Early Annals of Downieville and Vicinity — Part 6

Reprinted with permission by the Sierra County Historical Society from The Sierran of April 1971, Vol 3., No.1

This week we bring you more about the history of the Kanaka Creek diggings as found in Wm. Pickiepoche’s transcription of reminiscences from a gold rush miner, first published in the Tuolumne Curier in 1860.

Uncredited artwork closing this article in The Sierran of April 1971

Whilst Cunningham was on the [Kanaka] Creek, he had a single-handed fight with a grizzly bear; coming off the victor, after a hard fight, and having completely used a Mississippi yager [Does anyone have an idea for what weapon Cunningham used?] on this ursine majesty’s cranium. Cunningham was completely stripped of his clothing, and so far exhausted that he lid down to die on the side-hill, but was happily rescued by some miners who had been attracted that way by rapid shots he had fired. They carefully packed him into camp, together with the bear, where great rejoicings were made for the victor. Cunningham had the skin dressed, and made into a coat. He also went home and returned again, but his luck was gone; he never made much afterwards, and became nearly blind. Others also made rich strikes, especially the three brothers Rapp.

In July 1850, a piece of quartz and gold, weighing nearly thirty pounds troy, was discovered in an old deserted prospecting pit on French Gulch, by two sailors, an American and an Englishman. They had been but two or three days there at the time. Not waiting for a second strike they returned below to San Francisco, paying their way by exhibiting the piece for $1 per head. This piece at the time was supposed to the largest piece ever found in California, and the second largest on record in the world. On arriving at New York, the partners quarrelled about the ownership of the piece, each claiming the whole. They went to law, and kept the suit going until the piece and all each had made was used up in costs of suit. The Creek kept on paying exceedingly well for several years; although nothing of much importance occurred until the 14th October, 1854, when the writer and four others took out one boulder, weighing 39 pounds avoirdupois, which yielded $4,730.50 cts.

Big lumps now became common all this Fall. Mrs. Smith, of French Ravine, finding one weighing ninety-six and one quarter pounds avoirdupois and sold it to Adams and Co., Bankers at Marysville, for $10, 500, shortly before their suspension. This piece was found 28th October 1853. These strikes being noised about, a large settlement of Mexicans, Peruvians, Chilians, and other Spaniards was soon collected on the Creek. They soon out-numbered the white population, and began to manifest their particular proclivities for plunder, murder, horse stealing, and all kinds of rascality. Things went on thus until the 12th day of August, 1855, when Andrew Mauer, an old Dutchman, one of the police of the Creek, was inhumanly murdered. Demands were made of the Spanish Community to deliver up the murderer; this being denied the whites from the surrounding camps assembled, burned up the Spanish town, and drove the Greasers out of the County. Certain papers of the day without knowing the facts, made statements about as near true, as might be expected from the Prince of Lies.

In the summer of 1854 two or three important discoveries were made in the neighborhood of this Creek. The leading ones of these, were the hill diggings of La Fayette, and Mount Vernon Hill, situated on opposite sides of the Creek. In the winter of 1854 Samuel Carr discovered diggings on his ravine, near Sparks Flat. In the winter of 1858 one of the richest Quartz leads was struck, on a spur of the hill above Sparks Flat, by some Mexican pacers who were weather bound there, and had formed a large camp. This last, was one of the richest strikes ever made in this section of country, and still continues to pay well.

(Punctuation taken from the original.)

Notes on the Author — Wm. Pickiepoche. William Pickiepoche is the pen name of a mining engineer, a New Englander and graduate of Harvard College and California Institute of Technology, who practices his profession in the Mother Lode Country. He has been in and out of the Alleghany area for the past 30 years and is well versed in the lore of that region. He is an occasional contributor of historical articles to the “Mountain Messenger,” and also edits a local historical quarterly.

Next week, Pickiepoche brings us an account of the "hill diggings" boom of the mid-1850s and discovery of the Great Blue Lead within southwestern Sierra County.