Nevada County

History

BEAN'S HISTORY & DIRECTORY OF NEVADA COUNTY, CALIFORNIA. 1867.

HISTORICAL SKETCH OF

MEADOW LAKE TOWNSHIP.

BY F. TILFORD.

        The township of Meadow Lake, or as it is more popularly, and perhaps more appropriately termed, "Excelsior," is bounded on the north by the county of Sierra, on the south by Placer, on the east by the boundary line of the States of California and Nevada, and on the west by the townships of Eureka and Washington. These limits contain an area of 384 square miles, and were organized, as the ninth township of Nevada county, by the Board of Supervisors, in the month of February, eighteen hundred and sixty-six.

        Until a very recent period, the district was almost wholly unknown to the public of California. Travelers over the Henness Pass and Donner Lake routes returned to their homes in the lowlands and described in glowing language the wild and picturesque scenery which skirts these highways as they approach the summits of the Sierra. Now and then, an adventurous tourist, who had wandered from the great thoroughfares of travel, among the solitudes of the mountains, published a sketch from his note book descriptive of a somber forest, through whose shadowy glades reigned an awful silence, a crystal stream whose banks were fringed with the loveliest of flowers, or some magnificent sheet of water, in whose clear waves he had seen reflected the fleeting clouds of a summer sky, or the starry firmament of night. Yet a large majority even of the reading community had no very definite idea of the climate, scenery, or resources of the mountainous region included in the boundaries of the present township of Meadow Lake. In their minds it was associated in the vision of a dreary winter, extending over nine months of the year, and a rocky, inaccessible wilderness, closed to the approaches of society by impenetrable barriers of snow and ice. The remembrance of the ill-fated Donner party cast a shade of deeper gloom over the picture which imagination had drawn.

        Still Excelsior did not remain entirely unexplored. The demand for water wherewith to work the auriferous claims scattered through the valleys and foothills of Nevada and Sierra counties, had at an early period attracted the attention of capitalists to these snow-crowned and exalted regions. Here, it was evident, might be obtained at the proper elevations, an inexhaustible supply of the coveted element, which could be collected in reservoirs, and conducted by aqueducts to less famed localities. Action speedily followed the conception, and in the Summer of eighteen hundred and fifty-eight, the first permanent structure was erected in the district by the South Yuba Canal Company. It consisted of a stone wall projected across a ravine, the banks of which were some three hundred yards apart This wall forms the dam of a reservoir, or artificial lake, from which Nevada City and a large section of country in the southwestern part of Nevada county, obtain in the summer and fall months, their principal supply of water. It measures in some places fifty feet in hight; is at the apex fifteen feet wide, and is built of solid granite, without a particle of wood or cement entering into its composition.

        The sheet of water, thus collected and discharged by a small gate at the dam, is called Meadow Lake, and lies within the corporate limits of the town designated by the same name. The reservoir or lake is about two miles long from north to south, and between three hundred yards and three-fourths of a mile wide, with a depth in places, ranging with the season, of from ten to thirty fathoms. Other enterprises of a similar character followed in the line indicated by the South Yuba Company. About two miles west of Meadow Lake, another reservoir has been formed, called French Lake, of about the same depth and dimensions as the one described. To the east of the former, and some three miles distant, is still another sheet of water styled "English Lake." French Lake is tapped by the great Magenta flume, and supplies the country lying around Eureka South, Forest City, in Sierra county, and the mining region in its vicinity, obtain their supplies of water from the "English" reservoir.

        Whether these attempts to subject to man's dominions, the snows of the Sierra, have been a pecuniary success to their projectors, the writer is unable to state, but they have undoubtedly proved of incalculable benefit to several cities, and a multitude of miners and agriculturalists in Sierra and Nevada counties.

        No discovery, and not even a suspicion of the existence of mineral treasures followed the labors of the first explorers of the district. They passed over ledges; since proven to be exceedingly rich, without a dream of the wealth beneath their feet. A fact, at first view so remarkable, can only be accounted for in the peculiar appearance of the country, differing in almost any respect from what is presented in any other portion of California. Elsewhere, the gold-bearing ledges rise above, or can be unmistakably traced upon the earth's surface. Whatever may be the character of the country rock, whether porphyry, slate or granite predominates, the quartz ledges may be easily discovered by the practiced eye of an experienced miner. The geological formation of Excelsior presents great difficulties to the prospector. In some places immense forests cast their shadows over the ground, which is carpeted with luxuriant grasses; in other localities huge bowlders, or vast masses of granite—among which it was once a favorite theory that true fissure veins of gold and silver were never found—are the prominent features of the landscape. The ledges, lying even with the masses of granite around them, and capped with a species of mineral which is neither pure quartz nor country rock, are traceable only by broad stains of a dark, reddish hue. It is not then, on reflection, surprising that parties whose attention and energies were directed to other purposes than the search for gold, should have failed to discover the existence of treasures so strangely concealed by nature. The time for the discovery of the wondrous riches of the Sierra summits was not far distant. It was, however, made like that of Marshall in 1848, under circumstances, and by a person apparently the most unlikely to accomplish such an event.

