Pike County press. (Milford, Pa.) 1895-1925, 1898-05-20
A ONE-NUGGET CAMP.
STRANGE HISTORY OF BRloeEwATER
A DESERTED CANADIAN TOWN.

A DESERTED CANADIAN IQWN.
A valuable Specimen Of Cold was Found
There and the Great Rush Of Prospectors
was Something Acknowledgment An.
other speclr Of Gold Discovered.
"One salmon multiplies its species q
million fold; the giants Of the Western
forest spring from a seed no larger than
pea; but for gold-the magic metal
humanity has levelled mountains and
bridged seas and oceans" said we'll
known Oregon civil engineer.
Il was assistant engineer on the On
tario and Quebec Railroad, a branch OF
the Canadian Pacific Railway, and in
running our preliminary lines one Of
them touched Bridgewater, Ontario, a
deserted town, that was the peIsonifi-
cation Of Oliver Goldsmith's Deserted
Village Bridgewater was brought in
to existence by one of the strangest
gold finds and erazes in the history of
this continent, and 1t goes to show
what great results sometimes follow
small and unimportant occurrences.
Will ANAA 0Ou AuG nA0As VI INV a DAA dN
COW caused millions of money to be
spent in search of gold.
Nearly twenty-five years ago a far
mer's wife was searching the woods
surrounding their farm for a COW that
had strayed, and, becoming thirsty,
stopped to get a drink from a spring.
Slipping, she fell against a small, loose
rock, which rolled to her feet and
which proved to be twenty-pound
nugget of almost pure gold. Bridge
water at that time was almost forty
miles from the nearest railroad and
the present site of the town was moth
ing but a wilderness, but the effect OF
that accidental find of the farmers wife
was such that inside of six months
what had been burned-over, barren
wilderness was converted into a sub
stantial city of nearly 5000 people.
'In digging a shaft about a mile
south of the townsite, on the claim OF
the Hon. Billia Flint, life Senator
of Canada, an immense quarry of the
purest white marble ever found on this
continent was discovered and, at the
suggestion of the Senator, the town OF
Bridgewater was practically built Of
marble, for it has to-day the only hotel
church, school, courthouse and private
/ dwellings constructed entirely of white
marble in the world, and a mile nortf
of the town are an abandoned axe fac
tory and grist mill, whose foundations
are built of the same beautiful mate
rial
During the building Of the towr
thousands Of men prosrected the entire
country, and shafts and tunnels wer,
driven-many of them nearly 100 fee
deep; but, strange as 1t may seem
there was never enough gold found L
pay the cost of a single shaft or tunne
sunk or run in the entire district. 81
excited did the farmers around Bridge
water become that some of them actu
ally hired guards to keep men from
going on their land to pick up gold
pat Kehoe, an old Irishman, VIII,
owned 100 acres of rock-strewn, barrel
land, was offered S125,OOO for his hold
ing, but held out for $15O,OOO. To-da.
you could buy the property for proba
bly, $3.50.
zone raneher, whose farm adjoine
'Aladdin's Cave the place where tn
original nugget was found, sold fiv
acres to an English syndicate for S1OC
900, and it is an established fact tina
the syndicate spent as much more de
veloping their claim, as everything wa
very costly, all material having to b
hauled nearly fifty miles, over roug
roads, and they did not get a singl
ounce of free gold out of their pur
chase; but they mined some quartz
about 100 tons-shipped it to the states
and in return got bill from the smelt
Ing company for $3.50 smelling charge
over and above the gold in the quartz
This was the first, and l believe tn
last, shipment of quartz ever made, a
the cost of hauling, shipping and smelt
ing was $3.50 ton more than the roc
produced.
For some reason the marble quar-
ries of Bridgewater were never worke
other than for local building pur
poses, just why l do not know
for, though have seen man
so-called marble palaces in differ
ent parts of Europe, / have neve
seen anything like those to be found i
Bridgewater. probably the only entir
town built of white marble In tn
world"