Chapter 22: Mining Code

 

Mac and the Indian he’d hired and their heavily laden mules kept to a quick pace while returning to the gold claim. When they reached it, the men unloaded supplies and stashed them in the cabin in piles as high as the low ceiling. Mac paid the Indian and sent him on his way.

On a cold mid-November evening a few days later, the three partners sat by their campfire cooking. “Time we set some rules for this valley,” Huntington announced. “Whilst you boys been diggin’, I been talkin’ with other men settlin’ in these parts. Been some squabbles over claim boundaries and such.”

“Have you seen that bastard Smith snooping around again?” Mac asked. “I was in the ravine all day. I didn’t see or hear anyone. But he followed me to the fort.”

“Ain’t seen him this week. Like I said, we need rules. Winter’s comin’. Men’ll be leavin’ their claims. They need to know what rights they got come spring. Everyone from Bible thumpers to drunkards ’round here. Someone’s got to make ’em toe the mark.” Huntington coughed and spat toward the fire.

“Only law we’ve needed so far is a gun,” Joel said, stabbing a piece of venison with his knife. “But I heard tell at the fort some miners are writing their own rules. Makes sense to me.”

“What do you suggest?” Mac said to Huntington. “Have you seen this done elsewhere?”

Huntington nodded. “Call a palaver. We meet to decide what rules we want. You’re the man knows the law. You write ’em down.”

Mac thought a moment. Even if the miners didn’t follow the rules after they were in place, it couldn’t hurt to have a code of sorts. Most of the men in the valley seemed reasonable. Only Smith had been a problem thus far—and whoever the third accomplice was who’d accompanied Smith and Jones when they attacked the claim.

With rules in place, Mac would feel more secure about leaving just one partner on their claim—at least he would if the prospectors in the valley all agreed to protect each other’s claims.

He nodded to Huntington. “Ride around the valley tomorrow. Tell the prospectors we’ll meet here on Sunday afternoon.”

Then he took out his journal and wrote:

 

November 16, 1848. What would Father say now? I will be scrivener for the miners in our valley. I hope the men prove to be sensible. But I fear desire for gold may warp the minds of some.

The following Sunday afternoon about thirty men converged on their claim. Mac recognized most of them, though Smith was one of the few names he knew. His first order of business was to take a roll call.

“Why we need to set rules?” a tall, scrawny man with a long dark beard asked. His name was Duncan. “Doin’ fine all summer.”

“How big is your claim?” Huntington asked. “How many men workin’ it?”

“We doin’ all right,” Duncan said. “You three got more land’n my group.”

“I’m workin’ the top of the ridge,” another man—Fitzgibbons—said. “Ain’t got no water, but what I carry in a bucket to drink and wash in. How do I get water rights?”

Duncan spat. “Shoulda got here sooner. First come, first claim.”

Before more arguments could develop, Mac raised his hand. “All right,” he said. “Here’s what I know. There are no laws governing us, because California has no government other than the U.S. Army at the moment. But if we agree on our own rules, we’ll be safer.”

Smith sat on a log apart from the rest of the men, whittling a stick into shreds with a large knife. His lip curled into a sneer.

“Have we all staked our claims?” Mac asked.

The men nodded.

“Any disputes over the current stakes?”

The men shook their heads. “We worked ’em out ’mongst ourselves,” one man said.

“They’s still unclaimed land in this valley,” Huntington said. “But we’s all abidin’ by the stakes what’s been pounded into the ground already.”

“Then shall we agree each prospector can mine the land he and his partners have staked? And we’ll stay off each other’s claims?” When the men nodded, Mac dipped his quill in the ink bottle and began writing.

“What about when we leave to git supplies?” Duncan asked, scratching his skinny chest. “I suspect men been wanderin’ onto my land when I’m gone.” He looked at Smith as he spoke.

“Will we watch each other’s land? Keep intruders off?” Mac asked. That, of course, was his primary concern.

“For how long?” Smith asked. “We gonna let some go off to the whorehouses all winter? Let ’em come back free and easy, while others guard their claims?”

“Thirty days.” Joel said. “Let a man be gone thirty days. Any longer, the claim’s fair game.”

Another miner—Gabhart—nodded, “Month is plenty of time to get to San Francisco, lose our gold, and come back.”

“Month is fine,” an older man in a vest and top hat said. Mac wasn’t sure of the man’s name. “If a miner leaves his tools on his land, we ain’t gonna disturb it for a month.”

Mac wrote it down.

The men debated until dusk. They agreed on one claim per man, though they permitted partnerships, and they agreed to limit future claim sizes to the largest existing claim—thirty feet of creek bed, back to the top of the ridge, which was roughly fifty feet from the water. Mac, Joel, and Huntington together had around eighty feet along the creek, and most of the ravine where the big lode was located fell within their stakes.

“Fair enough,” Huntington said. “Thirty feet is plenty to dig a hole on, see whether there’s color on the claim. Man can’t work more’n one hole at a time.”

“I’m goin’ out tomorrow to expand my claim,” Gabhart said.

“What about partners?” Mac asked. “Some of us have been using rockers and sluices. Those are best worked by teams of men.”

“Men can work together,” Huntington said. “That’s always been the rule ’mongst prospectors. Don’t see why men can’t join their claims.”

“But we’re agreed,” Joel said, “if a man pulls out, after a month the land is free again. What about selling claims to others?”

“Man can’t hold more’n one claim. We just said so,” the old man in the vest said.

“But a man ought to be able to sell what he has,” Joel protested. “Not have to open it up to anyone.”

“Shall we list our claims?” Mac asked. “I’ll keep the roster of men and what diggings they’ve claimed.”

“No Negroes or Mexicans or Chinese,” Duncan said. “Only Americans. If a man can’t vote in the States, he don’t deserve no California gold.”

“But let’s be clear on the selling,” Joel said. “If a man wants to leave his claim, he oughta be able to get something for it—sell it to a man he trusts.”

Mac thought Joel must be remembering his offer to sell his claim to Joel when he left. “That all right?” he asked the group.

“Why not?” Fitzgibbons said. “We’s only tryin’ to keep others from squattin’, not to do a man out of work he’s done on his own.”

“So sales and partnerships are fine, as long as they’re recorded on my books,” Mac said. When he received the assent he wanted, he continued, “And we’re agreed we’ll back each other against any squatters?”

The men nodded. “Just let a man try,” Huntington said. “We’ll string him up.”

“We need a man to serve as magistrate,” Joel said. “They call ’em alcades in California. I guess that’s you, Mac.”

“Why him?” Smith asked.

“He’s a lawyer,” Joel said. “Been wagon captain, too. Kept order then.”

Smith cocked an eyebrow, but didn’t say anything. Mac was elected alcade.

After the meeting, Mac wrote up the rules the men had agreed on:

 

This valley is subject to the following laws by which our claims are to be governed:

1. No person shall hold more than one claim by location.

2. No claim shall exceed thirty feet along the creek, nor farther back than the ridge line.

3. Every claim not registered with the alcade within ten days after being staked shall be deemed open and subject to claim by another.

4. All sales and transfers of claims shall be registered with the alcade.

5. Each claim shall be worked at least one day during every thirty or shall be deemed open and unclaimed. Except that in the case of a company or partners holding two or more claims, it will be sufficient to work one of their claims one day during every thirty.

Signed, this 19th day of November, 1848.

Caleb McDougall, Alcade

 

He wrote out a copy, then placed the original in an oilskin bag with his journal, and nailed the copy to a tree near the dead dandy’s grave.

“Well, that oughta do us, least till the govmint gits involved,” Huntington said, as he watched Mac post the rules.