        Sometime in eighteen hundred and sixty, Henry Hartley, an Englishman, wandered to these mountain solitudes. He came partly, as the writer has been informed, with a view to the improvement of his health, threatened somewhat with consumptive tendencies, and partly to trap the wild game of the mountains, when the deep snows of winter should have fallen. No idea of gold hunting seems to have occurred to the hardy trapper as he plunged into solitudes more dreary and

desolate than the lonely island of Selkirk. The long winters of the mountains were his choice seasons. Thus it was, when not imprisoned in his cabin by the fury of the storm, the adventurer glided with his snow shoes over the frozen expanse which surrounded him. In the spring the trapper resorted with the rewards of the chase to the lowlands, lingered there during the Summers, and returned with his supplies when the snows first announced the approach of winter. Thus passed three years of his sojourn in the wilderness, when in June of 1863 Hartley first observed, with some surprise, a number of ledges about half a mile distant, in a southeasterly direction, from the site of the present town of Meadow Lake. In August of the same year, Hartley, accompanied by John Simons and Henry Feutel, to whom he had communicated the news of his discovery, visited the newly found ledges, and in September made the first locations in Excelsior—then forming a part of Washington township. They located under the title of "Excelsior Company," two thousand feet on each of the parallel ledges, named "Union No. 1 and 2." These lodes were about seventy-five feet apart, and could be distinctly traced northwesterly and southeasterly for the distance of a mile. The quartz on the surface is stained a dark, reddish brown by the action of oxyde of iron, derived from the gold-bearing pyrites which it contains in great abundance. In many places the decomposed sulphurets of the ledge were resplendent with fine gold. Every experiment which these prospectors made with their pans and horns—an invariable portion of a miner's equipment—strengthened their first impressions of the richness of their discovery. The writer is happy to have it in his power to state that assays since made, as well as results of milling on a large scale, have confirmed the judgment of the original locators, and demonstrated that these claims are among the foremost of the district.

        The Excelsior was for a long time the only mining association in the newly  discovered region. It was not until the summer of 1864, that the California Company discovered and located their ledges, claiming seventeen hundred feet in each of four very prominent lodes—the California, Knickerbocker, Indian Queen and Indian Boy. The first named resembles in every respect the Union ledges of the Excelsior Company, having the same direction, northwesterly and southeasterly, and is in fact considered by many as the same ledge formation. The "California" was incorporated in February 1865, under the law of the State of Nevada, and afterward, in the month of June 1866, owing to some irregularities attending its first organization, incorporated again under the statutes of California. It is now a thriving association, with a valuable mill, a shaft that strikes one of their ledges (the Knickerbocker) at a depth of seventy-five feet, and bids fair at no distant day to become as prosperous as any mining company in the county of Nevada. Not however, until the summer of 1865, was public attention attracted to the auriferous region,  where the adventurous Hartley had dwelt so long amidst the solitude of nature.

        The first movement was from Virginia City in the State of Nevada. Faint rumors had been carried to that place of "rich prospects struck" on the summits of the Sierra, and of vast ledges showing anywhere on their surface free gold. Specimens of a superior quality were exhibited as indications of the mineral wealth of the Eldorado which nature had located more than eight thousand feet above the level of old ocean. Times were exceedingly dull around Virginia, and indeed throughout Washoe. The great Comstock, at the depth then explored, wore threatening appearances of failure. Humboldt, Reese River and Esmeralda had, in the expressive language of the mining regions, been "played cut !" Idaho, although rich, was too far distant; Montana was then almost unknown; in fine, the new field of Excelsior had no competitor in popular favor, and was hailed by a large crowd of restless and discontented miners, dwelling in or near Virginia City, as another chance which propitious fortune had thrown in their way. With such characters to resolve and act, when action consists merely in a transition from one locality to another, means substantially the same thing.

