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The Ditches of Nevada City

The Untold Story of Nevada City’s Gold Mining Ditches, the Men Who Built Them, and Their Thirst for Water and Power
by Dom Lindars
NevadaCityHistory.com, 884 pp. $149.95 to $174.95

Table of Contents

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

Biographies of Significant Miners and Ditch Builders

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


Background Image
Flume and canal plans by Fred Tibbetts in 1921.
Source: NID.
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