Beautiful Mine, page 6
Miners invaded the yellow-oak studded foothills around Downieville in 1848. The richest diggings were found near the sand bars along the Yuba River. During its heyday from 1848 to 1902, prospectors pulled more than a billion dollars worth of gold out of the mountains and streams. By the early 1900s, the gold had played out and Downieville’s population dwindled from five thousand to just below twenty-two hundred people. Mining continued to be a popular career in the town, and prospectors who owned wealthy claims continued to be preyed upon by greedy malcontents.
Mine owner Gertrude Peckwith and her husband Tony worked their profitable Downieville find for years, always safeguarding that their claim was secure. In 1958, a series of unfortunate events led to Gertrude losing her tie to the mine—events that law enforcement officials and local newspaper reporters insisted were suspicious and premeditated by someone who desperately wanted the Peckwith riches.
Era Gertrude Chinn was born on June 20, 1876, in Beaver Dam, Kentucky and came to California in 1906. She was the owner and operator of a successful beauty shop in San Francisco. She met Tony Peckwith when he made a trip to the bayside city to purchase mining equipment. The two were married in 1923 and resided in Downieville for more than thirty-five years.
Tony was an accomplished miner and a partner in a lucrative mining venture. His natural ability to locate gold made him a valuable asset to the West Point Mining Company. The rocks he discovered on the site made the local newspapers seventeen years before he and Gertrude were wed. According to the August 11, 1906 edition of the Mountain Messenger, “Tony Peckwith, one of the boys of the West Point Mine at Monte Cristo, exhibited some fine nuggets last Sunday, recently taken out of the above named mine. There were three of them valued at about $90 each and one nugget was about $500.”
Tony invested his share of the profits made from the West Point Mine to purchase the Golden Empire Mine. He and Gertrude were the sole stockholders in the expedition; both shared the duties of digging and panning the rocks and streams in the area, and Gertrude maintained the books for the business. The couple had no children and were devoted to one another and their work. The property proved to be a worthy investment, yielding more than a quarter of a million after only a year in operation.
In 1937, Tony was killed in a mining accident at the West Point Mine. The following year Gertrude married Tony’s brother, William. William also worked at the mine and in 1941, he too died in a similar accident. The widow Peckwith was left to operate the Golden Empire Mine on her own. Rumors abound that the deaths of both her husbands were planned “accidents.” Unknown persons, hoping to acquire Gertrude and Tony’s claim, were reported to have been behind the passing of the Peckwith brothers. Gertrude dismissed the idea outright, and despite warnings from well-meaning friends and neighbors, she refused to take precautions with her own life.
In addition to prospecting, for many years Gertrude operated a water service company. The service assisted mine owners in the area with pumping water out of their diggings. While manning the office on a warm day in the summer of 1956, she met a fifty-eight-year-old miner by the name of August Pelletier, who was working his way across the Sierra mountain range searching for gold. He believed the hills around Downieville contained a major gold vein that had not yet been tapped. His enthusiasm and excitement for the fortune was infectious and Gertrude invited him to search for the treasure in her mine.
Old timers living in town had shared information with the charming August about which mines had made money and Gertrude’s Gold Eagle was one of them. Without hesitation, August quickly accepted the lady miner’s offer. In a very short time the two became good friends. It is not clear if Gertrude developed romantic feelings for August, but she did care and trust him enough to give him power of attorney over her business dealings.
Downieville residents were suspicious of August’s relationship with the eighty-one-year-old woman. With nothing more to go on than a gut instinct or mutual distrust of the ambitious miner, some people approached Gertrude with their feelings. She did not share their concerns and avoided anyone who made disparaging remarks about August.
On August 28, 1958, news that Mrs. Peckwith had died filtered through the area, and many townspeople believed foul play might have been involved. The Sierra County Newspaper carried her obituary, explaining that her passing was a result of a serious fall.
Mrs. Era Gertrude Peckwith died about 5 o’clock this afternoon at her home. According to reports, she was traveling past the Bank Mine, on Downie River, above the Hansen bridge, formerly owned and operated by the late “Frendy” Jean Renier, which in former days had been a good prospector.
She accompanied August Pelletier to the Golden Eagle Mine Wednesday morning, and according to Philip R. Newberg, coroner, Pelletier said he was working in the tunnel and came out about 11 a.m., heard her moaning and found she had fallen 30 feet over a bank toward the river. He took her home and called Dr. Carl C. Sutton who advised hospitalization, particularly on account of a heavy cold, but she declined for lack of finances. . . . Pneumonia is said to have attributed to her death. Bergemann Funeral Service came for the body and Newberg ordered an autopsy to determine cause of death.
The report that Gertrude’s funds were depleted to the point that she could not afford a stay in the hospital shocked and saddened the community. Many surmised that her money had been slowly siphoned away. The autopsy report noted that Gertrude’s death was indeed a result of a “fall from the trail down a steep bank while walking along a narrow trail.” Investigators further concluded that the fall had been an accident.
