Anyone for mine history?? Anyone live near Mad Canyon? (from a cousin) One of Clementina De Maria�s relatives, possibly her brother Rafael Defanti, with some other Swiss, the names Laurence Berati and "Little Antone" come to mind, had a mining claim near Michigan Bluff on the Middle Fork of the American River between Ladies Can- yan and Mad Canyon. They took out a sizeable pocket of gold and decided to return to Switzerland, leaving the mine to Clementina. As a young man Clemente DeMaria worked the mine with a partner named Louis Garbe. When Garbe retired, Jack Greenwood was sub- stituted as a partner. Louis Garbe boarded at my grandmother�s in Spring Garden until 1932. About 1931 Clementina�s health deteriorated to the point where my father had to remain at home to care for her. He hired Norman A. Brown to work in his place with his partner Jack Greenwood and Greenwood�s son Charles "Bud" Greenwood. In 1933, my brother John took his place and worked with the Greenwoods. In 1934, my father bought an old two-stamp mill. We dismantled it, hauled it to the end of the road at the edge of the canyon and slid the pieces down the steep slope to the mine on sleds, snubbed by ropes to trees along the way. The mill was assembled at the mine and was used to mill a large amount of low grade ore which had accumulated over many years. As the various tunnels penetrated deeper into the mountain, the rock became harder and drilling by hand was no longer practical. Sometime in the 1920s an air compressor and machine drills were Installed. My father suffered from silicosis as a result of the dust from drilling dry holes without using water injection. The partnership with Greenwood ended in 1935 or 1936. My brother John and I worked the mine intermittently from 1937 through 1940. After that little work was done for many years except for assess- ment work. In 1947, the Forest Service built an access road for log- ging through the mine property and it became accessible by car. In 1960, the mine area was swept by a forest fire and everything was lost, including the cabin, the blacksmith shop, the tool house, the compressor, the stamp mill, and even the timbers at tunnel portals. In 1964, as Administrator of my parent�s estate, I sold my sister�s and my one-third interests in the mine to my brother John for a nominal sum. At that time the mine consisted of three contiguous claims. My father must have refiled on the two original claims and added one more, They were the Black Dandy quartz mining claim recorded in 1930, the Red Ink Maid quartz mine claim recorded in 1907, and the Louise Parker quartz claim recorded in 1920. My brother John located two more claims. One, the Moonshine quartz claim was the old Chris Rumble claim located above the three and the other was Big Seam claim located below the original three. The County Assessor has now combined all five claims for the purpose of tax billing and the filing of assessment work. My brother John deeded a one-half interest in the mine to his son, My brother�s widow, Mildred De Maria sold her one-half interest in the mine to Dick Sykora in 1992. Dick Sykora�s wife, Eunice, is the granddaughter of my father�s old partner Jack Greenwood. Dick had been leasing the mine from my brother and had been working it for a number of years. The gold from the De Maria mine has a unique crystalline appear- ance found nowhere else in the world. Some gold from the Black Hills in South Dakota is similar, but slightly different. It is highly prized for Jewelry and display. Placer County bought a collection from De Maria and Garbe and exhibited it at the Panama Pacific Exposition in 1915. A specimen was given to ex-President Theodore Roosevelt. Some is on display at the Smithsonian Institute in Washington, D.C. My father had an exhibit at the Worlds Fair at Treasure Island in 1939 and exhibited at the California State Fair a number of times. 14