THE BUTLER CLAIM

It was situated at the foot of the deep gorge which came out of the mountains, and was first owned by a party of African-American Miners. The river was dammed and turned as usual in river claims. The channel was straight and smooth and offered no holding-place for the gold, and all of the party except Butler left the claim. The following year Butler borrowed five or six hundred dollars of Uncle Pompey, another African-American man, and opened the claim a little lower down in a bend. It proved the richest piece of ground ever found in the vicinity, or even in the two counties, being a mass of gravel six or eight feet deep, literally lousy, with gold. A day's work with a rocker would produce ten, twenty, thirty, and even fifty thousand dollars. Fred Westmoreland, a cool and sensible person, not liable to be excited, says he frequently saw a milk pan, the ordinary gold pan, heaping full for a day's work, so full that it could not be lifted by the rim without tearing in pieces. Some of the dirt, not so rich, was washed in a long tom. According to Tom Love a hundred dollars' worth of dust could be seen following the dirt along the sluice-box, the hands who were tending it stealing the dust by the handful. A face or breast was worked on the bed of gravel, and the gold showed from the top to the bottom, a distance of six or eight feet. At the bottom the pure dust could be gathered with a spoon. When it was known how immensely rich it was, a number of men were anxious to have a share. The former partners of' Butler were hunted up and induced to sell interests in the claim. A number of suits were commenced against Butler, and some half-dozen or more lawyers engaged to share the proceeds if successful. A receiver was appointed to take charge of the claim pending the suits. Robert Bennet, known as Bob Bennet, a well-known citizen of Lancha Plana, was once appointed custodian for a day. In a few panfuls of dirt he obtained dust to the amount of two thousand two hundred dollars, which, “Damned fool that I was, I turned over to the court. Everybody was taking and keeping all they could get.” It was too much for the old man Butler. He was taken sick with fever and shortly died. It was known by his friends that he had some eighty thousand dollars on deposit at Mokelumne Hill, as much more at Sacramento, and also immense sums buried in unknown spots. The Public Administrator took possession of the property and there was not enough found to pay a few small outstanding debts.

The Lost Gunsight Lode

Inyo County, CA
by
Gary B. Speck

It was a snowy New Year's Day in 1850 and a party of Motherlode-bound emigrants were camped in an area west of Death Valley at a place called White Sage Flat. They had originally been part of a 107 wagon group lead by Captain Jefferson Hunt. This group of Fortyniners differed in opinion on the most direct route to in the gold fields, so on November 1, 1849 they left Captain Hunt's large group somewhere near Mountain Meadows, Utah. This splinter group consisted of several smaller parties...the Jayhawkers from Illinois, the Georgia-Mississippi party led by Captain Towne and Jim Martin, the Bennett-Arcane party, the Brier and the Wade families.

The Towne-Martin group had separated from the rest of the emigrants and hiked directly up and over the Panamints, wandering for several days before finding White Sage Flat, and establishing a camp. The Jayhawkers and Briers left the Bennett-Arcane and Wade parties, and two days after leaving Poison Springs on the floor of Death Valley, they arrived at White Sage Flat, the day after the Towne-Martin group arrived. When they arrived, they found Captain Towne carving a new gunsight for his rifle – out of pure native silver. Some of the members of Towne's group had been miners in Georgia, and knew what silver looked like. They showed the Jayhawkers some silver ore and explained that there was a lot more covering the top of a mesa just below the camp.

Due to the life and death situation the group was in, having nearly exhausted all their food and water, they were more interested in survival, than in silver mining. A month later, the nearly starved emigrants stumbled into Mariposa, at the southern end of the gold country. Here they started a new life, most fading into obscurity. But the memories of that rich silver remained. As the years went by, the telling and retelling of the horrors of the Death Valley Fortyniners and their lost silver ore created a legend that refused to die.

