Wessington Springs herald. (Wessington Springs, Aurora County, Dakota [S.D.]) 1883-1891, 1886-06-04
,LL-FArEp DISCOVERIES.
Hard Fate of the Men Who Located Some
of tho Great American Mines.

Hard Fate of the Men Who Located Some
of tho Great American Mines.
The s11perstitious belief is an old one,
that unless the discovercr of a camp
meets an nntimely or bloody end his
find will never amount to any thing;
and this seems borne out by facts,
since all the discoveries of the great
gold mines in the United States, with
but few exceptions, have, as the saying
goes, s'died with their boots on" Of
thirty-eight booming towns in early
days, the Iocators of twelve were
killed by bullet three were buried in
their creations by cave-ins and the rest
!drifted away with the tide of immigra-
ton, have become lost in oblivion or
died and were buried in ~paupers'
graves. George H. Fryer, from whom
the celebrated .'Fryer HILL" of Lead
willie, derives its name, died at Denver
phine administered by his own hand.
Two years previous to his death he was
worth a million Or so, but he died a
pauper and almost without a FRIEND
Old Virginny, after whom the 'Con-
solidated Virginia" was named and
who sold his claim for twenty-five dol
lars, a pony and a bottle of whisky,
came to his death by an overdose from
a bucking mule near Dayton, New.
Bill Bodie, the discoverer of the
great Standard mine in Mono County,
Cal, slept his life away in a snow
storm, while making his way to the
mines.
Colonel Story, who gave his name to
the county in Nevada where the Com
stock is situated, was killed in battle
by the Pyramid Lake Indians.
Thomas Page Comstock died a beg
gar in a strange land. ''Old Pancake"
as he was known in the mining camps,
committed suicide at Bozeman, Mon,
on September 81, 1870, by shooting
himself. He was the leader of the
famous Big Horn expedition that was
sent out by Nevada capitalists in search
of the Lost Cabin mines, supposed to be
somewhere among the Big Horn noun
tains. The expedition was a failure,
and Comstock, whether from disap-
pointment or from some other cause,
while encamped neal Bozeman, drove
a pistol-ball through his head and died
instantly. He was buried there, and
| his grave is unmarked and unknown.
Near the wild spot where twelve
years before the hidden treasure of
Alder Gulch was first revealed to him,
William Fairweather was laid down to
rest. Like poor cold Pancake" this
.erratic soul stranded on the shoals of
dissipation, although each in his day
had turned a key-the one silver, the
other golden-which unlocked millions
for others but nothing for themselves.
William Farrell, who sstruck'' Meadow
Lake, died a victim to remorse in one
of the leading hospitals of San Fran
cisco, .'haunted by the spirit of one
thousand deluded pioneers and pros
pectors passing ndrepassing his dying
Homestake, in the Black Hills, is said
to afterward have turned road agent.
Times going hard with him. he at
tempted to stop a stage loaded and
prepared for just such emergencies,
and he was planted alongside the road
by the tender-hearted express agents
whom he had tried to rob and kill.
Homer, of the Homer district, followed
in the suicidal tracks of Comstock.
After squandering a small fortune
he shot his brains out on the streets of
San Francisco. Doughnut Bill, "Old
Eureka, Kelse Austin, Lloyd Magruder,
''Nine Mile Clark" George Hankin-
son, Henry Plummer and scores of
others died violent deaths in one way
or another and reaped nothing from
the rich mass each had made in his day.
Doughnut Bill was planted in the Lone
Mountain cemetery in Utah, in 1868; a
lone grave under a white pine tree in a
frontier mining town of California tells
where poor cold Eureka sleeps his last
sleeps" Kelse Austin was killed and
buried in Elcho County, New, fifteen
years ago.
Lloyd Magruder, while conducting a
number of wagons loaded with treasure
from Virginia City to the nearest rail-
road, was murdered and robbed by his
teamsters, who were Plummer's out
laws in disguise; George Hankinson
and Henry Plummer were hauled up
by vigilantes and strung up without the
delay and formality of a trial. Plum
mer wss a great rascal. In the early
days of the mining camps of Montana,
Plummer was elected sheriff of the
camp about Virginia City. He was the
first locator of the rich ground about
Virginia City, but thought he could
make o money and quicker, too. by
taking what was already mined than
by laboring in the gulch day after day
and getting it by hard, honest toll. But
he was tripped up at last and died a
Bringing, miserable coward, on tn,
gallows of his own construction.-Fort
KeogA on. ~ Cor. Mlwaukee Sentinel.
LEGAL ASSISTANCE.
What an Impatient Creditor Made by the
Collection of q Debt.
II sent you an account of twenty
q IL IL >-.>...