For the accuracy of the annexed statements we cannot vouch, the name of the author not accompanying the communication. If the writer furnishes this information for no interested purposes, and it certainly has the appearance of truth, it will be valuable to persons who may have projected a trip to the mines in question.
    Messrs. Editors:--As statements in relation to the gold at Port Orford continue to appear in the papers, it may save those who cannot afford the expense of the price of passage there and back by describing things as they actually exist.
    The writer returned from the above port on the steamer Columbia, and having resided there about a month, has had a good opportunity of understanding the capabilities of the place.
    At the town of Port Orford there are only four or five available claims, and these are already taken up. Gold has been found at Hubbard's Creek, three-quarters of a mile distant. A company of six persons built a dam and turned the stream, but owing to the sandy nature of the soil they were unable to manage the water, and consequently have failed in taking out anything.
    The principal diggings are thirty-five miles beyond Port Orford, and six miles above the Coquille River. Seven sluices were at work at the time of my visit, and several more in preparation. Some of these sluices were yielding two hundred dollars a day per man; others as low as thirty or forty dollars. The whole were supplied by one stream of water. The claims on either side of this stream were richest, and of course worked at least expense. The gold diminishes in proportion to the distance from the stream, and the expense of working increases, owing to the necessity of making ditches or troughs to conduct water to the sluices. In this vicinity "the color of gold" has been found several miles along the beach, but there is great scarcity of water. About twenty miners are settled there. They pack their provisions up from Port Orford, on mules, at a cost of ten cents per pound, which, added to the high prices charged at Port Orford, makes living very expensive. A few hired laborers were receiving one hundred and fifty dollars per month, "and found." Cowan Bay is fifteen miles further north, and it would be an advantage to the miners if goods could be landed there instead of at P.O., thus saving twenty miles of land carriage.
    There are other diggings twenty miles below Port Orford, near the mouth of Rogue River. Until within two weeks there has been only one sluice at work there, belonging to a man named "French Joe." I retorted twenty ounces of gold for him, which he had "taken out" in nine days, a result so flattering as to cause several persons to go down, packing their provisions upon Indians, but they complain much of want of water, and were about to try the "Jenny Lind rocker," instead of sluices--with what success has not been heard.
    A party had also gone out to search for placer diggings. They returned the day the steamer Columbia left, and if they found anything, were very silent about it.
    Most of the miners who left San Francisco per Cecil and Thos. Hunt have been disappointed; some have returned. If any others intend going up, I should advise them to take their own provisions. The beach diggings will not be good for more than two months more, after which time the high tides prevent labor.

    Early in the year 1850 prospectors for gold and others in search of new localities for varied purposes were climbing the mountains, navigating the streams, and rambling through the wild and beautiful valleys of Southern Oregon and Northern California. Later in the year, and when the gold fields on the Klamath and its tributaries, the Salmon, Trinity and Scott rivers, and the hundreds of creeks and gulches tributary to these, were being discovered and developed, a search along the neighboring coast was begun on land and by sea for a suitable harbor at which to debark the supplies already needed by the miners and the immense quantities yet to be required in the near future. Humboldt Bay had been known for many years, and had sheltered a few vessels with supplies destined for the Klamath; but other harbors were sought for, and a convenient one was found not many miles above, and now known as Trinidad. This place soon became noted, and to it the people of the interior looked for all that they required; to it the wanderers on the coast above looked for a haven of rest and a store for food when nature enjoined them to halt and recruit. During the above-mentioned year a small schooner set sail from San Francisco to explore the Oregon coast in search of a harbor below the Columbia. Reaching the present harbor of Port Orford landing was effected, but possession was not held, for the natives were numerous and manifested extreme hostility to their unwelcome visitors. But later in the year a foothold was gained, which has continued
