d and driven out of New Mexico by the Union forces in
the following spring, all danger was over and "Pike's Peak" was loyal.
The Southerners gradually left to join the rebel army. We got news from
the East in six days, by telegraph to Omaha, the overland mail coach to
Julesburg, near the forks of the Platte, and by pony express from there
to Denver. St. Louis papers were eight days old and Chicago papers ten
days old when received.

One of the best known miners in our region was Joe Watson, who came from
near Philadelphia, in 1859, and he came to stay. Though quiet and
unassuming he was nervy, determined, persevering and persistent. He
discovered, staked off, owned and worked many claims in Leavenworth and
other gulches. Sometimes he had streaks of luck and often the reverse.
When lucky he would hire men to help him, when "broke" he would put more
patches on his clothes, sharpen his own tools, borrow a sack of flour
and work away. Some years later he discovered a really rich gold mine,
then worked a silver mine in Utah and became a millionaire. During the
spring of 1861 and the winter previous, he prospected in several of his
claims, but fortune was against him. In July, when most of the other
miners had left our gulch, he came back and quietly went to work in a
claim that he owned on the hillside a few hundred feet above our
cottage. In two or three weeks he took out from a narrow crevice two
cart loads of top quartz which looked like rusty iron (not having got
down to the pyrites), and he persuaded me to start up the mill and crush
it. Very soon the amalgam began to pile up on the copper plates as I had
never before seen it. The result of the "clean up" and retorting was
$1,000 worth of shining gold. The next run, out of the same mine,
produced but little gold, a good example of how that metal was found in
streaks and pockets. Watson paid his debts, got a new suit of clothes,
laid in a stock of provisions, and went to work again developing his
mines. It was related of him that he went to Philadelphia one winter to
try and sell shares in his mines, and that he wore a suit of Quaker
clothes, used the plain language, attended Friends' meetings, and had
good success in selling shares. Of these early workers I might name a
few more who attained wealth or prominence; but the great
majority--those who hoped and struggled and toiled without success, are
forgotten.

The rich strike in Joe's mine made quite an excitement. Some