The San Francisco call., 1896-06-19
A Big Dam to Be Built on the
Merced River at Horse
shoe Bend.
OLD MINES TO BE REoPENED.
Irrigating Canals for the Agricultural
Lands-Electrica Power to Be
Generally Utilized.

State Senator Sam Jones is reported as
being on his way to this City as the repre-
sentative of his brother, Senator John P.
Jones of Nevada, and his object is said to
be to take immediate measures for the
opening and development of the great
Mariposa grant, of which the Senator from
Nevada is halloween. The other owners
of the grant are Alvlnza Hayward, the
Hobart estate and John W. Mackay, who
each own one-third of the remaining half.
It was enormously reported about two
weeks ago that the grant had been sold to
an English party for $4,000, 600, but this
is emphaticaIly denied by John w.
Mackay, who said there was nothing in
the report and he further intimated that
an offer of twice that amount would not
be considered. The owners, who represent
a combined capital of over hundred mil
lions of dollars, have determined, it is
said, to inaugurate development on the
most extensive scale on their own account
and to throw open the immense grant to
agricultural settlers, and to not only place
the old mines which have been allowed to
sink into decay on a basis that will allow
mining on modern principles, but to open
up new mines in all that portion of the
belt. The famous mother lode reaches its
fullest development in the Mariposa
grant, and over one-ffth of the total area
is mineral.
In the early days Trenor W. Park
opened up the Josephine, Pine Tree and
Princeton mines, and in less than two
wears is said to have taken out over 81, 2,000,-
600. The ore IN the Princeton averaged
over $3.50 to the ton of free milling ore, the
refractory ore and low grade not being
treated at all. The Princeton was de-
veloped only to depth of 400 feet by an
incline $50 feet in length, and when the
mine was shut down there were vast ore
bodies developed. The deeper they got
the richer they became. The Josephine
and Pine Tree mines were less perfectly
developed than the Princeton, but the
prospects in them were said to be quite
equal to that one. 1t is stated that one of
the projects for improving the grant will
be the construction of an electric road
from Merced to Hornitos, a distance of less
than forty miles. This road will ulti-
mately be extended to Mariposa, the
county seat of Mariposa County.
The Mariposa grant, or the old Fremont
grant, as it is sometimes called, was To-
Gated by General Fremont early in the
history of the State. Fremont secured
from the Mexican Government the right
of location to eleven square leagues which
ue at uISL dpprOprldlSu on Iu6 aRTlCul-
tural lands of the San Joaquin Valley, but
afterward, when gold was discovered in
the country, he surrendered his first loca-
ton and transferred his lands to Mari
posa County, now embraced in the cele-
brated grant. His title was confirmed and
he was granted a patent In 1855. There
are included in the boundaries of the
grant As, $40 acres. 1t is an irregular body
of land bounded Oh the north by the Mer-
ced River and has length from north to
south of fourteen miles and a width of
twelve. Three towns, Marjposa, Prince
ton and Bear Valley, are located on the
grant and in the days of Park were thriving
TO the highest degree. Now, owing to the
total cessation of all mining these towns
afford the most melancholy examples of
utter stagnation that are to be found in
the State.
Fremont sold the grant to an English
party for $500, 600, who again disposed 4of
it to a company of New Workers, whose
experience in managing mines was un-
fortunate. and they relinquished their
claims to others, of whom the late Peter
J. Donahue and Mark Brummagen were
partners. Ultimately years of litigation
ensued, and in 1886 the present owners
purchased it at price below $500, 900.
One of the projects for development is to
be an irrigation canal drawing water from
the Merced River, from the dam at
Horseshoe Bend, and irrigating a great
part of the agricultural lands in the grant.