526                     HISTORY OF CLAY COUNTY

of the Center Point flouring-mill; Nathan A. Gibbons, a native of
Virginia, coming to Clay county in his youth, a life-time farmer, at one
time justice of the peace; Lewis F. Ambrose, native of Pennsylvania,
coming to Clay county in 1860, cigar-maker by trade, taught school a
number of years, and conducted a nursery at Center Point; Rev. William
Givens, a native of Tennessee, made the overland trip to California and
was also a Mexican soldier, a harness-maker by trade, entered the minis-
try of the United Brethren church in 1860 and came to Clay county the
same year; Elder W. C. Smith, a native of Virginia, coming to Indiana in
his childhood, entering the ministry of the United Brethren church while
yet a young man, in which he spent his life. As a reminiscence, Elder
Smith related on this occasion that his father once hauled a six-horse
load of gold and silver from Winchester, Virginia, to Baltimore, Mary-
land, unguarded and unattended, the trip covering five days’ time each
way, making the round trip in entire safety; Rev. D. K. Seneff, native of
Pennsylvania, emigrated to southern Illinois at an early day, where he
farmed and taught school, entering the ministry of the United Brethren
church in 1885. Respectively, their ages were: Martin H. Kennedy, 79;
C.  W. Moss, 72; D. W. Hays, 72; Nathan A. Gibbons, 72; Lewis F.
Ambrose, 66; Rev. William Givens, 66; Elder W. C. Smith, 7o; Rev.
D.  K. Seneff, 50.

                    Silver Mining in Clay County.
    The following account of the silver mining operations of seventeen
years ago has been copied from the Brazil Daily Democrat of August 11,
1892, written by a special reporter who visited the site and interviewed
the operators. It is remembered that during the progress of this work
the ground was visited by experts and prospective investors from the
silver producing areas of the Rocky Mountain country:

    Of the more than thirty thousand people of Clay county it will seem
incredible to all but the few, that there is a veritable silver mine in
process of development and operation within a stone’s throw of our
border line, yet such is the case. Work is in progress every day on the
sinking of a shaft, which is now down to the depth of twenty-five feet, in
search of the precious metal, on the Howard Reitzel place, near Car-
penter’s mill, on Eel river. For the past eighteen years Mr. Reitzel has
been taking observations and making investigations from the instinctive
belief that the surface indications on the hillsides and along the gulches
adjacent to the confluence of Croy’s creek and Eel river point to rich
deposits of mineral. Last August he made discoveries which he felt
satisfied, from his reading and information on the subject, were the
unmistakable evidence of the existence of the precious metals on his
premises. Mr. Reitzel succeeded in interesting his brother-in-law,
Edward Huffman, a man of means, in his find, who proceeded to organ-
ize a company, to make a thorough test of the supposed ore-bearing
qualities of the place. The company is composed of Huffman and Reitzel,
George Blake and Dillon Bridges, of Greencastle, and Louis Duenweg,
of Terre Haute, of whom Duenweg is the assayer. About six weeks
ago the company engaged the services of James Delbridge, of Cardonia,
a practical miner, who has years of experience in the mines of Colorado
and Montana. Delbridge and son and Reitzel and son are now at work
delving in mother earth in quest of the hidden “bonanza,” which Mr.