        From June until late in the fall of eighteen hundred and sixty-six, hundreds came in—an eager and excited crowd—over the roads from Washoe into Nevada county. In the meantime a similar excitement, although in a less degree, had sprung up in Placer, Sierra, the lower portions of Nevada, and indeed through all northern California. Miners with their prospecting and working implements strapped to their shoulders, traders with their wares, and adventurers of every character; many with no definite idea of how a subsistence was to be made, much less how a fortune was to be acquired, spread over the hills and valleys of the promised land. In the month of July, a public meeting, the first one held in Excelsior, was called at the site of the present town of Meadow Lake. Even then a few cabins had been constructed on the western banks of the reservoir, and the place was known as Summit City. The assemblage was convened as a miner's meeting, and proceeded to adopt boundaries for the new district, which then formally received its title of "Meadow Lake." The mining laws of Nevada county were adopted by acclamation, and the County Recorder's office was designated as the proper place for the filing of notices of locations, claims and transfers. No time was lost in the work of prospecting. Stakes, with notices, clothed the whole region, and every mass of rocks which bore the slightest resemblance to a ledge, was claimed and located. It is estimated that during the summer of eighteen hundred and sixty-five, twelve hundred locations were made in the district, containing in the aggregate more than one million two hundred thousand feet of so-called auriferous ledge rock. In the feverish excitement which prevailed, locations were made over the whole country. Bowlders, masses of granite, rocks of every description assumed to the distempered fancy of the prospector, the shape and outlines of a quartz ledge, and were duly entered, under glittering titles, upon the Recorder's books. To one who had ever resided in Washoe in the flush times of the silver land, it was the old scene repeated on a new stage, and with a slight difference in the cast of the characters. In the month of July, Meadow Lake was surveyed and laid out as a town. It was included within the limits of a survey of one hundred and sixty acres, made and filed by Erick Prahm, under the Possessory Act of eighteen hundred and fifty-two. Prahm had been a locator of the California claims the previous year, and his pre­emption entry was in trust, and for the benefit of the California Company. The new town was laid out into spacious streets, eighty feet wide, and the blocks divided into lots with a frontage of sixty and a depth of eighty feet. Through the center of the blocks ran alley ways sixteen feet wide. A spacious plaza was reserved and dedicated for public use in the northern part of the future city. Lots were sold by the California Company, to actual settlers, for the small consideration of twenty-five dollars in cash, and upon the condition that they should be inclosed and improved.

        The village was originally styled "Summit City," which name it retained until its incorporation, by Act of the Legislature, in the spring of eighteen hundred and

sixty-six. When the fall of eighteen hundred and sixty-five closed, the village had made considerable advances in population and improvement. Not less than one hundred and fifty houses had been erected, and others were in the course of construction. Stores were established, driving a brisk traffic with the settlers and visitors to the town; hotels, three in number, were crowded to excess, and drinking saloons, with their bars and gambling tables, reaped a rich harvest. From June until October it is probable that more than three thousand people visited the district, and each bringing with him some money for investment, created a season of nattering but transient prosperity for the place.

        While undoubtedly the large majority of locations made during the exciting summer of eighteen hundred and sixty-five were wholly without merit, entered without the slightest judgment, and in many instances with no expectation of ever developing a mine, there were several claims located which have since been worked successfully, and are unquestionably of more than ordinary richness. Among them were the "Confidence," "Mohawk & Montreal," "Comet," "Enterprise" and "U. S. Grant." The first named is situated in the southwestern part of the town, on the Pacific ledge. It contains one thousand feet, has a shaft or incline sunk to a depth of some seventy feet, with well defined walls nine feet apart, and has yielded between eight hundred and a thousand tons of ore, worth on an average in free gold not less than twenty dollars to the ton. The company has erected a substantial frame building over its shaft, and is pushing its incline downward with commendable energy.

        The Pacific ledge runs southeast and northwest, and within the limits of the Confidence claim, shows on the surface a well developed ledge, varying in width from five to seven feet. The upper rock is composed of decomposed sulphurets, and is studded with free gold, plainly visible to the unaided eye. Within a few feet from the surface the great mass of the vein rock changes in character and appearance. The gold in the quartz is combined with sulphurets of iron, copper, arsenic and zinc. The proportion of sulphurets in the rock ranges from twenty-five to forty-five per cent, and when concentrated, yields by the chlorine treatment, about one hundred dollars per ton.

        The Mohawk & Montreal Company, claiming eleven hundred feet, is located on a ledge of the same name. It is one of a series of lodes or great veins which have their center in a prominent elevation some two miles to the south of Meadow Lake, called the "Old Man Mountain." The course of the ledge is almost due east and west, and can be traced by unmistakable croppings the entire length of the company's claims. The rock from these claims, carefully selected from the mass and carried by pack mules a distance of some six miles, has been worked at the "Winton mill," yielding on the average by the ordinary mill process thirty dollars per ton in free gold. The mine has been penetrated by a tunnel, and its character tested at a depth of more than two hundred feet below the apex. Here it presents every appearance of a well defined ledge, containing sulphurets similar to those of the Pacific, except perhaps in the absence of zinc among the base metals. The ore at the depth mentioned gives, under the chlorine process, twenty-seven dollars per ton.

        The U. S. Grant, another fine claim, containing sixteen hundred feet, is situated at the southern base of "Old Man Mountain." It was located by Thomas Carlyle and others, in the month of August, on a ledge styled the "Ohio." The mine has been energetically and successfully worked, and has done more, perhaps, than any claim in Excelsior to sustain the reputation of the district. Rock from it has yielded as high as one hundred dollars to the ton, and the average ore may be safely estimated at not less than thirty dollars in free gold. To the extent which the Grant has been prospected, it contains less of the sulphurets than any other ledge in that section. The ore is consequently easily and cheaply worked by the ordinary crushing and amalgamating process; a fact which has materially aided the company in prospecting and developing its claim.

