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STORYTELLING RESOURCES FOR STORYTELLERS! Storytelling and Educational Resources & Information for Storytellers - Teachers – Librarians – Homeschoolers Environmentalists – Parents – Grandparents |
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GOLD RUSH - CALIFORNIA and elsewhere |
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SOS: SEARCHING OUT STORIES AND INFORMATION
GOLD RUSH, CALIFORNIA and ELSEWHERE
Advice, Comments and References from Storytellers, Teachers and Librarians
(excerpts from Storytell posts plus original research)
Book titles, movie titles and online links are in blue and underlined. Click on them for more information.
Story and song titles are in bold type.
To retell any stories, obtain permission from the copyright holder if the material is not in the public domain.
Posts to Storytell are added chronologically as they are received by Story Lovers World.
1) I wanted to follow up on a couple of really cool resources on the California gold rush that I discovered, just in case you didn't know about them. Rose sent me many links online, which led to a book called They Saw the Elephant: Women in the California Gold Rush
http://claim.goldrush.com/~joann/
http://www.unr.edu/sb204/theatre/daydtoc.html
http://www.unr.edu/sb204/theatre/frontoc.html
http://deseretnews.com/dn/view/0,1249,590039532,00.html
One of the most amazing is a series of letters written by Louise Amelia Knapp Smith Clappe to her sister. They're called The Shirley Letters from California Mines in 1851-52. There are several editions of her letters available in print, but they're also found online if you do a Google search. I feel like I'm living in the midst of the period re-reading them. They're incredible and invaluable. I'm having a hard time dragging myself back to the present. Many thanks to all the replies I received. And a special thanks to Elizabeth Gibson and Jack's Mama who brought up way more considerations than I was thinking about on how to look authentic.
Geese are winging overhead
The creeks are running muddy
Odd bits of jetsam are surfacing from the snow in front yards
Spring is on its way!
2) Query: I am looking for a story I read long ago about two fellows during gold rush days who found a gold mine. One kills the other and his ghost comes back to haunt his partner as he digs. I think the murderer is buried in the mine when a wall collapses. Does any of this sound familiar to you or do you have a Gold Rush ghost story?
Cathryn W. 1/2/06
Responses:
a) There is a story called The Ghost of Misery Hill found in Short & Shivery: Thirty Chilling Tales
Children's Spine-Chilling Horror Literature)
by Robert San Souci, Doubleday, 1987. It comes from the California Gold Rush and was expanded from the tale "The Spook of Misery Hill" found in Myths and Legends of Our Own Land - Complete
(Dodo Press) by Charles M. Skinner.
Quick bones:
Tom Bowers, miner working alone on claim near Pike City, California, didn't show up one spring to buy his supplies after a long winter. Townspeople went up, found his cabin empty, but a cave-in had happened inside the gold mine. Figured he was buried there. Jim Brandon decided to work Tom's old claim, although every said it was haunted. He found tools moved and/or missing, thought it was a practical joke being played on him by other miners. On dark night saw a notice nailed to tree trunk that claimed the mine was Tom's. Heard water running down the sluice, gravel rolling down the riffles. Grabbed his rifle and headed for the sluice, saw ghost of Tom Bowers working the claim. Jim fired at him, bullet went through ghost, but ghost charged him. Jim dropped everything and ran for Pike City. All miners gathered at saloon that night heard an ear-piercing scream, sound of body falling, and clang of metal. Looking out they found the rifle of Jim pinned to the ground by an old pick with initials of TB. No one ever saw Jim again but the sounds of the mining continue.
Batsy B. 1/2/06
Here's another Gold Rush ghost story. It's from North Carolina where the FIRST United States gold rush began - 50 years prior to the California gold rush.
Specter at the Gold Mine from North Carolina Legends
by Richard Walser.
Story:
During the Carolina gold rush in the 1830s and 1840s, a miserly old codger called Skinflint McIntosh owned a rich vein in southern Cabarrus County. So tightfisted was he that he wouldn't pay adequate wages to the miners to dig for the gold, nor would he provide sufficient safety measures to prevent accidents in his mine. The vein of gold was 450 feet down a narrow shaft.
One of the best workers in the district was Joe McGee, whom Skinflint kept trying to hire. "If I got killed down there," said Joe, "would you pay my wife Jennie $1,000?" "Joe," Skinflint shouted, "I'd pay her $2,000." And so it was that Joe gave up his other job and went to work for Skinflint.
One cold, drizzly night, when Joe didn't come home at the usual hour, Jennie became worried. Finally she persuaded Joe's friend Shaun to gather up a few men and look for Joe in the mine. They search the deep hole but found nothing. After several weeks Jennie asked Skinflint for her money. "Oh, no," said Skinflint, "Joe's just gone off somewhere." And he didn't pay her.
Soon after, on another bitter night, a loud knock came on Shaun's door. Opening it, he was startled by a ghostly white specter who spoke with the voice of his friend Joe and told Shaun to go to the mine that very night; it told him to dig in a certain spot where the green timbers had given away and caused a cave-in. It asked if Skinflint had paid Jennie, and when Shaun said no, the specter wailed, "I'll haunt that mine of his forever."
McGee's body was found exactly where the specter said. Skinflint paid up, but only when threatened by Joe's old friends. Word spread about the haunted mine, and no one would work for McIntosh. All of this happened 150 years ago but the gold is still in the mine--as is the specter of Joe McGee.
Dianne H. 1/2/06
Responses to a) above:a) Dianne, I recognize that story. Nice bones. I think it's connected to the Reed Gold Mine.
Ellouise S. 1/2/06
b) Yup, This tale is connected to the Reed Gold Mine in Cabarrus County, NC just north of Charlotte. It was the oldest Reed son, Conrad, who is credited with finding the first gold by stubbing his toe on it in the creek. The family used the "creek rock" for three years as a doorstop before finding out it was gold. But that's another story (and one of my favorite ones to tell).
Dianne H. 1/4/06
c) Familiar old story. I live in Maryland but was born and raised in Charlotte - and some of my family (long ago) came to NC in 1847 hoping for riches in the gold rush. Sorry that did not happen. Several years ago when I was home for a visit, I went out to the Reed Gold Mine to get the lay of the land. The tour is interesting and brings a new vividness to the stories.
Ellouise S. 1/4/06
Created 2004; last update 7/13/11.
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