Today in history: 1889, A pose of 16 armed men take secret train from Marysville to stop hydraulic mining

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19-04-2025

On April 19, 1889, 16 armed men organized by then Yuba County District Attorney traveled from Marysville by secret train to gold country and captured 20 men, all Chinese, who were illegally operating a hydraulic mine.
This was the time of the great 'civil war' between valley interests and mountain interests, between miners and farmers, of 'Gold vs. Grain,' as is the title of a history on the hydraulic mining industry and the devastating floods made worse by their operations.
In 1884, a federal appellate court issued a perpetual injunction against hydraulic mining, stating that debris from such operations could not be let loose into the mountain rivers.
Some mines continued to operate, however, either by pretending to build dams to impound the debris that really did not, or in some cases leasing the operation to others so that they take the risk if folks from the valley arrived to arrest them.
W.T. Ellis Jr. was a young man at the time. He describes the odyssey of the Marysville posse in his book, 'Memories, my seventy-two years in the romantic county of Yuba, California,' available online at the Library of Congress.
'A few weeks previous, an injunction had been issued by our Superior Judge, (Judge Keyser), enjoining the owner, superintendent and some thirty of their employees from operating the Omega Mine. Our watchmen discovered that the injunction had been ignored, the mine was being operated, and no attention was being paid to the court summons. Our District Attorney, E. A. Forbes, got out papers for contempt of court. Secret arrangements were then made with the Southern Pacific Railroad for an engine, passenger coach and box car to come from Sacramento and stop on the main track of the Yuba River railroad bridge, in the thick timber which existed there at that time.
Sixteen of us had been sworn in as deputy sheriffs the day before, and by ones and twos, we walked across the bridge, so as to not attract attention and all met in the timber where the train was to stop and meet us. When we got on the train, we stopped at Yuba Station, where we loaded a wagon and horses into the freight car. We left at 3:30 P.M. on a Thursday afternoon on April 18th, 1889, pulled down the blinds and started for Emigrant Gap, which we reached shortly after midnight; we unloaded and started for the Omega Mine, about eight miles distant over a mighty bad road, covered with snow and slush, most of us walking the entire distance to keep warm.
We reached the mine just at daybreak, surrounded the rooming house, then called out for the inmates to come out and surrender. Immediately there was a great stir inside the house, doors and windows were hastily barricaded and it looked like a fight ahead. Finally however, there was quiet inside the house and then finally, a number of our men, finding a large log handy, rushed with it against the front door, breaking it down, the rest of us following in ready for action. It was rather amusing however, when we found no one in sight, the inmates had hid under beds, tables, in a basement and up in the eaves of the house; they had plenty of arms and ammunition, but they showed no fight. We got the bunch out, placed handcuffs on them and started on the long weary trek back to Emigrant Gap. We were in a hurry, wanting to get out of the country as soon as we could but the prisoners wanted to lag on the way and had to be hurried by some well directed swift kicks; the one I had was very 'onery' but after I had prodded him several times in the ribs with the rifle I carried, he 'got a move on.'
We reached Emigrant Gap, embarked on the train in a hurry and started for Roseville at high speed, having arranged for a 'clear track' to that place. When we reached Roseville, we were much relieved, on the trip down, we feared that some telegraph operator would 'tip' some one off and the train might be ditched; we wired home from Roseville and reached Marysville at 4:00 P.M. and practically the whole town was at the depot. We marched our twenty prisoners to the County Jail placing them in charge of Sheriff Saul. The following day a Mr. Frank M. Stone, an attorney from Stockton appeared on their behalf and made all kinds of demands and complaints but on April 25th, Judge Keyser fined each of them $500.00. They all expected their mining friends to pay their fines but failing to do so, were kept in jail for several months, when the County, getting tired of feeding them, made an arrangement, by which some lumber company took them off the County's hands and took them to Oregon to work in a lumber camp. I was a County Supervisor at that time and some of the mountain newspapers 'roasted' me 'good and plenty' for being a County Supervisor and stooping so low as to be a 'kidnapper and a spy.'