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Identifier: wwu:28726
Title: View looking south on Elk Street (now State Street), Bellingham
Date: 1888
Description: Caption, partially visible, on front in ink: "1888". Store front on both sides - the street is plank and a plank sidewalk is on each side of the street. Among the businesses: DeChamplain & Thomas Real Estate/Insurance; Hardware (Morse?); Globe Clothing House - Furnishing Goods; Sehome (Hotel?) Dirt piles are in front of several buildings on the east side of the street. A few people are visible in the distance as is a carriage. The street heads up the hill to the south.
Digital Collection: Biery (Galen) Papers and Photographs
Type of resource: still image
Object custodian: Center for Pacific Northwest Studies
Related Collection: Galen Biery papers and photographs
Local Identifier: gb3507

Identifier: wwu:28676
Title: The 'Geneva' - First Steamboat on Lake Whatcom - 1888
Date: 1888
Description: Caption on front in pencil: "The 'Geneva' - First Steamboat on Lake Whatcom - 1888" Three men and a woman stand in the bow; two men are in the stern, one standing and one seated. One is probably capt. George Jenkins who owned and operated the 40 foot passenger launch. The boat is alongside the dock where two women and four children are standing. To the right of the Geneva, a man sits in a dugout canoe.
Digital Collection: Biery (Galen) Papers and Photographs
Type of resource: still image
Object custodian: Center for Pacific Northwest Studies
Related Collection: Galen Biery papers and photographs
Local Identifier: gb3551

Identifier: wwu:27399
Title: More than fifty young students pose with teacher at center outside schoolhouse
Date: 1870-1888
Description: Caption partially visible on front: "Peiser...Cor. Second and marion Streets, Seattle, W.T."
Digital Collection: Biery (Galen) Papers and Photographs
Type of resource: still image
Object custodian: Center for Pacific Northwest Studies
Related Collection: Galen Biery papers and photographs
Local Identifier: gb2255

Identifier: wwu:29277
Title: M.L. Stangroom Reminiscence
Date: 1888~/1913~, 1888-1913
Description: Handwritten reminiscences of Marc La Riviere Stangroom.
Digital Collection: Stangroom (Marc LaRiviere) Papers
Type of resource: Text
Object custodian: Center for Pacific Northwest Studies
Related Collection: M.L. (Marc La Riviere) Stangroom papers
Local Identifier: stangroomrem1_3
Text preview (might not show all results): Transcript: stangroomrem1_3 [Page 1] Dear Matthew, Reminiscences of an "Old Timer" showing, among other things, some instances of the uncertainties of mining on the Pacific Coast in the early fifties – and later! Early in 1855, I came to California, as engineer for an English company to br
Transcript text preview (might not show all results): Transcript: stangroomrem1_3 [Page 1] Dear Matthew, Reminiscences of an "Old Timer" showing, among other things, some instances of the uncertainties of mining on the Pacific Coast in the earl
Show moreTranscript: stangroomrem1_3 [Page 1] Dear Matthew, Reminiscences of an "Old Timer" showing, among other things, some instances of the uncertainties of mining on the Pacific Coast in the early fifties – and later! Early in 1855, I came to California, as engineer for an English company to bring water from the South Yuba River, a large stream having its source high up on the western slope of the Sierra Nevada Range of mountains, to supply the deep gravel mines of Nevada County with sufficient water to enable them to be worked on a large scale, with large quantities of water delivered under a high pressure (or head) through wrought iron pipes instead of small quantities (as supplied until then) at a low pressure through canvas hose. During that year I necessarily became personally familiar with the topography of the central portion of the Sierra Nevadas lying in the counties of Nevada, Sierra, and Placer, from the foothills in the Sacramento Valley to their summit at an elevation of 6000 to 10,000 feet, and embracing a territory of 100 miles square – or more –. Their summit was then the dividing line between the State of California and the Territory of Utah but is (now) that between California and the State (formerly Territory) of Nevada, which was cut off from Utah in 1888 soon after the discovery of the Comstock Lode, which is, with some other mining districts since discovered, within its boundaries, all of which are tributary to California. [Page 2] Being fond of exploring and "roughing it," I went, in the summer of 1856, as one of a party of 14 (10 men and 4 women, one of whom soon afterwards became my wife) on horseback and with pack mules (from our home in Nevada City) on a pleasure trip across the summit and down the eastern slope of the mountains, following the Truckee River 100 miles or so from its source at the north end of Lake Bigler (since called Truckee Lake and now Lake Tahoe), a beautiful sheet of water of great depth, 50 miles long by 20 wide, lying (at an altitude of 6000 feet) between the snowcapped summits of the range (which at that point is double) which tower 3000 to 5000 feet above it. We followed the river to