St. Charles City Republican intelligencer. [volume] (St. Charles City [Charles City], Iowa) 1857-1861, 1859-06-09
Pixies Peak.

!
have been suffering steady and rap.
Id drain of men and money, thousands
OF our best, because prodnni"s ";.i,
zcns, leaving everything behind, to
try their fortune in this brass Eldora-
do. The excitement was gotten up
by spectators, to fill their pockets
with the hard earnings of those more
honest than themselves, and right
well have they succeeded City and
country newspapers published false
accounts of gold bea|s found there,
and famed the fame of discomfort in
to a conflagration that has we'll nigh.
impoverished many places. Men in
comfortable circumstances, having
nice, snug farms and pleasant homes
or the broad acres of our Western
prairics, have read and read the lying
letters from Pixies Peak, till the de-
sire for wealth has made them half
crazy. Old homesteads were sold /;
horses and cattle were disposed of for
half their value House furniture, heir
looms for generations, given away
Home-pleasant home, with its thou
sand endearments has been left be-
hind. Fathers and sons, mothers and
daughters, husbands and wives, with
and without families, have left, sold
all they could sell, and given away
the balance of their goods, bidden
adieu to pleasanter homes than they
will ever behold again, and followed
this ignis fatuus that has led them on
to poverty, sickness, starvation, mise
ry, remorse and death. Homes and
friends, where once peace and plenty
dwelt, are now silent and deserted
Yards and gardens where womans
kind and loving hand had reared
choice flowers, are this spring grow
ing wild to weeds, and other weeds
are being woven for those who once
loved to walk among and gaze upon
these pleasant places. The cricket
chirps on many a deserted hearth
from one end of the land to the other,
where once the laugh of childhood
broke musically Oh the car. Wives
are watching the mails for letters
with yellow rcmembrances, and at
last receive one bordered with black,
containing less and colder words,
and written by another hand than
they looked for
Many have returned from this last
wild goose chase, wiser, sadder and
poorer men, contentcd to let well
enough alone hereafter. Others are
returning. Hundreds have visited
Pixies Peak, and started home, sick,
weary, destitute and dying. Thou
sands of little hllocks, many torn
open by wolves, mark the last rest
ing of-God only knows who Once
able bodied men, are YEARLY, slowly
begging their way back to the friends
they left behind. Hundreds are left
by the roadside to suffer from disease
and Starvation, where with delirum,
they die, eursiag God and man! Still
others start for Pixies Peak, willing
to take the chances. We have in.
sisted from the first that it was
humbug that Gold in large quanti-
ties could not exist there, but appeals
to wait till reliable information could
reach us, have too often fell unheeded.
Many a wife and mother now waiting
for tidings from the one she loves,
will never more hear from him, but
must content herself with life of
labor and lonely misery. There is an
honor in dying on the field of battle,
fighting for our homes and those we
love, but none in dying by the road
side in western wilds, while on a
blind chase for wealth. The loss to
our State has been large. Thousands
of horses and cattle have been driven
beyond the Missouri, never more to
return. Thousands upon thousands OF
dollars worth Of wagons and furni-
ture, have been abandoned by the
roadside, hundreds of miles away
More than a million of dollars have
been taken from this State and squan
dercd-no one knows where. Men
that we needed to help gather our prom
ising to be abundant harvest, are
and will be rottinS on the plains o
Kansas, while the grain will be rot
ting on the prairies of Iowa. Still
others go. Reports begin to come
back speaking in plain terms of thi.
humbug, but nothing short of death
will satisfy hundreds yet.
When the tolls and fatigues of tn,
day are over, who does not love, oc
casionally, to indulge i'm a review ~