El Dorado County History Historical Souvenir of El Dorado County California with Illustrations and Biographical Sketches of its Prominentmen and Pioneers. Oakland 1883. Paolo Sioli, Publisher. Compiled by P. Sioli. Transcribed by Peggy Hooper, Oct 2009. This file is part of the California Genealogy & History Archives http://www.rootsweb.ancestry.com/~cagha/index.htm These electronic pages may NOT be reproduced in any format for profit or presentation by other organizations. Persons or organizations desiring to use this material for non-commercial purposes, MUST obtain the written consent of the contributor, OR the legal representative of the submitter. All persons donating to this site retain the rights to their own work. CHAPTER XIX. MINING INDUSTRY � DRY DIGGINGS � HYDRAULIC MINING. The summer of 1849 had brought already quite a lively time into the canyon of the Middle Fork of the American river, at Murderer's Bar and the neighboring mining places, but toward fall most of the men left the canyon to spend the winter months at some other place ; only five men decided not to follow this ex- ample, having made up their minds to stay until spring, built their cabins high up on the hills, laid in a supply of provisions for the winter, and not being troubled with any sorrow, waited for the season to come on. The names of the men were William Harris, Elisha Hardin, James Hardin, Freeman Eldridge and James Lee, the time they left the bar was about the 1st of December, and every thing went well up to the 9th of January, 1850, when the rising water surprised them, and if they were not frightened out of their wits, they at least were driven in the greatest hurry out of their cabins and higher up the hills; whence looking back they just had a chance to see the cabins with their blankets, provisions etc, a going. The river on that day had risen more than sixty feet, and in the rising water they had an ample chance to test the ground, and the result was that these five men did not complain about their loss or leave the spot, but they went right on to Long valley, now Greenwood valley, to buy another supply of goods, and returned to the spot to start in work on the DRY DIGGINGS. The mining for gold in the Dry Diggings was commenced about the same time as river-mining ; there can be no doubt that both schemes were contemporary existing when the Military Governor, Colonel R. B. Mason, on his official trip, in July, 1848, came up to Coloma. Gen. W. T. Sherman in his memoirs, speak- ing about their arrival at Coloma says : "The next day we crossed the American river to its north side, and visited many small camps of men, in what were called the 'Dry Diggings.' Little pools of water stood in the beds of the streams, and these were used to wash the gold; and there the gold was in every conceivable shape and size, some of the specimens weighing several ounces. Some of these 'diggings' were extremely rich, but as a whole they were more precarious in result than at the river. Sometimes a lucky fellow would hit a 'pocket' and collect several thousand dollars in a few days, and then again he would be shifting about from place to place, 'prospecting,' and spending all he had made." The modus operandi to separate the gold from the gravel or dirt, where it was imbedded, was in the Dry Diggings the same as in the river mining; the same machinery was used here also, from the pan and rocker to the later arrangements of the Long Tom and the even more profitable Sluices. As long as only pan and rocker were in use, this kind of mining had its most available time just when the river miners could not go to work, on account of the high, water in the river beds, and vice versa, when the river mining began to flourish the Dry Diggings had to lay idle. The first improvement to enlarge the time for working in the lat- ter, beyond the raining season, was by daming up the rain water in places above the diggings, and the miners went to considerable expense to build strong dams across broad gulches or creek beds, to gather quite an amount of water during the raining period, which was to be used for washing in the diggings after the winter had made room for the dry summer season, and all hope for rain was gone. With the introduction of the more water-absorbing machinery of the sluice boxes, however, these reservoirs would give out too soon and the miners had to look out for a greater supply of water to keep up their working season as long as possible; this led some industrious fellows to the construction of WATER DITCHES. The first water ditch in this county, and without doubt in the whole mining region of California, was built at Coloma, in 1850 to 1851, by Valentine McDougall, Davis Thompson, Lippset, Starr and Birdsall ; they took the water down to the Coloma basin in a ditch carried around the hillsides, interrupted with short aqueducts, the whole length being three miles, and the expenses for construction are stated at $10,000. It proved a good investment for the projectors and caused others to invest in the same enter- prise, selling water to the miners, and notwithstanding the expense for the construction of those ditches