Far Western Miners (The Honest Miner)

Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
Part seven of the American Far West seven mid nineteenth
century Views from Abroad by anonymous This LibriVox recording is
in the public domain. Part seven Far Western Miners The
Honest Miner. One autumn a year or two ago, in

(00:20):
pursuit of my travels, I struck into the wild Mountain
region of southern Oregon, just north of the California boundary line.
I had not gone far on the trail before I
overtook a stalwart, gray shirted, knee booted individual. He had
a pack of scarlet blankets strapped on his back, and
as he trudged along for want of better company, he

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held an animated conversation with himself, an oath being most
innocently introduced every now and then when the merits of
the case seemed to call for it. He was an
old gold digger returning to his favorite creek. He had
been off on one of the usual digger wild goose
chases after some fancied El Dorado at a distance, but

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was returning disappointed to the place where he had mined
for many a year. Every locality was familiar to him.
As we walked together over the mountain or by the
banks of the creek or stream down in the wooded valley,
my companion would point out to me, with a half
regretful pride, the places where big strikes had been made

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in former times. Pointing to a ruined log cabin out
of the door of which a coyote wolf rushed, he
assured me that the owner of that cabin had washed
some forty thousand dollars out of a patch twenty or
thirty yards in extent. Was he a white man, I
asked for, there are numbers of Chinese miners in that
section of country. Whaal was the reply? Not muchly. He

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wore a Dutchman. In Pacific Coast parlance, it appeared a
white man did not altogether refer to the color of
his face, but to the quality of his soul, and
meant a good feller and a right sort of man.
And that Dutchmen or Germans and the inhabitants of the
north of Europe generally are not classed under that title.

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They are too saving, too steady, and to possibly too clannish.
For though he does become an American citizen as soon
as he arrives, this is with no view to any
political principles. He entertains, but solely to facilitate the preemption
of land and the acquisition of a lagerbier brewery or
the opening of a corner grocery. Canyon Creek, as the

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locality was named, had once, i was told, been a
bully old diggin, but the stream having been pretty well
washed out, the miners had decamped two parts unknown, leaving
no address behind them. Like the Arabs, they folded their
tents and silently moved away. Here was a half ruined building,
choked up with weeds, bearing record that it had once

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been the El Dorado Saloon, in other words, a gambling
hell or worse, and around it were a few cabins.
This had been the town's sight, and the projectors no
doubt imagined that it was to be the right smart
chance of the city. However, fate had decided otherwise, and
the only traces of former greatness to be seen were

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piles of stones and gravel, and long trenches and half
ruined ditches, which gave the spot the appearance of a
place where some great engineering operations had been left half finished.
Here and there, a solitary Chinese slunk about, intent on
his own business, And if my companion were to be
believed in pursuit of stray cats. As we turned a

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corner of the rough trail, we suddenly emerged in front
of the store. By the door was sitting half a
dozen of the old habituetes of the creek, lazily talking.
My friend was delighted. There they are, he cried, loafing
about John Backey, just as natural as anything. He seemed
to be a popular man among them, as his friend.

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Friendships are quickly made in the West. I was received
with vociferations of welcome and the choice of half a
dozen chanties to spread a blanket in. In this way
I saw a good deal of the honest miner of
Canyon Creek, and learned not a little of his ways
of life and thought in this lonely little dell in
the Californian Mountains. Of course, we have all read about

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the miner in California, British Columbia, or Australia, about his extravagance,
his boisterousness, and his conduct generally, and we are all
too apt to think of him only as the roistering blade.
In the palmy days of eighteen forty nine or eighteen
fifty three, when gold could be had for the picking up.

