Northern Wisconsin advertiser. [volume] (Wabeno, Wis.) 1898-1925, 1900-11-15


with a big shipment of gold dust and
nuggets to the San Francisco mint,
there was about half ton of gold
stored in all manner of primitive re-
ceptacles and odd ways in the tents on
the beach. Beside, there was fully
1900 pounds of gold similarly saved in
the tents and cabins of the miners
along the creeks and in the gravelly
gulches back of Nome. Any hollow
thing was used-soup tureens, tin
cans, glass bottles, boots, gas pipe,
paint buckets, fur garments and even
stockings and goloshes. Very few OF
the miners failed to get some gold the
first day they PANIED and rocked for
it. Flieir hoard grew fast and they
had no strong box, no pouch in which
to store it. In some instances the
makeshifts were amusing. One man
made a great pouch for his gold out of
an enormous chest and back protector
"a sort of waistcoat made of sealskin,
which he had cured. dressed and made
| himself. Another miner utilized a
joint of stovepipe. He didn't have
even tent when he went to Nome.
Some one threw away rusty stove
| pipe joint and the miner got it. He
cut round piece of board and fitted it
in one end of the pipe. Then he stood
the pipe up on end on his claim. and
| dumped into it each day the gold dust
as fast as he washed and dried it, I
believe he got about 80 pounds of gold
for his seasons work last year.
"A lot of the gold washers on The
beach used wornout rubber boots as
| receptacles for gold dust A Swede on
Snow creek had three rubber boots
nearly full of gold last September.
He kept the boots standing behind Lis
bunk of blankets. A loaded rifle hung
on nails over the boots as a sort of
warning that any thief of the treasure
would be shot with that particular
weapon. Beer bottles full of gold dust
were common about the Nomers'
habitations, and some used coffee
pots. man on Anvil creek, near my
claim, made his walrus-skin cap gold
dust bag. Tin tomato-cans and fruit
jars standing under miners hunks and
full of gold were common all over Cape
! Nome last year.
THE abundance of gold at Cape
Nome is without precedent. We
thought Klondike rich, but Cape Nome
is far richer. NJ brother wrote me
from Dawson City last January that
1000 people were then making ready
to leave Klondike and get to Cape
Nome as fast as possible. There are
IL claims being developed at Nome
that are all richer than any single
claim ever gnown in the Klondike, and
the Cape Nome field has only been
cursorily prospected so far. The gold
output from Nome last summer was
10000 gee ter than that from The
Klondike during the first season of
| operations. have seen greater in
dividual boards of gcld on Cape Nome
than | ever saw in the Klondike. 7
know a camp of a dozen miners, all
natives of Connecticut, who had a LOT
OF fine claims on Snow creek. saw
at their camp one Sunday last Septem-
Der pile of gold that was sold to the
Alaskan commercial company a few
days later for $79,950. That repre-
sented about IA weeks work. Be
sides, the men had spent some $4,000 in
fumes for sluices and had lost time
from gold washing by doing carpenter
work about their sluices. When I
happened to go strolling into the COM
pany camp tent the men had almost
finished careful weighing of the gold
en- heap. The gold lay heaped up in
the middle of canvas sheet. Come
here, Quinn, and look at this said one
OF the miners to me as l entered.
There's the biggest gold sight You
ever saw How's that for a few lonely
cusses out of luck, who have been
chasing over Alaska for bare living
five years?'
nave seen in walk about the
camps at Cape Nome on a Sunday af-
ternoon many five-gallon kerosene oil
can full of dust and worth about s14.
900. Out on Nome creek four miners
mad a washtub half-full of gold dust.
by the way, there was a tragedy over
that gold. Two weeks after was
there one of the partners was shot
dead by an unknown man, but is has
always been believed that one of his
partners killed him because he had
stolen some of the firms gold. One
Norwegian miner, who can't read or
write, and has claim on William
creek, showed me pair of heavy can
vas overalls that were his treasury.
He had sewed and overlapped the legs
OF the garment so as to make two
great, heavy bags. l think he must
nave had 100 pounds avoirdupois of The
yellow metal on hand when I was at
MS cabin. | have seen several times
IN one day in the tents along sucb
creeks as Anvil. Snake and Car. $780,
900 worth of gold. and was not trying
to see the stuff, either. Col. J.E.
Jason told me that in one day last
summer he saw George Miller, one of
the first half-dozen white men in the
cape Nome diggings, and five helpers
sllice nearly 200 ounces of gold from
Miller's claim (No. 81 on Anvil creek.
That makes the yield worth about
$4,000. Bill Emory who oo,,o a..