Rugged Individualists

DURING HIS TWO-AND-A-HALF YEARS in Calico, young Mellen learned how much hopeful men, "with no other capital than strong hands and the will to do," could do. The largest group of these individualists was "chloriders" or "tributers," independent miners who leased the many claims within five miles of town. They paid for their own supplies, sacking, hauling, and milling and paid the mine owners a royalty of about one-fifth the value of the ore. (Perhaps because so many miners lived at the outlying properties, the population of Calico made up only a small part of the district's population.)

Two of the district's mavericks were women. One was the "lady assayer," Mrs. C.H. Cooke, the wife of an assayer. As Mrs. Harwood found, Mrs. Cooke had "spent the greater portion of her life in the mines, and feels most at home among the precious metals. . . ." Even better known was Mrs. Annie Kline Townsend. Though well-educated and raised in luxury in Mississippi, Mrs. Townsend supported an eight-year-old daughter by prospecting; she sometimes traveled up to 25 miles a day. She had to begin work at Calico under an assumed name--perhaps this is why Mellen called her Belle Murdock?-- for "she has been censured and criticized by numbers of weak, dependent, effeminate creatures, who could compel every woman to conduct themselves according to their ideas of propriety. . . ." Mrs. Harwood considered Mrs. Townsend "a superior woman, whose example is worthy of emulation."

Mrs. Townsend was also considered a good miner, as a reporter for the Print learned while strolling among the mines, including her Golconda in September, 1883: ". . . . While enjoying the hospitality of Mrs. Townsend in her neat and comfortable cabin in Deep canyon, we were shown an ore sack full of beautiful specimens from the Golconda, some of which contain bright particles of wire silver. Mrs. Townsend carefully assorts all her own ore and has become quite a practical expert in mining business."

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Rugged Individualists

Oro Grande and Waterman

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