the point where it sinks (as do all the streams which rise on the eastern slope of the Sierra Nevadas) in the great central basin of Utah (lying between the Sierra Nevada Range on the west and the Rocky Mountains on the east) in which the Great Salt Lake and other smaller alkaline lakes or saturated deposits are caused by the water flowing in the rivers being more or less evaporated by the dry heat of the arid plains. Many of these alkaline deposits have since been, and are now being, used for commercial purposes. We were well mounted and equipped, and often found emigrant roads or Indian trails to follow, making the trip generally an easy and always a pleasant one. On our return we followed the Carson River (another large stream running down into the desert) up to the eastern base [FOOTNOTE: 1. The Piutes (Pah Utah Indians), who had been giving considerable trouble to the white immigrants passing through their territory were all round us and had to be watched to keep them from stealing stock and poking their noses into the women's tent, etc., but by treating them kindly (but firmly) and mounting guard over our stock at night, we got along very well with them.] of the mountains and crossed their eastern summit to the south end of the Lake Bigler and camped there, intending to stay and rest [Page 3] for a day or two – That evening, however, some Mormon packers (who had been to Sacramento to get provisions and were taking them to Salt Lake) reached our camp and informed us that Nevada City, a mining town of about 2500 inhabitants, had been burned to the ground a few days before and that only 4 brick buildings with iron shutters (out of 40 supposed to be fireproof) had escaped and not one of the several hundred wooden ones. We saddled up without much loss of time, rode all night and next day, and did not "draw rein" until we reached our respective piles of brickbats or burnt lumber. Some of us who had no buildings to lose had money loaned out and secured by mortgage; but, as the stone courthouse was gutted (with all the county records and its other contents), any attempt to collect such debts would have been an empty farce. So, as what can't be cured must be endured, we at once went to work to help build a new town, without anyone thinking of "crying over spilt milk"! For such was the general spirit of California in those days! In the summer of the next year (1857), two men of my acquaintance, who had "crossed the plains" in 1850, told me and some others that his party had camped on the north bank of Truckee River and had "panned out" (at the foot of a hill covered with broken quartz)"dirt which went over a dollar to the pan," but that they were too crazy to reach California to stop "en route" for any prospect, however good it might be. [Page 4] I thought I recognized from his description a hill covered with quartz on the north bank of Truckee River, which I had seen the year before but (not then knowing much about mining) had not paid any attention to. Four of us started immediately on foot with two pack mules to find and prospect the hill in question, but, notwithstanding my feeling so sure of being able to go straight to it, we were unable to find it and returned "res ineffectæ." A year later (in June 1858) the first silver-bearing lode in the United States was discovered in Utah, less than a mile from where we had camped on the Truckee River, and it soon became world widely known as "the Comstock." In returning from our "wild goose chase," we started west from the Truckee River to cross the summit of the Sierras by an Indian trail, so plain as to promise well for its continuance. After a day's travel on it, however, we reached a high altitude at which, although it was in August, there was snow several feet deep, entirely obliterating all signs of the trail, which had evidently not been used that season. The surface of the snow was so soft that we sank deep at every step and had considerable difficulty in getting our small-footed animals through it. To do so at all we had to improvise snowshoes out of a blanket for them and to carry their loads ourselves, piece by piece, several miles and making several trips in the two days it took us to [Page 5] reach bare ground on the west side of the summit. We found ourselves at the head of a deep, rough gorge or cañon, which proved to be the north fork of the American River (one of the large streams running down the west slope of the Sierras to the valley of the Sacramento River. It took us two days to get the mules over rough and precipitous ground at the head of this canyon, and at evening of the second day, we came to a very narrow backbone or ridge dividing it from the middle fork of the same river. Following this ride down a short distance, we again found the trail (which we had lost in the snow) coming to and running down it at a point (as we afterward ascertained) about 40 miles above Michigan Bluffs, at that time the highest mining camp in Placer County. Looking across the ridge down to the middle fork, we saw, about 3000 feet below us (what we afterwards found were known as the "Big Meadows"), an extensive river bottom covered with grass over knee