DRAGON'S BLOOD by Zina Abbott

 

There is dragon’s blood, and then there is dragon’s blood. One kind has to do with color, varnish, and medicine; the other has to do with silver mining.

Let’s deal first with the one we might most likely come across today.

Dragon's blood is a bright red resin which is obtained from different species of a number of distinct plant genera: Croton, Dracaena, Daemonorops, Calamus rotang and Pterocarups.

The resin of Dracaena species, "true" dragon's blood, and the very poisonous mineral cinnabar (mercury sulfide) were often confused by the ancient Romans. [I would suggest we not allow ourselves to be confused, and we avoid ingesting or rubbing on our skin anything with “cinnabar” or “mercury sulfide” in it.]

Dragon's blood, powdered pigment or apothecary's grade and roughly crushed incense

Dragon's blood was used as a dye, painting pigment, and medicine (respiratory and gastrointestinal problems) in the Mediterranean basin, and was held by early Greeks, Romans, and Arabs to have medicinal properties. In folk medicine, dragon's blood is used externally as a wash to promote healing of wounds and to stop bleeding. It is used internally for chest pains, post-partum bleeding, internal traumas and menstrual irregularities.

Dragon's blood of both Dracaena draco (commonly referred to as the Draconis Palm) and Dracaena cinnabari were used as a source of varnish for 18th century Italian violinmakers. In modern times it is still used as a varnish for violins, in photoengraving, as an incense resin, and as a body oil. There was also an 18th-century recipe for toothpaste that contained dragon's blood.

In ancient China, little or no distinction was made among the types of dragon's blood from the different species. Both Dracaena and Daemonorops resins are still often marketed today as dragon's blood, with little or no distinction being made between the plant sources; however, the resin obtained from Daemonorops has become the most commonly sold type in modern times, often in the form of large balls of resin.

What does this have to do with American history, other than some of these substances continued to be used through time?

Cornish Miners 1866

I started my search for more information about dragon’s blood after touring the Lebanon Tunnel mine. Although tin miners from Cornwall had left their mark throughout the world since before Roman times, by the nineteenth century, most of the tin and copper mines in Cornwall were depleted. That left a people with centuries of tradition as miners looking for work elsewhere.

It is estimated that about sixty percent of the miners who worked in the Georgetown and Silver Plume Colorado mines were from Cornwall. With them, they brought their own mining terms and folklore – among them the belief in dragons.

Silver, when it is exposed to oxygen, forms silver oxide – that black tarnish we clean off of our silverware. Silver also dissolves in water over time, which is why miners cannot pan for silver like they do for gold.

With the heat, compression, and movement of the earth, veins of various elements will form in the cracks between sections of solid rock. When a vein of silver works its way to where it is exposed to both oxygen and water – even moisture in the air – it turns into a sludgy semi-liquid called dragon’s blood by the Cornish miners. They accepted it as evidence that a dragon guarded a nearby hidden treasure. The treasure within the mine was a vein of silver.

Since the presence of dragon’s blood indicates that large source of silver is nearby, miners looked for the formation of dragon’s blood as an indicator where they should drill and blast out a test pocket in search of the silver vein.

This particular incidence of dragon’s blood has seeped out and formed fairly recently. If it had existed at the time the Lebanon Tunnel was actively mined, there would be a drift there where ore was blasted and removed. It is estimated this dragon’s blood began showing sometime between 1896 when this mine closed for good and was blasted shut, and 1976 when the SeaBees came to open the mine to turn it into an optional tourist attraction add-on to the historic Georgetown Loop Railroad tour. 

I have written seven books for the multi-author series, Sweethearts of Jubilee Springs. Jubilee Springs is a hypothetical silver mining town set in the Rocky Mountains of Colorado. My most recent book in the series, Two Sisters and the Christmas Groom, Book 18, is currently available. Please CLICK HERE.

My eighth Sweethearts of Jubilee Springs book, and my next book to be released, Nathan's Nurse, Book 19, is the first book in which I wrote a scene that took place inside the Prosperity Mine. 

 

Nathan's Nurse is currently on pre-order and is schedule for release on December 27, 2019. You may access the book description and purchase link by CLICKING HERE.

 

 

Sources:

Wikipedia: dragon’s blood & silver oxide

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fzDqY2LOing

my notes from a tour of the Lebanon Tunnel Silver Mine

https://www.highonadventure.com/hoa10aug/sylvia/georgetownrr.htm

A Hunch and a Mere 30 Cents

By Paisley Kirkpatrick

There's a tale that old-timers used to tell along the sunbaked streets of old Tombstone -- the thrilling tale of Ed Schieffelin's and his gold. Tombstone's founder Ed Schieffelin started with a hunch that ended up bringing the richest silver strike in the nation to this area and making him a wealthy man.

