fever stricken ones, Enos Ayres, T. R. Stubbs, John Sollitt
and myself, formed a partnership, raised about $9,000 and went to work
to purchase the necessary outfit for gold mining. Mr. Ayres furnished a
larger share of the capital than any of the others and was not to go
with the expedition, but might join us the following year. Mr. Stubbs
and I were both to go, while Mr. Sollitt was to be represented by a
substitute, a relative whose name was also John Sollitt, and who had
been a farmer and butcher and was supposed to know all about oxen. Mr.
Stubbs was a good mechanic, an intelligent, well-read man, and ten years
before had been to California in search of gold.

Our outfit consisted of a 12-stamp quartz mill with engine and boiler,
and all the equipments understood to be necessary for extracting gold
from the rock, including mining tools, powder, quicksilver, copper plate
and chemicals; also a supply of provisions for a year. The staple
articles of the latter were flour, beans, salt pork, coffee and sugar.
Then we had rice, cornmeal, dried fruit, tea, bacon and a barrel of
syrup; besides a good supply of hardtack, crackers and cheese for use
while crossing the plains, when a fire for cooking might not be found
practicable. These things were all purchased in Chicago, together with
the fourteen wagons necessary to carry them across the plains. Then all
were shipped by rail to St. Joseph, Mo., where the oxen were to be
purchased. The entire outfit when loaded on the cars, weighed
twenty-four tons.

I stayed in Chicago till the last to help purchase and forward the
outfit and supplies, while Stubbs and Sollitt (the substitute) went to
St. Joe to receive and load them on the wagons and to purchase the oxen.

On the 1st day of August, all was ready, and we ferried our loaded
wagons and teams across the Missouri River into Kansas to make a final
start next morning into regions to us unknown. Stubbs started the same
day by stage for the mountains, to prospect and look out for a
favorable location and then to meet the train when it arrived at Denver.
Sollitt was to be trainmaster, which involved the oversight and
direction of the teams and drivers, and the duty of frequently going
ahead to pick out the best road and select a favorable place to camp at
night, where water and grass could be had. I was the general business
man of the expedition, had full power of attorney from Mr. Ayres to
represent and manage his interest, and