Gilpin County CO Archives History - Books .....The Kansas Gold Mines 1920 ************************************************ Copyright. All rights reserved. http://www.usgwarchives.net/copyright.htm http://www.usgwarchives.net/co/cofiles.htm ************************************************ File contributed for use in USGenWeb Archives by: Robert Sanchez http://www.genrecords.net/emailregistry/vols/00027.html#0006574 August 8, 2009, 10:34 pm Book Title: Early Records Of Gilpin County, Colorado THE KANSAS GOLD MINES. [1] [1] Rocky Mountain News, June 11, 1859, p. 1. We are indebted to the kindness of Mr. Williams, of the Leavenworth & Pike's Peak Express, for the following report from Messrs. Greeley, Richardson, and Villard, which will give satisfaction to the public mind, and at once set at rest the cry of "humbug" reiterated by the returning emigration from this region. The names of the gentlemen signed to this report are sufficient to give it credence without further comment from us; and the indefatigable exertions of Mr. Williams to get it before the public are commendable. Denver City, K. T., June 10th, 1859. Gentlemen:—Will you do me the favor to furnish me, for publication, such facts in reference to the Gold Mines, as you obtained upon your recent visit to them, in company with myself and others? We desire that the facts should be presented to the public as they exist Yours respectfully, D. B. Williams, Agent "Jones & Russell's P. P. Expres. Co." Messrs. Horace Greeley, of the N. Y. "Tribune"; A. D. Richardson, of the Boston "Journal"; and Henry Villard, of the Cincinnati "Commercial." Denver City, K T., June 10th, 1859. Dear Sir:—In reply to your favor of this morning, we herewith submit a report, written at the "Gregory Diggings," of such facts as we witnessed there, and obtained from the lips of the miners. We have endeavored to make it definite and specific as possible, and to give an unbiased statement of the present condition and progress of the first important gold discoveries in the eastern slope of the Rocky Mountains. We desire to acknowledge your many courtesies during the trip. Respectfully, D. B.- Williams, Esq. Horace Greeley, A. D. Richardson, Henry Villard. Gregory's Diggings, near Clear Creek, in the Rocky Mountains, June 9th, 1859. The undersigned, none of them miners, nor directly interested in mining, but now here for the express purpose of ascertaining an4 setting forth the truth with regard to a subject of deep and general interest, as to which the widest and wildest diversity of assertion and opinion is known to exist, unite in the following statement: We have this day personally visited nearly all the mines or claims already opened in this valley, (that of a little stream running into Clear Creek at this point;) have witnessed the operation of digging, transporting, and washing the vein-stone, (a partially decomposed, or rotten quartz, running in regular veins from south-west to north-east, between shattered walls of an impure granite,) have seen the gold plainly visible in the riffles of nearly every sluice, and in nearly every pan of the rotten quartz washed in our presence; have seen gold, (but rarely) visible to the naked eye, in pieces of the quartz not yet fully decomposed, and have obtained from the few who have already sluices in operation accounts of their several products, as follows: Zeigler, Spain, & Co., (from South Bend, Ind.) have run a sluice, with some interruptions, for the last three weeks; they are four in company, with one hired man. They have taken out a little over three thousand pennyweights of gold, estimated by them as worth at least $3,000; their first days work produced $21; their highest was $495. Sopris, Henderson & Co., (from Farmington, Indiana,) have run their sluice six days in all with four men—one to dig, one to carry, and two to wash: four days last week produced $607: Monday of this week $208; no further reported. They have just put in a second sluice, which only began to run this morning. Foote & Simmons, (from Chicago:) one sluice, run four days: two former days produced $40; two latter promised us, but not received. Defrees & Co., (from South Bend, Ind.,) have run a small sluice eight days, with the following results: first day, $66; second day, $80; third day, $95; fourth day, $305; [the four following days were promised us, but, by accident, failed to be received.] Have just sold half their claim, [a full claim is 50 feet by 100,] for $2500. Shears & Co., (from Fort Calhoun, Nebraska,) have run one sluice two hours the first, (part of a) day; produced $30; second, (first full) day, $343: third, (today,) $510: all taken from within three feet of the surface; vein a foot wide on the surface; widened to eighteen inches at a depth of three feet. Brown & Co., (from De Kalb Co., Ind.,) have been one week on their claim; carry their dirt half a mile; have worked their sluice a day and a half; produced $260; have taken out quartz specimens containing from 50 cents to $13 each in gold; vein from 8 to 10 feet wide. Casto, Kendall & Co., (from Butler Co., Iowa,) reached Denver, March 25th; drove the first wagon to these diggings; have been here five weeks; worked first on a claim, on which they ran a sluice but one day; produced $225; sold their claim for $2500; are now working a claim on the Hunter lead, have only sluiced one, (this) day; three men employed; produced $85. Bates & Co. one sluice, run half a day; produced $135. Colman, King & Co., one sluice, run half a day; produced $75. Shorts & Collier, bought our claims seven days since of Oasto, Kendall & Co., for $2500; $500 down, and the balance as fast as taken out Have not yet got our sluices in operation. Mr. Dean, from Iowa, on the 6th inst, washed from a single pan of dirt taken from the claim, $17.80. Have been offered $10,000 for the claim. S. G. Jones & Co., from Eastern Kansas, have run our sluices two days, with three men; yield $225 per day. Think the quartz generally in this vicinity is gold-bearing. Have never seen a piece crushed that did not yield gold. A. P. Wright & Co., from Elkhart Co., Ind. Sluice but just in operation; have not yet ascertained its products—Our claim prospects from 25 cents to $1.25 to the pan. John H. Gregory, from Gordon Co., Georgia. Left home last season, en route for Frazier River, was detained by a succession of accidents at Ft Laramie, and wintered there. Meanwhile, heard of the discoveries of gold on the South Platte, and started on a prospecting tour on the Eastern slope of the Rocky Mountains, early in January. Prospected in almost every valley, from the Cache la Poudre creek, to Pike's Peak, tracing many streams to their sources. Early in May arrived on Clear Creek, at the foot of the mountains, 30 miles Southeast of this place. There fell in with the Defrees & Ziegler Indiana Companies, and William Fouts, of Missouri. We all started up Clear Creek, prospecting. Arrived, in this vicinity, May 6; the ice and snow prevented us from prospecting far below the surface, but the first pan of surface dirt, on the original Gregory claim, yielded $4.