Volume 034-4 - October 1980 (8 pages)

— ~ each. This was the result of a forty-day run and only half of the ground was scraped. The total value was several thousands of dollars: it was sufficient . to clear the debts of the mine and leave a surplus. The seven year old son of Mr. Haycock found, while playing on some bedrock, a ten dollar nugget. This portion of the grounds, previously considered worthless, was then worked over and found very rich. However, the Alpha Hydraulic Mining Co. was started at an unfortunate time. The inhabitants of Yuba, Sutter and Sacramento counties complained more and more about the silting up of the rivers by hydraulic debris. The city of Marysville sued the Alpha Co. in an attempt to stop them from dumping debris in the South Yuba River. The final blow came with the decision of Judge Lorenzo Sawyer in 1884 which made hydraulic mining practically impossible. Around that time, the Alpha Hydraulic Mine employed three or four Caucasians and ten or more Chinese. The Caucasians gave up, but not the Chinese. In 1887 the anti-mining spies caught eight. Chinese miners at the Alpha and brought them to Marysville. They were fined from $300 to $500 each but, since they did not pay up, they were lodged in jail for contempt of court. Five months later, they were released upon payment of $1500. This however did not deter the Chinese. In Kelley's Gold versus Grain (1959, p.268) we find the following: “It was finally decided to stage a decisive raid (on the Chinese at Omega). One agent secreted himself near the Omega mine, which was being operated in violation of an injunction, until he had familiarized himself with the faces of all Chinese workmen so that he could identify them later. On the eighteenth of April, 1889, a special train was hired, secretly boarded at Marysville by sixteen special deputy sheriffs, and dispatched to Emigrant Gap, high on the shoulder between the Yuba and the Bear watersheds. Here the party alighted in the dark of midnight and stumbled eight miles to the mine, getting there before daybreak. Surrounding the bunk house, they called upon all of its occupants to surrender. Their only reply was the sound of doors and windows being barricaded. But a log was caught up, the door was thunderously broken down, and twenty crestfallen Chinese were handcuffed. By that afternoon they were in Marysville jail. They were fined $500 each by Judge Keyser, and, having no funds, were put to work at 500-day sentences. This proved a burden on the county, and they were eventually taken off the relieved hands of local officials by an Oregon lumberman, who paid the county for their labor.”” Apparently, the decisive raid was still not enough. In a report of 1896, we find the following of Chinese mining near Alpha: “Sweet's Flat (Tung Kow) Mine. It is one and a half miles south of Washington and comprises ten acres of gravel. The gravel bank is fifteen feet high, carrying many heavy boulders, and requiring a water powered derrick witha 55 feet boom. The gravel requires blasting and is washed through ten boxes set on a four degree grade, lined with wooden blocks; water is taken from Jephson Creek, the season lasting five months. Eight Chinese, owners, are at work.” 3 During the great Depression, several feeble attempts to work the Alpha were made. They are said to have been useless efforts. Today, nothing is left of either Alpha or Omega but a plaque on Highway 20. REFERENCES. 1. William B. Clark, Gold Districts of California. Bulletin 193, California Division of Mines and Geology. Sacramento, California, 1963. See p. 128. 2. Waldemar Lindgren, The Tertiary Gravels of the Sierra Nevada of California. Professional Paper 73, United States Geological Survey. Washington, Government Printing Office, 1911. See p. 147. Thirteenth Report of the State Mineralogist. Sacramento, 1896. See p. 265. FROM THE EDITOR The sketch map on page 24 was redrawn from a hand drawn map, submitted by the author. This map shows only an approximate location for Alpha and Omega, but does show the streams. The Washington Quadrangle of the 7.6 minute map, U.S. Geological Survey, shows two fairly large areas, labelled “Alpha Diggings” and “Omega Diggings” respectively, but no specific location for the towns. However, the Colfax Folio of the Geologic Atlas of the United States, which was published in the year 1900, shows specific locations for the two towns. Perhaps there were, at that time, still remnants of buildings, indicating the location of the two towns. This map also shows the Towle Brothers Narrow Gauge Railroad and the roads which were in existence at that time. The sketch map on the left was traced from this Folio map. On the adjoining geological map, the Alpha auriferous gravel deposit is shown a little north of the town site; while the site of Omega is at the southern border of the Omega auriferous gravel deposit. I want to take this opportunity to thank Mr. Slyter very much for his contribution. I am looking forward to more contributions from members for our Bulletin. : BOOK REVIEW. For a present-day person, even one living in the Gold Country, it is not easy to visualize the life