Bennington semi-weekly banner. (Bennington, Vt.) 1894-1902, 1894-09-21
THE LOST ROCKER.
4 TALE WHICH ANNUALLY INTERESTS
ALASKAN MINERS.

The Hunt For FabulOusly Rich Placer
Diggings, Lost Through an Indian At
tack-A Story That Grows as Season Aft
er Season Rolls BY.
When it finally quit showing at Juneau
in the latter part of May and then In
dams and old settlers were willing to ad-
nit that the unusually long Alaskan win
ter was at last broken, among the many
expeditions fitted out by miners and pros
pectors was one bound on u search for the
long lost and fabulously rich Lost
Rocker" claim. Every sumper at least
one party fits out at Juneau to hunt for
it. Usually there are several searching
parties, and occasionally some adyentur-
GUS prospector starts out of Sitka and
drops down across Chatham straits, hop
ing by going as nearly as he can in the di-
reotion taken by the prospectors who
found the Rocker to come again on the
lost gold mine. The Rocker is tradition
intAlaskan mining towns now, and each
year, as the season goes by and none Of the
searchers finds it, the stories of its vast
riches grow and increase in number.
1t was in the spring of 1876 that the
only two men who ever saw the Rocker
Sleft Sitka on the prospecting trip which
has started out all the subsequent parties.
They were looking for placer diggings,
and they meant to strike the mainland
somewhere down toward Fort Wrangel.
Their big canoe was well stocked, and
they took their time, exploring the is
lands along their route and prospecting as
they went along The islands didn't show
much color, however, and along in the
early summer they crossed Chatham straits
and coasted along the mainland until they
came TO the mouth of q creek The creek
bed gave evidence to their experienced
eyes of the presence Of the metal for which
they were searching 1t was strewn with
quartz, and the gravel showed good
"cOlOr" for every pan.
The two prospectors pitched their camps
and began work. The gravel always
panned Color" but it wasn't rich
enough for them, so they cached their
store pulled out their boat and pushed up
stream, climbing over big powders ard
smashing through the heavy underbrush
until they reached the head waters Of the
creek From there they went on to the
top of the divide. Beyond and below
stretched q broad basin, in which lay a
beautiful little lake. A small stream emp
tied into the lake, coming down from the
east, and another flowed out Of it toward
the north. The prospectors went down
the slope of the divide to the lake and
camped near the stream Which flowed down
the eastern slope.
The stream had gravel bottom, and
the first wash showed the miners that they
had struck bonanza. The gravel yielded
coarse gold the size Of bean and always
washed more than 81 TO the pan. The
lucky gold hunters lost no time in getting
down to business. One went back to the
cache for supplies, and the other set to
work to build "a rocker, or cradle, as some
placer diggers call it. When the rocker
was finished the two miners workedras hard
as they could, realizing that. the short
Alaskan season was well under way They
stopped only to make occasional trips back
to the beach for supplies, and spent all the
rest of their time panning the rich gravel.
They had been at it about two weeks
and had washed out something more than
81, 600 worth of rough gold, when one day
when they quit work about noon to pre-
pare dinner they were ambushed by In
dams who fhad tracked them from the
beach, Tie Indians opened fire from be-
hind clHmp of bushes near the camp. One
Of the miners was killed at the first fire,
but the other escaped unhurt. As he saw
his Companion fall he dashed into the
short timber on the western slope beyond
his camp and raced up the divide. The
indians sent shower Of bullets after
him, but not one touched him, and he
managed to elude them all and get back to
the cache. 1t didn't take him long to
tumble some provisions into his canoe and
push out into the channel. Hard padding
soon put him out Of rifle range from the
shore, and he had q chance to ease up and
take stock.
He was safe and sound, and he figured
that he had provisions enough to take him
back to Sitka, whore he could organize n
party, return to the diggings, avenge his
comrade and wash out fortune. So he
shaped his course, as he supposed, so that
it would bring him to Sitka. But the
prospectors had travelled q devious way
from the little old Alaskan capital. They
had stopped at several islands and crossed
and recrossed the winding, tortuous chan
nels, and the survivor of the attack of the
Indians on the Rocker diggings, as he aft
erward called them, soon found that he
was lost in the intricacies Of the ever
changing courses. At last he was picked
up by gunboat bound down from the
Boring sea to Puget sound. He was land