The Slug Gulch Road near Ben Ensley's Mine

That fall Ben went back to Slug Gulch, near Placerville, California, to look after his mining interests. He had had good relations with newspaper editors most of his life and he sent back copies of California newspapers to editors in Howard City and Newaygo.
The editor of the Howard City Record reported in February of 1886 that he received more than newspapers. One package he received, the editor said, contained ‘1a live frog sent from Eldorado County, California by Ben Ensley.” Two months later the Howard City Record carried the following article:

Valuable Mining Property
We are in receipt of the Rocky Mountain Democrat, published at Placerville, California, which speaks in very flattering terms of the mining claim in that country owned by Benjamin and William Ensley, who live six miles West of Howard City. It is believed that when this mine is developed it will prove to be one of the richest in California. The man who owns the adjoining claim in the same
hill in which Ensley’s is located developed it after several years of labor and the expenditure of many thousand dollars, but the ore is very rich and he is said to get from $20,000 to $30,000 at a “clean up” finding some nuggets as large as hen’s eggs, and values the claim at over a million dollars. The Democrat thinks the Ensley mine will develop fully as rich as its neighbor. Ben Ensley, who has been spending the winter there has sunk a tunnel 300 feet in the solid rock, has built a track and equipped it with cars and other appliances, and has men engaged in drilling and blasting, also has a house and a blacksmith shop on the claim. It is thought from $2,000.00 to
$3,000.00 will see the mine paying richly. Mr. Ensley will be at home in the course of a few days, but Mr. W. W. Quick, of this place, who is interested there with him, will remain during the summer. We are glad to notice this evidence of the successful termination of this mining venture, which is the same claim Mr. Ensley located thirty-four years ago. The mine will be patented in a short time.

Slug Gulch near Ben Ensley's Mine

A week later, Ben returned from California having made the trip in one hour less than five days. Two weeks later he was in Chicago “on business connected with his potato deal.” Ben bought and sold potatoes. The story is told that one fall he bought most of the potatoes in the township for fifty cents a bushel. By spring the bottom had dropped out of the market1 and he had to haul them out on the fields.
 

(Photo courtesy of the Reynolds Township Library)

The Ensley Family returning from California by stagecoach in the 1880's

William on top in the back, on seat left to right, Wife Lucinda, Daughter Antoinette

Driver is Unknown

 

In the fall of 1886 a sample of gold reportedly from the Ensley mine was put on exhibit at the Howard City Bank. And more articles on the mine appeared in the Record, each with a comment that with a little more money and labor the mine would pour out fabulous treasures. A Mr. Macomber of Lakeview had visited the mine and “he and other gentlemen in this county have advanced money to assist in developing the mine and also to purchase additional ground adjoining.”

                                (Photo taken by Verduin Webs)

The next summer Ben brought into the Record office “a stalk of early dent corn measuring 8 feet and containing four ears of corn.” Seed corn would be available in the fall. After harvest in 1887 Ben went to New York in an effort to raise funds for his mine. The Newaygo Tribune reported that a “syndicate of eastern capitalists was planning to visit California to investigate the mine” before making funds available to him. They apparently liked what they saw because five New York financiers invested $50,000 in the Ensley mine. That would be equivalent to more than $1 million today (1977).

 

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