Chapter 1 - The Need for Water . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1 The First Gold Seekers and Settlers – Getting There – The First Winter – A Name for the New Town – The First Water Ditches – The Rise and Fall of Coyoteville Chapter 2 - After the Initial Rush . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .21 More Supplies in Time for Winter – The Ohio Miners on Buckeye Hill – The First City Fire – The Discovery of Gold in Quartz – The Start of Professional Gold Mining Chapter 3 - Mining Techniques . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .51 Panning for Gold – The Rocker or Miner’s Cradle – The Long Tom – Sluice Boxes – Ground Sluicing – The Origins of Hydraulic Mining – Hydraulic Mining Monitors and Giants Chapter 4 - The First Ditches . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .74 The Oldest Ditches – Mosquito Ditch (March 1850) – Phelps Hill Ditch (May 1850) – Nevada Saw Mill (August 1850) – Rock Creek Ditch (August 1850) – The Miner’s Inch Chapter 5 - The Twin Ditches . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 96 Coyote Ditch (November 1850) – Deer Creek Ditch (November 1850) – The First Ditch Lawsuit – The Combined Coyote and Deer Creek Water Company – The End of the Beginning Chapter 6 - The Other Early Ditches . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 130 Rough and Ready – The Original Rough and Ready Ditch (April 1851) – Slate Creek Ditch (July 1851) – The (Later) Rough and Ready Ditch (1859) – Newtown Ditch (May 1851) – Woods Ravine or Mount George Ditch (Mid-1850s) – Selby Flat and Brush Creek – Selby Flat Ditch (October 1850) – Warren Ditch (May 1853) Chapter 7 - The Willow Valley Ditches . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .168 Tomlinson’s Ditch (Spring 1851) – Tomlinson’s Elevator – Eagle Saw Mill and Ditch (November 1851) – Morrow’s Ditch (Fall 1855) – Mosquito Creek Ditch (Mid-1850s) | Chapter 8 - The Gold Flat Ditches . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 195 Gold Flat – Miner’s Deer Creek Ditch (March 1851) – Laird’s Gold Flat Ditch (October 1851) – Kellogg, Sheets and Harrison’s Ditch (Summer 1851) – Town Talk – Union Ditch (1852) – Allen Ditch (Fall 1852) – McCharles Greenhorn Ditch (March 1855) – Sasseen Greenhorn Ditch (1855) – Gold Flat in Later Years Chapter 9 - The Snow Mountain Ditches . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 236 Fordyce and Rich Rock Creek Ditch (April 1853) – Little or Upper Snow Mountain Ditch (June 1853) – Snow Mountain Ditch (Spring 1854) – The Rock Creek, Coyote and Deer Creek, and South Yuba Canal Company – Finishing the Snow Mountain Ditch Chapter 10 - Origins of the South Yuba Canal Company . . . . . .270 The South Yuba Mining and Sacramento Canal Company – The Engineer’s Survey – The War of Words Chapter 11 - Challenging the Monopolists . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .298 Calamity on the Pearl – The Ditch Difficulty – The Soul and Purse of the Monopoly – The Battle Moves to the Courts – The Old English Company Appeals – The Case Finally Goes to Trial – The Verdict Chapter 12 - Building the South Yuba Canal . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 320 Getting Started – Blasting Out a Flume, High Up on a Cliff – Seven Miles of Flume and a Little Tunnel – Eight Miles of Ditch and a Big Tunnel – Nearly Completed – South Yuba Canal Company Office (October 1857) Chapter 13 - Amos Laird and His New Ditch . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 363 Shady Creek Ditch (July 1851) – Laird’s Mining Claims on Lost Hill – The South Yuba & Nevada Ditch (December 1854) – Laird’s New Ditch (July 1855) – The Golden Era of Laird – The Great Flood (February 1857) | |
Chapter 14 - Kidd et al. v. Laird et al. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 388 Slate Creek Company v. Amos Laird (May 1857) – The Ditch Company v. Amos T. Laird – How to Bypass a Ditch – Laird’s Scotts Flat Ditch (April 1857) Chapter 15 - The Ditch and Lake Network . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 436 The Ditch and Lake Network – Lake Water Storage – Ridge Ditch (September 1857) – Alpha Ditch (May 1857) – St. Louis, Linck, Buckeye, and Bell Ditches – Danford’s Gold Hill Ditch (Summer 1854) – Omega Ditch and Virginia Ditch (November 1856) Chapter 16 - The Decline and Fall of Amos Laird . . . . . . . . . .500 The Turning Point – The Original Cascade Ditch (Summer 1857) – Sargent and Jacobs Greenhorn Ditches – Lawsuits Against Laird – Fighting the Paiute Indian War – The Final Struggle – The Life and Times of Amos Laird – South Yuba and Canyon Creek Ditch (August 1872) Chapter 17 - The Blue Tent Ditches . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .543 Blue Tent – Round Mountain Ditch (March 1855) – Blue Tent Ditch (October 1858) – Blue Tent Mining Company Ditch (June 1872) Chapter 18 - The Cement Hill Ditches . