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Page: of 368
NEVADA TRANSCRIPT JANUARY 16, 1867 5
about 5 o’clock in the morning. Shortly afterward her cries were heard and Mr. Gad went out
and lowered the rope into the well. Mr. and Mrs. Gad conversed with the girl and requested her
to take hold of the rope. She said she was cold and could not hold on. Gad went for assistance
but when he returned she was dead. The well is sixty feet deep and contains eleven feet of
water. It was supplied with a tight fitting cover which had been raised and was open when the
servant girl reached the well in the morning. For some time Miss Nathan has been despondent
in consequence of suffering from sore eyes which she believed would never be cured. When
found she had on a dress she wore the day before, and a pair of shoes without stockings. The
Coroner’s jury, after hearing the testimony, came to the conclusion that ‘Celia Nathan came
to her death by drowning while laboring under hysterical mania.’ She was a native of Prussia,
aged 19 years. No real motive for her suicide is known to her friends. She was buried yesterday
afternoon in the Jewish Cemetery at Grass Valley.’”]
THE MURDER AT KATE HAYS [sic] FLAT.—Yesterday we made brief mention of a murder
committed at Kate Hays Flat, in this county, on Sunday night. The following are the circumstances. On
Sunday night a Swede named Andrew Johnson [Johanson], who has been stopping at Birchville, left the
latter place for French Corral to get work. He was without money and some one gave him 75 cents. After
dark he left French Corral to return home, two miles distant. At Kate Hays Flat he stopped at a cabin
in which Louis Castine and a Frenchman known as Napoleon lodged. The three men were engaged last
Summer in mining in the bed of the main Yuba, somewhere near the mouth of Deer Creek. On the road
from the cabin to the French Bakery, where a bar is kept, Johnson was shot and killed.
On Monday an inquest was held by Justice Newell of Birchville, and the facts elicited point strongly
to Castine as the murderer. The testimony showed that on the night in question two shots were heard by a
number of persons, the time elapsing between them being estimated at from twenty seconds to a minute.
The bullet which killed Johnson entered the small of the back near the spinal column, and ranging up at
angle of forty-five degrees, passed out the left breast just below the collar bone. It would be impossible
for any one to have fired the fatal shot unless he was within a few feet or unless the man was prostrated
by a blow before the shot was fired. The man was lying on his back with his head in the direction of
Birchville, while the probabilities are that he would have fallen backward if shot as Castine and Napoleon
state.
Castine states that having no liquor in the cabin he proposed to go with Johnson as far as the bakery,
where they would take a drink, and Johnson should continue his journey home. He says that in crossing a
small ravine he fired his revolver in the air for amusement, when immediately, another shot was fired by
some unknown party. Johnson grasped him and Napoleon and fell. The statement made by Napoleon was
the same.
Castine was required to bring his revolver into Court. It was one of Colt’s six-shooters. Four of the
chambers were loaded with charges which had evidently been there for some time. Another was freshly
loaded but uncapped, and the last had a new cap on it but no charge in it. The supposition is that Johnson
was knocked down by these men and killed by Castine, and the circumstances seem to warrant such a
conclusion. Sheriff Gentry heard of the murder on Monday night, and started immediately for San Juan
where he arrived at 2 o’clock yesterday morning. He and Officer Huckins of San Juan, repaired to Kate
Hayes Flat and arrested Castine and Napoleon yesterday morning at 5 o’clock. They both seemed very
much surprised and had no idea that they were suspected. They were brought over and lodged in the
county jail. The body of Johnson was yesterday disinterred and examined, for the purpose of ascertaining
whether there were not two wounds. [Napoleon’s true name was Jean Marie Jonan.]
THE AID SOCIETY.—A meeting was held at the Court House, on Monday night, for the purpose
of organizing an Aid Society. R. H. Farquhar was called to the chair. A committee, consisting of J. C.