        Still further to the south, and seven miles from the town, is situated the Enterprise mine. The company owning it has fifteen hundred feet on the ledge. Their location was made in July, and commenced under the most flattering auspices. Specimens of surpassing richness, showing everywhere on the surface, indicated a deposit of vast mineral wealth. Twenty-four hundred pounds of selected rock were sold, and yielded to the fortunate purchasers a profit of four thousand dollars. Subsequent explorations have disclosed a body of bright sulphurets with nearly forty per cent of arseniurets, worth on an average twenty-eight dollars per ton.

        Later in the season, some time in the month of October, a location was made four miles to the west of the town of Meadow Lake, called the Comet Company, on the Shooting Star ledge. A shaft has been sunk on it to the depth of forty-two feet, disclosing a well defined ledge eight feet in width. The rock also differs materially from the ores of the other claims which have been described. Frequent assays show the presence of a considerable proportion of silver. The writer is not aware of another ledge in Excelsior in which more than a trace of argentiferous ore can be detected.

        A large number of claims located and partially prospected in the summer and fall of 1865, have, during the past season, been sufficiently developed to deserve the name of mines. Many of them give promise of future excellence, but as the space allotted to a sketch like the present does not permit a particular description of all, the author has selected those named as the representative mines of the district. The large amount of work performed upon them, the important fact that they belong to different series of ledges, and the quantity of pay ore taken from their shafts and tunnels, fairly entitle them to the distinction. Very little labor, beyond what was necessary to hold a claim for twelve months, under the liberal mining laws of the county, was done on any ledge in the district during the year. The task of development was deferred to a later period. Before the first storms of November, the crowd of adventurers scattered over the hills and valleys of Excelsior, had departed for a more genial clime. A few remained in Summit City, determined to watch through the winter over their newly acquired claims, to guard them against trespassers, and be prepared for the tide of fortune that was expected to set in, with a golden current, on the return of spring. About two hundred persons, among whom were a few families, sojourned through the winter in the little village.

        The season was one of severity and almost unprecedented duration. The first fall of snow occurred on the 24th of September. Early in October it disappeared, and for the remainder of the month the weather was comparatively mild and pleasant. In November, violent winds from the southwest swept over the district, bringing with them dense dark masses of clouds, sure precursors of snow and wintry storms. The signs, so familiar and well understood by the experienced dwellers

in these mountainous regions, did not fail on this occasion. The storms continued almost without cessation through the month of November. By the first of December the country was covered with snow to a depth of five feet. From New Year's day until March 1866, the weather was, as is usually the case in this section, free from storms—the skies clear, and the atmosphere, never intensely cold, was frequently so moderate that fires were not requisite for comfort, except in the night time. The Excelsior climate in the winter time is far more moderate than the weather on the eastern slope of the Sierra, within a distance of less than one hundred miles. It comes not within the province of this sketch to discuss the philosophy of a fact which can be attested by hundreds who have wintered in Washoe and on the summit. In the month of March, the southwest winds which had prevailed in November, again appeared, accompanied by their invariable attendants—snow and sleet.     Spring, as it is seen in other portions of California, is unknown, in these high altitudes. The transition from winter to summer is almost immediate. As the period for the inevitable change draws near, it would seem that the storm king, throned in the frozen recesses of the mountains, becoming conscious that his tempestuous reign must soon dissolve under the genial sunshine of summer, exerts all his remaining strength, and makes a last determined effort to retain, his dominion over nature.

        The months of March, April and May, 1866, will long be remembered in the mountains for their unprecedented severity. All marks of the narrow trails which traverse the summit were obliterated by the drifting snows, and even the highways, in many places, were rendered difficult of passage. As an illustration of the character of the season, it may be mentioned, that from the 20th of May until the first day of June, there was almost constantly a snow storm in and around Meadow Lake. The first summer month opened with a strange aspect in this mountainous region. Instead of fragrant flowers, murmuring streams, the hum of bees, and

carol of birds, so familiar to the denizen of the plains on the approach of the summer months, here were seen mountains capped with snow, streams held fast with frozen chains, and icicles pendant from the branches of the giant pines, whose lofty heads towered grandly among the clouds of the Sierra. Still traveling was not interrupted to any serious extent. The tide of emigration set in toward Excelsior about the first of May, and continued without abatement through the month of June. During these months it may be safely estimated that no less than four thousand people visited the new district. It appeared for a time that the exciting scenes which had been witnessed in Virginia City a few years previously, were destined to be repeated in Meadow Lake. In the town all was excitement and activity. The bar-rooms of the public houses, three in all, and the saloons, were crowded to overflowing with strangers who had been attracted to the village. Every sleeping place and corner were in demand, and from twenty-five to thirty persons were often crowded together at night in a room aptly styled a corral. There was nothing talked of but "feet," "ledges," stocks and town lots. The latter were held at figures that seemed to a cool observer, not merely extravagant, but absurdly high. For a lot sixty by eighty feet, on any of the principal streets, from $1,500 to $2,500 were asked, and actually, in some instances, paid. Rents were advanced in the same proportion. A small tenement on "C" street, with a frontage of 18 feet and a depth of 24 feet, rented for $200 per month. The possessor of a few corner lots considered himself a millionaire, and talked of his thousands of dollars with more nonchalance than he would have exhibited, at some former period of his life, in discussing the details of a bargain which involved as many dimes. There was but little building undertaken until the latter part of June. Although there were four saw-mills in the district, which had been constantly in operation during the spring, yet owing to the inclemency of the weather and the almost impassable state of the roads leading from them to the town, lumber was scarce, and held at prices ranging from $50 to $75 per thousand feet. The only supplies of the much needed article came from Sierra Valley, a distance of some fifteen miles. As soon as materials could be obtained, building commenced on an extensive scale, and during the months of July and August from four to five hundred frame houses were erected. Some of these tenements were really handsome and substantial edifices, and remain as useful and ornamental structures, giving to the town an appearance decidedly more aristocratic and city-like than is usually seen in a mountain village.

