The sun. [volume] (New York [N.Y.]) 1833-1916, 1900-06-17
MOOERS'S LAVISH GIFTS.
USE Az OLD PROSPECT0R MADE Or
SUDDENLY ACQUIRED WEALTH..
sums Of Money Given to Persons TO whom nc
Ne Took a Fancy secret Benefaeuens-
~, Recent Death In a New York hote'-
HaliY Of Prince Harry OF Eomnstohe.

Los AN0EIEs, tai, June Nv Inc ue~'n VI
Frederick N. Mooers of this city NJ a hotei III
New York city a fortnight ago has started u
nood of "reminiscences among the people IN
this region CONCERNING the way In when ne
spent his suddenly made money. Unul ne
was so years old Mr., Mooers had always
had "A struggle with adversely ana poverty
At The age of so years and 3 months ne
was one Of the three men who found ne mar
yellolsly rich ledacs az what Is now the big
mining canlp of Randsburg on the edge OF the
Moiave Desert in southern California That
was in April. 1903, During the last 'ohr yea's
MIR. Mooers's average yearly income has been
s,43MO. He has spent most % II In having
what he called "a gay. Messy time and on al
manner Of persons To whom he took a fancy
Al the age OF IS he came 20 California
with his sole possessions the proverbiai ehirt
on his back 'and n lew dollars In ms pocket
lie had been a newspaper compositor ana re-
porter in New York city and n timekeeper Tor
a gang Of tracklayers for the Santa 70 hai-
road. and had prospected a little among The
Rocky Mountains in New Mexico. For Twelve
years he lived the life Of n desert rrosreotor-
~ hard n life az any American citizens knows
nowadays. During a few months IN each
year he would work In n Los Angeles newspaper
Office, while he saved every dime possible tow
ard another season Of prospecting among
the Cocopah Mountains, or the desolate noun
tains in tho region Of Death Valley, or across
the Moiave Desert. Al Tho endurances. pains
and hardships of n mining prosrector's life
were his. Along with his iackass, laden with
a lot of frying pans, kettles. bags OF salt pork.
beans and bacon, and a various assortment
| of crude mining implements and camp outfi'.
he hammered specimens from outcropping
rocks. scrntinized evidences Of go!d-bearinS
| lodges, and searched over thousands of square
miles during his career as a prospector. He
knew the cravings Of hunger and the burning
| of thirst. Time and again he was sure he had
at last found gold-bearing rock which would
| yield him a fortune. only 10 have his hopes
| shattered. One who has never had any ex-
| tended experience as a desert miner can have
| little idea of the grim prlvations and surerlngs
that come TO a prospector for mineral wealth
IN tn Southwest.
Discouragements that would have driven
ordinary men mad We're his. No whitening
heat of midsupmcr on the sandy wastes, no
cold Of winter, among the upper moyntain
Some dav h, would md precious mineral de-
posts that would make him rich. And al last,
IN company with John Singleton and Austin
Bllrlnpln. ne lCClltu pDlOeD lPuHPS ana DHNdflt
a millionaire several times over; The yellow
AstAr Mining Company, Of which Mr. Mooers
owned one-thiTd OF the stock, wasf0med by the
gr"sgGctor' and the great great m mi ,S:r. camp on ,S Ss
northern edge OF the Mojave Desert. The mine
which Mooers. Singleton and Burchem discov-
cred Is one Of the three richest gold mines on
the Pacific coast
With the beainnins. Of the development of
gold in the yellow Aster's lodges. Mr.. Mooers
announced that his work was over Hence,
t.rtkI III hatra n .ruxE p,nGGN ina v said hn "Qnd
when I'm dead III be lenderly by
some people anyhow"
lie held to this policy. When he had bought
a house for his aged mother and brothers az
Westlake Park in Los Angeles, and had settled
a certain share of the Yellow Aster dividends
upon them, ne wont abroad seeking pleasure as
who had been friendly to him in his dayso pow
erty. He sent 81 800 az Chris mas, 1900; TO the
widow of a printer in New York who had given
him a home for a few weeks wears before, ana
he sent $500 To pay a seventy-flve-dolar bill
contracted in Brooklyn fifteen years, before;
Two years ago he liked a mixed drink that
a l.o. ANGELES bartender alone concocted. He
was going on a visit to the City Of Mexico, and
he asked the bartender to mix several quart
bottles of the drink for hing to ta%e along on
his trip. when the bartender replied that the
stun wouldn't stand bcttling longer than a few
hours, Mooers insisted that the bartender and
the bartender's wife should go alons on the
tour, and at his expense, The trio we're gone
some two months, and all the bartender had to
do was TO mix the drink Tor Mooer>,
At another time when Mooers was getting
shaved in Los Angeles he remarked that he was
about 10 20 to New York on a pleasure trip
What would give to 20 away like that. with
never a care on my MINI said the barber,
Ever been to New York;? asked Mooers.
