1900-1902 — God's Country in the New Century

In the middle of 1900 the census takers took to the county. There were only sixty-six people living in the Mineral District. Five women besides myself, and nine children counting my own—the rest were men.

It wasn’t long after the century turned that we moved to Pine Creek and began establishing a ranch on about seventy-two acres of good land.

I cabbaged up enough help when needed and it wasn’t long before we were selling eggs to every camp cook that needed them. Ed packed them as far as Ulysses mountain.

We plowed and planted a garden that provided our own needs and enough to sell vegetables along with the eggs. After a time we began raising horses, donkeys and a small herd of cattle.

Billy worked out at every mine that needed an expert to manage a mill and came home for short visits, usually bearing gifts for all. Early spring of 1901 he was running the mill at the Queen of the Hills mine outside of Salmon during the day, while R.W. Walker ran it through the night.[1] By April he was working the mill on Ulysses Mountain and when he took gold bars to Salmon he checked into the Shenon House for a welcome respite.[2]

Imagine my surprise when I received news that my brother, Clyde Graves, had finally married, taking Lilla H. McKellar as his wedded wife on May 8, 1901. Now Edna and I weren’t the only two of the Graves’ children of eight still living to have married.

My brother Samuel decided to return to Colby College and finish his degree, then he was off to Boston, writing for the Boston Globe. Mother was living in Alameda, California, as was Leland and when Jeanie finally made it there, her nose was still out of joint for having been left behind so long.

Millie was still on the farm with father, Clyde and Lilla. My sister Alta, last I heard, was living in Portland, Maine—an avowed spinster.

Edna and her husband William Chamberlin had eight children by this time, bless Edna’s heart. I turned 45 years old that summer still fit as a fiddle and glad that any childbearing years were behind me, but I’d gotten started late in that pursuit. Alta was a fourteen years-old, Ed twelve and Billy Jr. was nine. The years began to fly.

Billy was working near Leesburg that summer running the Italian mine’s mill, processing ore from the Golden Medal lode, the Dalos and the Italian mines.[3] They called it the Italian mine, named for three men, new to these hills and recent off the boat, who found that vein up near Mackinaw Ridge running steady and true some 7,000 feet in elevation.

I put my mind and muscle into growing food and raising stock. On July 9th the Recorder carried a note from the Indian Creek news. Mrs. W.E. Taylor has sent up some of the largest strawberries that ever grew in Lemhi county. As our present assessor said last year, they grow larger under pine trees than anywhere else. I was glad the fruits of my labor were worth a mention and I had a winter’s supply of jam and fruit for pies through the next winter.

Billy came home for a few weeks of rest and recreation the end of September[4]then was off to escort a boat with supplies for the downriver mines. It wasn’t until the end of October that Billy came back to the ranch via a late run in a freight boat after spending a week in Salmon waiting for a scow to be built.[5]

With Billy on the ranch, and not to be outdone, I left for town before the middle of November and spent a leisurely week in Salmon myself, checking into the Shenon Hotel. I rested, visited my friends and toured the office of Recorder, taking the keenest pleasure at seeing a news office so well equipped with modern up to date machinery and printing material.

With the mines shut down for the winter Billy stayed downriver enjoying lost time with the children, fishing the Steelhead run, tinkering in his shop and soon another year was upon us.

Through the year, all talk was about the Thunder Mountain gold rush that was attracting miners to the mountains about seventy-five hard miles west of Salmon. Gold strikes had been somewhat stagnant, so it was easy to fuel excitement in a mining district, not that it was a new mining district because brothers Ben and Lou Caswell out of Michigan struck gold there in 1894. They’d kept at it, improving their haul until 1899 when the secret could no longer be kept. By 1901, a veritable gold rush had commenced.

We started hearing rumors out of Thunder Mountain as soon as the snow began to fall—and it fell early and hard. Word reached Shoup in January that the Thunder Mountain men were starving—trapped in snow so deep it swallowed the pack animals whole, with trails too drifted even for snowshoes, let alone freight. Those men thought they’d found the next Bonanza. What they found when winter settled in was isolation, blizzards and a hard lesson in hubris.

Of course, once the stories of starving miners hit the newspapers, it turned into a full-blown panic. Dog teams were sent in from Boise and Warren; freight outfits doubled their rates—and still, men went hungry.

The hills bloomed with tents during spring of 1902, but the gold played out quick and stories lingered—Thunder Mountain, where hope was high and supper a memory. Good thing that Billy and I were too old to go chasing such prospects. I had mouths to feed and a stove to tend. You can’t boil gold and you sure can’t fry up promises.

Eli Suydam started up the mill of the Clipper Bullion. The Pine Creek Mining Company, put their equipment up for public sale at the end of July.[6]

We had another bountiful harvest that summer. Billy, Ed and Alta my farm hands and Ed was making regular deliveries to the camps.[7] Tom Wend was hell-bent to finish a road from his place to Indian Creek.

Billy was the superintendent of the mill at the Oro Cache, about 12 miles northeast of Salmon at an elevation of 8,500 feet. Not only did he process the ore from the Oro Cache but also the Freeman and California mines.[8] No wonder he is called ‘Deafy Taylor,’[9] but if I shouted, he could still hear me, not that he was home much that summer.