of an early California miner. Certainly, books were written in those days, by Bayard Taylor for example, and there were newspapers. Such writings however do not present us with a view of the everyday life of an argonaut. What we need are writings of amore personal nature, diaries and collections of letters, documents which portray the daily toils, the successes and disappointments of these early argonauts, their friends, their leisure hours and so on. Such literature is quite rare, but fortunately, every now and then the California literature is enriched with a collection of early letters. The Diary of a Forty-Niner is well known, but in this book it is difficult to separate fact and fancy. And we have the Shirley Letters, a great contribution. A few years ago (1977), the San Diego Historical Society presented us with the letters of Charles W. Churchill, and recently, the Mariposa County Historical Society published letters from Horace C. Snow, the Dear Charlie Letters (1979). It is about the last mentioned collection that we will say something here. Horace Snow came to California in 1853 from Massachusetts. He had attended the Massachusetts State Teachers College at Bridgewater, founded in 1840. It is however not clear whether he graduated from this institute or not. At any rate, he appears to have been a well educated young man who wrote very good letters. He wrote many of them, and expected an answer to each of them, an answer which often did not come. His most faithful correspondent was Charles E. Fitz; twenty-two letters, addressed to “Dear Charlie” are published in this book. Horace came to California via the Panama route and arrived in San Francisco on October 12, 1853. From San Francisco he traveled to Sacramento as soon as possible and from there, together with two friends, to “Secret Diggings’’. This was located near Nevada City. Finding nothing there, they returned to Sacramento and worked there for some time to replenish the treasury, which was almost depleted after the trip to Secret Diggings. As soon as possible, Snow, together with his friend Spear, went to Sonora, where both found work. And, when sufficient money was earned to travel on, the pair went to Agua Fria, near Mariposa. There Horace’s brother, Hiram, was already established. Since abundant water, needed to wash the “pay-dirt” was available only a few months of the year, the mining method consisted of saving up the “pay-dirt” and washing it when the water was available. Only alittle of it was panned as the work went on, enough to pay for expenses. Horace was back in “America” in 27.

— ~ each. This was the result of a forty-day run and only half of the ground was scraped. The total value was several thousands of dollars: it was sufficient . to clear the debts of the mine and leave a surplus. The seven year old son of Mr. Haycock found, while playing on some bedrock, a ten dollar nugget. This portion of the grounds, previously considered worthless, was then worked over and found very rich. However, the Alpha Hydraulic Mining Co. was started at an unfortunate time. The inhabitants of Yuba, Sutter and Sacramento counties complained more and more about the silting up of the rivers by hydraulic debris. The city of Marysville sued the Alpha Co. in an attempt to stop them from dumping debris in the South Yuba River. The final blow came with the decision of Judge Lorenzo Sawyer in 1884 which made hydraulic mining practically impossible. Around that time, the Alpha Hydraulic Mine employed three or four Caucasians and ten or more Chinese. The Caucasians gave up, but not the Chinese. In 1887 the anti-mining spies caught eight. Chinese miners at the Alpha and brought them to Marysville. They were fined from $300 to $500 each but, since they did not pay up, they were lodged in jail for contempt of court. Five months later, they were released upon payment of $1500. This however did not deter the Chinese. In Kelley's Gold versus Grain (1959, p.268) we find the following: “It was finally decided to stage a decisive raid (on the Chinese at Omega). One agent secreted himself near the Omega mine, which was being operated in violation of an injunction, until he had familiarized himself with the faces of all Chinese workmen so that he could identify them later. On the eighteenth of April, 1889, a special train was hired, secretly boarded at Marysville by sixteen special deputy sheriffs, and dispatched to Emigrant Gap, high on the shoulder between the Yuba and the Bear watersheds. Here the party alighted in the dark of midnight and stumbled eight miles to the mine, getting there before daybreak. Surrounding the bunk house, they called upon all of its occupants to surrender. Their only reply was the sound of doors and windows being barricaded. But a log was caught up, the door was thunderously broken down, and twenty crestfallen Chinese were handcuffed. By that afternoon they were in Marysville jail. They were fined $500 each by Judge Keyser, and, having no funds, were put to work at 500-day sentences. This proved a burden on the county, and they were eventually taken off the relieved hands of local officials by an Oregon