The majority of the notices of location recorded by the early miners are very vague. The first notice recorded in the book is one of the location of a spring of water by Peter O’Riley and Patrick McLaughlin. It reads:
“We the undersigned claim this spring and stream, for mining purposes.”
Nothing is said about where the spring is located. For aught the person reading the record can discover, it may be in California or Oregon.
In the book are scores of locations made and recorded in the same loose manner. Many of the recorded notices read:
“We the undersigned claim 2,000 feet on this quartz lead, ledge, lode, or vein, beginning at this stake and running north.”
Not a word is said about where the stake is to be found. No wonder that the lawyers drove a thriving trade in the early days of Washoe!
During the progress of a mining suit in the early days the lawyers quarrelled for nearly two days about a certain stump from which one of the parties to the suit desired to begin the measurement of their claim. They produced witnesses who said they could identify the stump, and the next morning the court adjourned, and jury and all concerned went out to take a look at the landmark in question. No stump could be found. The parties of the opposite side had dug it up the night before and packed it away. Not even the spot where it was supposed to have stood could be found, so completely had the ground been levelled in all directions.
I give the following verbatim copy of the original location-notice of the Yellow-Jacket mine—a mine that has yielded many millions of dollars—as it stands on the old Gold Hill records:
NOTICE.
That we the undersign claim Twelve hundred (1200) feet of this Quartz Vain of of[of of] its depths & Spurs commencing at Houseworth claim & running north including twenty-five feet of surface on each Side of the Vain. This Vain is known as the Yellow Jacket Vain. Taken up on May 1st. 1859—recorded June 27th, ’59.