Western Washington Chapter of the GPAA News Letter

September 2007

Gold Prospecting and Treasure Hunting stories abound throughout history - some are spooky, some are endearing, but we hope all presented in our news letters will ignite a little bit of Gold Fever in you. Remember Gold is wherever you find it, and the fun is   looking for it.  May you all find many years of good fun and companionship along with the yellow sand.

Stories of Interest:

Excerpt from “Roughing It and the Innocents at home”

by Mark Twain. First published 1872

During his sojourn in the west Twain visited the Angel’s Camp area of the Mother Lode in the winter of 1864 - 1865. While staying in the area he heard a story that became the basis for “The Celebrated Jumping Frog of Calaveras County.” The publication of that story by an east coast magazine in 1865 (then titled “Jim Smiley and His Jumping Frog”) made him famous and was the start of his very successful career.

It was in this Sacramento Valley, just referred to, that a deal of the most lucrative of the early gold mining was done, and you may still see, in places, its grassy slopes and levels torn and guttered and disfigured by the avaricious spoilers of fifteen and twenty years ago. You may see such disfigurements far and wide over California — and in some such places, where only meadows and forests are visible — not a living creature, not a house, no stick or stone or remnant of a ruin, and not a sound, not even a whisper to disturb the Sabbath stillness — you will find it hard to believe that there stood at one time a fiercely-flourishing little city, of two thousand or three thousand souls, with its newspaper, fire company, brass band, volunteer militia, bank, hotels, noisy Fourth of July processions and speeches, gambling halls crammed with tobacco smoke, profanity, and rough-bearded men of all nations and colors, with tables heaped with gold dust sufficient for the revenues of a German principality — streets crowded and rife with business — town lots worth four hundred dollars a front foot — labor, laughter, music, dancing, swearing, fighting, shooting, stabbing — a bloody inquest and a man for breakfast every morning — everything that delights and adorns existence — all the appointments and appurtenances of a thriving and prosperous and promising young city, — and now nothing is left of it all but a lifeless, homeless solitude. The men are gone, the houses have vanished, even the name of the place is forgotten. In no other land, in modern times, have towns so absolutely died and disappeared, as in the old mining regions of California.

  It was a driving, vigorous, restless population in those days. It was a curious population. It was the only population of the kind that the world has ever seen gathered together, and it is not likely that the world will ever see its like again. For, observe, it was an assemblage of two hundred thousand young men — not simpering, dainty, kid-gloved weaklings, but stalwart, muscular, dauntless young braves, brimful of push and energy, and royally endowed with every attribute that goes to make up a peerless and magnificent manhood — the very pick and choice of the world's glorious ones. No women, no children, no gray and stooping veterans, — none but erect, bright-eyed, quick-moving, strong-handed young giants — the strangest population, the finest population, the most gallant host that ever trooped down the startled solitudes of an unpeopled land. And where are they now? Scattered to the ends of the earth — or prematurely aged and decrepit — or shot or stabbed in street affrays — or dead of disappointed hopes and broken hearts — all gone, or nearly all — victims devoted upon the altar of the golden calf — the noblest holocaust that ever wafted its sacrificial incense heavenward. It is pitiful to think upon.

  It was a splendid population — for all the slow, sleepy, sluggish-brained sloths stayed at home — you never find that sort of people among pioneers — you cannot build pioneers out of that sort of material. It was that population that gave to California a name for getting up astounding enterprises and rushing them through with a magnificent dash and daring and a recklessness of cost or consequences, which she bears unto this day — and when she projects a new surprise, the grave world smiles as usual, and says "Well, that is California all over."

  But they were rough in those times! They fairly reveled in gold, whiskey, fights and fandangoes, and were unspeakably happy. The honest miner raked from a hundred to a thousand dollars out of his claim a day, and what with the gambling dens and other entertainments, he hadn't a cent the next morning, if he had any sort of luck. They cooked their own bacon and beans, sewed on their own buttons, washed their own shirts — blue woolen ones; and if a man wanted a fight on his hands without any annoying delay, all he had to do was to appear in public in a white shirt or a stove-pipe hat, and he would be accommodated. For those people hated aristocrats. They had a particular and malignant animosity toward what they called a “biled shirt.”

