Amador weekly ledger., 1858-05-29
OK SUFFER- CREEK. May 9th. 1858.

ON SUTTER GREEK, May 2Itn, 1898.
Eds. Ledger When | last wrote you
promised to write again should circumstances
warrant. Becoming convinced that any agi-
taton of the subject of division of the Of
fees, would be SO much paper and time was
ted unless our Legislators could be reached and
knowing that myself had not, nor any of the
friends Of the measure, any money to spend at
Sacramento while trying to engineer such
thing through the tortuous course of legisla-
ton, | concluded not to write anything
more on the subject hope the excuse is
satisfactory.
As / have again wandered awhile away
from my cabin among the sturdy mining pop
ulation of eastern Amador, propose to give
you short description of matters and things,
in general, throughout this locality.
The Junction Company at the mouth of
Grass Valley Greek, have been at work here
for the last two years and have got a long
tunnel cut through the bed rock to drain
low place in the bed of the creek and have
paying claim for the next two years to come.
There are also several companies doing well
between here and Volcano Whitmore &
Co., on Humbug Gulch, are still doing well
with their arastras they contemplate build
ing, at an early day, quartz mill to run by
water, at the mouth of the gulch Several
other leads are being opened in and about the
mouth of Humbug Gulch-some of them
very extensive and rich.
The Open Cut is going ahead rapidly un-
who say they are bound to have it through
early in the fall. All the ground along the
different branches of the creek is claimed
and being held in expectation of the compile
tion of this job
Ed Briggs is pushing ahead with the
blind drain fer Welsh & Co.; he now has ii
half completed and thinks he will have il
finished about the first of July. This drain
will make, Immediately, available some eight
or ten acres of rich mining ground that could
not be worked heretofore on account Of the
water, though it has been thoroughly pros
pected by the use of horse pumps
Hartrum's Garden, the principle place o
attraction here, will be partly dug up aftel
the drain is completed. In this garden haC
the pleasure of tasting some of the fines
Strawberries | have seen in the country. Th,
peach and pear crop will be considerable, al
though the frost was supposed to have killeC
all the fruit. It is said the fruit will be bet
ter because thinner on the trees. The earl.
spring frosts killed about three-fourths of th
bloom what is left is growing finely. Thi
garden, under the judicious management 0
Messrs. Hartrum & Wagstaff, is certainl,
the best of the kind in this part of the State
Volcano seems to me a very dull place
though | am Informed by several of the lead
ing business men that business has great
improved in the last month or so-in fac
they say they are now doing better busines
than for the last year. A majority of tn
stores here have adopted the cash system
and they say instead of decreasing it III
ereases the sales. Should the merchant:
generally, adopt the cash system what will u
poor miners do, who are half the year will
, out scad waiting for water, or, like Mac
: awber, something to turn up.
: Clapboard Gulch and Indian Flat sti
hold out as usual.
! After looking around here day or two,
went up the middle branch of Sutter Cree
I to Iceland, beautiful little spruce skirte
valley near the summit of the Mokelumn
ridge Here there is a large ice house full {
:. clear ice, from which you denizens of tn
d metropolis of Amador and oyerheated pol
: ticians may during the coming summer, e,
= tract grain of comfort
: just below this valley are several payin
n quartz leads supplying labor and pay fc
c some twenty-five or thirty men l passe