Middlebury register. (Middlebury, Vt.) 1886-1937, 1898-10-07
ACROSS PANAMA IN 1861.
Maine Mans War1iSe "Reminiscences
of Going to the Pacific.


of Going to the Pacific.
at is rather odd that the war of
1861 should have been preceded by a
gold fever just as the war of 1898 has
BEEN" said Mr.. Nelson A. Dodge OF
Lewiston.
eve are divided between the call to
the front and the desire to go to Cali
fornia to dig gold. Some of us went to
both places. Lots of us have our ideas
Of Cuban people and Spanish Ameri-
cans from our trip across the Isthmns
of Panama in the sixties. We had
enough Of the Spanish blood in that
short trip over the isthmus. The eli
mate also gave us all we wanted. We
went over by the railroad, but it was
hot. And really, l don't think that
many of us would have lived to get
across if We had depended on our legs.
l knew a man who went from our town
who walked across with a party. He
had an old cavalry sword which he
sharpened and used to cut the under
brush with The bushes grow thick
there, and weave themselves together,
so that one could not get through
half as easy as he could if it was a
big blackberry brambe all the way.
One of the parties would take the
sword and cut away at the path till he
got tired, and then another would try
his hand until he gave out. In this
way they worked their way across.
I'VE went out in 1868, and you
should have seen the conglomerate
mass of humanity that there was there
then. Along at the last of our stay
there were old miners who worked on
WORKOUT claims and dumps for seven
ty-five cents a day. They had all
made their pile and spent it and were
looking for a haul to go home on. They
were old men, most of them, and We're
proud, too. They would not go home
unless they could go with a fortune.
Some of them had made their ounce of
gold a day, and they had spent it
gambling and drinking. But now that
the gold was exhausted they kept on
hoping for lucky strike. In the early
days every one said that the gold
would never be exhausted in California,
the people out there believing it. 1t
would make you cry to see those old
fellows going about their work every
day and hoping against hope. They
had left wives and mothers in the east
years before and now would not write
because they were too proud to tell
them the truth. They preferred to be
n mn
and, alas, China women, too, Span
iards, Italians, Americans, Irishmen,
Englishmen and Indians. Every bill
was paid in gold. During the war
many men made money specializing in
gold and paper money. When the Union
forces won a battle they would go
around and buy gold with United
States money of paper, and when the
rebels won a battle and United States
paper money was cheap they would go
around and buy all the paper money
they could find, paying gold for it at
the rate of one gold dollar for many
paper dollars.
THE day that Richmond was taken
/ met a man who was in this business
( who had not heard of it. l told him
about it and he started off at once to
find broker who had not heard of it.
He hunted all day and at last found
one. He bought all the paper money
the fellow had, paying gold for it. He
made eight hundred dollars that day
for the next day a gold dollar was not
worth any more than paper dollar.
Speaking of the many men who
went out there and did not make their
salt reminds me of a man who was
making an ounce of gold in Australia
every day. He heard that Americans
were making five ounces, and sold out
and came to California He bought 6
claim and paid his last dollar for it
and he never as much as got the color
of gold on it.
Zone old fellow who used to come tC
my camp and talk about home people
told me he was averaging seventy-fvt
cents day That would barely keel
him alive. He also told me that wheI
he first came he and two other meI
found a rich claim. The first time
they cleaned up they had $S49 apiece
Then was the time he ought to have
saved his mony and gone home. Blu
he drank it, and then the claim CAV,
out. There were wrecks like these al
over California in those days"
Tho auetOnnc raaaintc or Gan n