Told by the Pioneers - Washington Secretary of State

Told by the Pioneers
We had been told that the winters were mild and we could work
outside in our shirt sleeves. It began to snow and kept on snowing.
Our cabin was completely covered. vVe had to keep shoveling' the
snow away, but we got along some way.
During the following April, when my father, brother and I started
for the Florence mines, we went up over the Alpowa hills. They
were covered with ice from the snow that had packed there during the
winter. vVe dropped down into the Snake River Valley, to find the
grass green and Indians camped at the mouth of the Alpowa. That
was Chief Timothy's home. Many a time in later years I was to see
this encampment and accept the hospitality of the friendly chief, who
never lifted a hand against the whites.
vVe found ten thousand men in the Florence mines, and the g'ood
claims all staked. They were taking out $6,000 a day with rockers.
We didn't stay long, but went down to the Salmon River Valley and
spent the winter. Flour was $2.50 a pound and bacon the same.
I was 16 years old in the spring' of 1863; my brother, Dick, was older.
He killed a big elk in the Salmon River Valley, and we packed
that to ~-'lorence and sold it for $1.00 a pound. That kept us going for
a while. The woods were full of huckleberries, so when they got ripe
we sold them for $5.00 a gallon. I could pick two gallons a day.
Two men whipsawed some lumber for father, and he made a skiff
and we crossed the Salmon and went south. We drifted around, hearing
of diggings here and there and finally returned to the Pataha.
Two miles above the place where the trails crossed the creek, a man
named Sunderland had located. I went up to the mountains and got
out logs for him and helped build his log cabin, the first on the site
of the present Pomeroy, but the town started a long time after that.
I started packing to the mines and stayed with it six years. In
1863, Colonel Craig put his ferry on the Snake river between the present
sites of Lewistown and Clarkston. The former was not long in
becoming a town, but Clarkston was only a horse pasture for a long
time. A man named Greenfield had a horse ranch on that side of the
river. John Scilott had a ferry on the Snake river. His wife was
Chief Timothy's daughter, Jane. When I'd go to Montana with a
pack train, I would stop there. She was a good friend of mine.
Every kind of merchandise needed at the mines was packed in on
the backs of mules; mining machinery, tools, tables for the gamblers,
food and clothing. Expert skill and judgment were required to prevent
over-loading and the wrong kind of packing. Flour was one of
the most difficult articles to pack. Three hundred and fifty pounds
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