        In the month of June a Stock Board, with thirty-nine members, was established. Considering that there was not at the time a mine developed, or ledge visible, in the whole district, the transaction was unique and refreshingly cool. With solemn visages, night after night the members assembled, a long roll of stocks was called, and no bids made. Verily the sellers were many, but alas ! purchasers were few! In the town, the whole affair was regarded as a farce, which all enjoyed, and none, perhaps, more than the actors who assumed a leading part in the performance. Yet the effect of the movement was decidedly prejudicial to the interests of Excelsior; abroad it created, not unreasonably, an impression that the people of the district had no confidence in, nor intention of developing their claims, but held them simply for speculative purposes. The excitement which prevailed in the town and district was fictitious, and destined, after a brief existence, to find an inglorious collapse. A reaction followed, and Excelsior experienced a descent from its exalted pinnacle in public estimation, almost as rapid, and quite as unreasonable as its famous rise.

Hundreds had rushed to a mountain region when the snow was ten feet deep on the ground—into a village with only a few rudely constructed tenements, and lastly, into a mining district, new, and of course undeveloped, and then, forsooth, were surprised and chagrined at not finding the ample accommodations of a city, the serenity of a summer climate, and mines and mills in active operation. All such visitors returned to their homes sadder, and it is to be hoped, somewhat wiser than before their departure. There was yet another class of emigrants who favored Meadow Lake for a brief season with their presence, and left in deep disgust with the district. It consisted of a lot of idle, needy and profligate adventurers, who had neither capital nor industry, but expected to live by sharp practices, by preying on the unwary—in fine, by any methods other than the exercise of an honest and useful industry. Men of this character were sadly disappointed in Excelsior, and returning to their wonted haunts in the cities, decried with eager voices the mines and prospects of the new district. Fortunately there were among the residents of the township, a few persons of sound, practical judgment, who clearly foreseeing the inevitable result of the fictitious excitement prevalent in the spring, had resisted its influence, and pursued the even tenor of their way. Such men, enlightened by experience, and well knowing that labor and capital only—more potent when united than the wand of Prospero—could open roads, level forests, develop mines, or erect mills, had gone persistently to work upon their claims.  Their example had a salutary and encouraging effect upon the majority of the community. The results made evident what energetic work could accomplish. Four good roads were opened from the town—one to Bowman's Station, situated on the South Eureka branch of the Henness Pass, another to Jackson's, a few miles distant, on the same road; a third to intersect the main Henness Pass at a point near Truckee Lake, and intended to accommodate the Washoe travel. A fourth, was completed to Cisco, and connects by a line of daily stages with the Central Pacific railroad, thus bringing the district within a day's ride of San Francisco.

        Some thirty claims, situated in different parts of the township, were developed to depths on the ledges varying from twenty to two hundred and forty feet. The results in all cases have been eminently satisfactory. They have demonstrated beyond any reasonable doubt that the ledges of Excelsior are true fissure veins, and not mere superficial deposits of auriferous quartz.

        Seven mills have been erected, or are in the course of speedy construction, for the reduction of ores, with an aggregate capacity of seventy-two stamps. Two furnaces for the roasting of rock have been finished, and Plattner's chlorine process used successfully at one of them. Experiments have proved that the gold in the sulphurets can be saved within five per cent of their assayed values. In addition to this and other achievements, they have built and paid for a handsome and substantial town. Although the building of the latter, in advance of the development of the ledges of the country, may seem an unusual and unwise departure from the established order of improvement, it has not been without its advantages. Any one who has ever resided in a mining region will understand the substantial benefits which must accrue to the mill-men, and workmen in a mine, from having in their vicinity a permanent depot, where supplies can be obtained at all seasons, upon moderate terms.

        Meadow Lake is not the only town laid out in the district. About two miles to the south of it, and at the intersection of the Cisco trail and the Yuba river, stands the present village and embryo city of Ossaville, a name that seems not altogether inappropriate, when one looks at the huge bowlders which cover much the greater portion of the town site. Following down the Yuba, in its tortuous course, the traveler comes in about an hour's walk to Carlyle, a little village with a score of houses, situated at the base of Old Man Mountain, and near by the Grant mine. Still further to the west is Paris, a small cluster of deserted cabins, built apparently for no other purpose than to demonstrate the folly of its projectors. There is yet another town called Mendoza, located near the Enterprise works, quite flourishing at one time during the summer, but abandoned at the approach of winter. As none of these places are more, at present, than mining camps, any description of them is deemed superfluous.

