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.

Uncle Caleb never thought or never talked of locating the gold mine until a few y ears before the Indians were to be thrown open for settlers to file on the land.  Then he began to talk about locating his mine.  He told my father, “If I can live until the reservation is thrown open, you never need for anything as far as finances are concerned.”  Another time prior to my knowledge of the opening of the reservation, Uncle Caleb had been gone from home for a month or six weeks.  Father had a pretty good idea where he had gone, but soon after he returned he met my father in the town of Price and after a conversation with him said, “John, come up I have something to show you.”  Father knew what he meant, so the next day father went to Uncle Caleb’s place and spent the biggest part of the day.  Caleb showed my father to pack bags of very rich ore that he had brought back.

But I could tell you many stories from reliable people that I have heard.  I would like to tell you a few things I heard from Uncle Caleb’s own lips at a party given in the Price town hall. It was about the year 1898 or 1899, in honor of the old people of Price, and as Caleb Rhoads was one of the earliest pioneers, the time was given to him to talk as long as he desired.  He started by telling of the time when he came to Utah with his father, Thomas Rhoads, and others.  They arrived in Utah as early as 1846, the year before Brigham Young and the first pioneers.  They came as trail blazers.  Caleb was then ten years of age, being born in Illinois in 1836.  But, as the story goes, on account of Brigham Young gaining the confidence of the Indians by feeding them instead of fighting them, the Indians told Brigham Young where there was a rich deposit of gold and permitted him to send someone to get it.  So Thomas Rhoads, being able to speak the Indian language, was the man chose and set apart for that mission.  He had faithfully performed his work until stricken with illness and unable to go.  Brigham Young then chose Caleb, who was by this time nineteen years of age, which would bring the date at the time Caleb was chosen to the year 1855.  This made it possible for Caleb to accompany his father as soon as he was able to go, but before Caleb was permitted to start he said he had to make a covenant with God before Brigham Young and Indian Chief Walker that he would never tell or show anyone where this gold was located.  Then Brigham Young laid his hands on the head of Caleb and blessed him and set him apart, the same as his father had been set apart when he had been sent after the gold.  The next step was to secure a guide to show him where the gold would be found.  Chief Walker selected a young Indian to act as a guide and instructed him to protect Caleb from other Indians with whom they came in contact on the trip.  They started with a pack horse and a horse for each man to ride.  When they met other Indians, the guide would explain their mission and they went unmolested.  The guide showed Caleb the place and they got what ore they could carry.  After which they returned to Salt Lake City safely.  Caleb said when his father recovered from his illness, they, together made a number of trips for gold from the mine.  And what Caleb was able to get after that, he had to take out and sell unbeknown to the Indians.

Although he said many other things in his remarks, which lasted about one and a half hours, the things that impressed me most of all was his closing statement in which he said:  “Until this day, I have kept the covenant that I made with God before Brigham Young and Chief Walker.  I have never showed any man or told any man, and I never intend to do so as long as I live.”  These closing words of Caleb Rhoads were indeed a testimony to me.   I never heard a person bear a testimony with any more earnestness.  It explained to me why he never would show any man where it was.  But as soon as he thought the reservation was to be thrown open for settlement, he had a very desire to locate it which would have broken the covenants he said he had made.  He even went so far as to send someone back to Washington D.C. and offered to pay the national debt which was pretty large at the time if they would fix it in Washington so he could locate the mine.  But they turned him down and then tried to find it themselves by organizing the Florence and Raving Mining Company.  Although prospecting of the reservation was prohibited, this company prospected and located all the latterite, gilsonite, and other minerals they never found the Rhoads mine, and I know there have been not hundreds, but thousands of men hunting for it.  None have as yet found it, and when the Florence and Raving Company was prospecting the country, Caleb was asked if he was not afraid they would find it.  He said, “No, they will never find it because it is where they will least look for it.”

There have been many fine specimens of ore found, but where they came from nobody knows.  The strange thing about it is that after Caleb claimed to have made such a covenant, he could hardly wait for opening of the reservation so that he could locate it.  He talked about it a great deal with my father.  One thing that has made me fear there was something in the covenant he made is the fact that a short time before the opening of the reservation he took sick and only lived a few days.  While he was sick my father visited him often and was there to help wait upon him as much as possible.  Father said all Caleb wanted to talk about was his mine and was if he could live to locate it.  When he realized that he might die, he tried to draw a map of it so that his wife, then an old woman, could find it after he was dead.  She spent two summers searching but failed to locate the mine.

Now I want to say before closing that I personally have met a few of the old Indians who knew Caleb Rhoads and have talked with them about him and the “Money Rock.”  As the Indians called it.  Four of these men are, Bridger Jim, Mountain Sheep, Happy Jack, and Black Hawk.  They all said Caleb Rhoads was there “Heap Winno Friend.”  (Heap meaning great friend, Winno meaning friend or great, good friend.) Brigham Young was a great Winno Chief, and they told me about him sending flour out to the Indians and how they in return let Brigham Young have the “Money Rock” and said his brother was the first Indian to find the gold.  The brother fell from a load of hay and broke his neck.  Black Hawk told many more interesting stories, which have caused me to believe there is some truth in the Caleb Rhoads gold story, even if the mine is never found.