were enormously high, they all paid well, water being sold m early times as high as $1 00 per inch per working day of twelve hours. This good result invited many others to bring their brethren in all other dry diggings the blessings of sufficient water, and a few years after the first water by artificial means had been carried to Coloma all those innumerable flats and dry diggings in gulches or on hillsides were provided with a ditch of running water, and in some instances the location was so favorable that the same water could be used four, five or even eight and ten times. DRIFT MINING Or 'coyoting,' as it was and still is termed in California mining camps, from its similarity to the underground digging of the coyotes, used in all those localities where the gold bearing gravel is covered under a bank of twenty to fifty and more feet of solid material. The miners sink in a shaft from the top down to the bed- rock, and then rather than throw off the whole surface, would coyote, or drift in, on surface of the bed-rock or wherever their gold bearing strata was found, and this was the beginning of the drift mining. The gravel thus reached is to be mined out, the superincumbent mass being supported by pillars of the natural matter left standing, and by timbers placed beneath for greater safety, if necessary. In some cases the miners took out the gravel by means of drifts, and then took a stream of water through the drifts to wash away from the remaining pillars what would be unsafe for men to go to work, until the whole mass would break down. This led to another improvement in mining operations, THE HYDRAULIC MINING. By saving the work necessary for drifting, and have the water under high pressure directly working against the gravel bank, washing the whole of it down through the sluices, that were placed in trenches in the bed-rock ready for the reception of it. The highly improved style of hydraulic mining as being worked nowadays stands hardly a comparison with the scheme when it was first applied in Nevada county, in the year 1852. Then the miners were washing the gravel by turning against the bank a stream of water, directed by a can- vass hose of four or five inches diameter, with a sheetiron pipe, or nozzle, as a fireman would direct water upon a burning building. This stream, first of twenty five or fifty inches of water, coming under pressure of forty or sixty feet from a ditch and penstock on the hill above, played against the gravel bank would wash it away, leaving the mass above to fall down, and in this manner a large amount of earth was moved. On account that the main work has to be done by the water, the system took the name of "hydraulic." It was first adopted and invented by Mr. Edward E. Mattison a native of Connecticut, and was in all probability one of the most important inventions, though never patented. The principal parts then were about the same as they are now, but much simpler, and of course, less effective ; leading from a ditch, to gain pressure, was a trough set upon slight trestle, looking something like a line of telegraph poles, conveyed the water to a penstock for which was used an old barrel or a rough box, funnel shaped, nailed together out of boards, to which the canvass hose was attached, to carry the water down to the gravel bank where the other end of the hose was armed with a muzzle rudely made out of sheet-iron. This system is appliable and, of course, soon came in use at all those deep gravel mines where sufficient water could be procured; and drift mining is only kept up where the gravel deposits are overcapped by basalt and other matter of volcanic origin, leaving far in the moun- tain the channel of some former river or glazier that contains the auriferous gravel. At points these de- posits are cropping out, leading the miner to search beneath. So affective a system was not long to remain without improvements, and many an inventor obtained patents for small changes whose genius was not able to conceive the original idea, but carried home the profits that in reality were due to the original inventor. The first step from the canvass hose and. sheet-iron nozzle was against a rubber hose and nozzles with brass couplings ; then followed distributing boxes and iron pen- stock* the rubber hose was succeeded by the iron pipe, leading direct to a Craig's 'Monitor; or a 'Dictator,' or a 'Giant' patent nozzle, passing a stream of from 500 to 3000 inches of water from a pressure of 200 feet high, with a force that will whirl around every bowlder up to half a ton weight. The early miners swarmed along the streams and over the shallow placers, making little progress in the main gravel deposits, except where drift mining was profitable, until the introduction of the hydraulic process The former have been gone over and over again, until most of them have ceased to pay even grub money, at least to white men. Although hydraulic mining has been carried on fur many years, scarcely more than an impression has yet been made on the immense gravel beds which cover a large area in this county; how large is here not the place to tell. On the Georgetown divide, the deposits