The Mining Legends - Caleb Baldwin Rhoads

Perhaps mining presents more legends than any other source.  In our chapter on mining in Utah, we told of a religious man who came into a mining camp, claiming he possessed the power to resurrect the dead.  How alarm spread the camp as the miners considered the many embarrassing triangles that would be exposed.  How grudges would be revived and perhaps men would be killed if the resurrection took place.  The prosperous miners panicked. They collected 2,500.00 and gave it to the religious fanatic on condition he leave Alta’s grave yard intact.  In our files are many such incidents.

Caleb Baldwin Rhoads was a pioneer of 1846, who camped in the valley in the summer of 1846 on his way to California.  This is a story of a very rich gold deposit that was supposed to be in the Uintah Mountains.  Its whereabouts were known only by Caleb Baldwin Rhoads, who was married to Malinda Powell.  Believe it or not but here is the story I have heard from my father and old Caleb’s mouth.

First, I will mention some of the words which my father, John A. Powell, related to me.  My father and Caleb Rhoads were great hunters and were out in the mountains together often in their days, where on many occasions Uncle Caleb told my father many things in regards to the gold he knew of, but never would show him where it was located.  Although my father had seen much of the ore and said it was very rich in gold, he could not understand why, if Caleb knew where there was so much gold, he did not locate it or at least get more out than he did and not talk as much about it as he did.
One time in the early days of Kamas, Caleb and my father, being the first two settlers of Kamas Valley, went on a hunting trip back in the mountains west of Kamas.  While on this trip they killed a large buck deer but could not carry it to camp so they took the entrails out and hung it in a tree until they could come the next day with a horse and could take it to camp.  Nothing was said about the gold at this time, but a number of years later when they had moved from Kamas to Price, Caleb asked my father if he remembered the time they had killed the buck deer, where upon my father said, “Yes, very distinctly I do.”  Then Caleb told my father that not very far from the place where they killed the deer was where they got his rich gold ore, but he did not tell what direction or how far he meant by saying, “Not very far.”  So my father was at a loss to know whether it was one mile, five miles, or more.