courtesy of Celia Crocker Thompson

Chamberlain and Chaffee at their mine near Second Garrote, 1898

"TENNESSEE'S PARTNER"

As has been noted before in the early days partnerships were formed between men who came to the mines often from far distance and different localities. They joined together not only in working the mine of claim which they had secured, but in every phase of their lives. They cooked, ate, slept and lived together. For days they perhaps saw no one except each other. What their past story might have been, neither partner inquired. Their affection for each other, often exceeded that of brothers. They kept their gold finding together. There were no separate accounts. No discussion of shares ever took place. Everything was in common. What was one's belonged to both. No more complete Damon and Pythias friendship was ever evolved in real life, and with it all there was pathos, and a sentimentality that was remarkable.

For many years Chamberlain and Chaffee lived, worked and practically thought together. They sat after their day's labor in front of their house and smoked and chatted, never apparently tiring of each other's company. They did not make any wonderful finds. They were not perhaps even anxious to make any great strikes. They easily secured enough gold to pay for what they had to buy, and raised in the yard before their house many of the vegetables that they needed for their primitive menu.

And so for many years they lived on and on, contented and happy until Chaffee took sick and had to be taken to a hospital. As the wagon came to take him away Chamberlain stood with tears coursing down his furrowed cheeks. With longing eyes he watched the wagon carrying his Pard as it was lost to sight by a turn in the road. Then sorrowful and heartbroken Chamberlain returned into the house. But it was no longer home for him. He tried to stand the loneliness, hoping against hope that Chaffee would return, but finally the struggle proved too great for him, and one morning a neighboring boy going to the cottage for some purpose found him sitting dead in front of the house with the rifle with which he had committed suicide laying by his side. His neighbors kindly took up the body, and in the Jamestown graveyard you can see the grave where they laid him, a victim to one of the greatest friendships on record.

Credits:

The Lure of the Mark Twain ~ Bret Harte Counties

An official travelogue of the Mark Twain ~ Bret Harte Trail.

The places to see, their history and their locations

Along the Mother Lode

Copyrighted 1931

Edited and Complied by the

Mother Lode Magnet

Thomas L. Newport, Editor

Jamestown, Tuolumne County, Calif