are found almost continuously from Pilot creek to beyond Green- wood, except where they have been cut away by the modern streams, covering a large portion of the slope toward the Middle fork, and varying in depth from 25 to 300 feet. Besides this there are isolated masses in other sections, south and west. Many of the deposits will undoubtedly pay handsomely whenever properly opened and mined. A great deal of drift mining has been done, realizing splendid returns. All the surplus water of the California Water Company is employed in hydraulic mining, while small miners take advantage of the local supply afforded by the winter rains. A large number of claims are held by men who lack the means to properly open them, and are waiting for something to turn up which will realize their golden dreams, in- stead of disposing of such partially developed ledges, where good offers have been made. South of the South Fork of the American river, the most extensive gravel deposit is the great channel com- mencing at White Rock, and sweeping around in a circle, through Smith's Flat to Coon Hollow. Immense sums have been spent and realized in operations on this mass and its tributary spurs, such as Nigger Hill, Clay Hill and Indian Hill. Coon Hollow was once one of the most prosperous mining camps in Cali- fornia; it is estimated that not less than $5,000,000 has been taken out of the mines there. Later it was known as the Excelsior mine, operated by the E. D. W. & D. G. M. Company. On the Placerville side of the ridge a great deal of gravel has been washed down Oregon ravine; the Placerville Mining Company, under the management of Mr. Varozza, has done a large amount of work here. Previous to the construc- tion of the Main Trunk Canal, the hydraulic operations on this divide were materially kept in check, on ac- count of the scarceity and cost of water. Now all the water from said canal is ready for use in the various mines under the control of the Water Company. The Spanish Hill section has proved exceedingly rich here- tofore, and there is an immense area of gravel up that ravine that may be handled as soon as a proper outlet for the tailings has been secured. A very rich gold bearing gravel deposit has been found on Tennessee Hill, almost the whole hill is one gravel bed, that is embraced in one claim of one mile in length by one fourth of a mile wide. Messrs. J. J. Crawford and Samuel Hale are in the possession of this property, and ditches and flume have been built connecting with the Park Canal, at great expense, capable of supplying 1200 inches of water to the claim, with 175 feet fall. A great deal of drift mining has been and is yet being done. The Cedar Springs, formerly Dickerhoff mine, up Cedar ravine, running a ten-stamp mill, has been in successful operations for years. Just above is the Linden mine a shaft ; not long ago sunk here struck splendid pay gravel at a depth of sixty feet. If the pay channel is as extensive as the company has reason to believe, it may not be exhausted before a good many years. The Lyon Deep Channel claim at Prospect Flat, owned by H. L. Robinson and Company, is one of the finest in the State; fifteen acres yielded nearly $200,000 and no exact estimate can be given of the extent and value of the undeveloped part; the prospecting work, however, consisting in shafts and tunnels on the hill to the south indicated a rich gravel all the way through. The mine is thoroughly equipped with a ten-stamp mill, cars, cages, engine etc. The Oak Ranch, former Crusen mine, though abandoned at present, after the opinion of experienced miners will .not lie idle for a long time; it has paid handsomely in the past, and there is great confidence felt for its future. SMITH'S FLAT. Some of the best paying claims in the mines of California, were located at Smith's Flat, some three miles above Placerville. We do not know who was the lucky man that first struck "big pay" on the Flat. In the winter of 1852 some very rich surface diggings were found there, and many of the Placervillians hastened to take up claims, anxious to become honest miners, when the gold could be picked up from the surface. These surface claims, however, didn't all pay largely, and consequently many of the standing-collar miners deserted the diggings they had so eagerly staked off and trenched around, making room for a hardier and more laborious population. This second set of miners, after working the surface diggings, concluded that they would try the hills surrounding the flat so beautifully, calculating that the -gold they had already found, had originally been placed on deposit within their slate-bound circumference, and had found its way from there to the Flat. Consequently, many tunnels were driven into the hills, and although not all of them proved productive, several have richly rewarded their industrious and persevering proprietors for the labor spent upon them. Of the best paying we mention : the Fremont, Hook and Ladder, Native American, Henry Clay, etc. In five or six years from the time of the first strike the appearance of the mining camp had made quite a progress ; while then only two or three lost miner's