"A few Indians were camping near a stream of nice clear water that ran through this meadow. I learned from the Indians, several years later, that they called the place Ah-ha-Carsona, meaning 'Pretty Water,' and have wondered if the Spanish might not have got the name Arizona from this place. Here we camped for the night, and Ayers, Ben Weaver and a Jew named Black Sol overtook us. The next day we made Antelope Creek, and here we camped three days, there being grass and water. A few Americans and many Mexicans were camped here, and working the gulches with pan and rockers. We bought a rocker at Weaver, where we got a small stock of provisions, and fell in with a man who had lived six years in Mexico, and understood working ores, native gold and silver, by the arrastra process. His name was A. P. Mahan.
"From Weaver we crossed the mountains to the Hassayampa, which we struck just above the place where Walnut Grove dam was built. We camped two nights at this place, and did some panning from the bars and gulches. Got a little gold, but not enough to pay for a rocker. We moved up the creek about ten miles, and made our second camp, stayed one night and next day made camp on the creek above the little canyon, where we struck some rich float and traced it up to where we located and called it the Montgomery mine. "We had come all the way from San Francisco to this mine, and only spent one day prospecting, until we reached the Montgomery, and found that on the second day. This was the first quartz mine located in the new country, and we had the location notices recorded in the placer mining book, John Pennington, Recorder, and he carried his book of records in his hip pocket, and his office was under a big juniper tree on the Hassayampa. Since then I have been a Hassayamper.
After finding the Montgomery mine and prospecting a few days, Dr. Howard left us and went to Walker's camp on Lynx Creek, and as we had to have some tools to dig with. Beauchamp and Mahan, my other two partners, started for Weaver, leaving me to keep camp. The second day after they left me I had a hard chill and took a dose of quinine. I took too much, I suppose, for it set me to wandering, and the first that I recollect, I found myself at a camp two and a half miles up the creek where there were some placer miners, all strangers to me; but they gave me some supper and John Dennis, afterwards of Phoenix, and San Diego, divided his bed with me, although he was sick, as was his partner Van Duzen, and a young man named Jack Armstrong.
We slept within a few feet of Armstrong, and the next morning he was dead. Armstrong had a pick, shovel, steel bar, and a twelve pound hammer, which I knew we should have use for, as we had concluded to build an arrastra and work the gold ore of the Montgomery in that way. I had no money to buy the tools, as I had given Beauchamp my purse when he started for Weaver, but I knew there were several dollars in some specimens of the Montgomery mine ore at the camp, so I started for home as soon as I had some coffee. I found Jack, (as we called Beauchamp) and Mahan there, they having returned the night before. We got to work and ground out fourteen dollars worth of gold on a flat rock, and I was back to the placer mine in time to help bury Armstrong.
I got the tools which, with four drills that Mahan had secured by buying two small bars such as the Mexican placer miners use instead of a pick, and having them cut in two and made into drills, and the pick and shovel that we had brought with us, comprised our set of mining tools to open up a mine with. "We moved our camp down the creek about a quarter of a mile near some large tanks at the head of the canyon, and Mahan and I started to build the arrastra while Beauchamp worked at the mine and came down to dinner. Every time he came down he packed a sack of ore on his back. There was no trail by which a horse could get up or down. Besides, our horses were very poor and weak, having only what grass they could get in the daytime, and being tied up at night to keep the Indians from getting them. Mahan had worked in the silver ore mines in Mexico and understood arrastras and amalgamating, so when he and Beauchamp came back from Weaver, they brought a lot of rawhide from Peeples' ranch and with the rawhide and ash poles, the arrastra was built. There were no nails or iron of any kind in it. It was necessary, however, to have some holes in the ash poles, and we had nothing to make them with.
A few weeks later we had turned our horses out on a creek known as Copper Creek, about three miles above our place, as there was good grass and plenty of water there. I went to look after them about once a week, but one day I did not find either Beauchamp's or my own horse. Instead I found where two men with shoes on had driven them off towards the. west. I went home and reported ; took some coffee, pinole and a tin cup to eat out of, and went back and took the trail. That night I followed them to a point between Skull and Kirkland and Valleys, where I camped. The next morning I tracked them about three miles to where some Mexicans were placer mining in Kirkland Valley. There I lost the track among the tracks of the stock that the Mexicans had there. I could learn nothing from the Mexicans, so I gave up the hunt and returned to the mine. My horse was very hard to catch, and the other one would stay right with him, which accounted for the men not getting them, and saved us the horses, for we got them a month later at Peeples ' ranch.
"About December 1st, 1863, we got our arrastra working, and Christmas eve following, we cleaned up $298.50, the result of one ton of ore — the first quartz gold taken out north of the Gila River in Arizona. With the gold that we had retorted in an old musket barrel, I started to meet a Mexican train that we heard was coming from New Mexico with provisions, with the governor and his escort and staff. I expected to go as far as Chino Valley (Del Rio), but met the outfit at Granite Creek, where Prescott now is, and it was a very agreeable surprise to me. I was awful hungry, although I had that day killed a chicken hawk and broiled it on the coals of my camp fire, one built on purpose for the occasion. That night I stayed with Uncle Joe Walker, who led the Walker party to Arizona, and had good grub for the first time in nearly one month. The next day I returned to the mine early, and we all had a big feed for Christmas dinner.
"In the latter part of November, two men, John Laughlin and Valentine, came to our camp and told us of a strike that had been made in the mountains east of the place where Lambertson lived, and as I could not work much, and Valentine and Laughlin pressed me to accompany them, I took a pair of blankets and a little flour and coffee, and went the following morning with them. We went to Lambertson's ranch, and Mrs. Lambertson told us that Lambertson and Gross, (he was the man who found the rich ore), had left there that morning to go to the mine with burros, to pack in ore which they proposed to work with an arrastra. We took the fresh trail and just at night reached their camp on Turkey Creek, which was near the new strike. There we camped near Lambertson and Gross, and the next morning there was several inches of snow on the ground. Lambertson and Gross gathered up their outfit and returned early inthe day, but my party decided to stay one day more, thinking it would clear up. But it did not clear until the third day. We had with us two pair of blankets, and we made a shelter of one pair and all slept between the other pair. We stopped one end with pine boughs and built a big fire at our feet at the open end of the shelter. Our flour and coffee were out, and we were forced to go home without accomplishing anything.
Laughlin lived on Groom Creek. He was partner with R. W. Groom, while Valentine had a camp near by on the same creek, so we concluded to go to that place. We had a hard job wallowing through the snow, but made it to the head of the Hassayampa about four o'clock, and there we found some men who told us of the finding of the Vulture mine. Valentine remarked that he would go down to the Hassayampa Sink, as we then called it, and 'talk Dutch to Henry, and get an interest,' which he did. Valentine was killed later at the nine-mile water hole near Tucson. William Kirkland and his companions were working a placer mine about twelve miles below us, and Kirkland had his family there with him. As there were quite a number of men and some good dogs there, Mahan concluded to take his wife there until we got ready to quit work. I will say that the Indians had been doing a lot of bad work in different places, and that the Mexican who brought the letter from More asking for help, had a fight with them and broke a leg for one of them, between Peeples' Ranch and the Montgomery mine, when he brought the letter. About the last days of March we got our arrastra cleaned up and cached what tools we had, and Beauchamp went prospecting while I went to the Kirkland claim where Mrs. Mahan was cooking for the men who were working the placers.
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