Digital Bob Archive

JANUARY 26, 1881-As January draws toward its end and the days begin to lengthen, there is more and more agitation in camp for the holding of a miners? meeting at once. This would be for the purpose of revising the local mining laws adopted by Dick Harris and Joe Juneau last October. It would probably result in the renaming of the town and almost certainly in the election of a new mining recorder. The fact that Harris, the present recorder, has not yet returned from Sitka is a large factor in the last two items. Until a new recorder is elected, the people who have claimed town lots or recently staked mining claims cannot record them and so are in danger of having them ?jumped.?

J. D. Sagemiller heads the ?Cassiar crowd,? as it is known, which wants the changes. He is an oldtimer from California and British Columbia mining districts and his opinions are much respected. He asserts that Harris and Juneau did not constitute a quorum when they held a miners? meeting last fall and that the local mining laws they adopted are illegal. This crowd, in general, is opposed to staking claims by proxy and feels that all except the original discovery claims should be voided. They have no quarrel with the lode claims staked by Harris and Juneau for themselves and others. They are all placer men and uninterested in lodes.

The Cassiar crowd?s proposal to ?wipe the slate clean? and start over meets no favor with Pat McGlinchy, Mike Gibbon, John McKinnon, W. M. Bennett and others for whom claims were staked in Silver Bow Basin last October. Some of these men have announced that if need be they will defend their claims with guns.

One of the cooler heads in the camp is John Olds and he is attempting to work out a compromise of some sort. There seems to be general agreement that the camp should be renamed. Pilzberg has been suggested, for George Pilz, the German mining engineer who grubstaked Harris and Juneau and who has built a house here. He is expected to arrive soon from Sitka. Pat McGlinchy, the camp wit, has his own idea for a name. He thinks it should be Fliptown, for the drink that is the favorite of the boys whenever they can assemble the proper ingredients. That has been very seldom in the camp this winter.