Dear List, I don't know if this would interest anybody, and I aplogize for general posting...but I found a old news paper clipping regarding a "Grave of 1850 is found near Auburn"; >From Lincoln News Messegner, January 11, 1934, page 7; Grave of 1850 is found near Auburn...Possibly the earliest white man's grave made during the historic gold rush of 1849 and 1850 was discovered by Edgar Roleder, 5 year old son of Jake Roleder, when the child, pausing for a rest, sat down on the moss covered slate slab commemorating the death January 9, 1850, of Martin O. Finley of Morgan County, Missouri. It is possible that this Finley was a realtion of C.W. Finley, who camr yo ZCalifornia in 1848 and who later moved to Woods Dry Digging's as Auburn was then called, in the year 1850. During the years succeeding Marshall's discovery of gold at Coloma, Claude Chana, an acquaintance of Marshall, carried on extensive mining operations in the Auburn Ravine, barely 300 feet from Finley's grave. One of Chana's men working with him in the excavation of the ravine, is reputed to have unearthed $16,000 worth of gold from five cart-loads of earth. Finely's forgotten headstone is a few hundred yards behind the Stone House, an old roadhouse, scarely a mile from Auburn, which still contains a twenty-foot mahogany bar dating back to the days of the red-shirt miners. Maybe someone on the list will recongize or know of someone researching this name. Shoni