Collection: Books and Periodicals

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Title: A Memorial and Biographical History of Northern California (1891) Collection Type: Books and Periodicals Publisher: Lewis Publishing Company Published: 1891 Copyright: In the public domain or published before 1925 Source(s): Google Books # of Pages: 713 Download PDF: User Login Required Download OCR Text: User Login Required

Date Scanned: 2024-07-22 00:25:09 Item Sourced From: PDF First Created: 2025-03-17 03:11:29 Last Updated: 2025-03-17 06:30:36

Original Held At: Searls Historical Library Location: 161 Nevada City Hwy, Nevada City, CA 95959

Page: of 713  

HISTORY OF NORTHERN CALIFORNIA. 101 I agricultural resources, is notably one of our foremost mining counties, its annual bullion product being now the largest, probably, of all counties in the State. There are in this county not less than twenty-five quartz mills, nearly all of them in active operation. These mills carry a total of over six hundred and fifty stamps. Along the broad gold-bearing belt, known as the “mother lode” of California, which holds its course across the county, the principal mines and mills are situated, there being here within a distance of fifteen miles, as many as twenty large companies engaged in vein mining, theproperties of nearly all being equipped with first-class plants. Besides her quartz mines and auriferous deposits, Amador produces some copper and coal (brown lignite), and ie rich in marble, limestone, freestone, etc. At a number of localities in the county, notably near the towns ot Volcano and Oleta, diamonds have been found by the miners engaged in gravel washing. Some of these diamonds have been of fair size and good quality, and occurred in sufficient quantity to have made search remunerative, had the gravel accompanying them been more easily disintegrated. Sume of the stones found here sold in the local market for $50 or $60, their intrinsic value having been much greater. In the famous trip across the mountaine, Fremont and Carson traveled northward from Walker’s River, crossing the river bearing Carson’s name in their course, and making the crossing of the summit by way of Truckee and Lake Talive. The river was then named in honor of Carson, the pass and valley being named from the river, so that it is quite probable that Carson never crossed the mountains at that point until 1853, when he came through with a division of United States troops under Colonel Steptoe. The first authentic report of the presence of white men in the connty was in 1846, when Sutter, with a party of Indians and a few white men, sawed lumber for a ferry-boat in a cluster of sugar pines on the ridge between Sutter and Amador creeks, about four miles above the town of Amador and Sutter. At this time (1846) the country was one unbroken forest from the plains to the Sierra Nevada, broken only by grassy glades like Ione valley, Volcano flats and other places. The tall pine waved from every hill, the white and black oak alternating and prevailing in the lower valleys. The timber in the lower foothills and valleys, though continuous, was so scattering that grasses, ferns and other plants grew between, giving the country the appearance of a well cared-for park. The quiet and repose of these ancient forests seemed like the results of thousands of’ years of peaceful occupation; and at every turn in the trails which the emigrants fullowed, they half expected to see the familiar old homestead, orchard, cider-press and grain-fields, the glories of the older settlements in the eastern States. These things, after years of residence, are beginning to appear. How much the ancient sylvan gods were astonished and shocked at the irruption of the races that tore up the ground and cut the trees, the poets of some other generation will relate. In the latter part of March, 1848, Captain Charles M. Weber, of Tuleburg (now Stockton), fitted out a prospecting party to search for gold in the mountains east of the San Joaquin Valley; but haste and want of experience prevented them from finding any of the shining metal until they reached the Mokelumne River in this county, when they found gold in every gulch to the American River. They commenced mining at Placerville, on Weber's Creek. Afterward they found fine specimens of gold south of the Mokelumne, and a mining company was formed which afterward gave name to Wood’s creek, Murphy’s Creek, Angel’s Camp and other places. Then commenced the general working of the « Sonthérn Mines,” and the rush of miners and the general immigration which finally filled the country. In 1850, the two places contesting for the county seat were Jackson and Mokelumne Hill. After the election, when the first count or