cabins told of the existence of the place, it presented quite a lively mining camp a few years after. The Benfeldt Blue Gravel claim, one of the finest gravel mines in El Dorado county, just south-east of Smith's Flat, is in itself a monument of industry, pluck and perseverence for the owner, Mr. Fred. Benfeldt, who, with small means, prosecuted the work of opening it until he was fortunate enough to strike a rich bed of cement gravel ; generous friends built a tenstamp mill for him, run by an over-shot wheel, forty feet eight inches in diameter, and subsequently he put up hoisting works and an eight inch pump, all run by a hurdy-gurdy wheel. The gold taken from the claim is of superior quality, as shown by the fact that for 135.15 ounces sent to the San Francisco mint he received in return $2,550.26. A great tributary deposit is traced all the way from Plum creek, below the -Esmeralda House, as shown on both sides of the plateau. It is claimed by miners who have explored the ground that a rich channel crosses from Iowa canyon, a little above the Eight-Mile House, to the valley of Weber creek. There is another large deposit between the forks of Weber creek, while the south bank of that stream shows an almost continuous mass from above Newtown nearly to Diamond Springs. Further south, the neighborhood of Pleasant valley, Dry gulch, the valleys of Park creek. Camp creek and the other branches of the Cosumnes, all contain auriferous deposits. Extensive mining operations have been carried on at Dry Gulch, Henry's Diggings, the neighborhood of Grizzly Flat, Brownsville, Fair Play and Indian Diggings. It is evident, that there is little danger of exhausting all these gravel deposits for gen- erations to come. With cheap water and improved appliances, operations will gradually extend to ground now looked upon as unrenunerative? (hard to read), while much good ground is only waiting for water and capital. SEAM MINES, Or Seam Diggings, to which class the latter belong, are peculiar to the locality of the Georgetown mining district, not having been discovered, as far as we know, in any other part of the State. These mines are em- braced in a belt of country about ten miles wide, and extend across the divide from the South Fork to the Middle Fork of the American river, a distance of twenty miles. The character and value of these mines have not until recently been well understood ; the formation is slate interspersed with numerous quartz seams, mostly decomposed and varying in size from the thickness of a knife-blade to several feet. To pro- cure the gold out of these crevices, the bed-rock banks and the "everlasting hills," from fifty to above two hundred feet in height, are being tumbled down and washed away through sluices, like as though they were a bed of gravel. This at present is the most remunerative mining in that section, and although it is still in its infancy, the amounts realized at times are enormous, and not only as a novelty, but in some more directions, they well deserve a visit. To accelerate the work of the hydraulic, in some of these mines tunnels were run in from the base of the bank, with cross-drifts and chambers, in which powder is placed and fuse or wires laid ; the opening from the outside is then again tilled and the powder exploded, which has the effect of jarring and loosening the gravel or rock, to facilitate the attack of the water. From a few hundred pounds up to fifty tons of powder have been used sometimes in a single blast. The miners call this method "powder-drifting," or "bank blasting," and made quite an extensive use of it in the Excelsior mine at Coon Hollow, and in the great hy- draulic claims on the Georgetown divide ; at Georgia Slide, Jones Hill, etc. Georgia Slide, located on Canyon creek, with its open bank of slate-rock standing perpendicular for about two hundred and fifty feet, makes the most grotesque appearance. It became a mining camp in 185 1, when the canyons and ravines were found to be rich placers. The first store in the place was owned by B. Spencer, a brother to Pat. Spencer, of Georgetown, in 1851 and '52 ; this afterwards became the property of Thomas Boarman, and in 1859 came into the possession of G. F. Barkelage, whose close atten- tion to business and investment in mines has rewarded him with quite a fortune. The mine is owned and worked by a stock company. Beattie & Co.'s Seam Mine is just above Georgia Slide; the face of the claim is about 150 feet in height and nearly perpendicular. The work is going on about half way up, and at that point the seams extend about twenty feet in width running in every direction ; they are from a half inch to three or four inches in thickness, and most of them very rich. The seams are cracks and crevices on the solid rock composed or filled with decomposed quartz, and appear to be "oxydized;"a black oxyde covers some of the pieces of gold and quartz so thoroughly that but for the weight would be passed by. There is some white quartz in some few of the seams, containing bright gold ; the black character, however, is most prevalent. The Nagler or French Claim, at Greenwood Valley is another seam mine