OREGON LETTER.

Table Rock, Rogue River Valley,
   Oregon, Sep. 20th, 1852.

Very respectfully yours,
   JAMES C. TOLMAN.

Is He Honest? Is He Capable?

BIRTHS.

Died.

TOLMAN AT HOME.

Oregon Politics.

    Hon. Orange Jacobs, Chief Justice of Washington Territory, who is widely known in this state as a man of ability, culture and judgment, writes thus in regard to Hon. J. C. Tolman.
    I lived in Jackson County from 1857 to 1860. During all this time I was personally and intimately acquainted with J. C. Tolman. He is a man of great independence of character and of uncompromising integrity. No rings or cliques can buy or intimidate him, or sway him from the line of his convictions.
    During eight years of the above time he was County Judge of Jackson County. He does not claim to be a technical lawyer, but he is well read in the statutory law of the state, and has devoted a good deal of time and attention to the principles of the common law. Appeals were frequently taken from his decisions as County Judge, but I do not remember of a single instance in which his judgment was reversed by the Appellate Court.
    When he was elected County Judge, Jackson County was near $20,000 in debt. At the end of his administration the county was out of debt and quite an amount of money in her treasury. Such is his record as shown by his acts.
    Farmers and voters of Oregon, compare this testimony of disinterested witnesses with the cramped, prejudiced statement of W. Lair Hill, who is now laboring both in the Oregonian and privately to defeat Tolman and to elect Grover.
Oregon State Journal, Eugene, June 6, 1874, page 4