        When we remember that this vast amount of work, which has been stated in a summary manner, was the product of one brief season of exertion; that it was undertaken in the face of predicted failure, and accomplished with no aid from extraneous capital, it must be conceded that the residents of Excelsior have shown a degree of energy which affords the best guarantee of future success.

        The first storm commenced on the morning of the third of November. It was ushered in with the usual gales from the southwest, and on their wings came the lowering clouds of winter, frowning darkly as they gathered around the mountain tops. Rain and snow came down in heavy showers during the day; by night the

former element had disappeared, and the snow flakes descended with noiseless fall upon forest, hill and glen. At sunrise, on the fourth, the face of nature was covered with a veil of spotless white. No one, unless he has been an eye-witness of the scene, can appreciate, from description, the wondrous change which a few hours of a winter's storm will effect in the appearance of a mountain landscape. At eve the sun sinks in purple splendor beneath the horizon; no sign in the heavens indicates to the inexperienced observer the coming storms. The old mountaineer, however, reads nature with a different power of perceptives, and, readily discerns the portents of the tempest. He sees them in the light clouds which hover in the western sky; he hears them in the southwest winds melancholy sighing through the forests. The last glance at sunset takes in the evergreen pines, the stream dancing along its narrow channel and dashing its spray over the grim old rocks which stand in its wayward course—the lakes whose crystal waves reflect the golden hues of departing day; the next morn the scene is changed. The icy hand of winter has been laid on the landscape, and the beholder, dazzled and astonished, finds scarcely a trace of the loveliness which enchanted his senses the previous evening. The stillness and repose of death now reign where only a few weeks before all was life and animation. The mountain tops are shrouded in robes of white; the tall pines, with their snowy wreaths and pendant icicles, wear a strange and spectral appearance; the babbling brook is frozen into silence, and the lake lies cold and motionless, its polished surface gleaming like burnished steel in the light of day. The scene, now weird and desolate, is no longer beautiful—it has become sublime. The first snows of November soon disappeared, leaving the country open and accessible to travel in every direction. Toward the last of the month the weather became somewhat stormy, and as it closes, at the date of this sketch, the district is covered by snow to the depth of ten or twelve inches.

        The writer feels that he cannot, in justice to the subject which he has ventured to present to the public, conclude this description without an allusion, at least, to the magnificent scenery and glorious summer and autumn climate of Excelsior. He has for several months past been a dweller in the mountains, far removed from the luxurious ease of the cities, and subject to all the privations of life in the wilderness. He finds an ample compensation for any sacrifice of social enjoyment, in the wondrous pictures which memory will retain of Excelsior to the last syllable of recorded life.

        Within the limits of the district are Donner and Crystal lakes. These are on the line of the Central Pacific Railroad, and have been so often described by tourists, that no further sketch is required to attract public attention to their beauties. Some four miles distant from the line of railroad travel, and in the immediate vicinity of the beautiful lake of the meadows, the visitor can find a scene of loveliness and sublimity not surpassed on the habitable globe. Let him, on some dewy morn, climb to the top of Old Man Mountain, or the lights which to the westward, overlook the pleasant village of Meadow Lake. From those rocky battlements the soul expands as it contemplates the beauty and grandeur of nature. Look well—for the picture which spreads before you has been drawn by the hand of an Almighty Artist. In one direction repose a cluster of lakes, whose clear waves mirror the fleeting, fleecy clouds of day—the starlit firmament of night. Their shores, rising into gentle hills, are crowned with stately forests, and decked with flowers as fair as the dews of earth ever nourished. Down the mountain sides roll in silvery threads a thousand tiny streams, finding rest in the bosom of some placid lake, or mingling with the sparkling waters of the rapid rolling Yuba. Glancing in another course, at the base of Old Man Mountain, the dazzled eye beholds a landscape of a sterner character. Huge bowlders of everlasting granite, trees standing apart and in solitary majesty, and frightful, yawning chasms make up a picture, wild, weird and desolate, but grandly sublime. The writer has looked upon the scene at all hours of the day, and at all seasons of the year, and never yet without a feeling of solemn awe pervading his whole being. Perhaps the most appropriate time to view the landscape is when the storm is raging, and the darkness of twilight has cast a somber mantle over the face of nature. At fitful intervals, when the lightning's glare illumes the scenery, and the harsh thunder rolls along the granite peaks of the mountain, one catches for a moment an inspiration which tempts him to exclaim―

                                "The sky is changed; and such a change O night

                                And storm and darkness, ye are wondrous strong—

                                Yet lovely is your strength, as is the light

                                Of a dark eye in woman."