  It was a wild, free, disorderly, grotesque society! Men — only swarming hosts of stalwart men — nothing juvenile, nothing feminine, visible anywhere!

  In those days miners would flock in crowds to catch a glimpse of that rare and blessed spectacle, a woman! Old inhabitants tell how, in a certain camp, the news went abroad early in the morning that a woman was come! They had seen a calico dress hanging out of a wagon down at the camping-ground — sign of emigrants from over the great plains. Everybody went down there, and a shout went up when an actual, bona fide dress was discovered fluttering in the wind! The male emigrant was visible. The miners said: “Fetch her out!”

  He said: “It is my wife, gentlemen — she is sick — we have been robbed of money,

  provisions, everything, by the Indians — we want to rest.”

  “Fetch her out! We’ve got to see her!”

  “But, gentlemen, the poor thing, she —”

  “FETCH HER OUT”

  He “fetched her out,” and they swung their hats and sent up three rousing cheers and a tiger; and they crowded around and gazed at her, and touched her dress, and listened to her voice with the look of men who listened to a memory rather than a present realty — and they collected twenty-five hundred dollars in gold and gave it to the man, and swung their hats again and gave three more cheers, and went home satisfied.

   Excerpted from Roughing It and the Innocents at home

   Mark Twain

   1882 Geo. Routledge, London

Story as originally written in The Denver Post and retold by Larry Antill (LDMA lifetime member and member of our chapter)about his family as he was growing up in Colorado:

As Larry was growing up he remembers his mother loving to garden and loving to go collect large rocks to decorate the garden.  On one particular day Larry's dad, mom, sister, brother, and himself all got into the truck and went to boulder canyon to collect just such a rock. They stopped at Jamestown to get some stuff to fix a picnic lunch as this was a spur of the moment trip and as Larry's mother was in the store buying the lunch his father asked him where would be a good spot to get some rocks because they had not found very many yet.  Larry suggested that they go to where they had camped in left hand creek canyon with the boy scouts a few months earlier.  They all drove down to that spot and pulled the truck up a wash on the other side of the road from where they camped with the boy scouts. They then made sandwiches and all ate them for lunch and where they parked the truck the wash split off into a Y one to the left and one to the right.  His father had to answer a call of nature and decided to go up the right wash aways.  Upon his arrival back from the nature call he said he found a big piece of white and rose colored quartz rock but the rock was too big to carry, so he got the sledge hammer and chisel from the truck thinking he could break some pieces off of the rock.  At that time Larry's sister was a young teenage girl and thought that those were not activities fitting a teenage girl so she stayed in the pick up truck sulking like most teenagers will.

Larry's father, mother, little brother, and Larry(carrying the sledge hammer) all walked up the wash to the rock, and upon arrival at the rock Larry noticed that the rock was slightly ajar from where it sat in the ravine bank(not knowing if his father had already decided to move it).  Larry then decided to go up the wash aways to an old road that wrapped around the mountain to a couple of abandoned gold mines that he did not have time to explore when there with the boyscouts.

While he was gone his father studied the rock and decided which corner of the rock would be the best to break off, and he procedeed to break the rock.  The rock finally split and when he cleared away the pieces underneath the rock he noticed 5 brown paper rolls at which time Larry's mother said to his father that it was not a uncommon occurance for people to find old dynamite or blasting caps around the old mining areas in Colorado.  His father told his mother and brother to go down the ravine aways so that if they were explosives and they blew up he would be the only one harmed.  His father then picked one of the rolls up and it broke open revealing $20.00 gold pieces.

Larry's mother went down to the pick up truck to find something to put them in as she was calling for Larry.  He was above the truck on the mountain coming down to the truck, when he arrived his mother still had not found anything to put them in and had told Larry what had happened and how she was concerned that someone may have seen them find the gold and how she was worried that someone would try to take them away by force. Larry knew of a burlap sack in a tool box in the truck which his father had some stuff in so he dumped the stuff out into the tool box and carried the sack to his father.

As they got to where Larry's father was he noticed his father holding his baseball cap in one hand, reaching down to the rolls of gold coin, and letting the coins drop one by one into the hat.  They hurried and put all the coins in a burlap sack and left the area for home.