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The typical miner in eighteen sixty nine is a very
different man from that of eighteen forty nine, even though
he be the same individual. No longer do you, as
a rule see the many fine looking hands and some
fellows in the early days of California fifteen or twenty
years ago. They were all young then, but hardship has
told upon them, for in many cases they have pursued,

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with varying luck, that business of gold digging ever since.
The forty nine ers are the blue blood of the coast,
but they are proverbially poor. Accordingly, these men, among whom
I associated on Canyon Creek, were very different from our
usual notion of the gold miner, but were yet at
the same time very characteristic types of what is well

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known on the rocky mountain slopes as the honest miner.
He is a peculiar individual and differs in many respects
from the settler of late years. Enter his cabin, and
there is always indubitable evidence of a miserable life of
single blessedness. The gold digger is almost universally unmarried. The

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rough blanket spread caught, the axe hewn table with its
scanty array of crockery, the old battered stove or fireplace
built of clay and stones, the inevitable sack of flour,
half sack of potatoes and junk of pork. The old
clothes and old boots, and a few books and newspapers

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go far in making out the extent of the miner's
worldly possessions. A little patch of cultivated ground enclosed by
old sluice box lumber is sometimes an accompaniment, as well
as a dog, a cat, or a few fowls. The
inhabitant of this cabin is often rough, gray and grizzly.
He came out twenty years ago, and his residence has,

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with few exceptions, always been on the gulch where we
now find him. Probably it rejoices in the euphonious name
of horse, beef bar bulldog point, jackass, gulch, or groundhog's glory.
By these names it may or may not be found
on the surveyor general's map, but at all events it

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goes by no other. He does his trading at a
store at Diggerberg Credit. He calls Jawbone and talks about
running his face for grub, but sometimes this is objected
to by the store keeper as the gulch is not
paying well. And behind the counter you may see a
mule's jawbone significantly suspended. And below the words played out here,

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the honest miner purchases a few pounds of flour, a
little tea, coffee and brown sugar, and as much as
he can buy of whiskey. He can tell where all
the rich spots have been in the rivers, bars, gulches
and flats, but that was in the glorious, wicked, cutting, shouting,
fortune making times of yore. He can't tell where there

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are any rich spots now. He is certain there is
a rich quartz ledge in the mountain yonder, and if
he could get water on the flat, he is sure
it would pay good wages. Excess of fortune spoiled him
in forty nine. A economy is a myth with him,
and he cheerfully entertains half a dozen friends, though his

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magazine of provisions as well as of money, be in
an advanced state of exhaustion, his supper cooked. He thinks
of home, that is the home of twenty years ago.
In reality, he has no home. Mentally, he sees the
faces of his youth fresh and blooming, but they are
getting old and withered. Now he sees the peach orchard

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and the farm house from which he wandered a young rover,
when first the news of Golden California burst upon the
astonished ears of the world. That home is now in
the hands of strangers. Were he to go east, as
he calls it, he would find himself a stranger in
a strange land. He thinks he'll go back some time

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or other. Fortune occasionally favors him a trifle more than usual,
and then he may make a trip up to the Bay.
As he calls San Francisco, he stops at thou WoT house.
He may be seen there by hundreds, poor fellow. He
came here to enjoy himself, but he doesn't well know how.

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The novelty of the city wears often a day or
two without occupation, his routine of life broken. He becomes
a victim to a disease for which the French could
alone have invented a name on Wei. At night he
can go to the theater, But by day he sits
in rows in the hall of a hotel, crowds the entrance,

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and sometimes blocks up the street. If he have money
enough and be so inclined he may go on the
spludge and possibly get drunk, but that with this class
of minor is not very likely. His face wears an
expression of wild bewilderment and intense weariness. Unaccustomed to the

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hurry and bustle of the city, he collides frequently with
the denizens of the metropolis. The spruce, fashionably dressed, frizzle
headed clerks who flip by excite in him feelings of
contempt and indignation. The swarms of youthful females in the
streets astonish, delight, and tantalize him. It is something so

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new to him. There are few on jackass Gulch, and
they would be better away. When he knew Frisco, it
was not much more than a collection of cotton tents
on some sand hills. Now it is a fine city
of one hundred and fifty thousand inhabitants. Females were almost unknown,
and the announcement by a steamboat proprietor of four lady

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passengers tonight was quite enough to insure a crowded patronage
for his vessel. But the digger of the oriiferous soil
often leaves the city, with the knowledge that the world
has gone far ahead of him. During his lonely residence
in the mountains. He had far better not of come
in Dgerberg. He is somebody in San Francisco. He is