    GEN. JAMES CLARK TOLMAN.--One of the leading citizens of Jackson County and foremost among the representative men of Oregon is Gen. James Clark Tolman, Surveyor General of this state. A man of great decision of character and executive ability, he has always occupied the position of leader of his fellow men, and after fifty years of active participation in the affairs of his country retains the confidence and respect of not only his political associates, but of adherents to the opposing party. From his youth an enthusiastic Whig, he has been, during the lifetime of the party, a consistent and unswerving, Republican. He comes of a family of patriots and pioneers, and inherited the genuine pioneer instincts, those of the higher type--not the feeling that makes one shun the intellectual advantages and refinements of older communities because of a lack of sympathy with, and appreciation of, them, but that nobler sentiment which impels its possessor to carve out his own fortune from the crude material and to develop and improve the wilderness in accordance with the creator's plan of upward progression. His father, Seth Tolman, was of Holland extraction and Mary, his mother, English, a daughter of Captain Clark, a veteran of the Revolutionary War, serving in the ranks of the Continentals from the Boston Tea Party till the close of the long struggle for independence. When the war was over his parents settled in Washington County, Pennsylvania, but by discreet conduct managed to escape ruin from the devastations of the Tom Tinker whisky insurrectionists. They next removed to Marietta, Ohio, where they were frequently compelled to "fort up" in blockhouses with their neighbors to defend themselves from hostile Indians. Judge Tolman was born in Washington County, Ohio, March 12, 1813, and eight years later moved with his parents to Champaign County, in the same state. Those were the pioneer days of Ohio, when log houses were the only habitations, and these few and far between, and when the little log school house held sway. In such a house he lived, and in such he received his education--and it might be said that from such have sprung many of the greatest men of our nation, not the least of which are Lincoln, Chase, Grant and Garfield. At the age of seventeen he apprenticed himself to Jesse C. Phillips (a cousin of Tom Corwin), and spent three years in learning the business of manufacturing leather. He then entered the university at Athens, Ohio, pursuing English branches with characteristic assiduity for a year, during which time he also imbibed much knowledge of a useful and practical nature by the exertion of his great powers of observation. For several years he engaged in various pursuits, lending to each his full energy and enthusiasm, and being an earnest supporter of General Harrison and the unsuccessful Whig ticket in 1836. The family, consisting of father, mother, two brothers and himself (a sister and brother having died), removed to Iowa in 1839, and settled in Van Buren County, [and] began again a genuine pioneer life. Land claimants were bought out and 200 acres of land were bid in at public sale in Burlington, and the Gen. engaged in farming, encountering all the trials and hardships of a frontier life. Iowa at that time was strongly Democratic, yet he adhered firmly to his Whig principles. He was placed on the ticket of that party for the territorial legislature, and though party lines were closely drawn and a warm canvass followed, during which he was the only Whig speaker on the ticket, he obtained 400 Democratic votes and only missed 60 votes of being elected. In the fall of 1845 he removed to Ottumwa and engaged in the manufacture of leather. Here he was again placed on the Whig ticket, contrary to his desires, but accepted the nomination at the solicitation of friends who urged that his opponent was hard to defeat. The whole county ticket was elected, though the Democratic territorial ticket received 125 majority. In 1844 his thoughts turned towards the Pacific, and when news of the gold discovery reached Iowa in the fall of 1848, he began preparing to seek the El Dorado in the spring. In due time he started, and as sole pilot of an ox team he arrived in the mines on the seventh of October, 1849. Declining several advantageous business offers, he went to work with the pick and shovel as a genuine miner. His usual energy and attention to his business won him success, and he returned to Iowa in the fall of 1851 well rewarded for his California venture. Ill health during the winter caused him to wind up his business and prepare to again seek the shores of the Pacific. On the twenty-seventh of April, 1852, he was married to Elizabeth E. Coe, of Oskaloosa, Iowa, and within forty-eight hours was again en route across the plains, the pilot and general adviser of ten wagons of emigrants. The train reached Yreka in 82 days without the loss of an animal, notwithstanding they had to fight their way through the Modoc country. Gen. Tolman crossed the Siskiyous into Rogue River Valley with a portion of the train, arriving the last of August, and bringing the first families to the valley from across the plains direct. He purchased the rights of two squatters and began preparing for raising stock. Early in 1853, perceiving the impending trouble with the Indians, he took his stock to California and sold them. He then went to Coos Bay to look after some investments he had made there for two young men, and returned to the valley in time to sit on the coroner's jury which investigated the death of the first white victim in the Indian war of 1853. When the war was over he sold out his place, and with his wife and one child took a muleback ride to Empire City, on Coos Bay. He soon withdrew from the company without realizing anything on his investment, and took up a half section of land upon which is located the town of Marshfield, where he erected a rude house for his family. He spent the spring of 1854 in exploring that region, being the first white man to open a trail across the isthmus between Coos Bay and Coquille River. In August, 1854, he returned to Rogue River Valley, leaving his claim in charge of another man, who sold it out and vamoosed. The Judge upon his return to the valley purchased for $8,500 the ranch he now owns, including the stock thereon, and again engaged in stock raising. When the Indian war broke out in 1855, he hastily gathered his stock and drove them to California, and sold them for what they would bring. It was two years before he could resume his business. He then purchased blooded stock--English turf horses, Morgans and Lionhearts--and in a few years realized handsomely on his investment. The severe winters of 1861-2 almost annihilated his band of cattle. When the state government was organized in 1858, Mr. Tolman was elected Judge of Jackson County by a large majority although three-fourths of the voters were Democrats. He was re-elected in 1862, defeating his opponent two to one. In this important position he was enabled during the critical times of the Civil War to do more than anyone else to prevent open hostilities; also to reduce taxation fifty percent, and rescue the county from threatened bankruptcy. He was nominated for Governor on the Republican ticket in 1874, but the formation of a third party gave the administration into the hands of the Democracy, and he accepted his defeat with becoming resignation. In 1878 Judge Tolman was appointed Surveyor General of Oregon by President Hayes, and reappointed by President Arthur in 1882. His administration of the affairs of that office meets with the hearty approval of the administration and of the people generally. He is firm and prompt in the discharge of his official duties, and never has his integrity or motives been impeached. During half a century of active business and official life he has won and retains the respect of all with whom he has come in contact, irrespective of their political opinions; and though he has never sought election or appointment to office, they have both come to him unsolicited. In these days of machine politics and corruption in office, it should be Oregon's boast that she possesses an official who occupies a higher plane. Gen. Tolman's portrait appears in this work.
A. G. Walling, History of Southern Oregon, 1884, pages 541-542

