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Volume 066-3 - July 2012 (6 pages)
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Page: of 6
NCHS Bulletin July 2012
ing. They moved in and were soon joined by many others.
When daylight arrived they made the sad discovery that
their business had “melted away” in the fast swirling water
and all the merchandise in the adobe building had floated
away and almost everything around had been destroyed. A
decision was made to “close the business and dissolve the
partnership”—much like the assets which had dissolved in
the murky waters.
Beans, thus discouraged, resolved to leave California
and return home. With that in mind he made his way to San
Francisco, intending to catch a steamer bound for Panama
and home. He found San Francisco to be crowded and bustling with people from all over the world, discovered a busy
business section with many hotels, saloons, theaters and
other enterprises. To their mutual surprise, Beans encountered Dr. William S. Patterson, a man from his native county
in Ohio. Patterson was filling a posimen (and some women) acquired interests in mining claims
while also becoming involved in other enterprises.
Beans’ successes and failures in mining took turns, alternating while he also became engrossed in civic duties
and the political arena. In 1853 he was appointed deputy
county clerk and recorder by Dr. William Patterson, and
then was reappointed by Patterson’s successor, John Henry
Bostwick. Soon Beans became one of Nevada City’s “movers and shakers”—the important businessmen and entrepreneurs of that moment—men like Edwin G. Waite, Nat
P. Brown, Aaron A. Sargent, George Hearst, Niles Searls,
Charles W. Mulford, William Morris Stewart, Charles
Marsh, James J. Ott, George W. Kidd and William J. Knox.
On June 10, 1856, T. Ellard Beans married Virginia Knox,
the youngest sister of Dr. Knox, in Nevada City. William
J. Knox, the second of our pair of gold seekers, had been
born near Hopkinsville, Christian
tion as inspector at the U.S. Custom
House. In the course of several conversations, Patterson persuaded Beans
to abandon his plan to return East and,
instead, go in search of a mining camp
and a gold claim as soon as the winter
rains ended.
In April of 1850 Beans bought provisions and mining equipment and
took a boat upriver to Marysville.
From there he and a group of fellow
goldseekers walked beside an oxdrawn freight wagon, and were allowed to sleep under the wagon or a
tree of choice at night. Their destination was a mining camp on Deer Creek
that would later become the city of
Nevada.
Beans’ first attempts at finding gold several miles north
of the camp yielded very little. His group next moved to
Cincinnati Bar on the South Yuba River, but these waters
also proved unproductive, so they returned to Nevada. There
they located claims on what were known as the “Coyote”
diggings. By then it was fall of 1850 and many miners who
recalled the severe winter of 1849 chose to spend the winter
in San Francisco. Beans decided to remain and was elected secretary and recorder of a miners’ association being
formed in Nevada. Those who chose not to stay recorded
their claims before returning to San Francisco until spring.
The winter of 1850-51 proved to be a light one, and
some miners went back to the mountains after a couple of
months in the city and resumed mining. Like much of the
male population of Gold Rush towns in thosw early years,
Dr. William J. Knox (1820-1867)
County, Kentucky, on October 20,
1820. He moved with his family at an
early age to Lincoln County, Missouri.
Knox was the seventh child (and only
son) of James and Nancy Mills Knox;
William Knox had six older sisters
in addition to Virginia, who was ten
years younger than him.
After attending local schools he
went to Troy Academy in Lincoln
County, and then studied medicine
under Dr. Henry Brandt, a distinguished German physician at Warren
County, Missouri. Knox later attended the medical college at Louisville,
Kentucky, during the winter of 184546. After returning to Missouri he
married Sarah Louisa Browning in
1846 and settled in New Hope, Lincoln County, Missouri.
He returned to college and after receiving his diploma in
the spring of 1847, Dr. Knox practiced medicine for two
years at New Hope before going to Troy to enter into partnership with Dr. Hiram K. Jones.
On April 12, 1850, Dr. Knox and Sarah left Troy,
Missouri, with their daughter Virginia and a party of about
20 friends, and headed for California. Mrs. Knox and her
sister were the only ladies in the company and arrived in
Nevada City on October 8, 1850.
Dr. Knox practiced medicine until the winter of 1854,
when he was elected to the lower house of the California
legislature. In the spring of 1855 Knox and his wife and
daughter went east for a visit and returned to Nevada City
in December of the same year. After returning from the