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lost among the crowd, or at best is only a
rusty old miner. Those who thus contemptuously talk of him
forgetting that he and such as he were the founders,
and are yet, to a great extent the stronghold of California.
I fancy I do not really wrong the honest miner
in saying he does not possess much religion. Yet if

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a clergyman, by any chance come into his camp, he
makes a point of attending meeting on much the same principle,
and with feelings of about equal reverence with which he
would go to a dog fight or a tight rope performance,
because he looks upon it as the right thing to
patronize the affair. If the parson look on as he

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is washing for gold, he will ask him if he
would like to wash out a pan, And as this
invitation is usually accepted, the worthy fellow will contrive to
slip in among the gravel a tolerable nugget, so that
the washer may be nothing the worse for his clerical
visit custom in such cases providing that the contents of

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the pan go to the visitor. At one time there
was a revival of religion among the miners. Never was
there such a demand for tracts. Indeed, so great was
the demand that a special appeal had to be issued
by a certain religious body whose mission it was to
look after such matters for increased contributions to the dear

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gold Digger's tract Fund. To use the words of the appeal,
the cry comes o'er the western wave, More tracts, more tracts.
At last, the painful truth oozed out, though I hardly
think it was related at the May meetings that the
miners used the tracks to paper their log chanties. A

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friend of mine, whose lot it was to officiate as
a clergyman among them at one time, used often to
tell me that he had to ring a bell in
the morning all through the apology for a street, inviting
his parishioners to divine worship, and that finding nobody in
church when he came in, he first looked into one
gambling saloon or tavern, and then into another, inviting those

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assembled there to come to church, all right, parson, would
be the good natured reply. We'll go there as soon
as we played out this hand for the whiskies. Just
be gone ahead with the prayers and things, and will
be along for the preaching. This taking of drinks is
characteristic of the miner. No bargain can be made, or

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any other matter of business or sociality settled, without the
indispensable drinks. The same clerical friend whose experience I have
just related, was shocked on his first arrival among the
miners at being asked to stand drinks after he had
received a very liberal subscription towards the building of his church.

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Two mining companies that I know something about, threw dice
to determine which of them should treat the whole creek
to Champagne. And as that wine was sold at fifteen
dollars per bottle, the cost to the loser may be guessed.
In most mining localities it is looked upon as a
cause of mortal offense to decline drinking with the first

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fellow who shouts, let's put in a blast, colonel. In
some places it is quite a serious breach of etiquette
not to ask all who are sitting round in the
bar room of a tavern. Though total strangers to step
up and take a drink, sometimes they do not require
any invitation. A friend of mine, having had a long

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ride one day, dismounted at a tavern to take more
Americano some refreshment, when, to his utter astonishment, fourteen men
who were sitting around stepped up and loud they would
take sugar in darn. He paid for the fifteen drinks,
as it was in strict accordance with the custom of
the country, but he took care not to go back

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to that hostelry again. The Australian gold digger is in
many respects different from the Californian, but still he evinces
the same carelessness of money. It used to be the
custom for these men to come down to some village
after they had made a slight pile, go each to
his favorite public house and give the money into the

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landlord's hand, with the information that he shouted or asked
all and sundry to drink until it was finished. Then
the landlord at intervals would say, step up, boys as
Jim Jenkins shout. Then they all wished Jim luck until
Jim's shout was out, and then He went back to
his gully, proud that he had spent his money like

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a man. On one occasion, a miner came down and
handed his money over to the landlord, but contrary to expectation,
nobody would respond to his shout. He had been a
convict and lagged for some grievous offense. The man was
at his wits end. At last he struck upon the
brilliant expedient of engaging an idler at laborer's daily wages

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eight shillings to drink with him, and so he got
through his holiday. No one can tell where a rich
mine will be discovered or where it will not. Even
quartz mines, which require skill to diagnose, have been equally
discovered by chance. A robber fired at a man standing
with his back to a rock, but missed. As the