—Encouraged by this success, we all staked out claims, found the "lead" consisting of burnt quartz, resembling the Georgia Mines, in which I had previously worked. Snow and ice prevented the regular working of the lead till May 16th.—From then until the 23rd, I worked it five days with two hands, result, $972. Soon after, I sold my two claims for $21,000 the parties buying, to pay me, after deducting their expenses, all they take from the claims to the amount of $500 per week, until the whole is paid. Since that time, I have been prospecting for other parties, at about $200 per day.—Have struck another lead on the opposite side of the valley, from which I washed $14, out of a single pan. Some forty or fifty sluices commenced, are not yet in operation; but the owners informs us that their "prospecting" shows from 10 cents to $5 to the pan. As the "leads" are all found on the hills, many of the miners are constructing trenches to carry water to them, instead of building their sluices in their ravines, and carrying the dirt thither in wagons, or sacks. Many persons who have come here without provisions or money, are compelled to work as common laborers, at from $1 to $3 per day and board, until they can procure means of sustenance for the time necessary to prospecting, building sluices, etc. Others, not finding gold the third day, or disliking the work necessary to obtaining it, leave the mines in disgust, after a very short trial, declaring there is no gold here in paying quantities. It should be remembered that the discoveries made thus far, are the result of but five weeks' labor. In nearly every instance, the gold is estimated by the miners as worth $20.00 per ounce, which, for gold collected by quicksilver, is certainly a high valuation, though this is undoubtedly of very great purity. The reader can reduce the estimate if he sees fit. We have no data on which to act in the premises. The wall rock is generally shattered, so that it, like the veinstone, is readily taken out with the pick and shovel. In a single instance only did we hear of wall-rock too hard for this. Of the vein stone, probably not more than one-half is so decomposed that the gold can be washed from it The residue of the quartz is shoveled out of the sluices, and reserved to be crushed and washed hereafter. The miners estimate this as equally rich with that which has "rotted" so that the gold may be washed from it; hence, that they realize, as yet, but half the gold dug by them. This seems probable, but its truth remains to be tested. It should be borne in mind that, while the miners here now labor under many obvious disadvantages, which must disappear with the growth of their experience and the improvement of their now rude machinery, they at the same time enjoy advantages which can not be retained indefinitely, nor rendered universal. They are all working very near a small mountain stream, which affords them an excellent supply of water for washing at a very cheap rate; and, though such streams are very common here, the leads stretch over rugged hills and considerable mountains, down which the vein-stone must be- carried to water, at a serious cost It does not seem probable that the thousands of claims already made or being made on these leads can be worked so profitably in the average as those already in operation. We hear already of many who have worked their claims for days (by panning) without having "raised the color" as the phrase is —that is, without having found any gold whatever. We presume thousands are destined to encounter lasting and utter disappointment, quartz veins which bear no gold being a prominent feature of the geology of all this region. We cannot conclude this statement without protesting most earnestly against a renewal of the infatuation which impelled thousands to rush to this region a month or two since, only to turn back before reaching it, or to hurry away immediately after more hastily than they came. Gold-mining is a business which eminently requires of its votaries capital, experience, energy, endurance, and in which the highest qualities do not always command success. There may be hundreds of ravines in these mountains as rich in gold as that in which we write, and there probably are many: but, up to this hour, we do not know that any such have been discovered. There are said to be five thousand people already in this ravine, and hundreds more pouring into it daily. Tens of thousands more have been passed by us on our rapid journey to this place, or heard of as on their way hither by other routes. For all these, nearly every pound of provisions and supplies of every kind must be hauled by teams from the Missouri river, some 700 miles distant, over roads which are mere trails, crossing countless unbridged water courses, always steep-banked and often mirey, and at times so swollen by rains as to be utterly impassable by waggons. Part of this distance is a desert, yielding grass, wood, and water only at intervals of several miles, and then very scantily. To attempt to cross this desert on foot is madness—suicide—murder. To cross it with teams in midsummer, when the water courses are mainly dry, and the grass eaten up, is possible only to those who know where to look for grass and water, and where water must be carried along to preserve life. A few months hence,— probably by the middle of October,—this whole Alpine region will be snowed under and frozen up, so as to put a stop to the working of sluices if not to mining altogether. There then, for a period of at least six months, will be neither employment, food, nor shelter within five hundred miles for the thousands pressing hither under the delusion that gold may be picked up here like pebbles on the sea-shore, and that when they arrive here, even though without provisions or money, their fortunes are made. Great disappointment, great suffering, are inevitable; few can escape the latter who arrive at Denver City after September without ample means to support them in a very dear country, at least through a long winter. We charge those who manage the telegraph not to diffuse a part of our statement without giving substantially the whole; and we beg the press generally to unite with us in warning the whole people against another rush to these gold-mines, as ill-advised as that of last spring—a rush sure to be followed like that by a stampede, but one far more destructive of property and life. Respectfully, Horace Greeley, A D. Richardson, Henry Villard. 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