Wausau pilot. [volume] (Wausau, Wis.) 1896-1940, 1900-03-06
SIX THOUSAND A MONTH.
THE REGULAR INCOME OF AN
ARIZONA MINER.
His Good Fortune Did Not Turn Dris-
coils Head and He Lives
Like a Poor
Workman.

Like Poor
Workman.
Patrick Driscoll, who owns four Of
the best paying silver and gold mines
in the Chloride valley of Mojave coun-
ty, Ari., is commonly supposed TO be
worth from $500, 600 to 100000 His
income from his mines is about $4,000
a month, and he has block of stock
in the Santa Fe, Prescott & Phoenix
Railroad that pays him some $4,000
a year in dividends. He is bachelor
without kith or kin in the world that
heknews of. and he spends on himself
less than $50 q month altogether. Ey-
erybody in and about Kingman knows
Pat Driscoll and his eccentricities, and
many poor miner has been helped by
generous gifts from the Driscoll bank
account. Several times the bodies of
Dfiscolrs poor friends in the mines
have been coffined and sent to relatives
in the eastern states and even to Ire
land at his expense. He came from
County Antrim in 1853 and was pros
pector and laborer in the Utah and
Nevada gold and silver mines for 20
years. He experienced all the pros
pectors poverty and hardships until
he was past middle age, when he drift
ed down to the Calico mines in San
Bernardino county California, in 1881.
There he found a mine which he sold
for $4,000, and he had his first capital
to deal with in mining on his own
hook. From Calico he came over into
Arizona, and in two years he located a
base ore mine-a chloride proposition,
as miners say, of silver, gold, and lead
in combination. When silver was val
liable his income used to be over 50, 900
month. The Diana and Antrim mines
were his.
He invested his profits in the Mar
qua Hala mines, and doubled his
wealth in few years. From that time
he has been prospecting to a degree
undreamed of by him.
But he has never changed his man
ner of living. He is over 60 and in
fine health. Every day he may be seen
walking about the little town of King
has valuable real estate. No one
would believe from his appearance
that he had property. He lives alone
in a cabin, cooks his own meals of flap
jacks, pork, bacon, and oatmeal over a
81 stove, and sleeps in a bunk of red
wood filed with straw with a covering
of blankets. Once in year or two he
NAV 90 to pb0aniy ar m Toe ApUaIaS
for few days but he always returns
to his cabin, saying that he will never
take so long journey again. His sole
amusement is playing pedro for Scent
cigars, and if he can win a pocketfuI
in the course of an afternoon he is hap
Ply for a few days. He has never been
known to stand the loss of more than
a half-dozen cigars in the course of
his pedro gambling in one day, for he
will quit when the tide Of luck is run
ming so hard against him.
Among the many stories cold of
Driscoll in the northern part of the ter
ritory is one of the time he bet "a
half on an election and lost. When he
was told that he must pay he got
coins less than nickel are never
used, and, splitting it in half with an
AK, presented it to the winner of the
wager in full payment for his bet of
ga half" The old man loves to have
people marvel at his cheap, primitive
living while he is so wealthy, and he
always relates in the Kingman and
Ash Fork saloons what he hears stran-
gers say to him about the erich old
Irishman who lives in a cabin" He
has a grain of generosity and is not
miser, even if he does call himself one.
A year ago, when a miners eyes were
blown out in blasting operations az
Clifton, Driscoll made quiet inquiries
concerning the man. When he learned
that wife and six children were de-
pendent upon the blind mans wages
the old fellow sent a bank check for
$4,000 to the family, and the gift was
kept so secret that it did not leak out
till several months later. When the
worlds fair was opened in Chicago in
1893 Driscoll made up his mind to go
and see it. His friends urged him to
enjoy part of his money in seeing
something of the world. The week be-
fore he was to start on the long-dis-
cusseG journey to Chicago President
Cleveland made his public declaration
against the free coinage of silver. Dris-
coils income would be cut down sew
eral thousand dollars a month by an
anti-silver coinage law. So he aban-
doned his journey, feeling that he
could not afford so expensive a tour
at such a time.-New York Sun.