pap's hat being made a target for a shower of potatoes, while the
boys decorated the head of its owner with a fine chapeau of the regulation
style. Pap made an honorable record as a miner and butcher on the bar for many
years. He is the oldest living Odd Fellow in the state, having been initiated
into the order in Wisconsin, in 1838, by Thomas Wildey, the father of Odd
Fellowship in America.

   The first white lady on the east branch, and probably the first to reside in
the county, was the wife of Mr. Charles A. Bancroft. Early in the spring of 1851
Mr. Bancroft settled as a merchant at Rich bar. The appearance of a lady
descending the trail to the river created a sensation among the miners on the
bar. Down dropped pick and shovel from the hands of miners, who had not seen the
face nor heard the soft voice of a lady for many weary months, and her progress
along the trail was watched with eager eyes for several miles. Ladies were
treated with the utmost respect and courtesy by those early miners, who saw in
them the mother, sister, and wife waiting for them in their far-off homes. Mrs.
Bancroft's first child was born on Rich bar August 28, 1851, the first white
child born in the county. His name is Charles E. Bancroft, and he is at present
residing in New York, the eastern agent of the publishing house of A. L.
Bancroft & Co. of San Francisco. Several other ladies came to the river in the
spring of 1852, among whom were the wives of DeWitt Kellogg, Milton Presby, and
Peter Bailey. Langdon Kellogg, now living in San Francisco, was born on Indian
Hill early in 1853.


Additional Comments:
Extracted from:

Illustrated History of Plumas, Lassen & Sierra Counties

San Francisco: Fariss & Smith
(1882)


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