deep. As our mules had been on very short feed of scattered bunch grass for some days, we thought we would give them a feast and a rest, so we went down into the valley to camp and turned them loose (merely dragging their ropes), taking for granted they would not stray away from the good feed. We were, however, much mistaken! On waking at sunrise the next morning, there was no sign of them in the valley, and we found their tracks and the marks of their dragging ropes following to the top of the ridge, [Page 6] those they had made in coming down the evening before. They knew better than we did how much sweeter to them was the scanty bunch grass than the coarse meadow grass – "Et hinc illa lachrymal!" Two of us started up the hill on their tracks, thinking we would soon overtake them, but we were badly fooled, as we had to climb to the top of the ridge before we found one of them that had got her rope wound round a manzanita bush so as to hold her fast. This was close to the trail running down the ridge, and while my companion took the mule we caught back to camp, I followed the track of the other down the ridge thinking I would soon overtake him; but I was again fooled, as circumstances showed that they must have started back very soon after reaching the meadows on the previous evening and have traveled all night. The brute had apparently sauntered along on the trail, leaving it occasionally on one side or the other to nibble, but always returning to it, as the sides of the backbone were very steep and rugged within a short distance. Counting on always picking up his track each time he returned to the trail, I kept along it for several hours, but finally lost all traces of him. Supposing that I might not be very far from some mining camp or mountain stock range and that he would probably work his way down into them, I kept on until about noon, when I found in a small grassy flat some butchers [Page 7] who were herding cattle to supply meat to the mining camp of Michigan Bluffs (about 20 miles farther down the ridge). They promised to catch my mule if he strayed (as was probable) into their band of cattle, and asked me to take potluck with them, which I did without much persuasion as I had left camp without breakfast. While I was taking the sharp edge off my appetite, one of their companions, who had gone down to "the Bluffs" the day before, returned with a sack of flour on his shoulder and with the news that the town had been completely burned down the day before. Although I had never been there, I had a friend there engaged in a gold dust buying and banking business, and I took a notion (Semel insanivimus omnes!) as I had only walked 20 or 25 miles since dawn and was in light marching order (trousers, flannel shirt, knife, pistol, and pipe) to walk on down to see the ashes, which I did. My friend treated us handsomely, dividing some coffee and crackers (just came in) and his blanket with me, and I slept the sleep of the just (without rocking!) The next morning I started out early for my forty-mile walk back to camp. Climbing the ridge out of town, I overtook a miner who told me of a rich strike of gravel just made, 5 or 6 miles up the ridge, which I could see by going with him along a mining ditch past it, and said that I could easily re-ascend the ridge from there. I did so and became as much exerted over the discovery [Page 8] as were the many men who were already on the ground "locating extensions" of the new discovery. Without loss of time, I got back to camp that evening, and the next day we walked down to the new discoveries and located and "staked out" claims for ourselves and some of our friends. The auriferous gravels of the Pacific Crest may be divided into two distinct classes: 1?. The shallow deposits of gravel in the beds of existing rivers or smaller streams caused by the recent erosion of the strata through which they ran in the form of quartz veins. 2?. The deep deposits of gravel formed in large rivers [over] many geological ages, often containing gold-bearing quartz, or free gold, which has by long attrition been rounded and freed from its quartz matrix. The greater part of these ancient deposits of gravel have been subsequently covered by lava or (in miners' parlance) cement, through which the recent rivers have cut their way, exposing on their banks sometimes the lava, sometimes the gravel, and sometimes the slatey or schistose formation underlying them, through which the early rivers had cut channels (which latter is called by miners "the Bed Rock"). In the present case, the gold-bearing gravels were exposed on two projecting points (about 3 miles apart) of the banks of the deep gorge and stream (called "Eldorado Canyon") several hundred feet above its bed. They proved rich and were being washed down and the gold extracted from them, but hydraulic process, i.e., by streams of water under high pressure being brought to bear on the gravel, washing it onto "sluice boxes" in which, under the action of the running water, the gold (being the heaviest) is separated from the gravel and sinks to the bottom and is "saved," [Page 9] while the lighter material passes on and is carried by