Near Fort Tejon, Dr. E. Darwin French , a New York doctor had established a ranch. He originally arrived in California with Captain Kearny's 1st Dragoons in 1846. It was at his ranch that the next chapter in the saga of the Lost Gunsight Mine would begin.Shortly after the scattered and decimated emigrant groups had arrived in the gold country, one of the Towne group members, a Mr. Turner returned to search for the silver, but failed. He ended up at Dr. French's ranch, and in September 1850 mounted a second expedition to search for the lost silver outcropping. He took Dr. French with him. They poked and prodded and eventually ran across the remains of cattle bones and old campfires. Unfortunately their supplies were running low, so they had to return to Dr. French's ranch.A number of other prospecting parties returned to the area also to search for the Lost Gunsight lode, but none were successful.

To actually be fair, there are several versions of the story. Numerous claims by members of the various parties differ as to who actually found the silver. The general where and when is not disputed, but the finder is. But no matter who found it, and under what circumstances, the fact remains that the original discovery, and the several half-hearted attempts to locate it in 1850 were the key that eventually opened up the desert region for prospecting a mere decade later in 1860.

1) The following interesting fact, "California's first gold mine," (not known by most modern day prospectors) comes from a journal kept by John Bidwell, titled California 1841-48 ·An Immigrant? Recollections of a Trip Across the Plains and of Men and Events in Early Days.

The first gold discovered in California as far as John Bidwell knew was in 1841 by Jean Baptise Reuelle at a place in the mountains about thirty miles northeast from the Mission of San Fernando in Los Angeles County. Jean Reuelle was a Canadian but had lived in what is now New Mexico and worked in placer gold mines there. His discovery of gold in California created no astonishment or excitement owing to the fact of the very small yield. When Bidwell visited the mines in 1845, there were about thirty people working. The average earnings were very small, about twenty-five cents a day. At times nuggets were found of all sizes up to an ounce.

Though the mine had been worked for nearly four years and consisted of a bank of gravel, the progress was very slow and the cut washed into the hill did not exceed thirty feet.

Bidwell learned of the existence of the mine by seeing some of the gold in Los Angeles in the spring of 1845. However, the mining operation was not impressive. It might be worth checking into.

2) In 1883 a man named Amsden and a prospector from Needles set out on a prospecting trip from Needles to the Turtle Mountains, forty miles to the southwest. They found placer "gold nuggets are to be had for the trouble of picking them up." In adding to the hoard of gold, the men failed to note their diminishing supplies until they were nearly gone. They took what gold they could carry and buried the rest near the placer, which if found, would net a wash-tub half-full of gold nuggets.

Amsden reached Goffs, but his companion didn't make it. Amsden departed for his home in the East, taking his secret with him, but wrote Dick Colton, who aided him at Goff's, describing the location. The site was not far from a natural arch.

Colton, Mort Immell and Herb Witmire started out to find the gold. No trace of an arch was found by them. Walter Ford of El Centro and John Hilton of South Indio, made a trip to the arch as Hilton had discovered it previously, not knowing of the gold story. They found carnelian, plumegate, opan and geodes, but did not search for gold. Had they known about the earlier gold discovery they might have relocated the mine.

Their route was: 14 miles east from Rice; thence up a draw for 15 miles where the car was parked at a point 3/4 of a mile southeast from the arch, which is backed by a Butte to the west. Chester Pinkham of Eagle Rock said placer gold exists three miles north of the arch.

Desert magazine of January 1945 shows a photo of a large arch in the Turtle Mountains at Mesquite Springs, near Carson's Well, in San Bernardino County. Since the location of the arch is known and could be used as a starting point, this lost gold site could be found again.

3) A large number of treasure hunters assume that most of the gold found in California during the gold rush went east, and quite a bit did. However, a lot of gold went west into California from the east, as the following site illustrates.

In 1849 a group of emigrants bound for the California gold fields thought they were taking a short cut to the Mother Lode country but wound up in Death Valley

They hiked through Jayhawker Canyon and arrived at Harrisburg Flats in Inyo County. The group camped here near good feed for their animals and snow, which they melted for water.

Gold and silver became worthless, for it only weighed the emigrants down as they struggled to find a way out of the valley. One member of the group buried $3,000 in gold coins at the camp near Harrisburg Flats, and others buried lesser amounts.

