The daily morning journal and courier., 1896-10-12

gan prospecting the streams from the mouth to the headwaters, and staked off claims In the most favorable spots where gold could find permanent lodg- ment along the banks and in the beds. Some of these men were grub -staked' and others were one of a party of seve- ral who were scattered out at that time prospecting in different sections, and ia such cases more than one claim was located by such representatives of oth- CT men by power of attorney and as partnership agreements, and these are the causes whereupon later arrivals in the field have entered protest against the discoverers locating so much ground. But more of this later on.
 Some time after the discovery of the creek the miners, according to law, at a public meeting, laid out Sunrise min ing district and elected @ district re- corder; no local rules and regulations were passed upon governing the size of & claim or the number of claims that any one man could locate, the law gov erning such, as laid down in the United States statutes, being adopted. There fore, if a man saw fit he could locate CletIlil Ol lWtllly tllu WdS IlOL lS- stricted to only one claim in district. The heaviest flow of gold seeming to come down Mills, Canon and Six Mile creeks. which form one continuous stream in like rotation, before fall the ground was nearly all taken up along that line, and in one or two instances one man had located as high as three claims or one claim upon each of the forks. To make a description of this line of streams palmer, first comes in Six-mile creek starting from it's mouth where 1t empties into Turn again Arm and running up twelve miles to the forks with Canon creek, thence up Canon creek ten miles to the forks with Mills creek, and thence up Mills creek about eight miles to it's source, making 8 total distance of, about thirty miles, along which line, even up to the present time, all the richest claims of the district are.
 When the spring rush arrived men on snow shoes and some without, wading through snow up to their hips, contin- ued hastily on In their rush up the main golden artery The most of these men were tenderfeet in mining camps Afe~NA the slightest idea how to reduce a pan of gravel. They expected to see the bars and beds of the streams glistening with yellow metal, and all they had to do was to drive stake, camp thereon, and commence banning out fortune. But imagine their disappointment and chagrin when they found through look ing the ground over that stakes had been driven thereon the year before. and the record books showed metes, l bounds and dates of valid prior loca- tions according to the laws of the land and the district Then these people grew wild; they classed the discoverers and original locators of the ground as g. set of hogs and laid plans to call mi ners' CD meetings to adopt local rules and regulations to cut claims down to five hundred feet square, and limit a man to the location of only one claim in a district; they were going to stop the location of claims by a power of at torney or one partner locating for arl- other, In fact, they were going to gov- ern the district with laws of their own making With this idea in view nu- merous written handbills were posted throughout the district calling a. miners meeting at a, certain date, put | ting By Order of the Committee" as a signature to such notices. In one in- stance a few miners gathered at the forks, the place designated for such a meeting at the date mentioned, but as the said "committee' failed to put in an appearance and make themselves known and heard on the premises, the meeting was not called to order and the miners decided to pay no more at- tention to such calls unless they bore the signature of the recorder of the dis trict.
 Following the schemes to limit and cut down claims came the jumpers, :, and, of course, nothing but choice claims were jumped upon. As a natu- ral consequence this plan of securing claims has caused trouble, with one shooting scrape on the calendar and several more brewing if the jumpers are allowed to continue and hold pos session. The shooting scrape above re- ferred to was the result of a gang of twelve newcomers jumping claim on Canon creek owned by MT. Bede. The owners ordered the jumpers to quit the claim, but they would not go, and the consequences were that later on one of the jumpers received a bad but not fa- tai bullet wound in the hip. A miners meeting has been called by the recorder of the district, to be held on the 27th inst, to hear the testimony in the case and endeavor to adopt measures to put stop to further jumping and occur rences of a like nature. As the matter now stands, a jumper can go on to and get possession of a claim and literally "gut" it before action through the dis trict court at Sitka could be taken to remove him from the ground or stop his working thereon. It is the unani- nous plea of the mine owners here that the government furnish United States commissioner and a United States dep- uty marshal for this place to guard against such serious trouble that will occur. A large number of claims have already been jumped and men will be killed in the disputes if government of- f1cials are not placed here to settle them.
 Finding that all of the choice ground along the gold belt had been located
 instead of striking out to hunt up new creeks, a large number of the new corners disposed of their summer out fits at store-killing prices and left the country, and, of course, gave it a black eve to every newspaper reporter they