Wood County reporter. [volume] (Grand Rapids [i.e. Wisconsin Rapids], Wis.) 1857-1923, 1886-06-03
THE ROMANCE OF GOLD.
Fate of the Men Who Discovered Some of the
Great American Mines.
Fort Keogh ON. TOLette

Fort keOgh (M. L. Letter.
The superstitious belief is an old one
that unless the discoverer of camp
meets an untimely and bloody end his
find will never amount to anything; and
this seems borne out by facts, since near
y all the discoveries of the great mines
of the United States, with but few excep-
tions, have, as the saying goes, "died with
their boots on" Of thirty eight booming
towns of early days, the locators of twelve
were killed by bullet, three were buried in
their creation 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 FL. Fryer, from whom the cele
brated Fryer HILL of Leadville, derived
its name, died at Denver not long
ago from an overdose of morphine adj
ministered by his own hand. Two years
previous to his death he was worth a
million or so, but he died a pauper and
without friend.
| Old Virginny, after whom The "COnsoli-
dated Virginia" was named and who sold
his claim for $25, pony and bottle of
whisky, came to his death by an over
dose from a buckiug mule near Dayton
| Neb.
Bill Bodie, the discoverer of the great
Standard mine in Mono county, CAL, slept
his life away IN a snow-storm while max
ing his way to the mines.
Colonel Storey, who gave his name to
the equity in Nevada where the COmstock
| is situated, was killed in battle by the Ply
ramid Lake Indians.
Thomas Page Comstock died a beggar
in strange land. 'Old Pancake as he
was known in the mining camps, COM
mitted suicide at Bozeman, M. T., on Sep
TENDER q, 1870, by shooting himself. He
was the leader of the famous Big Horn
Expedition that was sent out by Nevada
capitalists III search of the Lost Cabin
mines, supposed to be somewhere among
the Big Horn Mountains. The expedi-
tion was a failure, and Comstock, wheth-
er from disappointment or some other
cause, while encamped near 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
ago the hidden treasure of Alder Gulch
was first revealed to him, William Fair
weather was laid down to rest. Like poor
'EOld Pancake,' this cratic soul stranded
on the shoals of dissipation, although
each in his day had turned the key-the
one silver, the other golden-which un-
locked millions for others but nothing
for themselves. William Farrell, who
| struck Meadow Lake. died victim to
remorse in one of the leading hospitals
4 of San Francisco "haunted by the spirits
of 1000 deluded pioneers and prospec-
tors passing and repassing his dying
bed The locator of the famous Home
stake, in the Black Hills, is said to have
J -af nd +T1pr
going hard with him he attempted 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 tried to rob and
kill. Homer, of the Homer district fol
lowed in the suicidal tracks of Comstock.
! After .sQuandering small fortune he shot
his brains out on the streets of San Fran
cisco. Doughnut Bill, E'OId Eureka
Kelse Austin, Lloyd Magruder, ''Nine-Inile
1 Clark" George Hankinson, Henry Plum
] mer, and scores of others died violent
deaths in one way or another, and reaped
1 nothing from the rich finds each had
made in his day.
Doughnut Bill was planted in the Lone
! Mountain Cemetery, in Utah, in 1868; q
lone grave under white pine tree in a
frontier mining town of California, tells
where poor cold Eureka sleeps his last
sleep; Kelse Austin was killed and buried
in Elko county, Nevada, fifteen years ago.
Lloyd Magruder, while conducting a
number of wagons loaded with treasure
from Virginia City to the nearest railroad,
was murdered and robbed by his team
sters, who were Plummer's outlaws in
disguise. George Hankinson and Henry
Plummer were hauled up by vigilantes
and strung up without the delay and for
mality Of a trial Plummer was 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 more 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 cring-
ing, miserable coward on a gallows of
his own construction.
The Market was not Affected.