Ed loved the thrill of working for his hands in the earth, exploring for the elusive gold. He traveled to California first, and then, after a few years, headed into the Grand Canyon area. As if searching for gold was no longer of interest, he joined a group of scouts who were fighting the Apaches and ended up going with them into southern Arizona. Not happy with what he'd gotten into, he quit the fighting to prospect in the Huachuca Mountains. He stayed in the vicinity of a soldiers' camp. When one of the soldiers asked him what he searched for, he answered, "Oh, just some stones."

The soldier guffawed. "The only stone you'll ever find in this country will be a tombstone."

The first claim that Ed staked out was named Tombstone, and from it, the town took its name -- which also led the town's first newspaper to be named the Tombstone Epitaph.

The Tombstone claim didn't prove very rich, nor did his next claim named the Graveyard. His luck changed when he worked The Tough Nut. He became rich in both silver and gold. He, his brother, and a third partner traded part interest in the mine to men with money. These men built a mill to refine the ore. In 1879 the mine was bringing in $50,000 a month. For a while, Ed Schieffelin hauled the bullion from his mine to Tucson, but when he became restless, he went back to prospecting again.

In 1880 he and his brother sold the mine for $600,000 -- $300,000 each. Ed returned to what he enjoyed most -- prospecting. When their third partner sold out for a fortune later, he subtracted $300,000 for himself from the sum and divided the remainder equally between himself and the two Schieffelins.

In 1897 Ed bought a quality outfit in San Francisco: wagon, mules, tools, especially fine cooking utensils, and plenty of provisions before he struck north. At Grants Pass, Oregon, he saw an eighteen-year-old boy named Charlie Williams working in a blacksmith shop and asked him if he'd like to go into the mountains with him. The boy was eager to go. Ed was happy he now had a helper in his new project. They stopped at Day Creek and camped in an abandoned cabin. Ed told Charlie they couldn't go any farther in a wagon, so while he prospected in rough country, they would make this place headquarters. He also told Charlie he could go off on his own for a few days and do as he pleased since he would be away from camp a while. They both left in different directions.

When Williams returned to the cabin, he found the dead body of Ed Schieffelin. When he died, Ed had been sitting while breaking stones with a hammer. The rocks were quite rich in gold. The camp seemed not to have been molested by anybody, but some of the new cooking utensils were missing. A theory developed that Ed had taken the utensils himself to set up a sub-camp near where he'd struck the rich ore.

Prospectors hunted for the location from which Ed brought in samples. For a long time, they hoped to find the missing cooking utensils as a marker. Any camp would be made close to the water for convenience. When no one found the cooking utensils, the prospectors searched for the gold near the old cabin on Day Creek. They never located the site. Its whereabouts died with Ed Schieffelin.

True West, October 1958 issue -- presented by J. Frank Dobie

Gold Mining

www.laurirobinson.blogspot.com

The gold rushes of the 1800’s spurred immigration, migration, settlements and businesses of all kinds in several areas of the United States (and the world). Gold mining actually proved unprofitable for the majority of miners and mine owners, however a few became extremely rich by it, and that was enough to keep men and women dreaming and searching for the mother load. Merchants and transport companies made huge profits and often mines that were lucrative enough, expanded to include these other services, therefore double and tripling the money they made.

Mines were often started by an individual panning for the gold. A simple process of washing the gold out of the sand and gravel with a ‘pie pan’ shaped wash basin. Once it was determined there was significant findings, the individual would set or file a claim and perhaps build a sluice box or rockers, and most likely hire or partner up with other miners. Though the investment at this point was relatively minimal, the work was hard, usually too much for one man to handle. The gold in the stream beds would usually be gathered rather quickly, leaving the miner to search for the vein that had fed the creek bed findings, or move on.

When searching for the feeder vein, more men would be needed to tunnel into the earth, find and transport the ore. Here more capital was needed as well and miners often sold out their claim to larger operations who’d then oversee the extraction of the ore, delivering it to stamp mills, where they’d crush the large rocks, and eventually to the smelters where the gold would be extracted from the other telluride minerals. Sometimes these minerals proved more valuable or plentiful than the gold. Many once gold mines evolved into silver mines, or even lead, zinc, or copper mines.  

Though many advertisements lured folks to the gold mines with promises of nuggets lying on the ground like apples falling from trees, that was far from the case. Mining towns of the old west were some of the roughest places, Tombstone, Deadwood, Telluride. In many of those places it wasn’t the miners causing trouble, it was those striving to ‘make it rich’ by relieving the miners of their hard-found gold.