lumberman, who paid the county for their labor.”” Apparently, the decisive raid was still not enough. In a report of 1896, we find the following of Chinese mining near Alpha: “Sweet's Flat (Tung Kow) Mine. It is one and a half miles south of Washington and comprises ten acres of gravel. The gravel bank is fifteen feet high, carrying many heavy boulders, and requiring a water powered derrick witha 55 feet boom. The gravel requires blasting and is washed through ten boxes set on a four degree grade, lined with wooden blocks; water is taken from Jephson Creek, the season lasting five months. Eight Chinese, owners, are at work.” 3 During the great Depression, several feeble attempts to work the Alpha were made. They are said to have been useless efforts. Today, nothing is left of either Alpha or Omega but a plaque on Highway 20. REFERENCES. 1. William B. Clark, Gold Districts of California. Bulletin 193, California Division of Mines and Geology. Sacramento, California, 1963. See p. 128. 2. Waldemar Lindgren, The Tertiary Gravels of the Sierra Nevada of California. Professional Paper 73, United States Geological Survey. Washington, Government Printing Office, 1911. See p. 147. Thirteenth Report of the State Mineralogist. Sacramento, 1896. See p. 265. FROM THE EDITOR The sketch map on page 24 was redrawn from a hand drawn map,

submitted by the author. This map shows only an approximate location for Alpha and Omega, but does show the streams. The Washington Quadrangle of the 7.6 minute map, U.S. Geological Survey, shows two fairly large areas, labelled “Alpha Diggings” and “Omega Diggings” respectively, but no specific location for the towns. However, the Colfax Folio of the Geologic Atlas of the United States, which was published in the year 1900, shows specific locations for the two towns. Perhaps there were, at that time, still remnants of buildings, indicating the location of the two towns. This map also shows the Towle Brothers Narrow Gauge Railroad and the roads which were in existence at that time. The sketch map on the left was traced from this Folio map. On the adjoining geological map, the Alpha auriferous gravel deposit is shown a little north of the town site; while the site of Omega is at the southern border of the Omega auriferous gravel deposit. I want to take this opportunity to thank Mr. Slyter very much for his contribution. I am looking forward to more contributions from members for our Bulletin. : BOOK REVIEW. For a present-day person, even one living in the Gold Country, it is not easy to visualize the life of an early California miner. Certainly, books were written in those days, by Bayard Taylor for example, and there were newspapers. Such writings however do not present us with a view of the everyday life of an argonaut. What we need are writings of amore personal nature, diaries and collections of letters, documents which portray the daily toils, the successes and disappointments of these early argonauts, their friends, their leisure hours and so on. Such literature is quite rare, but fortunately, every now and then the California literature is enriched with a collection of early letters. The Diary of a Forty-Niner is well known, but in this book it is difficult to separate fact and fancy. And we have the Shirley Letters, a great contribution. A few years ago (1977), the San Diego Historical Society presented us with the letters of Charles W. Churchill, and recently, the Mariposa County Historical Society published letters from Horace C. Snow, the Dear Charlie Letters (1979). It is about the last mentioned collection that we will say something here. Horace Snow came to California in 1853 from Massachusetts. He had attended the Massachusetts State Teachers College at Bridgewater, founded in 1840. It is however not clear whether he graduated from this institute or not. At any rate, he appears to have been a well educated young man who wrote very good letters. He wrote many of them, and expected an answer to each of them, an answer which often did not come. His most faithful correspondent was Charles E. Fitz; twenty-two letters, addressed to “Dear Charlie” are published in this book. Horace came to California via the Panama route and arrived in San Francisco on October 12, 1853. From San Francisco he traveled to Sacramento as soon as possible and from there, together with two friends, to “Secret Diggings’’. This was located near Nevada City. Finding nothing there, they returned to Sacramento and worked there for some time to replenish the treasury, which was almost depleted after the trip to Secret Diggings. As soon as possible, Snow, together with his friend Spear, went to Sonora, where both found work. And, when sufficient money was earned to travel on, the pair went to Agua Fria, near Mariposa. There Horace’s brother, Hiram, was already established. Since abundant water, needed to wash the “pay-dirt” was available only a few months of the year, the mining method consisted of saving up the “pay-dirt” and washing it when the water was available. Only alittle of it was panned as the work went on, enough to pay for expenses. Horace was back in “America” in 27.