Chapter One:
Introduction
On the 30th of August 2024, I turned 83 years old. I was born in Ely, Nevada August 30, 1941, about a half a block from our present home at 1325 Avenue H.
The hospital where I was born, at that time, was called Steptoe Valley Hospital - now called William Bee Ririe Hospital It was owned by the mining company Consolidated Copper, and later Kennecott Copper Corporation.
I grew up in Central Ely, 236 Ely Avenue. My mother's maiden name was Hixson - Anna Lee Hixson - and of course, her married name was Tilford. And my dad's name was Leslie Earl Tilford. My mother was born in Eckert, Colorado on August 15, 1900. I had a half-brother, Ray States, and a half-sister, Billee June Niman. We had the same mother and different fathers. Eventually, my mother moved to Ely from Colorado in 1937 or 1938.
My dad was a native of White Pine County. He was born at a place called Osceola, which is about 40 miles directly east of Ely. He was born on November 28, 1889, and raised at Osceola and Hogum. Hogum is about 3 miles south of Osceola. He went off on some adventures of his own which I hope to tell you later.
The story I'm going to tell you is going to tell some about me, but a lot of this story is going to be about people that I've known and met, and about their stories. Just briefly here in the beginning I'll talk a little bit about our ancestry.
My father's dad - my paternal grandfather - was born in a little town called Cedar Creek, Arkansas on December 12, 1854. His name was Thomas Boone Tilford. His father's name was Moran Tilford, and his mother's name was Sarah Ann Westerfield.
Sarah had been married once before she married Moran Tilford and she brought a young daughter to their marriage - Mary was her name. They were in this little town in Arkansas before the beginning of the Civil War and after the Civil War. They endured the Civil War as did the whole country. I have some stories about that as we move forward. Eventually, my grandfather, Boone, and three of his siblings including his half-sister, Mary, who was a young adult woman, left that part of Arkansas. After the Civil War they made it to New Orleans, and got aboard a clipper ship and sailed around the horn of South America to California. (I have never been able to establish what happened to Boone's mother and father - still working on it.)
Boone's grandmother, Mildred Bell Cave Thompson - Sarah's mother - was already in California. She and her third husband came across the plains in 1849 on a wagon train. Boone's grandmother was well established in Santa Clara. When my grandfather, his siblings, and his half-sister Mary arrived there, they were taken in by my second great grandmother, Mildred Bell Cave Thompson and her husband, Thomas Thompson. Then eventually my Aunt Mary (Boone's sister, Mary), met a gentleman - Joseph Clark Hamer - and they married. They lived in Santa Barbara, California, where he was the superintendent of schools.
My grandfather Boone graduated from high school in Santa Barbara in the early 1870s, probably about 1870 or 1871. He was about 17 years old at the time and he didn't stick around - he took off. He signed on with a company that was rounding up horses for sale in eastern Nevada. He met my grandmother, her name was Mary (Molly) Cherry at a place in Utah called Mountain Meadow (or Meadow, Utah). She was from California; he was from Arkansas. Some of my deceased aunts had told me that they would ask their mother, Mary, how she came to marry Boone and she would say that he wooed her over the fence. Boone was around 6'4" and Mary was around 5', so I have been told. I hope he helped her over the fence.
Dave's grandfather, Thomas Boone Tilford.
Dave's grandmother, Mary Cherry Tilford.
Mary's mother was a full-blooded Miwok Indian born in Mariposa, California. My great-grandmother and her Indian family were coastal Miwoks. The Federal Government, in 1851-52 was calling all of the California Indians into assigned locations to sign treaties and Grandmother Mary's grandfather Tiapoxi and his tribe were relocated to Mariposa.
All the Indians from Central California were called to Mariposa - the coastal Miwoks and Yosemite Miwoks, and others were instructed to meet at a meadow along the Little Mariposa River
The parley lasted 48 hours or so. These chiefs signed off on the treaty.
