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Rare Idaho/Oregon Mining Stock, 1864/7 [173463]

Currency:USD Category:Coins & Paper Money / Stock & Bond - Mining Start Price:200.00 USD Estimated At:400.00 - 800.00 USD
Rare Idaho/Oregon Mining Stock, 1864/7    [173463]

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1) Consolidated Boise River Gold & Silver Mining Company stock certificate No. 930, issued for 30 shares to Michael Herr on July 16, 1864 in San Francisco. Placer District, Idaho Territory (printer under title). Pioneer, Lancaster, & Landon Ledges (printed to the right of vignette). Signed by the president (illegible) and secretary (illegible). Not cancelled. Beautiful vignette of outdoor mine scene in the mountains. 25 cent adhesive revenue stamp at left. Printed by Fishbournes Lithog. Co. Washington and Sansome sts. 4.75 x 10". Ultra rare.

This company took over the first quartz mine on Granite Creek called the Pioneer. The company purchased this mine and the Landon, as well as operated other mines. The "poorest rock in the Pioneer assayed $62/ton and the best classes from $6,000 to $20,000." Ore from the Landon was crushed by "rigging ordinary sledge hammers on spring pole...1200 pounds were crushed." It took one man three days to crush 300 pounds. The company had a 5 stamp mill ready in Dec. 1863. This was the beginning of the Idaho Gold Rush. [Ref: Bancroft] According to the Sacramento Daily Union, June 25th, 1864, the company shipped two thousand pounds of gold & silver quartz rock from its London ledge to San Francisco. According to the Daily Alta California, Nov. 16, 1864: "The mill belonging to the Great Consolidated Boise River Gold and Silver Mining Company, will be in operation on the London Ledge in a few days, with a supply of over two hundred tons of rock taken out and ready at the mill. Stock is on the rise since the purchase by the company of the remaining seven hundred feet in the discovery claims. Hardly a piece of rock can be picked up in which gold is not visible to the naked eye, and the leads get richer as they go down. Mr. Williams, the company's superintendent, has labored unceasingly since his arrival among us, and no doubt, in a few days, will report a good clean up." Numerous mentions/reports on CDNC.

2) Oneida Montana Gold & Silver Mining Company stock certificate No. 91 issued to Benjamin D. Gilbert for 43 shares. Signed by Arthur B. Johnson (president). Adhesive red revenue stamp at top left. Detailed vignette of mill on river in the mountains. Black on yellow. X-Rare. Fine 10.25" x 7".

Early previously unknown certificate and mine. A railway is noted to have been built from Ogden, UT north 167 miles to Oneida (existing at that time 53 miles north of the Idaho border on the Fort Hall Indian Reserve) [Bancroft, 1890]. Fort Hall currently exist in the state of Idaho, previously overlapping in the Dakota Territory (1864) and Wyoming Territory (1868). Oneida County, ID was known in 1885 to have numerous sawmills, salt-works and gold and silver mines [Bancroft, 1868]. It is possible that the mine existed apart from the Fort Hall area and could have been operating in the more common Alder Gulch area (Virginia City or East Bannock) in the Montana Territory. However, there is no mention of the mine's existence or its value during the year 1867, Idaho or Montana Territories by Browne, Raymond or Fry's Traveler's Guide. This remains an early example of an undocumented claim believed to be west of the Rockies.

Franklin Collection. Idaho/Oregon Franklin Collection