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Carson Hill,CA - Calaveras County - March 4, 1899 - Melones Mining Company Stock Certificate :

Currency:USD Category:Coins & Paper Money / Stock & Bond - Certificates Start Price:25.00 USD Estimated At:50.00 - 100.00 USD
Carson Hill,CA - Calaveras County - March 4, 1899 - Melones Mining Company Stock Certificate :
Incorporated in West Virginia. Cert. #790, issued to E. Samuel Jacobs in 1899 for 100 shares. Signed by J.C. Whitney, treasurer, and James Parker as president pro-tempore. Vignette at top center of 7 or 8 miners underground shoveling ore into cart. At bottom center another vignette of several prospectors examining an ore sample. Orange border, safety print and seal, with black print. Uncancelled. Printer: Goes. "Temporary Certificate" printed at left end. 8.25 x 10.5." Originally known as Robinsons Ferry (named for John W. Robinson who established a ferry business across the Stanislaus River in 1848), the site was officially renamed Melones about 1902 by the Melones Mining Company, purportedly because of the gold nuggets resembling the shape and size of melon seeds that were found there. That title undoubtedly came from the original Mexican miners who founded the mining camp there. The camp--variously called Malones, Malon, Meloneys, Melone, etc.--was quite wild in its heyday. Capt. Leonard Noyes noted in his diary: " This place called Melones was built of Brush streets, say 10 feet wide, lined on each side with these Brush houses where Gambling was carried on at an enormous extent....I don’t think there was ever in the Mines so wicked a crowd. Some are killed every night, shooting and cutting all the time. I have always felt when in those narrow streets that I was liable to have a knife shoved into me at any moment.….” The camp survived for a few years, but by 1853 the rich placers were fairly well depleted, so the miners left to search elsewhere for better diggings in the gold fields [Ref: malakoff.com/goldcountry/melones.htm].