one of the oldest and best known, as well as most popular, of the citizens of Southern Oregon, for years past the efficient Surveyor-General of the United States for Oregon, has a genealogy that dates back to early New England times, and includes a grandfather who was one of the most active in asserting and maintaining American independence. He was one of the party, disguised as Indians, who threw overboard the British tea in Boston Harbor. He raised the first company that was enlisted for the Revolutionary War in Boston, and was present with it at Lexington, Concord and Bunker Hill, and served through the war. Tolman's mother was a little girl 8 or 9 years old at the time the last battle was fought, and often told him how she watched every phase of the battle from a safe eminence nearby.
    Our J. C. Tolman was born in Ohio, and when 26 years old moved to Iowa, in 1839. He is now nearly 73 years of age and carries his three score and ten as well as many do a mere half century. Time, and his own good judgment, have dealt kindly with him. He prospered fairly in the West [i.e., Ohio], and by hard work and good management had a sawmill, doing a good business, in Van Buren County. In 1844 a heavy freshet, or flood, came and swept this property away, leaving him $600 in debt, but the owner of 200 acres of land. This he put in the hands of a brother to be sold for his debt. He then went to Ottumwa, Wapello County, and in 1815 was interested in a tannery. He engaged for a salary to be clerk in a store, with leave to manage his tannery business. At the election for county officers he was elected county clerk, so he did not lack business. He employed a deputy for the office and managed to keep all things going. The concern he was with in one season loaded thirteen flatboats with wheat for New Orleans.
    About 1848 times became fearfully depressed. The few land sales that were made drained the country of money, and ambitious and enterprising men looked about for anything to claim their attention and offer better results. Many were ready for any sort of an opening, when word came that gold was discovered in California. Men who had secured the country to buy wheat for three bits a bushel, and had scarce made a living profit at that, heard with wonder of the rich diggings that waited for their coming in the wild Sierras of California. So a number of young men determined to make the trip, Tolman among them. They talked of going by water, but transport from Panama to San Francisco was so uncertain that they concluded to make the long land journey in preference. They had to get ox teams, and being versed in bovine lore, looked out for lively beasts that could travel well.
    By sharp trading they procured good stock, and six of them--out of twenty who talked of going--actually outfitted. They started with wagons heavily loaded, but they soon learned that would not do, and sold off a part of their loading. They finally left Kanesville, Iowa, May 13, in good shape for their long journey of 2000 miles or more. The company divided up at the Missouri River, and Tolman fell in with a party of six wagons, under one Sawen, who had them all organized as a regiment. He had been in the Florida war, and was full of experience of Indian fighting. Six wagons made a company, and each had officers, from captain to corporal. This Sawen was an arrant coward and great braggadocio, and a few of them who loved a joke played him for all he was worth. They induced him to strut for days in an old militia uniform one of his men had, as the effect they told him would be to terrify the savages. They got him to order all loose men to march, with guns shouldered, by the side of the wagons. They played all sorts of tricks on his vanity and credulity, and he never saw through them. This formidable array soon went to pieces, and the company divided into small parties that had no trouble. There was no danger from Indians in '49, and only for the cholera, and human weakness and meanness, travel on the plains was rather pleasant. Our sketch of this journey to California shows how greatly the emigrations differed in Oregon and to the gold fields. Those for Oregon had families, and had only proper and reasonable desires, while those for California were all greedy for gold. Not the sort necessary to settle a country, and the very sort to make trouble and difficulty as they went. We give it greatly for the sake of the contrast.
    Passing up the Platte, one of the men in Tolman's train took the cholera, and his partners left him for dead and went to sleep. Tolman had medicines, and none of the rest had, so he furnished all who were ill. He saw that this man was alive, so he put up a tent for him and worked all night with him. At 2 o'clock he came to and grew better. His partners were not successful in appropriating his share of team and loading and saw him appear with more surprise than pleasure. He lived to show his appreciation that he owed his life to Tolman. This little incident illustrates how brutal some men became on the plains. Unless a man had true character he sometimes lost all humanity. This was more the case where there were only men and no families in the company.
    Tolman got along very well without Col. Sawen and his private secretary, but fell among meaner men than the "Spartan Band" contained, for that was the name Sawen gave his caravan. If this was a place to tell of humorous dealings we could fill columns with the ludicrous antics and various performances of Col. Sawen, how his courage oozed when it should not, etc., but we will push on towards California.
