The herald., 1893-05-14
CALIFORNIA STORIES.
OLD DAYS OF fs4o RECALLED BY A
MAN. WHO WAS ON HAND.

a Tedious Sail Around Cape Horn--Bat
thing with Wind and Tide In tho ssraiti
Of BTagslins--T The d ysterious BOX OF hid
don Gold Dust
II was one night last week and on
bonrd the Fan River steamer in the
group Of chance acquaintanccs smoking
and chatting alnidships. The man with
gray hair and fine wrinkles around his
eyes was tn[lxing.
'Tt'is n,tnattef Of almost A years, nc
WINS saying, '.since tho old brig Robert
laid her course between hero and Beaver
tail in the September of 1870. On board
her were.a lot Of us Fall River men who
were going out to California to thegold
mines. There were one or two incidents
following That start that arc worth tell
ing.
''Our wal1l,ly, cranky old craft worked
down tofhoHtraits OF Magollon, and then
wewero6o days moro in thestraits. The
old square bowed brig--an awfuiflow
saile1-wpnld spread canvas 81 daylight
and sail all day in tho straits and anchor
at night about where slio started from,
banging iIaclsand forth with the adverse
wind andt
zone day we lost an anchor, and we
sent some men out in d boat. They
rowed up into ono of thoinlots and there
came upon q rakish, queer looking
schooner at anchor. They found the
craft was wrocldng schooner looking
around for wrecks. She hadn't been in
any port in long time. Whom they
had got an anchor and chain from tho
captain, .he sold AZ our men were ieav-
ingi
"'What tho devil is tho natter I've
seen hundreds Of sails going along into
the Pacific lately.
"Wllen,they told him Of the discovery
of.gold in California he said nothing.
and Thought moment, with his fore
head ell ,puckarod up, and then he said,
We'll, TO California; we go, them and at
once mado preparations to sail to tho
westward.
'.Before ,ste sailed Captain Henry
Winslnw, Edward Pratt and myself
changetirhips in hope Of faster pas
sage, gsting aboard the schooner, whose
captsin.we paisl 800 apiece. We lay to,
waiting for favorable tiIno for the
schooner stogo out. Ono awful foggy
night, with q hurricane blowing, we
saw q vessel going through the head
lands. Weput.tho glasses on her, and
IL was the old brig Roberti We just
made up our minds the lubbering old
tub would be blown down to Cape Horn
and never heard of again. But at Per-
nambuco she turned up again all right,
and tho two vessels started out together,
we on the schooner promising to wait
In SanIFrancino for the Roberts com
pany before going upto tho mines. We
did not SEQ her again on the voyage.
After several weeks we arrived at the
Golden Gate and sailed up the bay Of
San francisco. We saw lying at q
wharf an old brig, put tho glasses on
her, found it was again tho Robert--
benin port over two weeks. She was
hauled up side Of the dock, and she
never was moved from there, but lies
there now, covered by some of the fine
down town business blocks which are
standing on made land, quarter Of
mile from tho water of today.
ED Pratt and l went up to the mines.
located claim and went TO work. After
Pratt had been working quite awhile
and been pretty lucky, he was called
nway on business to another mining
camp. We were SO far away from San
francisco we couldn't got our gold dust
changed, 90 Ed took his md without
any ones knowledge put it in a tin box,
andone night rose and going out behind
his cabin dug about four feet down into
thesoil and buried it;marking tho spot
bysa treethat stood by the side of it.
ssT9e -camO back several weeks after to
homework on his old claim, and he told
me about hiding the gold and that he
was going out to dig it up. He took his
spade and went out, along with him,
He began to dig and very soon struck
the box, took it up and carried it to his
cabin.
"sThat don't look like my box he
said. 1T looks q little bigger some way
Gle opened the box, and, sure enough,
1t wasn't his, forit had about three times
the weight of gold he had buried. We
were Just bewildered. suggested he
must have forgotten or made mistake
regarding the gold, but he was dead sure
about 1t. Then said we ought to go
out and dig around the place, and no
took his spade, and digging down about
eight inches lower found tho box he had
buried.
"The question was, whose box was the
first one? IL was put into the camp sup
ply store, and it was advertised, but no
one,ever came to claim it. No one was
missing from our camp, and we could
never explain the mystery Of the strange
box. After four months Ed Pratt took
the gold, by right Of declared ownership.
1t is supposed the owner who buried il
had either been killed by the Indians OF
murdered by Joaquin Mariettas gang
which was the terror Of mining Cali
fornia at that time. New York Sun.
Thumb Nail Pictures.
Tn coI1er+ions- centuries old. TO be seer