The gold rush days of California were not without their humor, and some of the stories are funny enough that they are well worth repeating. Now the rush for wealth in those days brought out both the good and the bad, the honest and the deceitful. Not all pioneers were hard working and honest. Because it was (and still is) hard to find a deposit of gold, there was a demand for good gold mines. A sharp trade was driven in mining claims, with a thousand dollars being frequently paid for a piece of ground only thirty feet square, and this at a time when gold sold for only about $20 per ounce.
One claims broker, Moore Lerty, was particularly successful in selling his claims. His operations were bold, and perhaps for that time, original. He would stake a claim on unclaimed ground within the vicinity of some other mines, digging it down to the layers of good-looking dirt, and then, when no one was watching, he would load an old musket with gold-dust purchased from another miner, and shoot the ground full of gold. It is said that he had been known to punish a claim with two or three hundred dollars worth of gold in this way. If he did not sell the claim, he could wash the dirt, and recover the dust he had salted the claim with. He sold a claim for one thousand dollars in this way to Henry Jones, then considered the sharpest mining man in the old town of Volcano. Jones was very careful not to be taken, and tested the claim for a day or two before purchasing, it is said, even going into the hole at night to get the dirt, so as to be sure that he was not imposed on. He found that all of the dirt was rich in nuggets, so he went ahead and bought it.
With cash in hand, Lerty figured he had really pulled on over on Jones, in spite of Jones’ reputation for knowledge about mining properties. The fun of the matter was in the fact that at the end, the place proved to be really rich, one of the best in the camp, and Jones had the last laugh, as he later extracted many thousands of dollars in gold from it. Another of Lerty’s salted claims, this one located in China gulch, also proved good, but for Lerty’s mining claim sales, rich claims were very much the exception and not the rule. Most buyers got little more than the gold he salted onto his claims. With several of his swindles coming to light and angry miners right on his heels, he fled the California gold country before the wrath of the law began to manifest itself, leaving the country for good. Meanwhile old Henry Jones, with a sack full of gold nuggets was laughing all the way to the bank.