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .569 Cement Hill Ditch (Early 1860s) – Nevada City Airport (1934) – Wet Hill Ditch or Red Hill Ditch (December 1870) – Buffington Canal (1870s) – Oustomah and Wokodot, the Nisenan Villages – Shrader Ditch (1860s) – Pennsylvania Mine (1863) and Oustomah Mine (1903) Chapter 19 - Hirschman Diggings on Oustomah Hill . . . . . . 591 Where Was Oustomah Hill? – Hirschman Diggings – The Lone Pine – Hirschman’s Pond Chapter 20 - The Manzanita Ditch and Diggings . . . . . . . . . 610 Consolidating Manzanita Hill – Tragedy at Manzanita Mine – Oscar Maltman’s Sulphuret Reduction Works – Manzanita Ditch (1880) – Sugar Loaf Mountain – Texas Ditch (1884) Chapter 21 - The End of an Era . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 658 The Pioneers’ Epilogue – Ditches for Sale – Idaho Ditch (March 1873) – V Flume (February 1874) – The Pelton Wheel (1878) | Chapter 22 - The Demise of Hydraulic Mining . . . . . . . . . . . . . .692 The First Anti-Debris Lawsuit – The Marysville Flood of 1875 – Keyes v. Little York – Marysville v. North Bloomfield – Engineering Recommendations – Yuba County v. North Bloomfield – Woodruff v. North Bloomfield – The Sawyer Decision – The Aftermath Chapter 23 - Water Power for the Mines . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .729 South Yuba Water and Mining Company – New Cascade Ditch (November 1882) – Idaho-Maryland Mine – Pittsburg or Grass Valley Ditch (February 1883) – Herring Ditch (1877) – Harmony Ridge Ditch (May 1891) Chapter 24 - The Dawn of Electricity . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 763 South Yuba Water Company – The Story of Electricity – Pacific Gas and Electric Company – Making It Rain – Power in the Electrical Age Chapter 25 - The Nevada Irrigation District . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 778 Formation Challenges – The Fight for Water and Power – Distribution System Construction Begins – Deer Creek Reservoir and the D-S Canal – Scotts Flat Reservoir – NID Today Chapter 26 - Stories of Fire and Ice . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .810 Early City Fires – The Great Fire (July 1856) – Competing Water Propositions – Marsh’s Legacy – Blocked By Ice and Snow – Nevada County Hospital Water Pipe (1867) Chapter 27 - Tunnels, Flumes and Siphons . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 856 Snow Mountain Ditch in Later Life – Harmony Ridge Tunnel (January 1875) – Snow Mountain Ditch Flumes – Snow Mountain to Rock Creek Transfer Ditch (1880s) – Snow Mountain Siphon (June 1972) Chapter 28 - Finding the Ditches for Yourself . . . . . . . . . . . . . 872 Appendix - Table of Nevada City Ditches . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 872 Acknowledgments . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 872 Suggested Further Reading . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 872 Copyright and Permissions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 872 About the Author . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 872 Bibliography . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 872 Index . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 872 |
Early Nevada City Miners Charles F. Stamps (1809–1890) - Chapter 1, page 6 James S. Reed (1832–1864) - Chapter 1, page 16 Edwin D. Wadsworth (1832–1901) - Chapter 1, page 17 Peter Decker (1822–1888) - Chapter 2, page 22 William M. Stewart (1825–1909) - Chapter 2, page 32 Anthony Chabot (1813–1888) - Chapter 3, page 62 Edward E. Matteson (1822–1903) - Chapter 3, page 65 Lorenzo Sawyer (1820–1891) - Chapter 22, page 718 The Early Ditch Builders Charles F. Carroll (1828–1863) - Chapter 4, page 84 William H. Folsom (1815–1901) - Chapter 5, page 116 Captain Isaac Nixon (1801–1857) - Chapter 5, page 123 Levi M. Kellogg (1829–1904) - Chapter 6, page 162 David L. Bovyer (1820–1871) - Chapter 6, page 147 Oliver M. Tomlinson (1796–1865) - Chapter 7, page 176 Robert F. Morrow (1830–1918) - Chapter 7, page 188 Joseph S. Harrison (1823–1858) - Chapter 8, page 212 Harrison McCharles (1812–1900) - Chapter 8, page 228 William H. Spencer (1813–1855) - Chapter 9, page 240 Justus G. Fordyce (1801–1865) - Chapter 9, page 250 Amos T. Laird (1812–1880) - Chapter 16, page 528 | The South Yuba Mining and Sacramento Valley Canal Company N. Peabody Poor (1792–1866) - Chapter 10, page 284 Rev. R. Townsend Huddart (1803–1882) - Chapter 10, page 292 William Nicholson (1789–1874) - Chapter 11, page 300 Hamlet Davis (1810–1900) - Chapter 11, page 309 Thomas W. Colburn (1816–1882) - Chapter 11, page 311 The South Yuba Canal Company John S. Dunn (1810–1885) - Chapter 4, page 90 James Whartenby (1818–1890) - Chapter 12, page 353 Daniel A. Rich (1808–1898) - Chapter 15, page 444 Captain George W. Kidd (1813–1879) - Chapter 15, page 476 Thomas O. Dunn (1820–1874) - Chapter 21, page 660 Charles Marsh (1825–1876) - Chapter 26, page 833 Other Significant Miners and Ditch Builders Aaron A. Sargent (1827–1887) - Chapter 14, page 413 Leb Hirschman (1821–1893) - Chapter 19, page 605 William Maltman (1825–1870) - Chapter 20, page 626 Edwin P. Marcellus (1828–1892) - Chapter 20, page 636 Alvinza Hayward (1822–1904) - Chapter 21, page 665 |