but the natives who frustrated the first advance are gone, and have left no mark behind but heaps of crumbling shells. Thus it was that in 1850 there had been no landing discovered on that long line of coast between Trinidad and Port Orford, and explorers on the coast of Southern Oregon repaired to the former place if an exit by sea was desired. In this year a company, principally Oregonians, went down the Klamath on a prospecting tour for gold and to explore the coast at its mouth for something new. It was customary in those days for exploring or prospecting companies to elect one of their number captain, and this company's leader was Eugene du Bertram, a Canadian Frenchman, and such were the most of his men. It was a well-known fact in early days that Frenchmen, when known to be such, were generally successful in their intercourse with all Indian tribes. These men were well received--after the gift of a few trinkets--by the lower Klamath Indians, and conveyed to the coast in canoes. They were out of civilized food, but subsisted quite well on such as the Indians had. They landed at the mouth of the river on the south bank, and set out for Trinidad, which was below. They followed the Indians' trail till they came to a high bluff under which it passed, at the edge of the surf. They sat down to rest on the hill above before they went down on the trail along the beach. While resting and scanning the ocean and the land, they thought that the sand on the beach under the high bluff looked like gold, but for it to be gold was impossible. But they descended to the beach and hurried on to the glittering expanse ahead, and sure enough it was gold. The beach, for several hundred yards, was a sheet of fine gold, but the layer was thin, of course; but no difference, they were rich; there was plenty of gold to make them all independent. But they were hungry, they had nothing that day to eat, and but little the day before. They hurried on to Trinidad, each sworn
from the outside world. They had taken some of the sand and dust along, and when they reached San Francisco, where they went to lay in supplies of food and other means to work their mines, they exhibited it to wealthy men who soon became interested in the matter and formed a company, laid in supplies and chartered a revenue cutter to go to the golden coast. They went up to the bluff but found no good place to land, so they lay off and on for a day or two, when six men determined to make the attempt to reach the beach. But the surf was so rough that their boat was capsized and all but one man drowned. That one was Bertram, the leader of the discoverers. He too would have shared the fate of his companions had not some Indians, who were living near the place, run in and pulled him out as a lucky wave washed his unconscious body near the shore. When those on the cutter saw that the men were drowned they sailed down to Trinidad and went up to the bluff on foot. When they got there they found Bertram, but no gold on the beach. They had not calculated on the action of the tide on the sand, and that the waves, nature's greatest separator, could obscure as well as unfold the glittering dust in the moving sand. The vessel and some of the company returned to San Francisco, while others of the men set out in search of better fields. But the apparition of the shining beach would not down, and subsequently searchers found the treasure again uncovered, and the fame of Gold Bluff was second to no place on the coast for a limited time. From that day the mines on the beach have been worked with varying success to the present time. Rising to an altitude of 400 feet, the bluff is composed of iron and common beach sand, in which fine gold in varying quantities is commingled. Under the bluff large redwood trees, stumps, bones and shells, besides stone implements of a prehistoric population, have been found. From below Trinidad in California to Randolph in Oregon iron sand in which there is much gold, and generally
has been found at an altitude of from 250 to 1200 feet above the present beach, and extending back to fifteen and twenty miles. These old deposits of iron sand vary from a few inches to as much as five feet in thickness, and are covered, at various depths, with common beach sand, upon which grow immense forests of large timber of different varieties. At Randolph, where this sand is found at an altitude of 250 feet above the ocean, it is covered with common beach sand sixty feet deep for three miles back into the heavy forest. Its highest altitude is between Trinidad and the Klamath, where it is 1200 feet, and here it extends furthest back into the inland forests of redwood, spruce, fir, and other sorts of timber. This pay belt extends only from Trinidad to Randolph, although some gold is found both above and below. In front of this belt, under the ocean waves, fine gold abounds, particularly at Crescent City, where, at a distance of ten miles out from the shore, numerous particles of gold were brought up from the bottom by means of a piece of tallow attached to a trawl. Along this gold belt, and even along the whole coast where the forests of timber grow on the depressions, the roots of trees and undergrowth run along on top of this iron and beach sand, just under the accumulations