When they arrived at home they counted and recounted the coins and dated them and logged them on a sheet of paper.  The count was 175.  When the excitement wore off they wondered which athorities to report it to.  Larry's father was an animal control officer for Adams county and he said not to notify the sheriff's dept. as he thought they were too corrupt and they would never see the coins again.  Not knowing the true value of the coins it was decided that Larry's mom would call in to her favorite radio talk show program and say that they had found a few gold coins from cleaning out a deceased family members home and would like anyone with the information on their worth to call in.  While they were waiting and listening to the program Larry's mother was looking in the phone book, and under the title of the U.S. Denver mint there was a listing for the Secret Service. So it was agreed that she should call them and she did. While talking to them she was informed that the coins were the familys but they had to bring them in Monday for the Secret Service to hold for 30 days pending a legitimate claim from anyone else.  Meanwhile they heard from a caller on the radio who said the value of the coins depended on whether they were proof, uncirculated, the condition of the coins, the dates, and how many were circulated.

Monday when Larry's father and mother were at the Secret Service office they asked the gentleman they were talking to if they had any information on bank robberies, train robberies, stage coach robberies, etc. dating to the newest date on the coins. The gentleman was also curious and had his secretary go and pull any files they had on gold coins.  When she returned with the files Larry's mother noticed a strange look on the gentlemans face.  Then he said "You are not going to believe this!"  Two years to the very same day that Larry's family found the coins a 17 year old boy found the same amount wrapped in the same paper within a 5 mile radius under a pile of rocks at a construction site he was working at.  They came to the conclusion from the dates of the coins from the 2 finds that some old timer took his gold and buried it because he did not want to turn it in when Roosevelt recalled all the gold.  The 30 days expired and Larry's family got to take the coins home and keep them.

So folks you know the old addage "Gold is where you find it", and there may be more out there just under the next rock.  Happy hunting.

Minutes from initial organizational meeting of the Western Washington chapter of the GPAA September 22, 2007.

Rob Matthews introduced himself and we got to the business of electing officials for a 1 year term.  Election results are as follows:

Elected Officers

President:Rob Matthews

Vice President:Lonnie Meadows

Treasurer:John Dykstra

Secretary:Marcia Antill

Claim Committee Chairman:Jon DeMars

Appointed (non-elected) officers

Claim Inspector:Don Kirst

Equipment Manager:Bela Kovacs

Raffle Coordinator:

Outings Coordinator:

It was decided that the club would meet next on the second Saturday of October at 1 p.m. at the same place as the first meeting with future meeting sites to be decided upon then.

Wes donated a 60 cup coffee pot to the club, Thank you Wes.

The following is a list of thing we compiled that we would like done in the next year:

1.Get more instructions on Jarpa permits.

2.Include families and children on outings.

3.Share our knowledge with members.

4.Have 15 minutes each meeting devoted to demonstrations and learning.

5.Have outings geared to all ages and experience levels.

6.Have instruction on how to read claims guide maps and find claims.

7.Share expertise from club members with new members.

8.Get resources coalition to talk to us about what they do.

9.Do rock hounding and metal detecting outings in the off season.

Please remember to fill in all your holes and don’t leave messes.  Pick up trash even if it is not yours.

Website to get info is www.goldprospectors.org under forums.

We had about 82 people attend the first meeting and the money taken in from the raffle was counted by the Treasurer and witnessed by the President and Secretary.  The money count was $321.00, which was given to the Treasurer until such time as he and the President could get together to start a bank account for the chapter.

Thank you to Rob Matthews and his wife for the cookies and the coffee, and for taking the initiative to bring us all together to form a new chapter.

I will be putting out a monthly news letter to all who want one so please be sure to sign the list and include either an address or an e-mail address so I can send those out to you.  I would perfere to send them via e-mail for all those who have an e-mail address as I will be paying for the paper, ink, envelopes and postage myself, but will also send them via regular mail for all those who want them sent that way.  Also if anyone has any news for the news letter please submitt it to me by the end of the month or at the meeting, my e-mail address is fairytale_nightmares@yahoo.com 

Prepared by Marcia Antill

Secretary