After many hardships, the group finally reached Los Angeles, and from there made it to the gold fields. There is no record that any of them ever attempted to recover the treasures left behind.

A map showing the old emigrant trails and a detailed map of Death Valley could help locate the campsite.

4) During the 1880s the people of Havilah (in Kern County, about 40 miles northeast of Bakersfield) got used to seeing a French miner around their town. The Frenchman, as he was called, had an unpronounceable name and a fondness for alcohol.

He made a skimpy living from his claim on Codfish Creek, where he had a cabin and an arrastre (crude mill) for his ore. Occasionally he would walk into town for supplies, and it was his habit to take a different route each time, prospecting as he went.

On one trip to Havilah in 1887, he found what he was looking for ·a fabulous ledge with pure gold literally sticking out of it. Leaning his shotgun against the ledge as proof of his claim, the Frenchman went on to town, where he showed chunks of the rich ore to everyone, and proceeded to get drunk. Heading for home, he became lost in the mountains, fell asleep and caught a chill. He was later found dead of pneumonia.

Naturally, the whole town went looking for what later became known as the Lost Shotgun Ledge, but they failed to find it. Five years later, a small boy found the shotgun and took it home. But not knowing its importance, the boy paid no attention to the location.

A map showing the area in 1887 could be helpful in finding this site.

5) The following little known site could prove profitable.

Columbia, California, in Tuolumne County, is one of the oldest boom towns in the state. Nearby is a much-hunted treasure, about $15,000 in gold and silver coins, packed in an iron cooking pot that was hidden years ago.

The site of the treasure is the ruins of an old ranch in the hills half a mile east of Columbia. The ranch was once owned by a man named Wilson who kept his money hidden on the ranch.

Several old-timers remembered seeing the man go into the basement and return with the kettle whenever he needed money to loan someone or pay a bill. Nobody knows for sure, but many people believed there was always about $I5,000 in the kettle.

It was common knowledge the rancher kept the money at the ranch. So it was no surprise when one day he was found murdered and his house torn apart in search of the cache.

It is unlikely the killer found the money. Those who knew Wilson believed he refused to reveal the iron pot's hiding place, and the would-be thief killed him. He then searched the house, but apparently did not find the cache, or he wouldn't have torn the house apart.

Since then people have searched, but no report of it being found has been made.

6) Court records show that Juan Chavez, a noted outlaw during California gold rush days, tried to bribe his way out of hanging with the promise that he would lead the jailer to his gold. This offer was refused.

Between Newhall and Fort Tejon, in Los Angeles County, there was once an old stone house that was used by different outlaws during the 1850s. In 1857 Juan Chavez and his gang raided a Chinese mining camp near the American River. Chavez's share was one-fourth of the $25,000 taken, which he had to hide. He chose the meadow above the stone house, using a large boulder in the center as a marker. This cache is little known, and with a metal detector could be found.

7) A rich gold mine awaits the finder in a shaft covered with pine logs that look like driftwood, one of which contains an iron staple to hold a brass ring.

In the Black Hills near Mule Springs Canyon, about fifteen miles west of the Colorado River in Imperial County, is where a Frenchman named Pierre Legrade found gold. The shaft is in a foothill canyon on the north slope.

Very little ore was taken out by the Frenchman who discovered it, but one of his countrymen who had been told of the find took out several loads that were transported by boat down the Colorado River. He went to France and never returned.

Word leaked out about the mine, but the only indication that it might have accidentally been found and lost again occurred in 1900. A man and his wife, with some children, traveled the old desert road between San Bernardino and Ehrenberg. They camped late one afternoon near Mule Springs. Later one of the children ran into camp saying, "I found a well with a ring in it."

The father paid no attention to the child, but later, after hearing of the "Lost Ring Mine," he tried to locate it but failed.

The lost mine awaits a third discovery.

SOURCES:

Cleland, Robert C. A History of California.

California State Library. Sacramento, California.

Drago, Harry S. Lost Bonanzas.

Hoaver, Mildred B. and Associates. Historic Spots in California.

McAllister, R. W. Lost Mines and Buried Treasures of the Southwest.