of alluvium, vegetable mold and undecayed leaves. The nourishment of these huge trees seems to be derived mainly from the atmosphere, which is always moist by reason of the superabundant rain and the general presence of heavy fog. Until the autumn of 1852 the place where Crescent City now stands was unknown, only so far as the passage along the beach of a few prospecting parties two years previously, the sojourn of a few days at a time of an occasional trapping and trading party many years before, and the lifelong residence, perhaps, of some of the crew of the ship Pelican, which was reported to have been lost in the neighborhood in the latter part of the last century. The rocky Point St. George had been located on the nautical charts, but the interior remained unexplored. The indifferent harbor of Crescent City was called
very likely for the reason above stated. When we come to speak of the Indians who inhabited the coast to the north of Point St. George, their tradition and physical aspect may lead to the supposition that white men had dwelt among them many years previous to the advent of the American settlers in the late autumn of 1852. The mines at Sailor Diggings, Althouse, Applegate and other places in the southern part of Oregon were yielding good returns for the labor expended upon them, and the question of cheaper supplies began to agitate the public mind. Before that time all their goods had been brought up the Klamath from Humboldt Bay and Trinidad, and from Shasta City by the way of Yreka and Scott Valley. The prices charged for packing were exorbitant, and but for the bountiful yield of the golden harvest the miners must have renounced their exciting toil. From Sailor Diggings to Pelican Bay was but forty miles, as the few men guessed who had traveled the route. A company was organized to inspect the place, and if all worked well to start a town. The company traversed the Coast Mountains, the dense forest of redwood, the low valley on the immediate coast, and pitched their tents on the sounding beach. A town site was at once staked out and given the name of Crescent City. The bay is in the form of a crescent, which aided the men in selecting a name. The majority of the proprietors remained, while a few went back to blaze a trail to Sailor Diggings, as that was the nearest camp. By the following spring a very fair trail had been made across the mountains to Illinois Valley. A ferry across Smith River had been constructed, whiskey shops along the trail at every spring or little stream were up and supplied with every needed thing to make the traveler forget his toilsome march, and a prosperous future for Crescent City was indisputably assured. The new location was enrolled among the list of trading posts, and early in the year the little crescent was filled with schooners at anchor, and the beach was lined with wholesale stores. The forest, but a few rods back from Water Street, resounded with the noise of ax and saw, while the busy rattle of the hammers on the rising houses kept time with the sounds of both. The
in a semi-nude state stalked among the hurrying men or peered into the well-filled stores. Pack trains came from the Oregon side, from the Klamath, above and below; and long before the first of June the mountains and hills, the gulches and creeks and the rivers were lined with men in search of gold. Up from the southern coast, down from the north, men and pack mules came in droves to swell the racket of the new coast town. "Frisco" sent up a supply of gamblers and others to fatten on the weaklings who came to the new emporium. A large and substantial Indian village was close to the town, near a point on the southern side; while a number of others of equal size were distributed along the coast to and on Point St. George, five miles above. The Indians of the Klamath and the coast below had felt the power of the white men, but those at and above Crescent City to the Columbia dreamed not of the horrors that the near future had in store for them; and those near town quite enjoyed the sights. In April of that year two miners from the Oregon side came down to Smith River on a prospecting tour on foot. At that time no part of Smith River had been explored by the whites, except a mile or so above and below the ferry on the southern fork. Indians were numerous along the stream and as wild as the bear on the hills and, like their kind on the Klamath, were willing to kill any white men who might chance to come in their way. It was known to many that these men went up the river to prospect, and their promised coming to Crescent City was anxiously looked for. But they did not come. A month passed and still no news of the absent men. About the middle of June the people of Crescent City became aware that there were many strange Indians at the village near the town engaged in gambling with those of the village. They had blankets, two revolvers, clothing and other articles which were soon recognized as having belonged to the two men who went up Smith River to prospect and whose coming had been anxiously awaited.
