Frozen out of his claim by a water company--for
without water a miner can do nothing--he sold out to the company in
1860, and went over to the Middle Yuba, where he bought a claim on
Fillmore Hill, with a water ditch of its own.
Here Palmer lived and toiled for twenty years, washing the dirt and
gravel of an ancient river-bed high up on the hill-top between Wolf
Creek and the Middle Yuba. He rented water from his ditch, sometimes at
the rate of two hundred and fifty dollars a month, to other miners. From
the grass roots on the hillside some lucky fellows cleaned up $10,000 in
a few days. For several years John Keeler and Will Cummins rented water
from Palmer and helped the "old man" keep his ditch in repair.
The old man lived alone, industrious, and so economical as to excite the
mirth or the pity of his rough neighbors. Some who heard that he had
loaned $60,000 to a water company at 12 per cent. interest, regarded him
contemptuously as a miser. How else explain his shabby clothes, his old
rubber boots, that were out at the toes, his life of toil and
self-denial? Palmer never gambled, nor caroused, nor spent money on
women.
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