No, and probably never shall"
We'll, now. I'm iooSing around for another
fellow TO ill out our party, said Mooere, and
YOU come right along this afternoon. I've got
three other men who have never been East
and Wen al have u big time together What's
more. II won I cost YOU q cent all tho time
you're gon" from the shop, .
That pleasure trip cost Mr.. Mooefs 5000,
and he always said II was the best time of his
life, He had a tender spot in his heart for
street urchins, because he was one himself
once He never went to San Francisco or
to any Eastern city without attracting rtten-
ton by the showers Of money he scattered
among street children about the hotels where he
stopped, Once he tossed $500 IN silver coins out
Of A -econd-story window at the Palace Hotel.
lie used to leave twenty-dollar gold pieces
among the rumpled clothes on his bed. and
when the coin was returned to him by an hon
est chambermaId he would give it back with
one or two more like coins. lie was visiting
the Jail in Portland, Ore, a year ago. when
he saw confined there a man whom he once
knew a. a brother pro-pectoT in Arizona. The
man was awaiting trial for forgery, Mr.
MoOer- without "A word To- the prisoner. went
and at an expense of hundred. 81 dollars got the
man acquitted. Last summer, while fishing AZ
SAINTS Catalina Island, he conceived a fancy
for a Mexican hoatman who took him ont
fishing every day, and one day he surprised
the poor fellow BY the gift of a o.. 800 house.
4 class of girls in a private seminary In San
Francisco permitted bin 10 select the class
motto for them. and when the graduating
exercises were over ha hired n Pullman ear
and sent the whole class with two teachers
A. chaparones ona thirty-day tour Of the Pa
citic coast and to the Yellowstone Park.
lie once heard young woman sing In opera
in Chicago, and when he learned that she was
supporting her invalid mother and sister. he
paid tho ~operatic manager 10 rplNlse her from
her contract, and sent all three to California
for six months at bis expense, For u veteran
proopector who broke dovn from hard ship
and exposure he bought a home and then
sent the old fellow two sons to the klondike
for a year or " AT his own expense. Dur
lnE the summer OF 1922. the frst year OF his
riches, he went. abroad with five men, from
Arizona and California who had been bis friends
in days OF want, and he let none Of the party
take a cent alons. The mother of a baby at
Randsburg Who was named for him found a
sack Of 100 twenty-dollar gold pieces on her
doorstep one day, I've once gave every woman
in a dance hail AT RandsburS 1900 20 go home
and lead a better lie, but the local preacher
who ,poSe OF the act In church on the follow
ing sunday he never ~forgave. Two Christ
masses ago he sent anonymously So In non.v
Home at Santa Monica. lie was a vry strong
krpuDlican, ana Shcn col. Bryan spONr AT
los Angeles on july T. 1897, he paid several
people In his employ 500 apiece To seap away
from the meeting. When smallpox broke out
in Randsburg two winters ago and two men
finally volunteered to nurse the sick in the
pest holse, he bought each OF them a cottage
home and had the houses furnished completely,
ready for the men and their families TO move
into when the epidemic was over, Last No
veInber he secretly sent ten tons Of hams and
many bushels OF corn to a friendly and neg
icctnd tribe OF Indians, the Plmas, whom he
heard were starving because OF drouth on their
reservation In southern Arizona.
On MAY II lGt he met al the Nadeau Hotel in