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HISTORY
El
Dorado County, California.
LOCAL
HISTORY.
COLD
SPRINGS
The first diggings at this place were discovered
sometime in 1849, and soon a road was laid down to connect the camp both
ways with Placerville and Coloma, which became the main traveled road
between both these places; Cold Springs was the half-way station on this
road. The condition of life and existence, the natural spring water, had
caused the start of several other camps in the direct neighborhood, which
became named after their springs; just the same with Cold Springs, which
derived its name from a spring of cold and good water, located near the
edge of Cold Spring creek, in the upper end of the town. This camp soon
became a great attraction, and the flat below town, in the Summer of 1850,
was settled with from 600 to 700 miners who camped in tents or slept under
the trees, and only those who intended to stay for the winter season made
arrangements to build cabins. They all were working in the bed of the
creek, where a mining claim then was called 15 feet square. So soon as it
had been ascertained that the gravel of the creek bed was rich in gold and
there would be great probability for a permanent mining camp, some
enterprising men started in business. The first store was opened by Norton
& Montgomery in connection with a boarding house ; Duncan also kept a
store, John Dewitt was the proprietor of the first bakery and sometime
later the partner in a store kept by Dewitt & Taylor ; still another
store was kept by Sudson & Goodenough. David Miller opened the first
hotel. Nelson Van Tassell, Public Administrator of the county in 1854,
kept the first boarding house, and another hotel was kept by Reed ; James
Debow, a man of education and very gentleman-like manners, kept the Blue
Tent Saloon. Out of the number of other
early settlers and prominent men of Col Springs, we recall the names of
Judge Kenfield, E. P. Jones, a lawyer, then mining, who was generally
known as "Cold Water Jones;" he became president of the Cold
Springs Division No. 22, Sons of Temperance, instituted on February, 22,
1853, Forcie, a lawyer, Dr. D. L. Stevenson, Dr. Buttermore, A. Colgrove,
G. W. Paddock, F. Russell, W. W. Penton, J. M. Goetschius, who was the
first Postmaster in town, Wm. H. Lipsey, who was hung at Coloma, November
3, 1854, for the murder of one Powelson; A. O. Bowen, John Lamb, G.
Griffin, M. Conaha, Jesse C. Fruchy, J. M. Lockwood, S. H. Perrin, I. L.
Miller, S. Heath, J. M. Powers, Dan W. Gelwicks, now of Oakland, was here
before he became editor of the Coloma Argus, and then he became an
almost regular visitor to play a game of whist on Saturday nights; P. T.
Williams, McTarnahan. Robinson and Garfield, two lawyers from Coloma, were
also frequent visitors of Cold Springs. This was a very quite and peaceful
camp, more inclined to society life than to make up excitements ; Sylv. B.
Ilou, called Wed Ballou, in early days a miner, afterward member of the
Assembly and later State Senator from Plumas County, was the founder of a
society, the Cold Springs Franklin Lyceum. Cold Springs had a singing
school connected with a singing society; the school district was
established in 1851, and school regularly taught since; church services
were held in the school house. Moody, Davis and
Wittenburg were the first men who formed a company for the purpose to
supply the miners of Cold Springs with sufficient water, they took the
water from Hangtown creek above the falls where it empties into Weber
creek, below Middletown, and built a ditch to carry it down; this was done
in the early part of 1851, and when the new diggings on the bank of Webber
creek were discovered, in the winter of 1851 to '52, called Red Bank, this
company took up the first claims. Wittenburg, however, sold out to go
East, and his interest was acquired by L. C. Reynold's in 1852. George
Mull, a representative of the sunny South, who came here with his negro
slaves intending to introduce into California the institutions of the
slavery States, had camped on the same ground while his negroes had to
work for him in the creek bed, without discovering the rich placer mines
on which his camps stood. A second ditch for the water supply of the Cold
Springs miners was built a short time afterward by a company of twelve or
more, Wm. H. Lipsey being one of them; they took the water out of Hangtown
creek, a little below the Moody, Davis and Wittenburg ditch, and carried
it down to Cold Springs by tunneling through the divide between Hangtown
and Cold Spring creeks, under the Placerville road. The claims on these
