Muscatine weekly journal. [volume] (Muscatine, Iowa) 185?-1890, 1859-05-27
The Returning Emigramts from
Pixies Peak.

we SuUJoln avery Interesting extract from
letter to one of our citizens, which confirms
the rumors we have before heard of the panic
prevailing both among the returning Pixies
Peakers and the citizens of Nebraska and
Kansas. The letter is from citizen of Glen
wood to well-known legal firm in this city :
GLESwooD, May 18th, 1859
Perhaps you have heard that, last Fall, a
few men from this and other localities went
to the mountains west of here in search of
gold, and found some, and that, this Spring,
several other people from different localities
have gone out, and that they expected to make
their everlasting fortunes without any trouble
Those people who have started this Spring
number somewhere about $4,000, or perhaps
as high as $4,000. Well, these individuals
have some Of them been to the mines and
found no paying diggings, and started back,
and the consequence is, that all this mass of
people are coming back from various places,
without ever having set foot in the mining
country. Reports of fights, murders, starva-
ton and beggary, which, if they were no. so
conflicting, might be alarming, reach us hourly.
There is a grave dug for Oaks, with an OK
shin-bone for tablet, at the mines, yawning
for its victim, but nary Oaks to be found
Basset is buried. Byers' Printing Press is
knocked into "pi,' and now sleeps in the
waters of the Platte. Sam Curtis is doomed,
and many others with him, and divers other
things are done or about to be done which
will make the Spring of SO long remembered
among the legends of the West. Such are
the reports-the facts are bad enough The
trains which have been passing through here
are most of them returning, satisfied that
there is no gold at Pixies Peak. Most of them
have invested much, and many of them their
all, in this expedition, and now, satisfied that
they have been victimized, they are returning
with light purses and heavy hearts to begin
life anew. Some of them are Infatuated at
the people on the slope and swear dire ven
geance on every one. The Cattsmouth
people are wofully frightened, and the Bluffs
people have cut the ropes of all the ferries on
the Platte and other points West to proven
them from coming there. There are now
about five hundred teams back of Platts-
mouth, and their number is daily increasing.
I have little fear, though may have use
for revolver before imagine
May 16th.-Wc have had much cry and
little fighting for day or two. The emigra-
ton is moving rapidly eastward, without
doing any injury.
1t is generally reported that D. G. Oaks is
murdered. Graham is in great demand; also,
Sam. Curtis. II. G. Carpenter, brother of the
Postmaster in Tabor, is reported dead The
rumor is that he killed man in the mines,
and that body supposed to be his, perforated
with balls, and badly cut in the head and left
hand, was found in slough near Salt Creek
His mule was dead-shot-near him, and all
his personal property scattered around on the
ground near. Oaks had the satisfaction of
seeing his grave and tombstone before he
died-a hole in the ground, with shin bone
Of buffalo for maidstone, and frying-pan
at the foot regard his death as by no
means certain, although would be laughed
at for such an expression here.
The Omaha people are badly frightened,
and the Plattsmouth people have been, though
they think the danger now mostly over The
pass free over the ferry as they
return. There are many still who are conf
dent that they will find plenty of gold at the
mines, and who will continue their journey
as soon as this stampede eastward subsidies
little Graham, Tubbs, the editor of the
Pacific City Herald, and some of the Platts-
mouth people, Eat the earnest solicitation Of
the people, not because they have any fear
but because their friends think it
will be better for the town." have thought it
polite +.
"Tp strike their tents like the Arabs,
And quietly steal away" -
Take this whole thing, from its commence
msnt, and, if a humbug, it has been the most
successfully engendered, and most signal fail
ure at last, of any of the nineteenth century.
You are probably aware that all the favorable
letters from the mines are alleged forgeries,
and that Col. Bassett of St. Louis, has been
shot as one of the principal operators. He
was an expressman from the mines to Fort
Laramie. Fifty thousand men have been