and clear and the Indians had their gambling ground at a spring near the village. Every available white man in the town armed himself, and the greater number of them went out to the gambling natives and killed nineteen, scattered the balance and burned the village. From that day the natives did not halt on their downward course till all the petty bands on Point St. George became extinct. Crescent City is but eighteen miles south of the 42nd degree of latitude, but at the time of settlement of the place none but an approximate idea could be formed of where the line struck the coast, and Chetco River, twenty-five miles north of the city, was, by common consent, the state line, until about August 1853 a United States vessel came up from San Francisco and established the line half a mile north of Winchuck River, four miles south of Chetco, which was accepted as the line by Curry County, Oregon and Del Norte County, California, until in 1869 a United States surveying party put the line three-quarters of a mile further south. In June 1853, a party of men from Crescent City made the first settlement in Curry County, Oregon, on the wide coast bend between Winchuck and Chetco rivers, a stretch of coast four miles long and from half a mile to one mile wide, back of which the hills rise to an altitude of about 1500 feet. Among these settlers were August Miller and wife, who settled on the west bank of the Chetco and built their house on the site of an ancient modding [midden], which is one of the most conspicuous and extensive on the Oregon coast, and will be particularly noticed in a future article. During the previous fall a part of French-Canadian half-bloods, while prospecting up the coast, discovered rich and extensive gold deposits at the mouth of Rogue River, which they succeeded in keeping secret until late the following spring, when a rush of American miners came upon them, pushing them out to wander on the coast above, where they struck new diggings, but not so extensive or rich, at the mouth of Sixes and Coquille rivers, and other places along the beach. At this time the
on this stretch of coast were Port Orford above and Crescent City below, and during the year 1853 there was much travel down the coast--from the doubtful things above to the surer things below; and it was not seldom that two or three men would set out from Port Orford down the coast along the difficult, secluded trail, among the treacherous savages, and never be heard of again. A notable instance of this kind occurred in the month of May of the above year. Three men, mounted and with one or two pack animals, started to come down to Crescent City. They succeeded in making their way safely through the many Indian villages along the trail till they had reached a deserted village halfway between Winchuck and Smith River, where they are supposed to have camped for the night. One of these men was the medium of a mercantile transaction between parties at Port Orford and at Crescent City, and his arrival at the latter place was anxiously awaited. Two months passed and he did not arrive. Other parties came down and reported that he had started down two months before in the company of two other men. They were undoubtedly murdered, and a watch was kept to discover some of their goods among the Indians. Early in July, Miller, who was then living at the mouth of the Chetco, observed many articles formerly belonging to white men in the possession of the Indians, and more particularly a number of shirts, two pairs of boots and a quantity of gold coin. When questioned about the goods they said that they had obtained them from a band of Henags who lived at the mouth of Smith River. But when accused of killing the men they said it was the Henags that did it. That was sufficient, and word was sent to Crescent City that the Indians at Smith River were the guilty ones. With little effort a company of men was organized, under the command of a Capt. McPhee, who was a noted pioneer backwoods warrior. A start was made from the city early in the morning for the country of the Henags, which reports located anywhere from the mouth of Smith River up to Chetco, eight miles above. At that time there were no roads or even Indian trails through the dark forests of redwood, but all ways of travel were along the beach or at the foothills,
passed through the more open timber from the open country north of the city to Smith River, five miles above its mouth. The company, numbering twenty-three men, armed for battle, slowly marched along the narrow, devious trail through the dark forest, some mounted, some on foot. Reaching the river at a wide ford the footmen were mounted behind and the crossing made with but one accident, in which a fractious horse dismounted its riders and lay down upon them in the water. Keeping close to the foothills, the company reached Winchuck River, four miles above Smith River, where a delay was made of a few hours. No Indians in sight. Back to Smith River after dark, and a bivouac in the "bull pine" grove half a mile back of the large village on the riverbank. At dawn an advance was made on the village, but it was deserted. On up the river a mile and a camp was sighted on an island one hundred yards from the mainland. Crawling up to the bank under cover of the thick mass of salal brush, a heavy volley was opened on the sleeping savages. At the first fire hundreds of Indians sprang out from their temporary shelter