the water back into the ravine or cañon. Between these two points the old channel was naturally supposed to be in the bedrock, where it could be reached by tunnels run from the exposed surface of the hill toward it, and, through the rimrock, into the channel or old river bed. According to mining regulations and customs, we located (on the supposed course of the channel) 100 feet in length on it for discovery and 100 feet for each locator or claimant, each claim extending in width as near as could be guessed at right angle to the course of the channel to the center of the river dividing Eldorado Cañon from Volcano Cañon (a deep ravine on the other side of the ridge). In this case the length of our claims was from 1000 to 1500 feet, and if the channel across our ground had been straight, a few hundred feet of tunnel would have reached and enabled us to work it to advantage by the system of underground or drift mining, which consists in taking out by pick and shovel the gravel lying a few feet above bedrock or as much of it (generally, 4 or 5 feet in depth) as should be found to pay and taking it out in cars to the mouth of the tunnel, where it is "washed" and the gold separated from the gravel and "saved." [Page 10] Having determined the best point at which to start the tunnel to be run to reach the channel supposed to be on our ground, I left my companions to begin work on it, went down to Michigan Bluffs to arrange for supplies being sent to them, and, having a presentiment that my wife in Nevada City (about 70 miles roundabout by road but only about 40 in an air line across 3 deep canyons) was ill, I shouldered my blankets and walked over there across country. Thus endeth the 1st chapter! We ran the tunnel for seven years, at a cost of several thousand dollars, until we had to stop it for want of means. This was also the case with companies on each side of us which ran their tunnels as we did a thousand or two feet or more before abandoning them. Two or three years later, some miners sank a shaft on the other side of the ridge and struck there the channel we had expected to find in our ground, and it proved as rich as we had hoped to find it. At about the same time, the channel was struck very rich on our side of the ridge a mile or so beyond our claim, so it would appear as though the channel had adopted that curved line of beauty for our especial benefit (?). My only consolation [Page 11] in the whole matter lay in the hopes that the mule, which had been the cause of it all, got fast round some bush and starved to death, as was probably the case, for we never heard of him again. "Requiescat en pace!" "Thus endeth the first chapter"! It changed, however, the entire current of my life, as to be near my claim I moved with my wife from Nevada City to Michigan Bluffs, where my oldest son was born and my wife died, and where I stayed mining and practicing my profession as an engineer and surveyor until the discovery of the Comstock in the summer of 1858. In 1857 and 8, some of the advanced guard of the prospectors – consisting, generally, of one or two miners, with pick, shovel, pan and a burro (donkey) – pushed forward from the California mines to, and across, the summit, and worked their way down to the Carson River and its tributaries. On one of the latter they found, on the eastern slope of Mt. Davidson, surface gravel which paid to carry down to some of the small creeks running into Carson River, where they panned out from it enough gold to make "good wages" (not less than $4 or $5 per day). Two of them (Aleck and Billy Henderson) were on what was then, and is still, called Gold Hill, where the ore contained free gold with little admixture of silver and were making good wages. (Later they and others became rich from the yields of the Gold Hill group of mines.) Two young men (the Froesch Brothers) had discovered during the [Page 12] previous autumn some free gold, which one of them took over the mountains to California late in the season and over deep snow. After reaching the upper part of Placer County, he lost the use of both eyes and died from frost and exposure. The other one died soon afterwards, and their discovery was not at that time traced to its source. In the spring of 1858, a man named Comstock was working on the croppings of the Ledge (to which his name was given later). He sold out his claim to some other prospectors for an old horse on which he crossed over to California and became lost to history. The prospectors on the "Comstock Lode" were much bothered with what they called "the black stuff" which, being mined with the quartz and dirt, and being very heavy, made it difficult for them (in panning out) to separate it from (and to save) the gold. A Mexican prospector named Maldonado came there and thought he recognized it as being rich silver ore carrying gold (sulphmets) such as he had seen in the mines of Mexico. He located a claim (1400 feet) on the lode and sent some of the "black stuff" over to Nevada City and Gran Valley (the two nearest mining towns, both in Nevada County, California) for assay. Assays of it made by Melville Attwood, Mining Engineer, who was superintendent