last named diggings, the red bank, were worked by sinking small holes
pailed and pumped out and the gold cleared out of the dirt by means of
rocker and pan; only very few long toms were in use here. The claims were
worked in average 150 feet back from the creek, and paid good wages from
$5 to $50 a day; but never paid exceedingly rich. In 1854 a large company
took hold of this mining property and worked it with bed rock flumes, up
to 1858 or '59, as we were assured, they took out a good amount of gold
but it never yielded too rich. Diggings n the different gulches paid
hardly as good as those on the flat. Here on the flat, about three
quarters of a mile below town in a westerly direction, a German by the
name of Stakemeyer, who was killed afterward near Grizzly Flat, was
working a claim out of which he produced quite an amount of loose quartz
mixed in between the gravel, which he threw out of his long tom having no
better use for. Judge Kenfield, passing by, inspected this quartz pile
found it full of gold and took up a quartz claim. A company was formed to
work it, shafts were sunk and a mill was erected, but it never paid for
the amount invested in the construction of mill, etc. As
stated already, this was a very peaceful camp, only a few excitements
happened and they were of minor character. A gambler generally known by
the name of Crowbar, in 1852, had swindled a number of miners out of
considerable money, and quite a little excitement arose the next day, when
he tried to get out of town with his booty; the difficulty, however, was
quietly settled under assistance of some brethren of the gambling
fraternity, from Hangtown; a few of the miners got their loss restituted.
Another excitement turned up some time later, when a man who had been a
mason of the higher grades, disappeared in a house of ill-fame, and some
spots of blood suspiciously were connected with his disappearance. By
thoroughly investing the case, however, nothing could be found and the
bloodstains were said to have been poured out from a neighboring butcher
shop. This also is the place where in 1851 or '52
some crooked industry was commenced, one Moffatt, an early store keeper,
went in with Darling, an old steamship engineer, to fabricate gold dust
out of lead, coating it with gold by the way of galvanizing. The scheme
worked remarkably well, Moffatt bought goods at Sacramento for which he
paid with the dust, and smaller quantities were disposed of t the home
trade; but finally it was discovered by running the dust into bars, or by
coining money out of it, either. The result was the Moffatt lost
everything he had, his partner Darling, the instigator, skipped the
country in time to escape punishment; he took the steamer for Central
America. Samples of this industry came to light still years after, they
had been dug away underground. An accident
happened to the senior partner of the firm Sudson & Goodenough, early
in 1852, that came near enough to result fatal. Returning from Sacramento
with a big load of goods drawn by a four horse team, Mr. Sudson wished to
be home before night, and when coming up to Weber Creek, in the dusk, he
found it running with a big flood, which seemed to check his desire. He
hesitated a moment, but trusting his strong team and the heavy load he was
driving, and underestimating the flood, he thought he would be able to
cross the creek, and once on the other side he would be almost at home. So
he drove on, but he had hardly reached the middle of the roaring stream
when his wagon was upset and carried down by the flood; his horses were
drowned and though he held on to the wagon, on account of being unable to
swim, the force of the water made him give up his hold and he was swept
down with the swift current for more than a quarter of a mile, until he
got a hold on some willows, from where he was rescued by a party that had
been alarmed. Cold Springs in early times of the
golden era, was one of the liveliest mining camps of the country, which
had a population of about two thousand souls, with a direct state
connection to Sacramento, running a four horse coach daily, besides stage
connections to Coloma and Placerville, but as it is not it stands as a
proof for the unsteadiness of a mining camp more than any of them. The
mines began to slack off, new diggings had not been discovered, and the
miners left one after another to hunt for richer mining ground; the
population soon shrunk together, stores and other business places, on
account of a want of custom had to shut down, the stage took another route
and left the lonesome little village isolated on an unfrequented road.
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