Idaho County free press. [volume] (Grangeville, Idaho Territory) 1886-current, 1922-11-30
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Hazlitt Inspects the Claims
of Carpenter and Mcknight,
6 Miles Southwest of Dixie
Engineer Enthusiastic over
Ore Discovery on Property
Abandoned Many Years Ago
By HENRY s. HAZLITT
Mining Engineer
Dixie. Idaho

The question of how to find ore was
asked of John G.. Mackey, to which he
replied: "There is no law Of prospect
ing except the pick point; no man
can see further that the pick dis
closes"
And as 1 reflect On the history of
the claims located by A. @. Carpen-
ter and Joe Mcknight, at the head Of
Tepee creek, six miles southwest of
Dixie, ON the Painter trail, the old
Bonanza King gave the key to his
successful mining career, for John G..
Mackey and James Fair knew how
to swing a pick. / once saw the
the statement that Jim Fair had a
canny nose for ore, or to state it
concisely, the Golden Rule Of the
prospector- and miner, is, "Seek and
we shall find"
ORIGINAL LoCAToRs
The ground, covered by the Car
penter and Mcknight claims was
originally located by @. G. Fink and
j. T. Reser, both of whom are now
dead, in 1891 or 1892. Reser dis
covered the outcrop while hunting.
He said to me, "I shot blacktah
buck on the highest point, so when
Chris and I staked it we called 1t the
Black Tail"
Fink and Reser kept up the assess
ment work until Fink death. Reser,
the surviving partner, and the late
j. S. Danforth located it and held the
ground for few years and let it go
to be followed by others, among them
being Martin Hickman, Of Elk City,
W. L. Sendker and s. R. Clayton, and
Rory Burke, of Dixie, and Elmer
Wandling staked the ground. About
year ago, the Rev. G. A. Bales,
while hunting down there, found some
panning float and put up a notice. I
think of all the old timers in Dixie,
myself and L. N. Larson are the only
ones who did not join the procession,
and stake the ground.
The outcrop is a prominent land
mark, and it is a mystery to me that
no mention of it has been made by
any of the men sent out by the feder-
al and state geological surveys. As
matttr of fact, these men have as
rule confined their Investigations to
the section of the district north of
Blowout mountain.
ACRE OF RICH FLOAT
Carpenter and Mcknight did the
obvious thing. AS soon as they got
their stakes up, they began to break
rock along the outcrop and ON the
old dumps, with the result that they
found oxidized free gold ore along the
outcrop for 500 feet, and when they
turned to the float On the ground they
found an acre or more Of rich float
from small rocks to big bou1ders scat
tered over it. 1 saw one boulder stick
ing out of the ground with free gold
that did not require a microscope to
make it visible to the eye.
Tt has been a puzzle to me since my
visits to the claims how experienced
prospectors like Fink, Reser, Martin
Hickman and Rory Burke overlooked
the float scattered over the ground,
and failed to break into the outcrop.
The main outcrop is situated about
1000 feet east of the Painter trial,
on the ridge between the main fork
of Teepee creek and Jersey creek.
The outcrop has an apparent width of
fifty or sixty feet or more. It Is my
opinion that the main outcrop is the
apex of an immense fracture zone
filed with parallel veins. which at
depth will cut into the main quartz
vein.
LOCATION OF CLAIMS
The zone is probably lens-shaped
and will narrow and pinch as it
approaches Tepee creek on the east.
and Jersey creek on the west. The
claims are about midway between the
Blowout Mountain Porphyry belt and
the contact between the gneiss and
the Warrens-Buffalo Hump granite,
and probably six miles northeast of
the War Eagle (Bancroft) property,
on Lower Crooked creek.
Reser told me that his assays al
ways ran low, but I am inclined to
think what he called "steel galena,"
is form Of tellurium, which prob
ably accounts for the low gold values
in his assay returns. Gold in combi-
nation with tellurium is a true chem
zeal compound. If an assayer does NOT
handle his assay on the suspicion
that the sample carries tellurium, the
gold win go up the fue with the
fumes The character of the ore Is
practically the same as that of the