that has been worked on the hydraulic system for a number of years, to a depth of from fifty to eighty feet from the origi- nal surface, opening the ground for a space of about five acres ; more than $2,000,000 have been extracted from this mine, and it is still estimated as one of the most valuable mines in the State. The rock, a kind of porphyrious formation, almost to the whole extent of the mine is one mass of quartz seams, all abounding with gold, and their limits are yet unknown. Indeed, they appear to increase in richness as they go deeper down, as a shaft sunk down 150 feet on one of the seams shows a widening of the lode. The company are going to put up a thirty-stamp mill on the ground, to crush the rock and tailings piled up at the end of the sluices ; there are about 200,000 tons of rock, after a rough estimate, on hand, and the assay of some live tons of the latter kind averaged a yield of $200 per ton. A trial to break this rock and tailings with a rock-breaker and Huntington Batteries was made some time ago, but abandoned on account of insufficient satisfaction. A view of this mine may be found some other place in this book. The California Water Company are the owners of several hydraulic mines in the northern part of El Do- rado county. A good deal of expensive work has been done at Volcanoville ; the ground there con- tains many large bowlders, the flumes on that account were constructed with special reference to their dispo- sition, four feet wide, with an incline of 18 inches to each twelve feet. Bowlders the full size of the flume are easily washed down this steep incline and through a bed-rock tunnel of 325 feet length, and dumped over a steel grizzly into the canyon below, discharging toward the Middle fork of the American river, 1500 feet nearly perpendicular down. The Pilot Hill mine, better known as the Bowlder Claim, deriving the name from the number of large quartz bowlders found in this claim, from which gold, well into the thousands has been extracted. The formation is cement gravel, round and water-worn, from the size of small pebbles to large bowlders; this mass has to be worked up by powder, previous to the hydraulic operation, and the amount of rock to be removed and piled away after every run of water adds much to the expense of work- ing the claim, which varies in depth from the rim rock ^to thirty and forty feet in depth. Of the smaller but none the less valuable hydraulic mining claims on the Georgetown divide we have to mention still, the Gold Deposit mine, located on Irish creek, near Columbia Flat, owned by Messrs. Voll, Anderson and Sweet, and can be called a very valuable property. An even richer one is situated about half ways between Georgetown and Volcanoville at Kentucky Flat, it is the property of Messrs A. J. Wilton and sons, apparently this claim is located in the former bed of some changed off stream, probably the Middle Fork of the American river or still another fork, as may be proved by the many big bowlders which cover quite an area of the washed out claim; their appearance is smooth and shining like polished, resembling very much the moraines, wandering down from the mountains with the living glaciers. This however, is a question for the geologlist to give a more positive answer. A great many large or otherwise highly valuable nuggets have been taken out of these different mines; we may record here a few of them. At Dead man's ravine, near Poverty Point, in March 1856, a miner found a nugget worth $130. Only a short time previous two German miners were lucky enough to discover a nug- get of 42 1/2 ounces in weight in Weber creek, opposite Newtown. The large and beautiful nugget of gold taken from the Grit claim, at Spanish Dry Diggings, in 1865, was 16 pounds in weight, it was broken into small pieces and presented a beautiful specimen in each and every part. Many good sized nuggets were found in early days in Hise's ravine, Sugar Loaf mountain region, by Mr. John Hise; one was valued at over $800. Mr. C. W. Brewster, banker at Placerville, had in his posession one of the handsomest specimens of quartz that a person could lay his eyes on, its weight was 51 1/4 oz. and was estimated to contain from $250 to $400 of gold, the upper side of it being literally ribbed with gold, but it had to be tied up, on account to prevent it from falling to pieces, being considerably shattered. This specimen was found in Mosquito can- yon on the Carpenter & Go's claim. In May, 1872, a nugget was found in one of the ravines of Diamond Springs mining district, tributary to the Cosumnes river, which weighed sixteen pounds, carrying some quartz, its value was about $2000. A nugget of 92 ounces equal to $1656, in the spring of 1872, was taken out of a claim owned by Rumondo, located about a quarter of a mile south of Hogg's Diggings, adjoining the Hunt quartz ledge to the north. A nugget of pure gold, weighing about ten ounces was found in the Cooley claim, near Volcanoville on February 13th, 1874. Mr. Rumondo living at Pilot Hill, since the earliest days, has been the "finder of a good number of large nuggets, during that time, in Pilot Hill mining district.