Post by swampiewolfess on Mar 12, 2008 15:18:01 GMT -5
Gold Rush Ghosts by Don Baumgart
FATE :: March 2008
The nuggets are gone from California’s gold fields, but reports keep surfacing that Gold-Rush-era ghosts refuse to be buried. Some modern residents tell of spirits from the 1800s that still make occasional reappearances. Often these visits are attributed to mistreatment or extreme unhappiness in an earlier life. I talked to three people who tell very believable accounts of visitations from the past.
She worked as hard as any Gold Rush miner ever did, believing in things she could touch, like shovels and tiny yellow flakes hiding in the gravel.
Kathryn Story worked several claims around Nevada City a few years back and during the week she usually slept near her diggings. After a day of backbreaking labor hauling buckets of gravel, it was a long drive over rutted dirt roads into town. The easier choice often was a campfire, some food from the cooler in her pickup, and an early start next morning.
And she sometimes felt the need to protect her claim from campers, backpackers, loggers, claim robbers, and other mountain creatures.
The tunnel mine she was working was hidden at the back of a short, steep-sided gully less than an hour’s drive from Nevada City, California. Large boulders stuck out of the red dirt and a trickle of yellow-green water ran along the gully floor. Old planks made a pathway into the mine. Fallen trees crossed the top of the tunnel entrance.
Most nights at the mine were peaceful, and the only disturbance was the rising sun.
Then Kathryn Story started having night visitors.
It was summer; night was falling. Dinner was over quickly and the woods-wise woman was in her sleeping bag not far from the tunnel entrance. There was an old trailer nearby, but it had been taken over by spiders and rats, so she slept under the pines.
As she settled down for the night, she heard a tapping. Like a hammer on rock. At first she thought it was prowlers; it was too regular for animals. Then she located the source.
It was coming from the mine tunnel.
She had heard stories about this mine. It still held the bodies of two Chinese mine workers, buried in a cave-in long ago. Or so the story went.
The Chinese workers were never dug out, according to the miners’ tale, and sometimes their ghosts could be heard trying to work their way out of the cave-in.
The tapping stopped. Kathryn relaxed a little in her sleeping bag…and then she smelled it. Opium smoke, floating on the night air. And something quick, hard to catch, that sounded like a word or two of Chinese......Read the rest of this article exclusively in the March 2008 issue of FATE!
FATE :: March 2008
The nuggets are gone from California’s gold fields, but reports keep surfacing that Gold-Rush-era ghosts refuse to be buried. Some modern residents tell of spirits from the 1800s that still make occasional reappearances. Often these visits are attributed to mistreatment or extreme unhappiness in an earlier life. I talked to three people who tell very believable accounts of visitations from the past.
She worked as hard as any Gold Rush miner ever did, believing in things she could touch, like shovels and tiny yellow flakes hiding in the gravel.
Kathryn Story worked several claims around Nevada City a few years back and during the week she usually slept near her diggings. After a day of backbreaking labor hauling buckets of gravel, it was a long drive over rutted dirt roads into town. The easier choice often was a campfire, some food from the cooler in her pickup, and an early start next morning.
And she sometimes felt the need to protect her claim from campers, backpackers, loggers, claim robbers, and other mountain creatures.
The tunnel mine she was working was hidden at the back of a short, steep-sided gully less than an hour’s drive from Nevada City, California. Large boulders stuck out of the red dirt and a trickle of yellow-green water ran along the gully floor. Old planks made a pathway into the mine. Fallen trees crossed the top of the tunnel entrance.
Most nights at the mine were peaceful, and the only disturbance was the rising sun.
Then Kathryn Story started having night visitors.
It was summer; night was falling. Dinner was over quickly and the woods-wise woman was in her sleeping bag not far from the tunnel entrance. There was an old trailer nearby, but it had been taken over by spiders and rats, so she slept under the pines.
As she settled down for the night, she heard a tapping. Like a hammer on rock. At first she thought it was prowlers; it was too regular for animals. Then she located the source.
It was coming from the mine tunnel.
She had heard stories about this mine. It still held the bodies of two Chinese mine workers, buried in a cave-in long ago. Or so the story went.
The Chinese workers were never dug out, according to the miners’ tale, and sometimes their ghosts could be heard trying to work their way out of the cave-in.
The tapping stopped. Kathryn relaxed a little in her sleeping bag…and then she smelled it. Opium smoke, floating on the night air. And something quick, hard to catch, that sounded like a word or two of Chinese......Read the rest of this article exclusively in the March 2008 issue of FATE!