In March of 2013 Inheriting a Bride will be released by Harlequin Historicals. The story is about Kit Becker who travels to Colorado to claim the gold mine she’d inherited from her grandfather. There she not only meets Clay Hoffman, her grandfather’s partner, but learns family secrets that tear her apart. I dedicated that book to Chris Ralph, a man I will most likely never meet in person, but after I stumbled across his blog, he and I conversed through email and phone conversations, and he taught me more about gold mining than I could have ever hoped to learn.

Eilley Orrum - The Lady of the Mansion

By Paisley Kirkpatrick

As a young girl, Allison "Eilley" Orrum realized she was destined for a life of success and riches. She knew it as she ran over the grassy moors and climbed the craggy ridges of her homeland in the Highlands of Scotland. Eilley had a rare gift: with the help of a glass sphere she called a peep-stone, she could see the future. Eilley, however, saw only a part of the things to come. Her famous crystal ball showed a vast fortune and a mansion. It did not reveal the personal grief she would encounter.

Born in Scotland in 1826, Eilley was a high-spirited young woman who was filled with ambition and a burning desire to achieve fame and fortune. Unfortunately, Scotland, in the 1800s had little to offer, so in order to escape, Eilley converted to Mormonism. She gave up her traditional Presbyterian faith and, with several hundred converts, sailed for America. The large group settled in the Mormon colony at Nauvoo, Illinois in 1843.

She married an elder of the church for the prestige, but bore him no children. They settled in Salt Lake City, where her marriage ended when her husband wanted to practice polygamy. Eilley secured a divorce and found employment at a trading store. While working there, a customer offered to sell a sphere of glass the size of a duck egg that he said was a crystal ball. Eilley immediately recognized the sphere as a peep-stone, similar to the one she had used in Scotland.

Peering into the mystical stone, she saw a vision of a green valley with a blue lake surrounded by large mountains. She knew this was the special place where her fame and fortune would be found. She married a farmer and they moved to a new colony of Mormons in the Carson Valley, Nevada. Instead of a sparkling lake, they found a sluggish creek and barren mountainous land. Disappointed, Eilley urged her easy-going husband to move on. Several days later they found her valley, which was exactly as she'd seen in her peep-stone with a beautiful lake and landscape. She envisioned a mansion with many rooms, gardens and flowing fountains. She also saw happy children. They marked off half the section of land and together built a cabin. The only thing missing was money and her husband's ambition to earn it.

Before winter set in, they left their homestead and moved to Gold Hill, a new town in Nevada that had just started to grow. She saw pieces of gold, miners, and wagons in her peep-stone. Eilley felt there was money to be made in Gold Hill, which at the time was a community of tents and saloons. They built a cabin and she started taking in boarders. The venture turned into a success until her husband was called back to Salt Lake City. He left immediately with their wagons and livestock. She stayed alone in a lawless town with only her peep-stone and herself to depend on. She was 32 years old...and childless.

She took in laundry as well as boarders. Her rule was that she would cook, wash, and care for the miners, but her bed was hers alone. She divorced her husband and the boarding house flourished, but she was not getting rich. One of the miners offered her his claim for an unpaid bill and Eilley accepted. The claim beside it belonged to Lemuel Sanford ”Sandy” Bowers, a young teamster who had recently arrived in Gold Hill. He asked her to share her life with him as well as her claim. He was 26, eight years younger than Eilley.

When they returned from their honeymoon, they were wealthy. The black streaks of sand Eilley had seen in her peep-stone were silver and together their claims made them two of the richest millionaires in Gold Hill. The couple, one illiterate and the other with illusions of grandeur, went on a European shopping trip to fill the mansion Eilley had built on the site of her old homestead in the Washoe Valley. On their way home the mother of a new infant died. They adopted the little girl and named her Margaret Persia.

After they returned home, Eilley stayed at the mansion and raised Margaret while Sandy returned to the mines. It was the happiest time of Eilley's life. She had everything she'd seen in the peep-stone. Unfortunately, her happiness didn't last. Her husband died of Silicosis, also called miner's disease. The Silver of the Comstock died out in 1867, and the business deals in which Sandy had been involved had been poorly handled. She tried to turn the mansion into a hotel. While she was expanding the mansion, she sent her daughter to Reno to live with friends. Margaret became ill and died. In 1875 Eilley lost the mansion by default and all the belongings were auctioned off.

Eilley was penniless. She started telling fortunes with the aid of her crystal ball and became known as the ”Washoe Seeress." Eventually the visions in her peep-stone vanished, and in 1903, at the age of 77, she died and was buried next to her husband and child overlooking her mansion.

Written by Anne Seagraves in the Women of the Sierra.