My grandmother Mary's father was an Englishman, Columbus Cherry. Her Miwok mother's name was Cholata. Columbus Cherry's story is a whole story on its own - so many stories.
Did Boone and Mary wed in Utah? Unfortunately, the courthouse in Utah where Boone and Mary's marriage was recorded was burned. So, somebody is going to have to work really hard to verify anything that I say about that. But I can tell you that it would have been about 1871 when they met in Utah. So, then the next place that they ended up was in Nye County, Nevada, which is about sixty miles southwest of Ely. They were located at a place called Currant Creek. There was a freight station between Eureka and Hamilton, Nevada and my grandfather as a young 17 year-old was working at the freight station.
Their first child was born there, a girl named Minerva. She was born in 1872. then they moved from there to the town of Ward, which is just south of Ely; it was a silver mining camp. They moved there and a couple more of their children were born. And then from there, they moved to Osceola, which was a gold mining camp. They lived in Osceola and some more of their children were born, including my father, Les Tilford, who was born there on November 28, 1889.
About 1890-91 my grandfather discovered a rich deposit of placer gold about three miles south of Osceola, a place eventually called Hogum. That's where he established their permanent home - that's a whole story in itself. So anyway, he had this beautiful log home built there and he and Grandmother Mary raised their younger family at Hogum. They had 11 living children. Mable the 12th child passed at birth.
There are two types of mining claims. There's a patent mining claim, which is owned in fee simple ownership. It's like where my house is in Ely and where your home is in California, you own that lot, it's yours, real property. So, there's what is called a patented mining claim, which is a fee simple mining claim. And then there's an unpatented mining claim, which you lease the property from the BLM (Bureau of Land Management) for $150 a year (today) for 20 acres (known as a "placer claim").
So this is my thought. Back when my grandfather was placer mining at Hogum, I can see him sitting out on his front porch looking at his small world around him, his placer mine, and saying, "Who's going to come and take my property from me? Nobody. Nobody's ever going to do that. I won't allow them to do that." So, he did not patent his mining claims, he probably should have, but he didn't. And probably for good reason. So, whatever his reason was, it was a good reason to him. His claims were considered un-patented.
Today you cannot patent a mining claim. You can hold an unpatented mining claim or claims. Fifty years ago you could hold an unpatented mining claim for $75 a year, quite a lot 50 years ago. So how much was that $75 worth of labor, maybe two days? Well, today it's one-half of an hour, or you can just send the BLM the money and renew it.
At that time 50 years ago if you did not do your assessment work, and then didn't file it with the county recorder showing that you had done your assessment work, completed it, and then filed the completion with the BLM, if that was not recorded in the courthouse and with the BLM, then it was assumed that you'd given up your mining claim, so anybody else could come in and claim it. And so this is the story on the old Hogum house and unpatented mining claims and why it didn't stay in the family when I was growing up. My father died when I was 14.
My dad had kept up the assessment work on the Hogum placers while he was alive. He also worked in the copper mines at Ruth and Kimberly. He was a steam fitter by trade. He was a game warden here in White Pine County. He was the last White Pine County game warden and the first Nevada state game warden. They transitioned from county game management to state game management - that occurred about probably 1946 or 1947. The Nevada Department of Wildlife wanted my dad to move to Elko County and he did not want to leave WP County. So in about 1948 he left the state employment, and he went to Hogum, where he did some placer mining and some tungsten mining. Tungsten was a mineral that was in demand again just before the Korean War started. He had a couple of tungsten mines and he was working them.
Anna Lee Hixson Tilford, Dave's mom. Born August 15, 1900 in Eckert, Colorado. Died December 28, 1962 in Ely, Nevada.
Dave's dad, Leslie Earl Tilford. Born November 28, 1889 in Osceola, Nevada. Died March 15, 1955 in Salt Lake City at the Veteran's Hospital.
I was in the eighth grade when he died. And so, things were pretty tough. Things were tough for my mother and I. My brother and sister, half-brother...
