Worcester daily spy. [volume] (Worcester [Mass.]) 1850-1888, 1859-07-01


ing in the Rocky Mountains
Six weeks ago, this rayine was a solitude,
the tavorlte haunt of the elk, the deer, and 9TH
er shy denizens of the profoundest wilderness,
seldom invaded by the footsteps of man. be-
lteve this strip of country has long been de-
batablc land between the Utes and the. Arapa-
hoes, which circumstance combined with its
rarely accessible situation, secures its wild
tenants against human intrusion and persecu-
non. l hear that the Arapahoes saw that n
good lodge-pole trail'-that is, one which a
pony may traverse with one end of the ledge
pole ON his back, the other trailing behind
him-exists from this point to the open prairie
near Clear Creek-a trail which doubtless
winds along the steep sides of the ravines and
avoids the rugged nights necessarily traversed
by the miners wagon road. Should these
diggings justify their present promise, doubt
not road will in time be made reducing by
one halt-say 5000 feet-the present aggregate
of ascent and descent between this and Den
yer. But an unworked wagon road must
avoid rhe sides of these steep-banked ravines,
running square up the faces and along the
crests of the mountains, so that this spot is
destined to remain barely accessible for at
least another year.
This narrow valley is densely wooded,
mainly with the inevitable yellow pine, which,
sheltered from the fierce winds which sweep
the mountain tops, here grows to a hight of
sixty or eighty feet, though usually but foot
to eighteen inches in diameter. OF these
bines, log cabins are constructed with extreme
facility, and probably one hundred are now
being built while three or four hundred more
are III immediate contemplation. They are
covered with the green boughs of the pines,
then with earth and bid fair to be commod-
Gus and comfortable, AS yet, the entire pop
ulation of the valley-which cannot number
E, al. Il =.
women and seven squaws living with white
men-sleep in tents or under booths of pine
bows a9ltt IL 2 nd eating in the air
doubt that there is as yet table or chair in
these diggings, eating being done around a
cloth spread on the ground, while each one sits
or reclines on mother earth to enjoy. The
food, like that of the Plains, is restricted to a
few staples-pork, hot bread, beans, and cof-
fee, forming the almost exclusive diet of the
mountains; but a meat shop has just been es-
tabshed, on whose altar are offered up the ILL
fed and we-whpped oxen who are just in from
a fifty days journey across the Plains, and one
or two cows have been driven in, as more
would have be if they could have been subsist-
ed. But these mountains are mainly wooded,
while the open hill-sides are so dry in summer
that their grass is very scanty. 1t is melancholy
to see so many over-worked and balf-starved
ultClo passes Ill ItlNlC anu
on the way thither. Corn is S. per bushel in
Denver, and scarce at that; oats are not to be
had there is not ton of hay within two hun
dred miles, and none can ever be brought hither
over the present road at a cost below $40 per
ton. The present shift of humane owners is
to herd their oxen or mules on the rich grass
OF the nearest pralrles for week or so, letting
them subsst on browse and very little grass,
and then send them down the mountains again
This, bad as it is seems the best that can be
done Living of all kinds will always be dear
at these mines, where American flour is now
selling at the rate of $44 per barrel, and bacon
is worth SOC per pound sugar ditto.
presume less than half the four or five thou
sand people now in this ravine have been here
a week he who has been here three weeks is
as quite old settler. The influx
cannot fall short of five hundred per day, bal
anced by an eiiuX OF about one hundred. Ma
ny of the latter go away convinced that the
Rocky Mountain gold-mining is grand
humbug. Some of them have prospected two
or three weeks, eating up their provisions,
wearing out their boots-and finding nothing.
Others have worked for the more fortunate for
one dollar per day and their board and lodging
not high wages when the quality Of
the living is considered. And | feel certain
that, while some-perhaps many-will realize
their dreams of wealth here, a far greater num-
Der will eXpend their scanty means, tax their
powers of endurance, and then leave, soured,
heart-sick, spirit-broken. Twenty thousand
people will have rushed into this ravine before
the LIST of September, while | do not see how
half of them are to find profitable employment
here. Unless, therefore, the area Of the dig
gings shall meantime be greatly enlarged-of
which there is no assurance cannotimagine
how half the number are to subsist here, even
Of i,I,
cause general paralysis of mining, and conse-
quently of all other Rocky Mountain industry.
With the gold just wrested from the earth still
in my eyes-and company has taken
out to-day, at a cost of not more than SIS a
lump condensed by the use of quicksilver)
which looks like a steel-yard poise, and is es-
timated as worth S5l0-I adhere to my long
settled conviction that, next to outright and
undisputed gambling, the hardest Though
sometimes the quickest) way to obtain gold is
to mine for it-that a good farmer or mechan-
ic will usually make money faster by sticking
ty his own business than by deserving it for
gold digging-and that the man who, having
fuel in some other pursuit, calculates on re-
trieving his fortunes by gold-mining, makes a
mistake which he will be likely to rue to the
end OF his days.
We had a famous gathering few rods from
this tent this evening. The estimate of safe
men puts the number present at 1900 to 1000.
Though my name was made the excuse for it,
brief and forcible addresses were made by sew
eral others, wherein mining, postal and eX-
press facilities, the Pacific Railroad, the pro-
posed new Rocky Mountain State, Temper
rance gambling, &C., &C., were discussed with
force and freedom Such a gathering, of men
suddenly drawn hither from every section and
nearly every State, in glen where the first
axe was raised, the first tent pitched by white
men, less than six weeks ago, should have in
spired the dullest speaker with earnestness if
not with eloquence.
Mining quickens almost every department
of useful industry. Two coal pits are burning
close at hand. A blacksmith has set up his
forge here, and is making good thing of
sharpening picks at 80 cents each A volun-
teer post office is just established, to which an
express office will soon attach itself. A provi-
sion store will soon follow then groceries ;
then dry goods then hotel, &C., until, with
in ten years, the tourist of the continent will
be whrled up to these diggings over a longer
dat far easier road winding around the noun
tain-tops rather than passing over them, and
will sip his chocolate and read his New York
paper-not yet five days old-at the Gregory
House" in utter Inconsistencies that this re-
gion was wrested from the Elk and the Noun
tain Sheep so recently as 1859.
DENVER, June 10, 1859.
We left the diggings yesterday morning, and
come down to the foot of the mountain, in
spite of a drizzling rain from noon to 3 or
O'Clock, which at one time threatened a heavy
shower. We made poor shelter of a buffalo
skin and rubber blanket, stretched across
fallen tree, and there waited half an hour, but,
finding the rain neither stopped nor grew vio-
lent, we saddled lD and came on, Two acct
dents which might have proved serious hap
pened to members of our party-the first to
Mr.. Willard of Cincinnati, who, riding at some
distance from all others, was thrown by his
mules saddle slipping forward and turning
under him, so that he fell heavily on his left
arm, which was badly bruised, and thence
dragged rod with his feel fast in the stirrup.