This is a Message Board Post that is gatewayed to this mailing list. Surnames: Classification: queries Message Board URL: http://boards.rootsweb.com/localities.northam.usa.states.california.counties.sierra/340.5/mb.ashx Message Board Post: In Erwin G. Gudde's book, _California Gold Camps: A Geographical and Historical Dictionary of Camps, Towns, and Localities Where Gold Was Found and Mined; Wayside Stations and Trading Centers_ (Berkeley/Los Angeles/London: University of California Press, 1975), I found the following references: "Pine Grove [Sierra]. In the Slate Creek Basin, at the Yuba County line. Shown on Trask's map, 1853, and on later maps. Lecouvreur was here in the summer of 1852, apparently before gold deposits were discovered, and gives a poetic description of the place (pp. 231 f.). In September of the same year, John Clark calls it "a new place with 5 or 600 inhabitants" ("The California Guide"). According to Vischer (pp. 238, 240) and _Transactions_, 1858 (pp. 198 ff.), the mining was mainly tunnel work. The _Mining Press_, October 19, 1861, reports that 6 thousand dollars' worth was washed out from one tunnel in eight hours. A detailed account of the Comet, a cooperative mining undertaking, is given in Raymond, V (p. 81). In 1879 there was still some hydraulic mining, and Hayes Mine is listed in Mining Bureau reports until 1942." [Gudde, p. 267.] [There is also a Pine Grove in Amador, Placer and Yuba Counties.] "Whiskey Diggings [Sierra]. On Little Slate Creek, near the Plumas County line. Shown as Whiskey on Trask's map, 1853. The camp is mentioned by John Clark in "The California Guide," September 3, 1852. The _Alta_, February 24, 1854 reprints an item from the Gibsonville _Trumpet_ which reports that a greenhorn picked up a nugget of twenty-seven ounces on his first day of mining. There was prosperous tunnel work in progress when Vischer (p. 240) visited the place in 1859. One of the diggings averaged 700 dollars weekly in the winter of 1861 and 1862 (_Mining Press_, March 16, 1861; July 16, 1862). The camp was also known as Whiskey and Newark (Bancroft Scraps, V, p. 1782). The place is still mentioned as a part of the Gibsonville district in 1918 (_Mining Bureau_, XVI, Sierra, p. 11)." [Gudde, p. 368-369.] [There is also a Whiskey Diggings, Hill in nearby Placer County.] Chuck Knuthson Sierra County GenWeb