Returns From Gold Fields

HERSHBERGER, ROYER

Posted By: Ken Wright (email)
Date: 7/27/2010 at 15:35:21

Maquoketa Excelsior, November 27, 1860

J. K. HERSHBERGER RETURNS FROM GOLD FIELDS

RETURNED- We were highly gratified last Thursday to see the familiar face of our old friend J. K. Hershberger in our office. He arrived from the Kansas Gold Region last Tuesday, in good health, and with “a pocketful of rocks.” He brought with him several specimens of the best nuggets found by him, the largest we have yet seen, either of Kansas or California productions. He showed us eleven nuggets, which he said were worth something more than $100, the largest being valued at $14.50. He and Mr. D. L. Royer, of Monmouth, were in company and returned together. The products of their summer’s work, except the best nuggets, were sent to the Philadelphia mint from Omaha, and Mr. Hershberger would not say how much they realized. Both gentlemen intend to return in the spring, if spared, and work out their claim if it holds good.

Mr. Hershberger says he would advise all who can make a living at home to stay where they are, and hoped we would be careful not to speak too flatteringly of his success; he says he is but one of probably 20,000 men who visited the mines and was able to come back as well off as when he started; and that thousands are now in the gold region destitute of everything and unable to get back to the States. Mr. Hershberger left at our office a bottle full of water obtained from a spring on the Colorado, and which he says answers every purpose of saleratus for making bread.