Elmore bulletin. [volume] (Rocky Bar, Idaho) 1889-1906, 1899-01-19
The Long Ago.

80 commencing bpoh VIC dSdtA
of the pioneer miner, Bob Struthers,
a partner of Greene White in the
flush times of Boise basin, the editor
of the General News" ruminates
as follows: "Oh, the things the
above bring to mind. Greene and
Ben White and Bob Struthers. this
writer knew them well, and the dig
gings" from which they took their
wealth was Immediately in front,
not forty yards away, from our
fathers store door in Moore's Town,
about mile above Idaho CITY, but
every trace of the old town has for
many years been wiped away, tho
in memory we see it yet notwith-
standing the fact that the many
years since that time passed away
have brought us to the border of old
age, for those were in the pioneer
days of Idaho; the days Of gold in
the early SOS.
The reader will now ask, when
did you come to Idaho2" 1t was
when Idaho City went by the name
of "Bannock" and when men, from
the four corners of the EARTH
rushed pell NELL, hither and thither,
in search for yellow gold" and
when the boys had more money
than the men have now. But those
days have gone, they will come
again no more, but it does us good
to recall their memory sometimes,
and we often think that could we 60
backward in our lives, back to those
good old times what "feathering
we would give our nest" but we
presume if such were the case we
would do as men did then, for when
money comes easy we either know
not its value or we do not care, and
spend it as if it were always to be
plentiful.
But we will return, in memory
only, to the diggings that produced
the three millions. 1t was a large
claim-in point of the number of
men worked-and the owners
worked force of hundred men,
at an an average daily wage of
seven dollars. But they h ad not
the machinery for working then
that they have now, and instead of
turning loose against the 100-foot
bank half dozen or more mann
moth giants each carrying 800
inches of water, they stripped the
ground by hand and carted it away
in wheelbarrows, and when the
gravel was reached the pay-dirt was
shoveled into boxes and the gold
caught in rifles sawed out of logs
and hewed on the sides to make
them fit, but they made it pay, and
many evenings did the writer
stand by side the cleanup" and
see him take away from one to three
gold. pans full of amalgam the re-
suit Of single days run, but as we
have said before, when money comes
easy it goes easy, and it was not an
unusual thing for the owners of that
claim to 60 to work on Monday
morning without a red" And
they imagined it would always
come fat" for them, but when the
end at last came and they were
summoned to make their last
cleanup" not one of them had
money enough to buy his burial
suit, but they died snugly nestled
in the warm hearts and friendship
of those who had known them in the
past, for they were big-hearted fell
lows and in times of plenty their
charity to the needy was unbounded
and everybody had money as long
as they had a cent.
The writer's two oldest brothers,
Foley and Win Abbott, were thea
good chunks of boys, and during
the spring and summer months of
'65 it was their fortune to "get i'm
and carry drinking water for the
miners employed in this claim, and
their daily wages was an ounce,
reckoned at $40, or eight dollars
each for their days work, but many
days we, little fellow of only six
years, made more out of that claim
than they did, for with the owners
we were favorite and our presence
in the claim nearly always called
for a pan of dirt, and on one occa-
sion, we remember it well, our pan
produced two ounces.