Howdy, As a preface, I suppose I should re-send my two prior posts on Peg Leg SMITH and his LOST GOLD MINE. Because of their length and the probable limited LIST interest, I will not. Therefore, I only post an intro by Shaw and a footnoted Peg Leg Smith bio by editor Milo Milton QUAIFE in 49er Reuben Cole SHAW's "Across the Plains in '49." Also, I omit Shaw's rambling Peg Leg Smith description and meager reference to Peg Leg's later lost Gold Mine. I invite those folks who remember ole Peg Leg to continue - you other folks probably should DELETE. This is IFFY history and zip genealogy:-) Our 49er Reuben Cole SHAW in August, 1849, recalls:: "Near our camp[Idaho?]...lived PEG LEG SMITH, a white man who had a unique history. The General[guide] had been well acquainted with him in former times; had hunted and trapped with him......" NOW, let's examine editor QUAIFE"s footnote: "Peg Leg SMITH was a noted mountain man, concerning whose adventurous life many tales have been told[see my prior posts:-))] Necessarily, some of them are incapable of verification, and the sketch which follows may not be correct in all its details:-)))))))))), "Thomas L. ("Peg Leg") SMITH was born in Garrard County, KY, in 1801. Impelled by the severity of his parents, he left home while still in his teens, and engaged in a variety of adventures on the lower Mississippi and Missouri frontiers. About the year 1824 he crossed the plains to Taos[NM].. "In 1827 in a fight with Indians somewhere on the Upper PLATTE his leg was shattered by a hostile bullet, and since none of his companions had the skill or assurance to amputate it, he performed the task himself with his hunting knife. Borne on a litter to the trappers' headquarters, he there recovered his health, and presently affixed a hickory stick to the amputated stump of his leg. Thereby he gained the sobriquet of "Peg Leg," by which he is still commonly known. He claimed to have crossed the mountains to California in 1829, and about this time predicated its ultimate settlement by Americans....{I]n 1848 he settled for a time on Bear River[Idaho?] athwart the trail to Oregon and California, where our author[SHAW'S] party encountered him. "In a well written letter published in the St. Joseph ADVENTURE, May 19, 1848 he[PegLeg] announced that he was building a trading post for the purpose of supplying the Oregon emigrants with all sorts of vegetables; he would soon have a large farm in cultivation, and he would pay a liberal price to emigrants for their broken down cattle. "Apparently during the next year or two he pauperized himself in extending aid to destitute emigrants, for which he vainly sought repayment by the California Legislature[??] The latter years of his life were passed in poverty in San Francisco. He died in the City and County Hospital, October 19, 1866, and was buried in potter's field. Biographical sketches of his career were published in the San Francisco DAILY ALTA CALIFORNIA, March 6, 1858 and the EVENING BULLETIN, October 26, 1866, See Also. E. L. Sabin, Kit Carson Days 1809-1868(New York, 1935), index entries." FOLKS, we can't leave ole Peg Leg SMITH without reading this dispatch from Yuma, Arizona Territory, which was published on July 11, 1895, in the Indianapolis JOURNAL: "YUMA, A.T., July 10[1895}: It is now generally believed that the old mine found near India[Indio?], on the desert, by the McHANEY brothers, is the old "Peg Leg" mine. found by "Peg Leg" SMITH and party 60 years ago. The quality of quartz, old workings, human bones, kind of gold, richness of ore and location indicates that it is really the old mine. It is producing from $300 to $1,000 per day in a two-stamp mill. Two million dollars has been offered for the property"(From Shaw's Across the Plains in '49). NOTE: For the still curious, my earlier, archived Peg Leg Smith's Lost Gold Mine postings were: 1).The Black Gold of California - Saga of Pegleg SMITH - TRIVIAL Legend, and 2).CA's Black Gold & Pegleg Smith - an inconclusive conclusion . Their inconsistencies are humongus:-))) Our legend really lived - and I mean lived-)), Bob Norris in Dallas <BNorris166aol.com>