    Tolman and two others kept together through the central desert of Utah and Nevada. At one place there was a ferry made of two cottonwood canoes and puncheons across them. Every party had to pay $30 for its use and get the money back from the next comer. The last party that crossed of course lost the whole $30. That was the way business was done on the plains in '49. They fell in with six or seven wagons, under Capt. Eckard, a very clever man, who had a bad lot with him. They couldn't treat him meanly enough and couldn't elect anyone else. There were several chronic cases of growling and quarreling among this party. Tolman's partner had two brothers in the crowd; one of them had died of cholera and the other growled for two. Their name was Groule, suggestive and appropriate.
    On Humboldt it was necessary to make a night drive on the desert, as the days were intolerable and no water to be had. About 2 o'clock the majority determined to stop and make coffee and so lost time that was invaluable. The heat and the hot sand the next day overpowered the cattle so that they gave out ten miles from their destination and could not haul the wagons. They drew lots to decide who should stay there and guard the wagons while the rest drove the cattle on to water. The lot fell on Tolman and a little Missourian who was "all tow and fire." They stretched a wagon sheet from one wagon to another, laid some hay down on the ground and spread their blankets. They could not eat without they had drink, and they had no drink. Resigning himself to it, Tolman slept most of the time, but the Missourian fumed. Time passed in such a situation is not agreeable by any means. That day went; the next night and all the next day, and they suffered the torments of thirst. On the next night there came back four men with the animals, and they brought about a pint of water in a canteen. Coming only ten miles and at night, and after a long rest and plenty to drink, the miserable wretches had actually nearly drunk all the water they had with them and left to suffer those men who had not drunk for several days. Tolman took it philosophically, as he had not suffered a great deal, but the little Missourian, his companion, had fretted so as to aggravate his physical sufferings, and when he realized that the canteens were empty he raved in a strain of profanity that equaled the situation and the surroundings. This incident illustrates the ineffable and contemptible meanness and selfishness of human nature under difficulties. The teams were hitched up and driven at a lively gait on to the Carson. The excuse made for their long absence was that they were tired and went to sleep.
    All the fun Tolman had during that doleful stay on the Humboldt desert was from the following incident: His companion was sitting on a wagon tongue, and on the ground at his feet was a little hay. There happened to come up a stray ox that smelled the hay. This was an animal that had given out and been abandoned by some emigrant, as not able to walk. It was nearly blind from the sun glare on the sand and crazed by hunger and thirst. Smelling the hay, he went furiously after it, but not noisily. The first the little Missourian knew he was knocked over and the beast was munching the feed. This was too much for Missouri patience. The little man raved; he grasped an oxbow and pounded away on the rack of bones that was crunching the hay, but the mad creature let him pound without a note of resistance. The poor ox offers a pitiful picture of the distress that was everywhere around them.
    Eckard had a rough time with his crew. They expected the impossible, did nothing, and blamed him for all they did not accomplish. He actually did his part well, but they could not invent enough humiliation to put upon him. He laid up a day at Carson, and they went on. He soon overtook them, and that made them angry. The first of the Serra Nevada ranges was very steep, and they refused to help his team up as they did each other, and were mad because Tolman did it. Eckard had taken on his wagon the stuff of every team that had given out, and had a larger load than anyone else. Tolman's partner was sick in the wagon, and objected to his helping Eckard, but Tolman bossed the job to suit himself.
    They all wanted to take a new route via Honey Lake, and started on it, but soon met a man returning, who said it was not passable as yet. Eckard and Tolman turned back, and struck across to take the other road, and did not lose much time. The rest all followed, for they lacked independence to go anywhere alone or to act for themselves. The result proved they had done well to keep the old road. His sick partner swore he would die if they went back to the Humboldt, and had the consoling assurance that Tolman would see him properly buried. He didn't die. An old quack--Doc Mills--had one yoke with Tolman's team, and to show how unreasonable men become, we will quote him as swearing that he would go the new road if he knew it went to hell if he had a team at his command. Some of them were fearfully demoralized. The same night seventy-five wagons came back from the Honey Lake route, and their teams were nearly used up. So the growlers had no complaint to make and followed the train as before. After a row Tolman's partner--one of the Groules--would wilt down completely and emphasize his submission to a firmer will by having a good cry by the roadside. The brothers Groule had a horse between them, but were not willing to stand guard at night. They stuffed an image and stood [it] up as if a man was on guard, and then went to sleep calmly and soundly. Probably the Piutes saw them make the dummy. At any rate the morning sun shone on the dummy, but they never saw the horse again.