        The beauty of the scenery is not the only, nor perhaps the chief, attraction of Excelsior. The delightful summer and fall climate of the district has excited the notice of all who have visited it during these seasons. In August and September, when the heat of the plains is sultry and oppressive, the temperature of the summit is most refreshing. The physical character of the country contributes to this result. The altitude of the district, placed between seven and eight thousand feet above the level of the ocean, secures it alike against the assaults of pestilence, or the miasmatic vapor of the lowlands. On the other hand, its numerous lakes, rippling streams, and dense forests, not only afford pleasing contrasts to the eye, but diffuse an agreeable moisture through the atmosphere, and. thus take from it that rarity so generally prevalent in mountainous regions. To the invalid in search of vigorous health; to the tourist, longing to sojourn awhile amid scenes of unsurpassed grandeur; to the weary dweller in the city, or on the plains, who would exchange, for a brief season, the conventional restraints of society for the free life of the mountains, Excelsior offers inducements to a visit, beyond any spot in California.

        The reader must pardon this digression. He may at least be assured that the author has no selfish object to subserve in descanting on the merits of a region which none have yet seen without carrying away with them a feeling of true enjoyment. The author has no town lots to sell—no mines in which a "few feet may yet be purchased at a low figure"—not even a desire to see or mingle with the gay denizens of the fashionable world who might be attracted to Excelsior. His avocations and tastes lead him to other pleasures, and far different pursuits.  He has written this sketch, because in the first place it pleased him to write of a theme with which circumstances have made him familiar; and secondly, it will gratify certain friends, whose interests are identified with those of Excelsior, and who naturally wish the district placed in its proper character before the world. The writer has no solicitude as to the future of Meadow Lake district. The period of its prosperity may be delayed; but it will come sooner or later, as certainly as night follows the day. The unreasonable prejudice which ignorance and envy have created against it, are already disappearing before the light of acknowledged facts. One more, and yet another season of toil, of continued and well directed application of skill to the development of its magnificent ledges, and Excelsior will assuredly rank among the richest mining regions of the Pacific coast.

        The mineral region popularly called the Excelsior district, extends over an area some eight miles from north to south, and from five to six miles, between its eastern and western boundaries. The town of Meadow Lake is a prominent point near the northern line of the district. At this place the summit of the Sierra Nevada attains an altitude of some eight thousand feet. Two miles to the southwest of Meadow Lake, a rocky eminence called "Old Man Mountain," raises its bald and storm-beaten cliffs of granite to on elevation of not less than one thousand feet above the surrounding country. Along the canyon, at the eastern base of Old Man Mountain, a branch of the Yuba river finds it way, in a southwesterly course, to the lowlands. The district to the north of Meadow Lake, and indeed in any direction except to the south, is covered with a dense forest, consisting of every variety of pine and cedar. The supply of timber and fuel derivable from this source is deemed, if not inexhaustible, at least amply sufficient for many years to come.

        In the district there are about twenty artificial or natural lakes, and the number could be increased almost indefinitely at a trifling expense. All that is required to form a reservoir is the cost and labor of erecting a stone dam across some valley or ravine. The snows of winter, melting into torrents at the approach of summer, furnish in abundance whatever water is desired. Thus nature has generously supplied the two principal wants of a mining population.

        The gold bearing ledges of Excelsior have been exposed by the soil washing away, leaving them with distinct traces, in many instances, for more than a mile. The general course of the principal lodes is northwest and southeast, although the exceptions are numerous, forming in some instances a vast net work of ledges, as difficult to thread as the labyrinths of ancient Egypt. They all occur in a stratified granitic formation, at many localities devoid of mica or its substitute. The gold bearing vein stone is of the same mineralogical character as the country rock, and is highly charged with iron pyrites, sometimes intermixed with sulphurets of copper, zinc and lead. Auriferous arseniurets of iron also occur in the ledges on the ridge terminated by the eminence called,"Red Mountain," a prominent point opposite to the town of Cisco, on the Central Pacific Railroad. Near the same locality, on the road leading from Cisco to Meadow Lake, a nickel and cobalt vein, bearing arseniuret of iron, intermixed with copper pyrites, is found imbedded in a granitic formation, close to its contact with the slate. The selected ore from this vein is reported to assay, in copper, 14 per cent; in nickel 3 per cent; in cobalt 1½ per cent. Auriferous copper ores assaying up to 15 per cent of the latter metal are also found in the district, and it is proposed by competent parties to erect, at an early day, an experimental furnace on the Rachette plan for their reduction to crude copper. Some four miles to the west of Meadow Lake, in a ledge known as the "Shooting Star," at the depth of forty feet, auriferous ore has been found which

assays as high as 15 per cent of copper, and yields by chemical analysis $40 per ton in silver.

        While the general direction of the Excelsior ledges, as before stated, is northwesterly and southeasterly, and their characteristics are similar, yet for the purpose of classification they may be divided into five series, namely: the California, the Pacific, the Baltimore, the Old Man Mountain and the Enterprise.

