A GOLD HUNTER'S EXPERIENCE
BY CHALKLEY J. HAMBLETON
CHICAGO
PRINTED FOR PRIVATE CIRCULATION
1898
I have often been asked to write an account of myPike's Peak Expedition in search of gold. The followingattempt has been made up partly from memory and partlyfrom old letters written at the time to my sister inthe east.
C. J. H.
A Gold Hunter's Experience
Early in the summer of 1860 I had a bad attack of gold fever. In Chicagothe conditions for such a malady were all favorable. Since the panic of1857 there had been three years of general depression, money was scarce,there was little activity in business, the outlook was discouraging, andI, like hundreds of others, felt blue.
Gold had been discovered in the fall of 1858 in the vicinity of Pike'sPeak, by a party of Georgian prospectors, and for several yearsafterward the whole gold region for seventy miles to the north wascalled "Pike's Peak." Others in the East heard of the gold discoveriesand went West the next spring; so that[Pg 6] during the summer of 1859 agreat deal of prospecting was done in the mountains as far north asDenver and Boulder Creek.
Those who returned in the autumn of that year, having perhaps claims andmines to sell, told large stories of their rich finds, which grew largeras they were repeated, amplified and circulated by those who dealt inmining outfits and mills. Then these accounts were fed out to the publicdaily in an appetizing way by the newspapers. The result was that by thenext spring the epidemic became as prevalent in Chicago as cholera was afew years later.
Four of the fever stricken ones, Enos Ayres, T. R. Stubbs, John Sollittand myself, formed a partnership, raised about $9,000 and went to workto purchase the necessary outfit for gold mining. Mr. Ayres furnished alarger share of the capital than any of the others[Pg 7] and was not to gowith the expedition, but might join us the following year. Mr. Stubbsand I were both to go, while Mr. Sollitt was to be represented by asubstitute, a relative whose name was also John Sollitt, and who hadbeen a farmer and butcher and was supposed to know all about oxen. Mr.Stubbs was a good mechanic, an intelligent, well-read man, and ten yearsbefore had been to California in search of gold.
Our outfit consisted of a 12-stamp quartz mill with engine and boiler,and all the equipments understood to be necessary for extracting goldfrom the rock, including mining tools, powder, quicksilver, copper plateand chemicals; also a supply of provisions for a year. The staplearticles of the latter were flour, beans, salt pork, coffee and sugar.Then we had rice, cornmeal, dried fruit, tea, bacon and a barrel ofsyrup; besides a good supply of hardtack,[Pg 8] crackers and cheese for usewhile crossing the plains, when a fire for cooking might not be foundpracticable. These things were all purchased in Chicago, together withthe fourteen wagons necessary to carry them across the plains. Then allwere shipped by rail to St. Joseph, Mo., where the oxen were to bepurchased. The entire outfit when loaded on the cars, weighedtwenty-four tons.
I stayed in Chicago till the last to help purchase and forward theoutfit and supplies, while Stubbs and Sollitt (the substit