Arizona silver belt., 1888-03-24
LETTER FROM G. VI. smaRr.

JUDGE A. H. HACKNEY, EDITOR SIL- YER BELT, GLOBE, 4. T.,--Dear Sir:- l have just met friend from Arizona who tells me that he had seen an arti- cle in the SILVER BELT accusing me of selling a mine to St. Louis parties, that did not have one pound of ore in 1t, and winch had just been located and had never had any assessment work done on it. As you have pub lished this statement, which accuses me of doing very dishonorable act, you wlll please do me the justice to publish the following plain statement of the facts in the ease.
 The Oak Grove mIne, tAe mine in question, was located in 1876 by Frank Riggs, F B. Miller and Mr. Porter and owned by them until 1880, when it became vacant and reverted back to the government. then loea- ted 1t for myself and Mir. F. B. Miller, and we owned it until 1886, and did several assessments upon it during the time. Mir. Steve 0'Neal did the as- sessment for us in 1883, for which we paid him one hundred dollars. He se- ected at that time some very rich samples of green chloride ore from the vein Tn the mine, which he gave to Mr. Miller. That assessment was re- corded The mine at that time was called the Cora. That was the only assessment work recorded You are no doubt aware that 1t was not the custom to have assessment work re- corded at that time. The mine re- verted to the government again in 1886, and l then located 1t in my name alone, as Mir. Miller had left ths Territory, and during that year, with the assistance of Mir. DavId Arm strong, did more than one hundred dollars worth of work on it. 1 select ed many samples of ore from the diff ferent stratas, which l had assaysd, many of them showing good results, and sample gave sixty-two dellsrs in silver per ton.
 It Is perfectly absurd ts say there is no mine there, for a man can run all the way from the Mack Morris mine on the ledge across the two interyen- ing claims 10 the Oak Grove mine. 1 have traced tue ledge myself from the Mack Morris mlne to AeNillen, a dis tance of four miles, and it is not only my opinlon, but the opinion of some of the best miners in the Territory, that the Oak Grove mine is very rich mine, being situated as 1t is right between tue rich mInes of Richmond Basin and tue we'll known Stonewall Jackson mine, at MeMillen. The Oak Grove is one of the first mines i loca- ted i'll Arizona. have stuck to it be- heyIng it to be the largest and most valuable miHo that l ever owned
 Not having tue means to properly develop it myself, l incorporated it while in St. Louis, last year, in order to raise money to develop it. Four business men of St. Louis associated themselves with me to form the iucor- poratior, they agreeing 10 raise the money deemed necessary te develop. tke mine and place 1t on paying ba- sis before we offered any of our stock for sale, and We made positive bar gain 10 pool the stock until it had & positive value. l never asked them for one cent of money as payment for the mlne. None of them ever paid me any money, directly or indirectly. l never sold one dollars worth of the stock, or received enc cent from the whole transaction, which 1 will prove to you very soon.
 It was agreed between myself and those four gentlemen, that when l started home tue treasurer was to go with me, or follow soon after, to ex anime the property and advise with mo about how tho work should be done; but l had some trouble wlth Mir. Armstrong, one of the ineorpora- tors, about another transaction, winch broke up tue whole thIng and ] left St Louis never expecting to hear any thing more about it.
 1 think thls statement of the facts sufficient justification for me III the opinion of all men whose opinion Is of any value, Very respectfully,
 G. ". SHARP.
 BEAR CITY, Ark.