Harvey and I, meanwhile, talked to Mr. Morgan’s son, Evan. He was a handsome nineteen-year-old lad who helped around the shop, shoeing heavy ore teams while his father completed more complicated iron-work commissions. He was quite stocky and strong and later did our work for the mine, shoeing horses and making ore buckets. Their shop was on Spring Street, just a stone’s throw from the Chinese alley whose joss sticks had started Central’s worst conflagration. He was very affable, had a good Welsh voice and sang me a few Celtic airs when I spoke of the Cornishmen I had heard singing earlier.
After the buggy was equipped for mountain travel, we set off for our mine. I could hardly wait I was so excited. We bumped and scratched along up the stiff pull of Nevada Street to Dogtown, turning out frequently to let four-horse ore wagons pass, and then we tacked back along Quartz Hill to the shafthouse. And there it was—the Fourth of July mine!
I’ll never forget how elated and excited I was, inspecting the mine that day, little knowing what sorrow it was to bring. The mine was half Colonel Doe’s and half Benoni C. Waterman’s. They had bought it in 1871 but very little work had been done on it. Father Doe’s idea was to lease the Waterman half on a two-year agreement and sink the shaft 200 feet deeper, timbering it well. Then if the Fourth of July opened up the ore he expected, Harvey could buy out the Waterman interest for $10,000 the first year or $15,000 the second. If the ore didn’t materialize after the two years were up, then Waterman was free to sell his one-half interest anytime he wanted. Colonel Doe would give all profits on his share to Harvey and if he made good, would deed it outright to us in a year.
Everything sounded glorious to me. I clapped my hands and hugged my bulky father-in-law in appreciation.
“Oh, you’re just too wonderful!” I cried. “I know your gift is going to make Harvey and me rich. Then I can help poor Mama and Papa out of all their troubles in bringing up such a large family. You’re a dear.”
The summer eased smoothly along. Harvey and I rented a little cottage on Spring Street to live in and while I was busy getting settled, I began to learn the spell of Colorado’s gaunt, tremendous mountains. By the middle of August, the lawyers had completed the agreement between Father Doe and Mr. Waterman and we had waved our benefactor off home to Oshkosh from the station at Blackhawk. I wanted Harvey to record the agreement immediately as a crew was already working at the mine. But after Father Doe left, I began to find out what Harvey was really like—his shyness was just weakness. He was lazy and procrastinating and he thought because he was a Doe that everything should be done for him.
He was not as big as his father in height or in character. Father Doe had lived in Central with his wife during the Civil War years and owned a large parcel of mining claims in both Nevadaville and Central City, a mill and a large residence in Prosser Gulch, and a boarding house nearby for the miners. He invested $5,000 and made so much profit, particularly from the Gunnell and Wood mines in Prosser Gulch, up at the head of Eureka Street, that he was able to retire rich in June, 1865, after the War was over. He made a trip to New York and closed with the Sierra Madre Investment Co., taking payment partly in cash and partly in ownership with the company. After that, he returned home to Oshkosh and occupied himself with lumber lands in Wisconsin. But he made occasional trips back to Central as superintendent of the Sierra Madre Co. He was a good business man and very civic in his interests.
But not so with his son. Three weeks later, I, myself, had to fetch out the buggy, hitch up the team, and drive Harvey to the Court House to have the agreement recorded. That day was September 6, 1877, and I remember what a peculiar sensation it gave me watching Harvey write his legal name, W. H. Doe, Jr. He and his signature seemed suddenly just a tenuous shadow of his father, a shadow having no existence if the body that casts it, moves away.
“Oh, this isn’t like me!” I thought, shaking my curls in disapproval of my doubt. “I’m really very confident—not morbid. I just know Colorado will be good to me.”
We stepped out again into the September briskness and I urged him to hurry with sinking and timbering the shaft as per agreement.