The age-herald., 1900-07-22

From the Chicago Inter Ocean.
 Los Angeles, Cal.-The death of Frederick M Mooers of this city at hotel in New York City a fortnight ago has started flood of "reminiscences among the people in this region concerning the way in which he spent his suddenly made money. Until he was 50 years old MT. Mooers had always had struggle with diversity and poverty. At the afe of 50 years and months he was one of the three men who found the mar velously rich lodges at what Is now the big mining camp of Randsburg the edge of the Mojave desert, in Southern California. That was in April, 1895 During the last four years MT. Mooers's average yearly in- come has been $143,OO0 He has spent the most of it having what he called "a gay messy time" and on all manner of persons to whom he took a fancy.
 At the age of 2S he came to California with his sole possessionS-the proverbial shirt on his back and few dollars in his pocket. He had been a newspaper com positor and reporter in New York city. For twelve years he lived the life of a desert prospector-as hard a life as any American citizen knows nowadays. During few months in each year he would work in d Los Angeles newspaper office, while he saved every dime possible toward another season of prospecting among the Cocopah mountains the desolate mountains in the region of Death Valley, or across the Mojave desert. One who has never had any extended experience a desert miner can have little idea of the grim privations and sufferinss that come to prospector for mineral wealth in the southwest.
 At last, in company with John Singleton and Austin Burchem, he located golden lodges and became a millionaire several times over. The Yellow Aster Mining Company, of which Mir Mooers owned one- third of the stock, was formed by the pros- pectors, and the great mining camp or Randsburg has since grown up there on the northern edge of the Motave desert The mine which MooerS, Singleton and Burchem discovered Is one of the three richest gold mines on the Pacific coast
 With the beginning of the development of gold in the Yellow Asters ledges, MT. Mooers announced that his work was over. 'Henceforth I'll have gay time,' said he, land when I'm dead I'll be tenderiy re- membered by some people, anyhow"
 He held to this policy. When he had bought a house for his aged mother and brothers at Westlake Park, in Los Angeles, and had settled a certain share of the Yel- low Aster dividends upon them, he went abroad seeking pleasure as he viewed It. He gave 5000 to sickly old printer who had been friendly to him in his day of pow erty He sent 1,500 at Christmas, 1896, to the widow of a printer in New York who had given him a home for few weeks wears before and he sent $500 to pay s75 grocery bill contracted in Brooklyn fifteen years before
 One time when Mooers was getting shaved in a Los Angeles hotel he remarked that he was about to go to New York on pleasure trip.
 What would I give to go away like that, with never a care or worry on my mino' said the barber.
 "Ever been to New York?' asked Mooers
 "No, and I probably never shall.
 "Well, now, I'm looking around for an. other fellow to fill out our party, sald Mooers, land you come right along tnls afternoon. I've got three other men who have never been east, and we'll all have a big time together. Whats more, 1t won't cost you a cent all the time you're gone from the shop.'
 The pleasure trip cost MT. Mooers $60OO, and he always said it was the best time of his life He had tender spot in his heart for street urchinS, because he was one hlm- self once. He never went to San Fran- cisco or to any eastern city without at- tracting attention by the showers of money he scattered among street children about the hotels where he stopped. Once ne tossed $500 in silver coins out of second- story window at hotel where he stopped Once he tossed $500 gold pieces among the rumpled clothes on his bed, and when the coin was returned to him by an honest chambermaid he gave 1t back with one or two more like coins.
 He was visiting the jail in Portland, Ore, a year ago, when he saw confined there a
 
 pector in Arizona. The man was awaiting trial for forgery. MT. Mooers, without word to the prisoner, went out and hired a lawyer to defend the prisoner and at an expense of hundreds of dollars got the man acquitted. Last summer, while fishing at Catalina Island, he conceived fancy for a Mexican boatman, who took him out fish, ing every day, and one day he surprised the poor fellow by the gift of $2,300 house. A class of girls in private seminary in San Francisco permitted him to select the class motto for them, and when the graduating exercises were over he hired Pullman car and sent the whole class, with the two teachers as chaperones, on a thirty-day tour of the Pacific coast and to the Yellow tsone Park.
 He once heard a young woman sing in opera in Chicago, and when he learned that she was supporting her invalid mother and sister he paid the operatic manager to re- lease her from her contract and sent all three to California for six months at his expense For a veteran prospector who broke down from hardship and exposure he bought a home and then sent the old fellows two sons to the Klondike for a wear or two at his own expense During the summer of 1896, the first year of his riches, he went abroad with five men from Arizona and California who had been his friends in days of want, and he let none of the party take cent along.
 The mother of baby at Randsburg who was named for him found a sack of 100 $20 once gave every woman in a dance hall at