Gold01

 

WAUPACA REPUBLICAN

August 23, 1883

 

GOLD!

The Genuine Glitters in Helvetia

 

            The throngs of men daily at the County Clerk’s office looking up the south-half of the south-east quarter and lots of other quarters in Helvetia, in the northern part of the county, lately, indicate that there is likely to be a stampede in that direction.  The land upon which Arch McKenzie and John Daly of Manawa, are prospecting for the precious metal at Big Falls is on Sec. 22, and belongs to Win. Bemis of this city.  A sample of the quartz rock at Joe Woodnorth’s drug store, shows that there is considerable mineral concealed in the rock and a certain per cent of it is gold and silver.  The prospecting may yet lead to rock that will pay to work. J.C. Crow of Manawa, says that fifteen years ago he was a young man about twenty years of age, and worked one winter for Wm. Edminster and Geo. E. Cole, at lumbering in the northern part of the county.  Hans Benlick was clerk and Dayton & Dewey furnished the supplies for the camp.  One day he had occasion to shovel away a place in the woods and noticed the dirt looked peculiar, he had the impression that there might be gold there, so he covered it up and kept dark as to his find but remembered the location.  Since that time Mr. Crow has become owner of several tracts of land in that section – the north and north-western part of Helvetia, and among his possessions is the forty where he discovered the peculiar dirt.  Since the gold finds have been reported from different localities, he resolved to see what there was to his “mine”, so a few weeks ago he took a pan of the dirt, and started for Chicago, but in New London he met an old California miner who washed the dirt for him which showed some residue of black sand and “the color particles” which were tested with nitric acid and found to be genuine gold.  Mr. Crow took his samples to Frank Woodnorth druggist at Manawa, and they were tested with quicksilver, the particles of gold all being taken up by it.  Crow says he has heard that there was only sixteen cents worth of gold to that pan, but feels positive there must have been more.  He syas he has found still better, and more paying dirt than that, and proposes to make arrangements to push his mines for all they are worth.  He says there is one thing sure, the northern part of Waupaca county bids fair for looming up as an immense mining region.  How near the truth are his assertions time will tell. Excitement is running pretty high, and undoubtedly Waupaca will soon be selling “miners supplies” and the columns of the papers will be teeming with “mining notes”.