Glacier County chief. [volume] (Browning, Mont.) 1931-1940, 1940-12-27

ana was guarded Dy Il SOLDIERS. II
was from Bannack. They were taking
be shipped to st. Louis. This amount
of gold was said to have been the
largest shipment of gold ever taken |
out up to this time. It was from Ban
mack, Last Chance, Diamond City, .
Orapena, Unionville and Scratch
Gravel mines.
Helena was in gold; the miners
moved the graveyard to the valley and /
mined the ground where it had been. !
Sometimes my brother and some other |
boys would go downtown in the morn /
ingS and sweep the saloons out to get !
the gold dust scattered there during
the night. They sometimes got four
or five dollars worth in one morning !
Years later when the Placer hotel OF
Helena was to be built, in digging up
the ground for the site, enough gold
was taken out of that spot to pay to !
build the basement.
Father built log cabin about 16 by
l8 feet at Trinity gulch, and located !
a mine. The mine was very rich. In
the cabin father made little portfolios
to shoot through. He made a small
window, covered with deer hide, and
fixed boards on the window and door
so they could be shut and locked from
the inside. The Indians were very bad
Lord Melan, who discovered Trinity
gulch, was not of age; he drove two
Jokes of oxen across the plains for
father. He had mined a gold nugget
worth $500 which he always carried
for pocket piece. At that time I
was about 3, and could not hold the
nugget in my hands, it was so heavy.
Tickets at SIS
We stayed at The Springs, a place
where father had dairy, the winter
n 1CfT ttt,,A t1a
went to Silver City and got an old
butcher shop. They put it on runners
and hauled it five miles with 10 yoke
of cattle. We had a dance in it then
hauled 1t back the next day. Buffalo
Bill helped to haul this cabin to The
Springs. My father played the fiddle, !
mother cooked the supper and the
tickets were IS. Two men started a
fight and so they were put under o
wagon bed and left there until they
got sober.
My father and Sam Ford took the
first ditch out of the Little Prickly
Pear and put it on record. The water
was used to irrigate fathers and Sans
places Father and Fred Beby put in
the Trinity ditch which was used for
placer mining and later for irrigation.
When we had the dairy mother made
butter and father took it to Lincoln
for it. Bacon was selling at $40 a
slab, sugar 500 a sack. potatoes 81
a pound and sl8 a sack. Flour was
500 sack. Father had to go more
than 35 miles and there were no roads.
A man by the name OF Dykes bought
all the flour in Helena, to get a cor
ner on it: he stored it in a ware
people broke into the warehouse and
divided the flour Groceries came
from Fort Benton and Corinne Many
times We had a straight meat diet. At
that time there was no road from
Georgetown to Canyon creek. A man
named Morrow built toll road
through Canyon and Virginia creeks
to Lincoln and MCLEAN. Negrs and
Whitehead owned the Stagecoach.
Mother died at Georgetown. June.
1869. and was buried at Silver City.
After her death We moved to a ranch
on Little Prickly Pear and helped
build the first Schoolhouse in that
section. Father was a millwright The
chest of tools he brought across the
plains weighed from $50 to 300 pounds
He built the first waterwheel there
Father built the first arrastra in
Montana. at Marysville Father also
built the road leading from Silver
creek to Marysville and on to Mount
Pleasant to the Emma Miller mine
A road had to be built from the
Emily Miller at Mount Pleasant to
haul the ore down to Idasville later
Marysville). 1t was free milling and
the first cleanup was a little brick
that was worth sllo 1t lay in the
Hershfield bank for a long time and
printed on it was: This bar of gold
was taken out Of the Emily Miller
mine at Mount Pleasant by Captain
Sears and Nate Vestel. The first gold
that was taken out of Silver creek"
1t was ground in the arraStra father
built There were four tubs which
were run by the waterwheel
Thomas Cruise built the first stamp
mill at Marysville. He was our best
man when my husband, Timothey E
Crowley. and I were married Ann
Malaney was our bridesmaid. We had
May flowers for our wedding: an
abundance of them grew on the noun
tainside: the crocuseS were beautiful
May Flowers in Bloom
When I was 10 years old went to