Regardless of what the official document read, how she died was a source of continual gossip. Stories circulated that she had been drugged and that had caused her to fall. Others claim she was hit in the back of the head with a rock and that caused her to lose her footing. Copies of the autopsy report that were snuck out of the coroner’s office made their way through the community and fueled the skeptics’ scenario that Gertrude had been hit. According to Newberg’s findings, “When the skull was open during the standard procedure, it was seen there was a large hemotoma under the scalp in the middle portion of the skull.” Newberg insisted the bruise was consistent with an injury from a fall, but doubters would not be satisfied.
Conspiracy theorists even dissected the statement of eyewitness Leta Ketcham. The sixty-one-year-old woman informed investigators of everything she had seen the morning Gertrude died, beginning with the fact that her home was located across the Downie River from the Golden Eagle Mine.
I can see the Golden Eagle Mine and trail to it from my kitchen window. I have seen Mr. Pelletier and Mrs. Peckwith going to the mine by the trail many times. It was customary for Mrs. Peckwith to be walking alone along the trail in going to the mine and again in returning along the trail to the car after they were through working at the mine. I had seen Mrs. Peckwith walking along the narrow trail a number of times by herself and Mr. Pelletier would follow in about five minutes.
On August 27, 1958, about eleven o’clock, I looked out my kitchen window and saw Mrs. Peckwith hanging on to the roots of several trees near the top of the bank at the edge of the trail. Mr. Pelletier was trying to push her up on to the trail. Mr. Pelletier finally got Mrs. Peckwith on to the trail. He let her rest a few minutes and then helped her up and they started to walk along the trail. They went behind some trees and I saw them again about fifty yards down the stream. Mr. Pelletier picked Mrs. Peckwith up and carried her to the car. Mr. Pelletier then went back along the trail and got his tools and returned to the car.
I had worried many times that Mrs. Peckwith would fall from the trail as it was very narrow in spots along the banks. At times she would hang on to the brush and even crawl on her hands and knees to make her way along the trail.
Those who believed Gertrude’s death was not an accident supported their premise with Ketcham’s statement that she saw August and Gertrude as they “went behind some trees.” Speculation rose that in that moment the lady miner could have been “knocked in the skull with a good size rock.”
Throughout the ordeal and the days and weeks after Gertrude’s demise, Pelletier steadfastly maintained his innocence. He vigorously denied having anything to do with her fall or with taking her money. The power of attorney she had signed over to him was terminated at her death. Gertrude’s niece was named as heir of her estate and of the Golden Eagle Mine. August left Downieville for whereabouts unknown.
Gertrude’s mine proved to be played out. Her relatives decided to leave the property alone and allow time and nature to reclaim the diggings.
FRANCES WILLIAMS: FOUNDER OF THE COALDALE MINING COMPANY
“She came, she saw, and she paid.”
—The Goldfield Chronicle’s comment about Frances’s unfortunate experience with the Royal Flush Mine, June 1908
An early morning sun burst through the half-opened door of the assay office in the gold rush town of Tonopah, Nevada in 1903. Dr. Frances Williams, a distinguished-looking woman in her late fifties, studied a large wall map of the various mining claims in the vicinity and traced a section of road with the index finger of her gloved hand. She was dressed in fashionable garments, including a black felt hat from under which soft curls of gray peaked out.
After a few moments she turned away from the map to look at a short, squat district mining recorder reviewing a stack of papers in front of him. Although he wore heavy-lensed glasses, the paper-work was pressed to his nose as he read. Dr. Williams approached the far-sighted man and gave a slight cough. “Everything is in order,” he said without looking up. “Your claim has been recorded.” Frances thanked him for his time and after the clerk stamped and dated the document, he handed the material back to her. She tucked the paper into her woolen satchel and marched proudly out of the office.
It was a full day’s trip to her property in the White Mountains, 40 miles west of Tonopah. After six long months living in a tent in the up-and-coming mining camp of Goldfield, Nevada and shifting through the gold rocks at the base of Malapai Mesa, Dr. Williams had finally secured a plot of land that promised to yield a fortune. The fifty-nine-year-old woman’s 1,280 acres possessed gold and coal and an ample water supply for farmers and town sites in the lowland areas. Within five years she calculated she could become one of the wealthiest people in Nevada.
Frances Estelle Williams was born in 1844 in New England and was raised by an invalid mother for whom she assumed the responsibility of caring at a very young age. The self-sufficient, compassionate girl grew up quickly. Given her level of maturity, she was attracted to older men who she said had “personal accountability and dedication to a task.” Before she was out of her teens she had married a decorated Navy surgeon, who died of heart failure shortly after they were wed.
Frances’s second husband was a successful St. Louis manufacturer of shellacs, which were primarily for use on silk hats, and varnishes. The wealthy entrepreneur was forty years old and Frances was twenty. The couple was anxious to start a family and during their thirty-five years of marriage they would bring sixteen children into the world; only two children survived to adulthood. Heartbreak and an overwhelming desire to help other mothers who had struggled with the death of a baby would later prompt Frances to study medicine.
