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Show Memories of Silver Reef By Mark A. Pendleton, In Utah Historical Quarterly. (Continued from last week) What Steele beheld was a big crowd of excited men who were being addressed by James Lynch who was standing on an improvised impro-vised platform on the running gears of a wagon. He called to mind the many murders that had been committed and that the courts and jurors had failed to give justice, that the time had come when the people must take the law in their own hands if justice jus-tice was to prevail. The crowd had become a mob, crying "Hang him! hang him!" when Captain Henry Lubbeck, general manager of the Christy Mining and Milling Co., dashed up on his pacer. The crowd parted and Lubbeck sprang from his horse to the platform and faced Lynch. Silence reigned. Capt. Lubbeck, an aristocrat from the south, faced a younger and much larger man, but Lynch blanched under the Captain's piercing pierc-ing gaze and sat down on the coil of rope without a word when Lubbeck shouted, "Sit down." The captain, in a few short, ringing sentences, urged the people peo-ple to commit no rash act that would disgrace them and the camp, to stand for law and order. Father Galligan then jumped to the platform. He was tall, slender and bent. His eyes flashed as he spoke with impassioned eloquence, urging the people to' do no murder. mur-der. As the crowd was melting away John Fortmann led out toward to-ward the jail calling out, "All in favor of hanging come this way." ' But less than a score followed him. The ruins of a large stone building build-ing brought to mind the following follow-ing incident: One Sunday evening there was a wild time in the hurdy house or dance hall, when a woman, crazed by drink, shot the proprietor, who died the following morning. His money could not be found. The women who frequented this notorious no-torious dance hall departed and the building was occupied as a store until James N. Louder moved mov-ed his goods to Beaver and sold the building to Peter Anderson, who was developing a ranch near Toquerville. When Anderson was removing the mopboard from the south wall he found a leather sack containing about $2000 in gold coin. This he wisely spent, as travelers to the south see as they linger at an oasis in the desert. Weary after a day tramping about the townsite, over reefs and ravines, we spent the evening with Mr. and Mrs. Alex Colbath, whose home is in the John H. Rice bank building. Under a wide spreading cotton-wood cotton-wood tree, planted by Col. Wall some 50 years ago, by a brook murmuring among the boulders, we watched a golden light increase in the east. Directly beyond that region of peaks and pinnacles, the enchanted land of my boyhood, the moon appeared in wondrous beauty, casting a glorious light over Utah's Dixie. The day was done a long, Tare day in June. Several legends have grown up pertaining to the sandstone mining min-ing camp. Salt Lake City papers have published articles stating that the St. George temple is built of white sandstone from Silver Reef and is unique among buildings of the world in that its walls contain about 15 ounces of silver per ton. In fact, the foundation of the temple is volcanic rock and the super-structure is red sandstone, quarried near the temple, plastered plas-tered and painted white. There are reputable citizens who were in Silver Reef when ' the camp was young, who will object to seeing the frog story under the caption legends. They claim the story is true, that they saw the frog and sandstone that had enclosed en-closed it on exhibition in John H. Cassidy's saloon, and were acquainted ac-quainted with Bob Campbell and other miners who fired the blast that liberated the frog from the solid rock after untold ages of suspended animation. Believe it or not, miners in the Barbee and Walker mine, returning to a stope after a blast, were startled by weird sounds, and being superstitious, supersti-tious, fled, except Bob Campbell, who advanced into the stope and this is what he saw. The blast, (black powder had been used) had ripped a slab along a seam in the sedimentary formation. This slab was still hanging, and in the crevice a frog was struggling and screaching. It lived but a short time when brought to the surface. The grindstone story reads like a fanciful tale, but it is substantially substan-tially true. An assayer at Pioche, Nevada, was in the bad graces of the prospectors in that region. It was charged that he was crooked, and to test him a piece of grindstone grind-stone was pulverized and given him to assay for precious metals. His returns showed about- two hundred ounces of silver per ton, proof positive that he was dishonest, dis-honest, for who had ever heard of silver in sandstone? According to one version of the story he was hung by the enraged prospectors, pros-pectors, and another version says he was told to go while the going was good and having learned where the sandstone came from made haste to southern Utah and became the discoverer of a mineral min-eral deposit that amazed the geologists. ge-ologists. Oscar McMullin states that this particular grindstone was made ; by Alma T. Angell of Leeds and was taken to Pioche by a wood-chopper wood-chopper named Mone Alexander. (Continued next week.) |