        The California series consists of a few prominent ledges whose course is more nearly north and south than any others in the district; among them the Excelsior, California and Empire are very generally and favorably known to the residents of Excelsior. The Pacific series, in which the Knickerbocker, Wisconsin and Pacific are the most prominent ledges, has a course almost due northwest and southeast, and seems, in some instances, to terminate in the California ledge, in other cases to pass on uninterrupted through it and the parallel lodes. The Baltimore series appears to radiate from a point near the canyon in the vicinity of Ossaville, on the Yuba, and is embraced within an angle from the point of radiation of about forty degrees, running from north forty degrees west to north eighty degrees west. The ledges of the Old Man Mountain division radiate from a point near the western extremity of Phoenix Lake, a beautiful sheet of water whose shores are near the base of the mountain, several hundred feet above the altitude of Meadow Lake. In this group are the Mohawk and Montreal, U. S. Grant, Montana, Gold Run, Crescent, and other promising claims. The ledges of Old Man Mountain, with a slight deflection to the north and south, are very nearly in a due eastern and western course. To the southward occurs the Enterprise series of ledges, not yet sufficiently developed to determine with accuracy its course or mineral character. Arsenuirets of iron are found in abundance in the lodes of this division—as high in some instances as 40 per cent.

        The Excelsior ledges are easily traced by an experienced miner in the district, by the dark, reddish appearance of the outcroppings, caused by the oxidation of the iron pyrites encased in them. In width, they range on the surface from five to nine feet, and have, in almost every instance, been found to enlarge as they descend. It is a remarkable fact that not a ledge which can be traced downward twenty feet has yet pinched out below that depth.

        Contrary to the idea generally prevalent, no difficulty is experienced in extracting the gold from the sulphurets. The only difficulty ever encountered originated from the inexperience of the men intrusted in the first mills of the district with the amalgamation of the ores. Their entire knowledge was derived from, and confined to, the quartz mills of the State of Nevada. They were novices in the treatment of auriferous rock, and made their first essays in Excelsior. At present the vein stone is treated for free gold by the common mill process in battery, and on copper plates, and the sulphurets, concentrated from the tailings, are subsequently worked by the chlorine process. The metallurgical works of Messrs. Deetkin & Chappellett, in the vicinity of the town, are the pioneer establishment of the district, and have by repeated experiments, made on different ores, demonstrated that by Plattner's chlorine process the gold can be extracted from any rock in Excelsior, within five per cent of its assayed value. The principal and most serious difficulty, so far, consists in the want of proper concentrators, that will perform a close concentration cheaply, and with a minimum loss. Sulphurets abounding in the ores of this district, and averaging by assay from $50 to $60 per ton in gold, yield scarcely a profit on account of the cost of concentration by manual labor, as practised in other quartz mining districts of California, in which sulphurets, better in quality, but less in quantity, are produced. This difficulty, however, as it is only of a mechanical character, will soon be remedied.

        Allusion has been made to the proportion of sulphurets in the vein stone of Excelsior, and herein consists one of its most remarkable features. While in the mines around Grass Valley and Nevada City ten per cent is considered a large proportion of sulphurets, in this section from 25 to 35 per cent is the average proportion. Their is no doubt but that the reduction of ores can be effected as economically in Meadow Lake as in any other mining district of the county or State. Owing to the abundance of wood and water, the milling process can be carried on at a cost of from two to two and a half dollars per ton. Competent parties who have resided in the district and are thoroughly conversant with the subject, estimate the cost per ton of working concentrated sulphurets, by the chlorine process, at from six to seven dollars.

        The Central Pacific Railroad, by its proximity to the mines, will greatly facilitate all milling and mining operations. What then can prevent the rapid and successful progress of Excelsior? Broad ledges of auriferous rock permeate the district in every direction; magnificent forests crown its mountains; spacious lakes nestle in its valleys, and hundreds of streams dash through its canyons. With all these natural advantages, if the residents of Excelsior will continue the good work of development, so auspiciously commenced during the past summer, a golden harvest of prosperity assuredly awaits them.

        [The winter of 1866-7 was unusually severe in the mountains, and the depth of snow in Meadow Lake district was about twenty-five feet on the level. But notwithstanding the great depth of snow, work was prosecuted in several of the mines without interruption, and communication was kept open with the railroad at Cisco the most of the time.]

LIST OF MILLS IN MEADOW LAKE DISTRICT.

                                                                    No. Engines.             No. Stamps.

Winton                                                                1                             9

U. S. Grant                                                         1                             5

California                                                            1                             8

Excelsior                                                             1                           20

Meadow Lake Reduction Works                        1                           10

Golden Eagle                                                      1                             5

Mohawk & Montreal                                          1                             5

        In addition to the above, the district has furnaces for roasting ores at the Winton mill and the Metallurgical Works, established by Mr. Deetkin, in which the chlorine process has been successfully applied to every variety of ore in Excelsior.

LIST OF THE PRINCIPAL MINES OF MEADOW LAKE

Transcribed by Kathy Sedler

BACK TO NEVADA COUNTY HISTORY INDEX PAGE