In hopes of further developing their profitable business, the Williams moved to the east coast and opened an office in New York. Frances’s husband and son, James, worked side by side creating new recipes to enhance the strength of shellac, and they grew the family-owned and -operated company into a million-dollar organization. Owing to some unwise investments, a slowing of the market, and a lack of focus, the corporation began losing funds as quickly as they were acquired. Using her natural financial talent and ability to take charge of a difficult circumstance, Frances took over the day-to-day operation of the company. She reviewed the books, managed all incoming and outgoing money, and became superintendent of the laboratory. After a few years, the fortune the Williams lost was restored.
With the shellacking and varnishing company making money again, Frances decided to pursue a degree in medicine. Her husband was not opposed to his wife’s ambition; he had plans of his own to focus on. He wanted to retire from the corporate world, sell off the business, and move to Florida to become an orchard farmer. According to an article about his venture to the southeast that ran in the Tonopah, Nevada newspaper the Pueblo Chieftan, all did not go well: “ . . . Fate seemed adverse to Mr. Williams living a life of ease. Jack Frost took a hand in the game and where at night the work of a lifetime was represented by acres of thrifty trees loaded with fruit and promises of more, in the morning naught but blackened wood and blasted hopes remained.”
In 1884, Frances was again put in a position where she had to salvage the family funds and infuse capital into their bleeding bank account. At forty years of age and with her sights on becoming a physician, she moved to Boston and specialized in electric medicine. After graduation she opened her own practice and not only treated patients using the controversial method of touching an electrically charged scalpel to nerves of an infected area of the body, but also created a variety of conductor-style instruments to assist in her work.
The cold, damp New England weather had an adverse effect on the health of Frances’s husband, who had moved to Boston to be with his wife when the orchard failed in Florida. In early 1901, Frances persuaded him to consider moving to a drier climate in the west. He agreed and Dr. Williams closed her busy Boston practice and headed to San Francisco, California with her spouse. She opened an office in her new location and in time, the west coast practice proved to be just as successful as the one on the east coast.
The scenic seaport town was heavily populated with gold and silver miners. Residents in the area could not help but overhear or be pulled into a conversation about major strikes or where the next lucrative claims could be found. Frances was extremely interested in such news and the notion of making a rich discovery lured her away from medicine and into the mining fields. The first mine she invested in was the Alpha Mine at Angel’s Camp east of San Francisco. While working her claim there she learned about a gold ore find in Nevada near the boomtown of Tonopah.
Frances arrived in Nevada in the spring of 1903 and was the first woman in the tiny camp known as Goldfield. According to the April 23, 1905, edition of the Tonopah Pueblo Chieftan newspaper, “Dr. Williams braved the wilds of the desert, living in one of only six tents at the site. She invested the savings of years first in acquiring and then in defending property rights against the machinations and intrigues of trusted employees. Her actions indicate a determination in accomplishing a long cherished object, philanthropic in character, seldom found outside fiction or romance.”
She was fifty-nine years old when she began her ambitious mining venture at the base of the Malapai Mountains. Frances searched the jagged cliffs and rocks for yellow nuggets like a seasoned prospector and was among the noted leaders of the camp who helped organize the Goldfield mining district.
On October 29, 1903, she filed a claim on an area of land called The Valley View. It yielded thousands of dollars worth of gold and silver and enabled her to develop claims she made in neighboring mountain ranges. Later, she established the St. Frances Gold Mining Company, which consisted of the numerous claims she had worked. The formation of the organization helped her to utilize the Goldfield interests to their fullest, attracting investors statewide.
Frances made frequent trips to Tonopah and Reno to solicit backers for her growing concerns. It was during one of those business trips that she overheard a pair of railroad executives discussing plans to purchase a stretch of land in the southern corner of the territory at a stage-stop known as Coaldale. The area was appealing for its coal deposits. If the railroad owned the land they would have a ready supply of fuel at their disposal. Coal had been discovered there in the fall of 1901 by William Groezenger, but its true value was not realized at the time. Mining and shipping the product off-site was cost prohibitive, and Groezenger abandoned the claim. The railroad officials alone knew the potential of the property and believed they had ample time to purchase an option.
The astute Dr. Williams acted quickly on the valuable information she discovered. She hurried to the location and inspected the area of land she had heard about, and working with William Groezenger, she staked a 1,280-acre claim and beat the railroad executives in securing an option on the plot. Once ownership of the coal was set, the mining entrepreneur established a town site and water rights. The Tonopah newspaper the Pueblo Chieftan explained the value of Frances’s ingenuity in an article that ran on April 23rd, 1905:
To enter desert land water was necessary. Away up in the White Mountains twenty miles from the coal deposits nature had cunningly hid away a stream of pure mountain water by dropping it into the earth at the head of a canon known as ‘dry canon,’ where but apparently few white men had ever been. This water right of 1,000 miners’ inches, sufficient to irrigate twenty thousand acres of land, Dr. Williams secured and recorded.
Another area newspaper, the Tonopah Miner, called Frances’s potentially lucrative business venture “a sensational feat.” Investors she approached in New York, Boston, and California were eager to provide the money needed to build up the promising section of the state. For many years Frances had dreamed of owning several hundred acres of land and transforming the property into a city. Her idea was to populate the newly formed town with laborers and business owners who “could and MUST own his own home and have a voice in the management of the business which furnishes him a livelihood.”
