The Lost Mines of the Desert - Part VI: The Lost Breyfoggle.

[Old Bookaroo]

I came across this while researching an article on the Lost Pegleg. Please see the Pegleg thread for a bio of the writer:

Lost Gold Mines of the American West

By Charles Michelson

The Breyfogle, which is almost as famous as the Pegleg, is said, however, never to have been seen by the man whose name it bears. Breyfogle, so the story runs, came into one of the Southwestern towns with a bag of gold quartz that was thickly speckled with yellow–richer, in fact, than anything ever seen in that rich mining country. He started back to where he said he got the rock, and was not seen again. A friend of his long after told that the old prospector admitted that he found the bag of rich quartz in the hands of a dead man away out on the desert.

The Breyfogle and its twin lost mine, the Gunsight, appertain to the Death Valley region of California. There is a belief out there that the rich mines found at Randsburg, in Kern County, ten years ago, were really a relocation of one or the other, or perhaps both, of the famous lost claims.

Munsey’s Magazine [Vol.XXVI, No. 3 — December 1901

 

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[Old Bookaroo]

Legends of Lost Mines – The Lost Breyfogle

A considerable amount of romance attaches to all stories of lost mines. It could not well be otherwise, as the mines spoken of as “lost” are almost invariably in some wild region full of perils of onekind or another. If the lost mines are not in barren waterless region they are in a section of country jealously guarded by hostile savages. With every story of a lost mine goes more or less of tragedy. The mines would be “lost” were it not that the men who claim to have once found them have in almost every case lost either their lives or their wits soon after making their wonderful “finds.”

By a recent dispatch from St. Paul, we see that a party is about to set out from that city in search of a wonderfully rich mine in Nevada, for which prospectors are said to have vainly searched for years. The dispatch says:

“W. E. Gooding, formerly of this city proposes to locate the mines by means of some celebrated clairvoyant. A party of eleven, including Gooding and the clairvoyant, has been organized, and will next month set out prospecting. The men are putting considerable money into the scheme.”

There are stories of several lost mines in Nevada, and the adjoining desert regions of California on the east side of the Sierra Nevada mountains, but most of these are legends of merely local fame. We do not know the particularly lost mine in search of which Mr. Gooding and party are about to set out. The lost mine, fame of which has been spread abroad on the Pacific coast is the Breyfogle, supposed to be situated in or near Death Valley. Briefly told, the story of this lost mine is a follows: The man Breyfogle was one of an emigrant party that early in the 50s, took the Southern Utah route to California from Salt Lake, passing through the Mojave desert and striking for San Bernardino, in the Golden State.

While passing near Death Valley, Breyfogle went ahead of the train to look for deer or mountain sheep. While hunting he came upon a vein of decomposed quartz in which an abundance of coarse gold was visible. With his hunting knife he dug out a number of large chunks of gold. He then hastened back to the road in order to stop the wagon train when it came up and make known his great find. Much to his disappointment the captain of the train refused to halt. He said they were in a region where they were surrounded with waterless deserts and hostile Indians, and he would not endanger the lives of the people; and besides, he did not believe that the chunks of metal shown by Breyfogle were gold – they were “brass” or some other base metal.

When they reached California, Breyfogle exhibited his nuggets to many persons, and all told him thay [sic] they were pure gold. Breyfogle spent the rest of his days in a vain search for the mine he had once seen, going out alone at times and again heading parties of men who had faith in his mine. Also many parties who knew the story of the discovery went out on their own “hook,” and for forty years there has been more or less searching almost every year for the lost Breyfogle. In all it has cost over sixty lives. Either the skeletons or mummies of men are even now found in that region every season.

Last spring a prospector named [George] Montgomery found a mine which by many persons is supposed to be the long lost Breyfogle. This mine is situated in the Death Valley region near the eastern edge of Ash Meadow, in Nevada, not far from the California mine. The vein is of large size, is decomposed, and when found by Montgomery, coarse gold was plainly visible. He gathered from the surface of the vein a yeast powder box of specimen nuggets. The vein is near the old emigrant road. It may or may not be the Breyfogle. There are several other veins in the same neighborhood that show free gold; also lodes that essay 100 ozs. in silver, veins of copper and of lead, with large deposits of pure alum, borax and similar minerals.

Sierra County Advocate (Hillsborough, Sierra County, New Mexico – Library of Congress cites Kingston, N.M.) – April 8, 1892 – Volume X. - No. 535. “Hillsboro is situated in the center of the great Hillsboro, Kingston and Black Range gold and silver country, and only 18 miles distant from the famous Lake Valley silver fields.”

Good luck to all,

The Old Bookaroo

 

[Tanneyhill]

HOLA amigo Cynangel! Thank you for your views. I would like to wait until our mutual amigo Real de Tayopa weighs in on this before adding my two shekels. I have posted my own opinion a couple of years ago, and have looked for this lost ledge too. (Never looked in Death Valley however) There is a very rich placer gold deposit associated with Breyfogle's story that has not been found too - can't recall the details but it was a feeder canyon on the NV side of the Colorado, found by folks who were hunting Breyfogle's ledge but lost again.
Oroblanco

Old thread - for reference I wonder if the lost placer spoken of above that is associated with the search for the Breyfogle is the Goler Placer Diggings.

The Lost Mines of the Desert - Part VII: The Goler Placer Diggings

THE GOLER PLACER DIGGINGS. from The Miner’s Guide; A Ready Handbook for the Prospector and Miner, by Horace J. West (Los Angeles: Second Edition – 1925) Three men rode leisurely out of the Panamint Range of mountains at the edge of that famous sink of mystery, Death Valley, and on across...

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