WPA Albert Zeigler
Writer: Edith L. Crawford.
Carrizozo, N. Mex.
Narrator: Albert Zeigler
PIONEER STORY
I came to America from
[Coblens?] Germany, which is
situated on the Rhine river. I sailed in
September, 1884. The boat was the [Furnesia?], of the Anchor lines. We were
thirteen days crossing the ocean. I landed in New York City
and left at once by immigrant train for Albuquerque
New Mexico, where my brother Jake
Zeigler was clerking in the store of Jaffa Brothers. Soon after my arrival
there [?] sent me to San Francisco
California where we had some
relatives living. They got me a job clerking in a store and I went to night
school and learned to speak, read and write English, as I could not speak a
word of English when I landed in America. The ways of the people and
the country seemed very strange to me. After staying in California
a year I came back to Socorro New Mexico, which was then in Lincoln
County.
I clerked for Price Brothers during the year of 1885 and part of 1886. While I
was living in Socorro I visited my brother Jake, who was then living in
[Manzano?] New Mexico.
He and a man named Herman Goodman ran a small store there, selling dry goods,
groceries and liquor. The town of [Manzano?] was a Spanish-American town. My
brother, Mr. Goodman and a fellow by the name of [Kountas?] were the only white men living there at the time.
This fellow [Kountas?] ran a newspaper which was called the "Gringo and
Greaser". He did not like the Spanish-Americans and was always making
dirty remarks about them in his paper. One night while he was eating supper
some one shot through a window and killed him instantly. That ended the
"Gringo and Greaser" newspaper. Another incident happened while I was
visiting my brother there. A bunch of Spanish American men were in the store
drinking and a couple of them got drunk. Jake refused to sell them any more
whiskey so the bunch left the store. Later in that evening twelve men came back
to the store armed with forty-five Winchester
rifles, looking for Jake. He had been tipped off and was hiding in the hay
loft. When they could not find him they left, but the next day they got out a
warrant for him and had him arrested and taken before a Justice of the Peace
who was a Spanish American. He fined [Jake?] and made him pay the costs of the
court, all just because he would not sell the two drunk men more whiskey. That
was the kind of law and justice we had in those days. I left [Socorro?] New Mexico in December 1886, for White Oaks New Mexico. I went by
stage coach, which was a buck board drawn by two little Spanish mules. We left
Socorro about ten o'clock in the morning and got to [Osanne's?] ranch, which
was about half way between Socorro and White
Oaks, about six o'clock in the
evening. We had our supper there at the ranch and changed the team and started
on the last half of the journey. It was a bitter cold night and we arrived at White Oaks about four o'clock in the morning. There were lots of sandy
places on the road and at times the mules could only make about two miles an
hour. It was a very cold and tiresome trip. My brother Jake and Herman Goodman
had moved to White Oaks from [Mansano?], after Jake had
the trouble with the Spanish Americans at [Mansano?], and put in a dry goods
store in a small log cabin. After I got to White Oaks I went
[into?] the business [with?] them and the store was called Goodman, Zeigler
& Company. The business was small and in order to increase it my brother
Jake often made trips into the surrounding country and peddled dry goods. We
had a wagon and a good pair of horses and Jake could take quite a load of goods
with him on each trip. The country in those days was not any too safe and he
usually took a man with him to do the driving," as they [?] out at night
most of the time. He had a man named Ike Smith who was an old timer and knew
the country well who went with him. Once when they were returning from a trip
into the [Penasco?] country, they were coming down Nogal hill when a masked
bandit stepped up to the wagon and drew a gun on them and said, "turn over
your money and be quick about it." Jake and Smith were so surprised that
they were rather slow in turning over the money and the bandit shot at them.
The bullet grazed Ike Smith's forehead. About a year after this hold up Ike
Smith died from the effects of this wound. This happened at the foot of Nogal
Hill, near Nogal New Mexico, which is twelve miles southeast of Carrizozo New Mexico. After
that experience my brother did not make vary many more trips selling
merchandise.
We freighted all of our merchandise
from San Antonio New Mexico by teams and mostly ox teams. It
took them a week to make the trip from San
Antonio to White
Oaks. In one of the shipments of merchandise, I ordered ten gallons of very
fine wine. When the keg came we were all so anxious to get a good drink, but
when we opened the keg you can imagine our great disappointment to find it
filled with water. Some one had taken the wine out and filled the keg up with
water. There was a man by the name of W.H. Weed, who settled in White Oaks in 1881. He had a general [merchandise?] business and also
sold liquor. His store was a log cabin with a lean to shed on the back, with a
side door entrance. He kept a barrel of whiskey on tap all the time and when
the millers quit work for the day they would go by Weed's place and go in the
side door and get a drink of whiskey, or on many drinks as they wished. Old man
Weed would charge them with up with one drink no matter how many they had. He
thought in this way he would get all the trade of the miners. White Oaks was a booming town in those days, there were about two
hundred miners at work in the mines. I remember one evening while I was
boarding at the Brothers Hotel, a man by the name of John E. Wilson came in to
supper with a fine specimen of gold. He showed it to a man by the name of
Sigafus, who was operating the North Home stake mine at that time. Wilson asked him what he
thought of this kind of ore. I remember very well that Sigafus told him,
"just one ton of this kind of ore and you will never have to work
anymore". Mr. Wilson located the South Homestake
mine which later proved to be very rich in gold.
The North
Homestake mine was located in 1880, by Jack Winters. This mine was
also very rich in gold. The Old Abe mine was first located in 1881 by prospectors
but none found the rich vein and they let their leases lapse. In the fall of
1890 the rich vein was located by a man named William Watson. The Old Abe mine
is about thirteen hundred feet deep and is considered the dryest mine in the
world. It has produced around one and one half million dollars in gold.
The population of White Oaks was about five hundred people when the rich strike was made
at the Old Abe mine and it jumped up to fifteen hundred people, with two
hundred miners working in the mines. Although a hundred miles from the nearest
railroad, the social life compared favorably with cities such larger. On March
9th, 1895, came the most drastic of all the Old Abe mine fires, in which eight
miners lost their lives. The town people worked day and night to recover the
bodies, the faithful women of the town staying on the job all the time, serving
hot coffee and sandwiches to the [rescuers, many?] of whom would be brought to
the top overcome by gas fumes.
When the El
Paso, Northeastern Railroad was built from El Paso Texas
to [Tueumcari?] New Mexico, we had great hopes of it building through White Oaks, but it left White
Oaks about twelve miles to the
east, and now it [is?] just a ghost town, but we still have great hopes of the
mines opening up again.
Several funny things happened
while I was living in White Oaks. Mrs. Zeigler and I were invited
to a dinner party at Mrs. John McCourt's, a neighbor of ours. Her little son,
Ben, about five years old enjoyed the meat course very much. The little fellow
heard us talking about the kind of meat that we had and it happened to be kid.
He asked us, "What did they kill the poor little fellow for?"
During the Cleveland administration we had quite a few
light grey stove pipe hats in the store. A bunch of Apache Indians came over
from the Reservation to buy some dry goods. My brother Jake sold each buck one
of [these?] stove pipe hats. With their blankets and moccasins and high hats
they were sights to behold. Everyone in the town was out watching these Indians
parade the streets.
I have lived in Lincoln
County
fifty years and have been in the general merchandise business all these years.
NARRATOR: Albert Zeigler, Carrizozo,
New Mexico. Aged 78 years.
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