    One man named Pilcher took the premium as a professional tongue lasher. He had "a gift" that way, and would take a man up and overhaul his mind and temperament with a choice assortment of emphatic language. He would do any man's wrangling if he took a fancy towards him. It was amusing to see some of them begin to move off when Pilcher's tongue got into motion. Instead of resenting or replying, they would cow down and slink off as if they had been caught at stealing. He liked Tolman well enough to give him no annoyance on his own account.
    The wagon road on the Sierra Nevada Range was good, and they did not even have to double teams. When they got to the summit they found signboards that read in glaring capitals:
    And various announcements of as many enticing districts that waited for the emigrants' coming. The loose men who had no teams, or had lost their cattle, were so excited that they could hardly wait for the train to make camp. They cooked up all the food they could carry or would be likely to need in a trip of forty miles, and then started on foot for the El Dorado they had finally got in sight of. They found this journey very different from their expectation. The grub gave out the first night, and the distance proved to be eighty miles. So they journeyed on, hungry and weary, going two days without any food. The teams reached the foot of the mountains in good time and good order. They cut browse for the cattle and took their time for the journey.
    So our traveler was at last in the region of so many hopes, ready for work, but the first night he was taken down with a severe attack of mountain fever, and sent for his fellow traveler, the quack doctor, Mills, who looked at him by dim candlelight, as he lay in his tent, and with a monstrous oath, swore: "You shan't die, Tolman; I'll break this fever by midnight," and so he did, giving him pills and things that effected wonderful results, and left Tolman strength to move the next day.
    Doc Mills told his patient he was very ignorant as to science, but had got ideas from the Indians and had learned a great deal by his own forty years practice and experience. So he could accomplish good results when he understood his case. On the plains he was uniformly successful and had a wonderful reputation. Tolman felt much obliged to him, as he ought.
    He hired a man to hitch up his team (he had bought his partner out when they reached the mountains) and drove down to Sacramento. He crossed the American River and turned the team out, having no trouble to ford the stream. Returning a few hours after, he found the river up, so he could only ford it with difficulty, and wondered if there had been a cloudburst or storm in the mountains to create the rise. It was high tide on the Sacramento. Iowa was too far inland for tides to reach, so he took his first lesson in the mystery of the tides at Sacramento.
    The next day he sold wagon and team to a merchant who offered to furnish a full stock for him to handle at some good point and give him half the profit if he would go in with him, but Tolman had come to California to mine for gold, and was not disposed to sell goods until he had tried his hand at mining. He had a trunk in his wagon, and some good clothes in it. He tried to get it stored, but they charged him $2 a week, and that would soon equal the value of the goods, so he took wagon bows and a cover and, driving the bows down near the river bank, stretched the canvas over the sides, leaving the ends open. Inside this shelter he placed his trunk, on top of which he laid a pair of new boots that he could not induce the trunk to hold. He went to the mines, and his trunk was unmolested under the oak tree until late in the fall, when the rise of the river threatened to swamp it. Then a neighbor named Harris, who knew him, took the trunk and boots to his house nearby, and it was waiting for him when he came back. It held a good black suit that he wore back to the States in '51, and a dozen starched white shirts that had become too tender [i.e., too limp] to do much service by that time.
    While studying where to go, Mr. Tolman met with a Mr. Seaman, who was an Iowa acquaintance. Seaman was looking for a partner to mine with. They soon agreed, outfitted, and then looked out for diggings. They started north, hoping to get out of the reach of the immigration that was just come in. There were plenty of fabulous stories, and they had to act with judgment. They went afoot and drove their mules loaded with materials and supplies. They heard of sickness and poor diggings farther north and turned to the Yuba. That afternoon they found where a branch of it came out of the mountains, picked and ground-worked there until near Christmas, then went in with others to build a wing dam. Tolman was the only one in good health and had to work in the water. They finished it and cleaned up $12 a day with rockers. Three months later, when they had learned to do good work, they could have earned $100 a day at the same place with the same labor. They then took up high bank claims and got their winter supplies. Above them was a Boston company of thirty men that had lost thirty [sic] by fevers. Coming from the sea, they could not endure the terribly hot summer weather.