of the Aqua Fria (or Gold Hill) English Mining Company in Gran Valley, and also by Julius Ott, assayer in Nevada City, gave similar results, showing values in gold and [Page 13] silver of over $1500 per ton. Attwood at once arranged to send Judge Walsh (Sec'y of the G. H. M. Co.) and Joe Woodworth (a mining surveyor connected with them) over the mountains with the least possible delay, to make locations for their joint benefit. On that day I had ridden over from Michigan Bluffs in the adjoining county (about 40 miles from Nevada) to keep an appointment to examine and report on a mining and water proposition for which report the owners had been waiting patiently 2 or 3 weeks. As I rode through the valley into Nevada City (the towns are only 4 miles apart), I met Walsh and Woodworth on horseback, getting ready to start over the mountains to the new discovery. Knowing how useful my knowledge of the mountains would be in enabling them to get there as quick as possible and ahead of the hordes of men who would be sure to rush over as soon as the facts leaked out, they strongly urged me to join them, and they were right, for within a few days every trail and road leading across the Sierras was (figuratively speaking) black with the crowds on foot or on horseback, all eager to outstrip the others in the "search for the Golden Fleece." However much I wanted to go, I could, of course, not disappoint the men who had been patiently waiting for me so long, and with much regret I had [Page 14] to decline going until after I had kept my engagement. They arrived on the ground in time to make a bargain with Maldonado and others to sell them, for $10,000 (which Walsh immediately went over to Sacramento to borrow), 200 feet at the south end, and 1000 feet at the north end of his claim (which he called the Ophir), he retaining the 200 feet between the two on which he was working. This latter proved extremely rich and became known as the Mexican claim. They located several claims on Cedar Hill extending northwards from the North Ophir, but none of them (nor the North Ophir itself) ever paid the expense of sinking on them until, many years later in 1878, a small body of good ore was found in the Sierra Nevada claim, one of the northern locations, which caused an excitement which, however, lasted but a short time, and, after declaring a few dividends, it relapsed permanently into its old habit (according to the custom, with a few exceptions, on the Comstock) of levying assessments or, as we called them, "Irish dividends," from which pernicious practice they have never since departed. Within a few months of the purchase from Maldonado, Judge Walsh sold his one half of the $10,000 purchase of the Ophir claim for $60,000 in cash, which he took down to Mexico. He lost it all there in mining speculations and died poor. His partner, [Page 15] Joe Woodworth, retained his interest in the Ophir for two or three years, during which time the claim, having been incorporated in San Francisco, and having a large body of ore (50 to 60 feet wide) between its walls and several hundred feet deep, which proved extremely rich, large dividends were declared. The number of shares in each company, which was originally one share for each lineal foot of ground on the ledge, was increased almost without limit to bring them within reach of every laborer and servant girl in the state as well as the middle classes and capitalists. Until then, the gamble of mining was exclusively in the supposed actual values of mining properties, but from that time on it consisted largely in the manipulation of the stock market. Joe Woodworth received large amounts of money, running up in the millions, from dividends declared by the Ophir Company and still larger amounts by the purchase in the market of dividends in that company in advance of their being declared. He was, for a while, a very rich man and built in San Francisco a palatial residence larger and more expensive than any on the Pacific Coast. He played, however, his favorite game of buying dividends on a very large scale in advance of their being declared or earned once too often, and he also died a poor man. The enclosed print (which please return to me) is taken from a reliable work on gold and silver mining published in New York a year or two ago. It shows in black the shafts sunk on the two and a half miles of [Page 16] the Comstock Lode, which has been worked out, and the etched lines show all of the ore bodies that have been found within that distance to the depth of 2000 feet below the surface. On the left side of the picture, the vertical lines filled in with pencil show the Midas or Sylvester Belcher claim which was [synegated to sold?] to me at the extreme southern end of the Belcher, which I knew to be a good one, and the north end of the over[man?], which has, to my knowledge, a fairly good body of ore. I never got the cost of the candles out of it though I and my partners spent more thousands on it than you would believe possible and left us with a debt that broke us all up. "And of such is the Kingdom of Heaven!" Selah! M. L. Stangroom
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