Vignette Vol.1 No.7
[Resource: BEHIND THESE MOUNTAINS ]
Berray, Caspar and Jim
Late 1800s. Noxon. Excerpt--Three hundred and fifty mining claims, dating from 1887, were recorded in the 62-square mile area located on the Idaho-Montana border between Lightning Creek and Bull River. Many mining claims were in the southern Clark Fork Mining District, plus deposits near Spar Lake.(43) Occurrences of gold, silver, lead, zinc and copper had been reported.
Caspar "Cap" Berray and his brother, Jim met a placer miner who had been shot at repeatedly during the Coeur d'Alene miners' war. The yarn swapping helped prevent them from getting the mining fever.(35) but the placer miner was still looking for trouble.
At Noxon, Jim Freeman, Jim Miller, and Clark recorded the first mines in the area. Freeman's prospect was at the head of Copper Gulch, Clark mined at the head of Rock Creek, and Jim Miller developed his mining prospect on Pilgrim Creek, about three miles southwest of Noxon.
This mine in Rock Creek was to the left of the Salisbury Mine, ca. early 1900s. Identity of miners and exact location of the mine are lost to history, Earl Engle family picture, courtesy Stewart and Agnes Hampton collection.
Two mine dumps in the Pilgrim Creek area are on the north side of the road, opposite the Stover, or Mountain Home Ranch, on Pilgrim Creek. The abandoned adits are located about on the section line between Sec. 26 and Sec. 35, T. 26 N., R. 33 W. The sum of the work Jim Miller did on another claim, located on Prospect Creek near Thompson Falls, Montana, is recorded in Bulletin 34, May 1964, by Montana Bureau of Mines and Geology, Butte, Montana.
Downstream from Noxon, at Smeads, a man named Haycock now owned the shingle mill. William H. Smead had built. He was peg-legged, having lost his limb in a mining explosion. A dynamite accident had blown off both his hands and blinded one eye. His partner took care of him just like a baby. They had an old team and continued to prospect.
Most of the miners left the mineral outcroppings in the Clark's Fork Valley. The initial frenzy resulting from early prospectors' discoveries in these Bitterroot and Cabinet Mountains had begun to fizzle. They had proven to be sporadic and misleading because numerously faulted rock formations had broken the minerals into scattered, unreliable veins. Rich minerals ended after only a few feet of exploration; dashing a prospector's first giddy belief that unending wealth would be easily taken.
Captain Peter Weare and his wife, Emma, came to Noxon in 1900. Weare, a 50-year-old veteran of the Indian Wars in Nebraska wanted to prospect the mountains around Noxon. Emma was 45. When they came to Noxon they left behind two grown sons, Major and Clifford R., who, with his own family, was living in Minon, Wisconsin, working in the lumber business.
Cabin at Rock Lake Meadows is believed to be built by Earl Engle, courtesy Wallace "Wally" Gamble collection.
Visit: Five Star Review
[Resource is also available free online @ Behind These Mountains, Volume I ]
Please visit often, and share with friends and acquaintances. If you find anyone with family ties, please leave a comment and contact information and share a memory to grow your family tree!
[Resource: BEHIND THESE MOUNTAINS ]
Berray, Caspar and Jim
Late 1800s. Noxon. Excerpt--Three hundred and fifty mining claims, dating from 1887, were recorded in the 62-square mile area located on the Idaho-Montana border between Lightning Creek and Bull River. Many mining claims were in the southern Clark Fork Mining District, plus deposits near Spar Lake.(43) Occurrences of gold, silver, lead, zinc and copper had been reported.
Caspar "Cap" Berray and his brother, Jim met a placer miner who had been shot at repeatedly during the Coeur d'Alene miners' war. The yarn swapping helped prevent them from getting the mining fever.(35) but the placer miner was still looking for trouble.
At Noxon, Jim Freeman, Jim Miller, and Clark recorded the first mines in the area. Freeman's prospect was at the head of Copper Gulch, Clark mined at the head of Rock Creek, and Jim Miller developed his mining prospect on Pilgrim Creek, about three miles southwest of Noxon.
This mine in Rock Creek was to the left of the Salisbury Mine, ca. early 1900s. Identity of miners and exact location of the mine are lost to history, Earl Engle family picture, courtesy Stewart and Agnes Hampton collection.
Two mine dumps in the Pilgrim Creek area are on the north side of the road, opposite the Stover, or Mountain Home Ranch, on Pilgrim Creek. The abandoned adits are located about on the section line between Sec. 26 and Sec. 35, T. 26 N., R. 33 W. The sum of the work Jim Miller did on another claim, located on Prospect Creek near Thompson Falls, Montana, is recorded in Bulletin 34, May 1964, by Montana Bureau of Mines and Geology, Butte, Montana.
Downstream from Noxon, at Smeads, a man named Haycock now owned the shingle mill. William H. Smead had built. He was peg-legged, having lost his limb in a mining explosion. A dynamite accident had blown off both his hands and blinded one eye. His partner took care of him just like a baby. They had an old team and continued to prospect.
Most of the miners left the mineral outcroppings in the Clark's Fork Valley. The initial frenzy resulting from early prospectors' discoveries in these Bitterroot and Cabinet Mountains had begun to fizzle. They had proven to be sporadic and misleading because numerously faulted rock formations had broken the minerals into scattered, unreliable veins. Rich minerals ended after only a few feet of exploration; dashing a prospector's first giddy belief that unending wealth would be easily taken.
Captain Peter Weare and his wife, Emma, came to Noxon in 1900. Weare, a 50-year-old veteran of the Indian Wars in Nebraska wanted to prospect the mountains around Noxon. Emma was 45. When they came to Noxon they left behind two grown sons, Major and Clifford R., who, with his own family, was living in Minon, Wisconsin, working in the lumber business.
Cabin at Rock Lake Meadows is believed to be built by Earl Engle, courtesy Wallace "Wally" Gamble collection.
Visit: Five Star Review
[Resource is also available free online @ Behind These Mountains, Volume I ]
PDF copies of Behind These Mountains, Vols. I, II & III are available on a DVD - $50 S&H included, plus author's permission to print or have printed buyers personal copy of each of the approximately 1200 page books which contain about 1,000 photographs from homesteaders personal albums.
.
Order here:
Mona Leeson Vanek
13505 E Broadway Ave., Apt. 243
Spokane Valley, WA 99216
Email: mtscribbler@air-pipe.com
TO HAVE AN EXCERPT PUBLISHED IN BYGONE MONTANANS ABOUT A PERSON WHO MAY BE MENTIONED IN THIS REGIONAL MONTANA TRILOGY Email mtscribbler@air-pipe.com
Please visit often, and share with friends and acquaintances. If you find anyone with family ties, please leave a comment and contact information and share a memory to grow your family tree!