and sought their canoes on the opposite side of the island; some made off to a thicket of brush above. The rifles did not cease the rain of bullets upon the fleeing Indians. Rattling through the poles and mats of their huts, knocking up the sand in clouds among the swaying mass of savages, the white man's bullets for the first time--but it was not the last--began the work of death to the Indians of Smith River Valley. The large village near the mouth of the river was burned with all their accumulated supplies of food, and all else it contained. The village was a large one, built upon an elevated mound of ancient shell deposits. It was one of the most extensive towns on Point St. George, and a full description of it together with its surroundings and its inhabitants will be given in its turn, which may prove interesting to those who delight in antiquarian research. As before stated, a number of settlers in Curry County had staked off their claims in the valley, or wide open bench above tide water, between
rivers, built small log cabins and were occupying their time in hunting elk and deer on the low hills back of the valley, or sea otters that sported in large numbers in the breakers along the beach. With one exception, that of August Miller at the mouth of Chetco, these settlers were all young men and unmarried. To cultivate more than a small garden was not their aim, and improvements progressed slowly until the next year, when the rush to the Gold Beach mines at the mouth of Rogue River stimulated industries, brought married men with their families into the valley, and the small but fertile locality was quickly redeemed from its wild unproductiveness and became a prominent factor in supplying the mines along the beach with bread and meat. When Capt. McPhee and his company went up to the mouth of Smith River after the Indians, and on the return they passed through a large open valley north of the river and about fifteen miles from Crescent City, the soil appeared to be fertile, and small creeks in abundance came down out of the surrounding hills on the north and east. Tall fern covered the major part of the valley, and elk, in droves like domestic cattle, wandered at will over the beautiful place. The valley extended from the north bank of the river to its mouth, and on up the coast till it merged into the valley of Winchuck River. Some of the men of the company, with others, six in all, returned to the valley and took up their abode at the mouth of the river. The Indians seemed friendly, and everything went on well until three of the settlers, while passing by a deep sink in the valley, about two miles above the mouth of the river, discovered a peculiar stench arising from it. Investigating further, they descended to the bottom and found a subterranean passage leading towards the beach, 100 yards distant. The stench was almost intolerable, but their suspicions were aroused and they followed the passage and came upon the nude body of a white man lying on his face, about fifty feet from the entrance. A short piece of rope was tied around his neck, indicating that he had been
by a rope around his neck. Returning to the entrance they went to the beach, and found under the high bank the lower end of the passage. Going up it a short distance they found another body, which seemed to have been drawn in from the beach. The mystery surrounding the fate of the three men who started from Port Orford to Crescent City the previous May was now solved. Previous to the discovery of the bodies, and when the six men just mentioned took up their residence at the mouth of the river, a young Indian, of a sinister expression of countenance, and something of a swaggering deportment, came to their camp to make friends with the men, and expressing a wish to take up his quarters with them. He was treated kindly and remained at their camp a great portion of the time. He had an old Harper's Ferry rifle, on the stock of which was carved the name of Newton. He claimed to have got the gun from some Indian up the coast; but the name of one of the murdered men was believed to be Newton, and the Indian was accused of being connected with the murder. Immediately his demeanor changed from friendly to defiant, which sealed his doom. No doubt but those early pioneers entertained very crude ideas of the administration of justice, but in few instances were they guilty of actual wrong in the execution of the verdicts of their hasty backwoods courts. [Other than the three massacres upon innocent natives described in this article, of course.] The Indian was executed, and as soon as he was out of the way others of his tribe said that he was one of the guilty ones, and a standing terror to his neighbors. The Indians at the mouth of the river now made a clean breast of the murders, telling all the horrid particulars of the affair; how this young Smith River Indian, who had been killed, and another of the tribe, who was then absent, together with a lot more from Chetco, had crept up to the men while asleep and killed them with their long knives, but only after a very desperate struggle; then drew their bodies into the subterranean passage, and went up the coast with the goods to have
with the Chetcos and others. The dead men's horses they took up to Chetco and drowned them in the river. In later years, skeletons of white men were found at various points along the coast, indicating many murders by the savages.