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ball splintered the moss grown quartz. The miner who was
attacked saw specks of gold sparkle in the moonlight. It
afterwards proved one of the richest mines in California. Two
miners about to leave the country just to celebrate the event,
got on the spudge the night before their intended departure.
As they were coming home to their cabins. In mere foolishness,

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they commenced rolling stones down a slope. One of these
struck off the point of a rock, which, on being examined,
was found rich with specks of gold. This changed their plans,
and they stayed, and stayed to some purpose, for they
afterwards became very wealthy men. The honest miner is far
from being what may be called a domestic character. If

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he were making five dollars per diem to the hand
at Greaser's Camp, and heard that somebody was making six
at Hellgate Canyon in Mountain Goat Gulch, the chances are
that he would presently disappear to the new El Dorado.
Now gold Bluff was the point to which all were rushing.
That failed, but it didn't dishearten the men. They next

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rushed in thousands to Gold Lake. And then the cry
was Fraser River, which disappointed so many thousands that eventually
it became a matter of as serious personal offense to
ask a gentleman if he had been to Fraser River,
as to tell him to go to Jericho. In eighteen
sixty three, the infuriated miner was blocking all the mountain

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trails and Washo was the cry. In eighteen sixty four,
it was Blackfoot. In eighteen sixty six I saw hundreds
rushing through slush and snow for Big Bend in the
heart of the Rocky Mountains, declaring that Cariboo was and
a patch on it, and that at all events they
would see the elephant. It is curious that men who

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have been on the Pacific coast since the commencement of
gold mining, who have knocked about the rocky mountain slopes,
and have been the victims of a dozen disappointments, should
be so easily tempted again to risk fortune. But it
is so, and the country would never have been what
it is if they had all been as sensible as
they might have been. This vagabond propensity will fasten on

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a man who allows himself to sit in front of
a frying pan and a bundle of blankets, on the
ridgepole of a sore backed horse. And I verily believe
there are many men who, if their history were known,
have traveled more and endured greater hardship in this way
than many whose names are famous in the annals of travel,

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and whom the geographical Society delights to honor. The true
seeker after El Dorado does not stop at distance or difficulties.
If a coast gold miner does not care to be called,
like the Australian a digger, the term in the former
region being applied to and associated with a miserable race

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of Indians who inhabit the mountains, he likes to be
called by the title I have put at the head
of this paper, the honest miner. That he is honest
enough as honesty goes in America, nobody will deny to
the profession as a whole. But still there is occasionally
the dishonest miner. We do not speak of the rascal

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who is caught stealing gold out of the sluice box
and gets lynched for his pains, but of the equally
rascally individual who salts a claim before selling it, that is,
he scatters a few pieces through the gravel before the
buyer comes to test it. In California, some of the
claims are wrought summer and winter. Indeed, the winter is

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more favorable than the summer because water is more plentiful.
But in British Columbia and in the Rocky Mountains, the
frost causes working to be suspended then the claims are
laid over, and the great body of the miners come
down to Victoria and other towns to pass the winter
months and to spend the money they have made during

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the summer. They also try to dispose of rather doubtful
claims at this time, and one of the means adopted
is to report having struck a good prospect just before leaving.
It is remarkable, to say the lease of it, how
many good prospects are struck in this way. The endless
swindows connected with quartz companies are, I dare say vividly

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enough in the memory of certain gentlemen in the city
of London and elsewhere whose purses were longer than their foresight.
Gold mining will always be a staple industry in the
Rocky Mountain slope, and the increased immigration and attention excited
by the Pacific Railroad will greatly increase the business. But
the old miner will be killed off. Large companies will

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work his claims, and shoals of new hands will crowd
his solitary valleys. Men who know not the old traditions
and have no sympathy with the old manners. He himself
will meet them half way and will unconsciously lose many
of his characteristics and peculiarities. He will get toned down
to the duller routine of other workmen as his pursuit

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takes its place among the industries. End of Part seven.
End of the American Far West seven mid nineteenth century
views from abroad by anonymous