The Camden journal. [volume] (Camden, S.C.) 1866-1891, 1886-07-08
| SOME LOST GOLD MINES.
A LONG AND PERSISTENT SEARCH
FOR AURIFERoUS WEALTH..

Great Treasure Known to Exist
Which Cannot be Found-How
the Search is Prosecuted.
A Sante Fe (New Mexico) letter to the
New York Sun says: The many lost
gold mines never had so much interest
for prospectors as now. Whenever men
fit themselves out for long expeditions in
search of wealth, it is found that the
legends and traditions of the business
are kept well in mind. The Adams dig
gings, long celebrated in this region, ore
now the goal of more than dozen pros
pectors, some of whom are thought to
be on hot trail. They are situated
somewhere in Arizona, just over the New
Mexico line, but where is the mystery.
Adams found them twenty years ago, and
proved by more than eighteen years of
persistent but frultless search that he
was no dreamer. Year after year, as the
old mans goings and comings became
familiar to the people, the conviction that
he was in search Of no myth grew upon
his acquaintance, and when he died
little while ago others took up the hunt
where he left off.
Adams was led to the deposit IN 1866
by party of Indians with whom he was
on good terms, and with three or four
| friends he worked the lead until they
were driven off by hostiles. In his
eagerness to get to the diggings and in
his precipitate fight he took no account
of the country through which he passed,
and when he undertook to return to the
mines he found himself hopelessly lost.
When he died in Los Angeles he left
several valuable charts of the country
that he had traversed in his patient
searches, as we'll as. plans for further
campaigns, which he said he was con-
fndent would bring him or anybody else
upon the lost treasure in time.
Another lost mine is that which is said
to have been located in the eastern part
of this Territory in 1860, but which was
abandoned in the course of time, owing
to the hostility of Indians. From rec.
ords of the amount paid in tithes to the
Roman Catholic Church, it is estimated
that the product of this mine during the
few years that it was worked was more
than $6O,000,O00. San Antoine set out
at the beginning of this century to find
the lost treasure, and actually came upon
the mine in 1904. Not being repaired
to work it, he and his followers got
! together what gold they could carry and
set out for mission on the coast with
the idea of getting assistance. To guide
them back to the mine they drove stakes
on the plains, but San Antoine fell sick
at the place where the city of San An
tonia now stands and died there. In
dians and desperadoes murdered his
companions for their gold. and as the
stakes which they had set were not cared
for, they soon fell away, and the mine
was lost once again.
Several prospecting parties have left
here in times past in search OF the mine,
but they have all returned footsore and
weary with long journeys over arid plains,
and destitute of information of value.
In the same way Kit Carson's lost
placer, the Dutchman's Gulch, and the
| Lost Cabin have been the objects of years
of fruitless search on the part of thou
sands. Some people believe that the
Dutchman's Gulch has been found, and
old Tom Edison is of the number. In
1864 two Germans came into Denver with.
a large amount of coarse gold, but they
would not tell where they got it, Ex.,
+ oho..:4, 5Fes'-.o.<L
again toward the north, and that was the
last that was ever heard of them: As
almost anything would bait the gold
hunter in those days scores of men set
out and explored the country near and
far to the north, but they came upon no
trace of the 'Dutchmen." Tom Edison
never gave up, however, until he satisfied
himself that he had found the gulch. He
began his prospecting in the southern
part of Wyoming and went north into
| the Black Hills until he found traces of
mining operations. Believing that he
had come upon the place where the
Dutchmen had secured their dust, he
went to work and would have made his
| fortune If he had not been driven out by
the Indians. On returning to Denver in
| 1878 he told of his discovery and was
laughed at, but he now asserts as fact,
and challenges contradiction, that the
lost Dutchman's Gulch was near where
Deadwood now stands, and that is the
place out of which so many miilioas
| have since been taken.
Although much speculation is still in
dulged in concerning the general loca-
ton of Carson's placer and the Lost
Cabin, the great majority of prospectors
have settled down to the conviction that
they are both in the Big Horn Mountain in
Southern Montana or Northern Wyoming.
Not one of the lost mines has ever been
so persistently sought for as that OF the
Lost Cabin, and each year finds new and
more numerous parties on the hunt. Poor
old Pancake Comstock, the man who
gave his name to the great Nevada Silver
lode, and who was once hundred mil
lionaire without knowing it, killed him.
self at Bozeman at the conclusion OF
proftless search for the Lost Cabin. lie
started out with high hopes OF success,
but when failure stared him in the face ne
gave up the hunt and his life together.
The evidence in favor of the b:lief in
the Lost Cabin is too strong to admit OF
q doubt rs to It's existence. 1t has been
found, lost, found again, and then finally
lost, as all agree, and it cannot therefore
be a myth. The discovery was made
many years ago by three men who were
prospecting in what is now called the
Big Horn country. After satisfying
themselves of the richness of the mines
they started back after supplies, were at
tackled by the Indians, and only one es-
caped. BY the time the survivor reached
a settlement he was so exhausted that he
fell sick, and on his recovery the pros
meet of great wealth was more than ne