    It was not till about July, 1853, that the news of the discovery of gold at the mouth of Rogue River, or, as it was subsequently called, Gold Beach, had spread sufficiently to induce a rush of miners and others to the place. From upper Rogue River and its tributaries, from the mines of Illinois Valley, from the Klamath, from Crescent City, swarms of men poured out towards the new discovery; and by the following fall the coast line from Coos Bay to Crescent City had been prospected; in some cases with good results. But Gold Beach had turned out many fortunes, and still the sands were prolific in gold. The sanguine miners worked like beavers at the water's edge and back to the bluff; men in the near forest felled the trees for use; vessels crossed the bar with goods for the busy throngs and succumbed to the angry waves and disappeared from view in the boiling sea. From elevated lands, from dark coverts of matted brush on the adjacent flats, the wild natives observed this shifting panorama of unwonted scenes with awe and curiosity. Days rolled on and the enchantment of the distant view passed away, and courting the fascinations of a near approach, they mingled with the whites and learned to glean the sparkling gold from the shifting sand. The great rush to Gold Beach stimulated the few who had taken up land near Crescent City and small fields were enclosed and the first crop planted in 1851. The large valley on Smith River was settled upon in the same year and many fields were planted. Adventurers built their cabins at every promising spot along the coast from Rogue River to Crescent City, and before the expiration of the year the white men and the Indians were disputing with marked earnestness for the possession of the country. Families from Oregon and California came to the valleys and took the place of
while the blithesome shouts of happy children inaugurated a new and better era in those fertile wilds along the coast. At Gold Beach the whites and natives lived in comparative peace from the first settlement of the place until just before the final subjugation of the tribes in June 1856; but down the coast, from Pistol River to Crescent City, many Indians were killed in the frequent collisions with the whites. A few small camps of Indians on the headwaters of Illinois River, living in the valley near Sailor Diggings, evinced a steady friendship for the whites, and did not join the belligerent tribes farther down the river, and in Applegate and Rogue River Valley, when they made the outbreak upon the settlers in [October] 1855 these friendly Indians served as a medium through which the hostile ones gathered information of the maneuvers of the whites, and for this reason their camps were raided, some of them killed, and the remainder driven away. Some of them probably joined the hostiles, but some went over the mountain and secreted themselves on the South Fork of Smith River. Shortly after, a pack train was en route from Crescent City to Illinois Valley, and camped on a creek near Smith River. Indians came upon them and killed two of the packers and robbed the train. A few weeks after a report was circulated in Crescent City that a lot of strange Indians were at an Indian village on the lagoon five miles from the city with many articles taken from the train or from some other white men, which they were putting up to gamble for with the lagoon Indians, who were on good terms with the whites. The matter was investigated by the leading citizens of the city, and the old chief of the lagoon Indians disclaimed all affinity with the strangers, and was willing to kill the guilty ones or turn them over to the whites. Other than good counsels prevailed at the city, and a company of men was organized and went out to a village on Smith River above the lagoon and lay
when, as the Indians began to stir out, they opened fire upon them. With the first reports of the rifles all the Indians within the houses came out to make their escape, but were shot down as they ran. Between forty and fifty of the men were killed, besides several women and children. Their village, the last one remaining on Point St. George and Smith River, was burned. Thus ended the last conflict of the people of Crescent City and the native tribes on Smith River and Point St. George. Many of the young men had gone over the mountains and joined the hostiles months before, and those who remained at home were suspicioned of being engaged in forwarding supplies, as chance offered opportunities, to those at open war on Rogue River. The scores of well-built villages on Point St. George and Smith River that the whites found when they entered the country in the autumn of 1852 were all burned to the ground within the space of three years, and the approximate 1200 natives had during the same time dwindled to less than 400. But few remain today, and of a type far removed from those of earlier days. In Chetco Valley a few dozen only are left to represent the hundreds that dwelt on the river but thirty years ago. Before the white men entered the country, and but for a short time after, the hills, mountains and valleys were covered with game, deer, bear and elk in great numbers. It was no uncommon thing to see bands of elk, often numbering as high as forty, quietly grazing among the tall fern or lying at ease in the sheltered spots of the valleys. Deer were so numerous and tame that the poorest hunters would be successful. Black bears were so numerous that the hunter learned to watch for them while hunting for gentler game. It was several years before beef supplanted the flesh of the elk in the markets, and not then till the valleys were fenced and the elk driven further back into the mountains. The dark depths of the heavy redwood forests were the chosen homes of the elk during the winter months, where they grazed on the succulent undergrowth and were sheltered by the intertwining tops of the towering trees. On the rocks at the mouths of the rivers, up the streams for a mile or two, sea lions basked in the sun and roared their songs of love; in the little coves along the shore they wallowed on the sandy beach or slept in peace on the driftwood under the bluffs. Whales sported in pairs, and often more, a mile or so off from the beach, flinging their huge tails high into the air and spouting long curving streams of water. It was no uncommon occurrence for one to strand on the beach to serve as a feast for the hungry natives. Sea otter rode the combing waves close to the shore and many were killed by the pioneer hunters, who reaped a fair harvest of gold for their valuable furs. But now all is changed, and compared to thirty years ago, the coast is a solitude as regards the old-time native inhabitants.
Sunday Oregonian, Portland, December 6, 1885, page 2