    They had mechanics with them and they made a quicksilver machine that Tolman went to see in operation. They asked him $800 for one like it, but he went back, and, planning it as he went home, soon made himself one out of a big pine tree, and it worked better than the machine he saw in use. With this improvement he and his partner made better progress. Companies near them had come by water; all of them had been sick, and some had died. These offered him a share to work their ground, and he did so, clearing $100 a day each for the three of them. The next claim they worked paid them $125 a day each. The owner was dishonest and tricked them of a small sum by using quicksilver to weaken amalgam. He accidentally cheated himself of just as much as he had cheated them, so they were even, but it was not pleasant to get even with a rogue by even his own mistakes. The way of it was that every night they divided the ounces, and this man kept the odd ounces or fractions over. An account of it was kept each night, and when they finally called for a division it amounted to several hundred dollars. He figured up the total and gave it all to them, forgetting that half of it was his own. They said nothing, for the sum due them just offset what he had robbed them of. They were to retort his amalgam for him, supposing it was just as when they cleaned up. Knowing the actual value when it left the mines, they took it at that value. But he had put more quicksilver with it, enough to eat up their 10 percent for retorting, so that when retorted the sum total was just what they had agreed to give him. They had worked for nothing. Seaman was for having a row and calling him a thief, but Tolman said: "No, let's wait and see if we can't get even without a quarrel," as they eventually did.
    In the winter the whole party on this stream had touches of the scurvy. Seaman saw blotches on his limbs and started in haste for Sacramento. He never came back. Those who remained by mere accident got rid of the plague. They were, innocently enough, trying to make vinegar in a syrup barrel that had considerable sugar in it. One day somebody tasted it, and it reminded him of good cider. It reminded all of them of good cider, and none of it ever got to be vinegar. They were surprised to find that their scurvy disappeared, and their general health improved. In time they learned that they had followed the best plan possible to cure the scurvy. So they were able to remain and prosecute their enterprise, enjoyment of health and, in time, of wealth. Heavy rains came that winter and carried off all the works and machines on the river. Tolman's company had their machine hauled up high on the bank, but it went with the rest. Water rose to the floor of their cabin, but no higher. During the high water they made machines that sold for $300 apiece. Late in January some negroes came along who had coarse gold. They promised on their return to pilot them to where it was found. Tolman's partner was a Free Soil Democrat, and took kindly to them, so they took well to him. But the darkies never came back. That winter a law was passed that no colored man should hold any mineral claim, and "that let them out." They put up a tent on a mountain that was traveled greatly, and later built a large log house there to entertain travelers, and the place was long known as "The Niggers' Tent."
    Wishing to get into coarse gold placers, Tolman's party bought six mules for $200 apiece and early in February started up the stream. They stopped where deep snow on the Yuba made further progress impossible and sent their mules back to grass. They took up claims on Cox' Bar, then went three miles further to Downey's, and found seven men wintering and crevice mining. They hauled their supplies on hand sleds, and the place where they made them was long called Sleigh Town. About March 1 he located ten claims on the north fork of the Yuba, at a place where he saw the stream could be easily turned, and left two men to guard and hold the ground. Taking one man with him, he went back to Sleigh Town for necessary supplies.
    Tolman, all through his California experiences, had to furnish the two great essentials to success in any country, money and management. He had endured much in midwinter to secure good ground. He furnished all that was needed and went himself to endure a trip through the snows to bring up provisions. He had hardly reached Sleigh Town when a fierce storm of wind and snow arose that for twelve days made it humanly impossible to travel in any direction. As he came down he met men going up, but he had secured his ground and had no fears. When travel became possible he went back with provisions. He found his two men at Cox' Bar. They had become discouraged and went down where they were near food and fellows. They must have come to California for comfort, they thought so much of it. When he reached the ground he had claimed, he found the newcomers in possession. They mined it out that season and took out over $100,000. It proved, as Tolman thought, the very best ground near there, and the dullards he left in possession had thrown it away. Tolman is not a man to cry about spilled milk, so he fell back on his