The wheels of the Kentuck have started up again with Frank Haynes as superintendent. Eli Suydam began stringing cable and pipe across the river to run the Clipper Bullion stamps from the waters of Boulder Creek. His progress was slow but he kept at it.

I was content in the valley of Pine Creek, filling our root cellar, putting a blanket of aged manure on the fallow garden and watching our cattle growing fat. For the most part the chickens took care of themselves and every Sunday we had one for the pot.

Lemhi Herald, December 31, 1902

Doings About Shoup

Shoup. Ida., Dec. 30, Special Correspondent

Chas Spayds has moved down from Indian Creek and worked for a time on the St. Charles where he struck the vein in place with lots of ore. He is now working on the Eagle’s Nest, owned by J.F. Rowe, where he intends to take out ore this winter.

E.S. Suydam has done a fair amount of work here this fall. In all there must be 2000 feet of pipe and flume also a suspension bridge of wire cable on which he carries his pipe across the Salmon river. He first intended to run this winter but the weather got quite cold, so he concluded to work in the mine for the winter and will start the mill in the early spring. Gus Labricque is working with him.

Jospeh & Groff of Owl creek have been busy all the fall getting in timbers for the mine and blacksmith shop preparing for winter work. They are hard workers and have a fine prospect, and have run their arastra for several years with success. They will make a stake where they are and will deserve all they get.

A.G. White of Indian creek has been a visitor to our camp. While here he feasted his eyes on quartz and said he was highly pleased with the showing. Mr. White has been with the Kittie Burton Co. for over a year.

Julius Wiemer is working on some new locations made lately on south side of river, west of the Clipper Bullion and is said to have a good showing. Julius is surely a digger.

Charles Huetis has been working for Frank Haynes. He made a strike of good ore on the Inca Manco waned by Maguire and Haynes.

Report says that Barnum Doan has struck pay on the rim and is following an incline bedrock with a good streak of gravel.

Bob Bell and Dan Kane both well known experts visited our camp recently to look over some of the properties here.

Rowe and Neff have just finished representing work on the ’87 mining claim owned by Grunter Co.

PERSONAL MENTIONS

A man by the name of Brady recently left Owl Creek for the Bitter Root on snowshoes and as he had never been over the route got lost and for four days wandered on top of the range. When he found himself he was on Nobob Trail on the Bitter Root side. He arrived at Kentuck mine with feet slightly frozen and ready for supper.

Robert Forbes and Frank Meyers left Colson creek last spring for Thunder mountain and did not expect to return, but came back this fall saying this country is good enough for them. They have some good prospects on both Colson and Owl creeks.

Tom Wend came in with beef from his ranch and is now shoveling hay to stock. His road is progressing finely from his ranch to Indian creek. He deserves great credit for such an undertaking. It puts us within five miles of a wagon road.

There was an article of freight came down a few days since that looked as though it my be “Christmas Cheer.” It was taken to Pine creek. We are likely to stampede for that section on that date.

We certainly got our share of snow this time, about two feet, more than ever known here this time of year. There is likely to be plenty of water next year for the rancher and miner.

Messrs. Hughes and Stebelin went to Horse creek early this fall with horses, and then came back to Northfork and built a boat and took down about a ton of supplies for the winter.

Billy Taylor came down not long since from the Oro Cache mine where he was running the mill. Thinks he prefers God’s country—for this time of year at least.

“Scotty,” James Stewart, recently returned from the east where he had Boston baked beans, but he says Salmon river is all right.

Gus Labricque and Frank Haynes have been taking advantage of the snow and have been hauling lots of wood.

John McKay has gone into camp about a mile above Shoup, after rocking along the river from Sage creek this fall.[10]

Jerry Bartl is running sleighs from Northfork to Indian creek carrying mail and passengers.

“Wild Bill,” Wm. Verges, is pony express rider from Indian creek to Shoup this winter.

There is a man by the name of Thompson on Smith’s bar near the mouth of Big creek.

Mrs Snell is stopping on Salmon river—south side between Owl and Colson creeks.

Spayds and Wiemer caught a wildcat—large and fat—expect a barbecue soon.

Charles Metz, and Mr. Schrader are camped on Garden creek.

NOTES

[1] Idaho Recorder, March 13, 1901

[2] Lemhi Herald, April 10, 1901

[3] Lemhi Herald, July 17, 1901

[4] Lemhi Herald, September 25, 1901

[5] Idaho Recorder, October 23, 1901

[6] Idaho Recorder, July 31, 1902

[7] Lemhi Hereald, August 6, 1902

[8] Lemhi Herald, August 13, 1902, Page 2

[9] “Deafy Taylor” was a nickname for Bill that Edna Barton, Alta Callahan Barton’s daughter made note of.

[10] “Rocking” refers to the use of a rocker box or “cradle,” a portable device used by placer miners to separate gold from gravel. Operated by hand, it allowed one person to process streambed material more efficiently than panning. By 1902, it was considered an old-fashioned but still practical method for small-scale prospectors working riverbars.