and went to work to get the gold that was waiting there for some worker. It was then the spring of 1850. He had made money during the time since arriving, but had struck nothing rich in the mining sense. At Cox' he went in with a company that owned ground above to build a dam. They had failed once and were willing to let him plan the work. Seventeen men were interested, and soon the work was finished in spite of high water and various delays. During that summer Tolman played a close game to interest persons who would be entirely dependent on him and would do as he said. He got them to take claims and furnished the money to work with. The summer and fall passed and he had matters well in hand. His party owned the bank and to the middle of the river on one side for 180 feet--six claims of thirty feet. Those who claimed the other side went away in winter and their claims were vacant. It was his game to stay with his men and dig a canal around the other side that would turn the river. The canal would give them all the land it drained on that side. It was blasting through hard blue basalt; the canal was five feet deep, twelve feet wide at the bottom, and eighteen feet at surface. This herculean work they finished during the winter, and when spring opened they owned that much good mining ground and could take their time to save their gold. It was no trifling undertaking. Their fortunes were in that stone's throw of riverbed and bank.
    One man offered his share for sale at $5000. He said he would rather have Tolman's promise than take chances. Tolman took the chances and bought him out. He agreed to work the claim at $6 a day. The current wages were $7. It was the 4th of July before all were ready to go to work, and the water was turned on. A set of long sluices bore away the washed dirt. In the space of thirty-three days' time, with twelve to fifteen men at work, they took out $100,000. Here was something that realized their hopes of El Dorado, but not without a due share of labor and experience. When nearly through work Tolman sold his interest for $5000, and with over $20,000, almost a hundred pounds weight of the precious dust, he was ready to start for home and see the girl he left behind him. There had been patient waiting and working, and now he was homeward bound.
    Before he was ready to leave, Tolman received a friendly warning that a set of low gamblers was organizing to make a raid on miners like himself as they should go out of the mines with their treasure. He had waited for a "goodly company" to be a safeguard, and when finally he took the road towards Sacramento he formed one of a party of ten or twelve resolute men who carried out over $100,000. They were well armed and had no timidity. They had a great mountain spur to cross, and when halfway up the trail the seven gamblers overtook them. The miners were on the qui vive, and gave no chance to attack. All reached the "Nigger Tent," which was at this time a great log house for travelers, kept by the negroes we have already met.
    The robbers tried to put up some game to catch the miners. They called for cards and drank and pretended to gamble and then to fight. It was a large room, but the whole crowd occupied it all night. The miners piled up their luggage and treasure in one corner, and one-half stood watch at all times. The greater the row among the others, the more anxious our men were. The night passed, and after breakfast the whole crowd went down the mountain. The gamblers had heard Tolman say very certainly that his party would take the road to Marysville, and that had been so often said that they went ahead and turned off on that road when the forks were reached. Tolman and his friends saw the tracks they made and took the road to Nevada City, and that was the last they saw of the hangdog crowd. They remained a few weeks in California, then took the steamer for Panama, September 15. As the express company wished to charge him $1500 for carrying his treasure to New York, a party was made up for mutual protection.
    They need only fear the pirates on the Chagres River. This river they went down to the ocean over fifty miles, and the boatmen [were] sometimes very wicked. They were warned, and when they hired  a great whaleboat or yawlboat, they put their baggage in the center and piled their bags of gold dust with the rest. The crew consisted of a Spanish ruffian for captain and four negroes. They let this crew see that they were well armed and not afraid. The treasure was fully $100,000 in value, and the captain's eyes fairly glared over it. The game is to upset the boat, gold and all, and then to secure the gold at leisure. The travelers purchased and inflated life preservers, and tied one to each gold sack. As the sacks could not sink, there would be less interest in upsetting the boat. It was close work watching that Spaniard, but it was necessary. At one time he was caught trying to run the boat broadside onto a river snag, a big "sawyer," but several revolvers and knives were drawn, and he was informed that any attempt of the kind would be his death warrant. This ended his hopes, and at the next landing the "bold buccaneer" went ashore and left the crew to manage without his help. No doubt he proposed to capture or share the gold dust, but he did not. They reached New York in safety and saved the greater part of the 7 percent the express companies would have charged on the total $100,000 of treasure that one party carried.
    Our next will bring the old pioneer to Oregon and to his own well-beloved Southern Oregon, that is certainly one of the most charming and agreeable spots on the fair earth.
Sunday Oregonian, Portland, March 7, 1886, page 7

NOT SATISFIED BY HALF.

A SCARED DUTCHMAN.

THE MODOCS OUTWITTED.

A TALK WITH SCHONCHIN.

A TRAGIC STORY.

RESULTS OF INDIAN ATROCITY.

VENGEANCE EXECUTED.

INCIDENTS ON THE PLAINS.

LIKE NIOBE, ALL TEARS.

A REGULAR SCRIMMAGE.

PIONEER DAYS.
Indian Wars in Southern Oregon from 1853 to 1855, Inclusive.
True Stories of Reckless Whites and Ferocious Savages--Warfare Behind Rocks and Trees.
(Written for the Sunday Oregonian.)

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