From what I have read over the years, many of the '76ers themselves as well as their predecessors (such as the Ezra Kind party) who came into the hills from a northerly direction entered in from the Elk Creek (Bethlehem Rd.), Polo Creek (Hwy 85), and False Bottom (Maitland Rd.) drainages. It likely that some came up from the Bear Butte Creek (Boulder Canyon) drainage and possible that some did through the Spearfish Creek (Canyon) drainage. My guess is that the Ezra Kind party could have entered into the hills from the False Bottom Creek drainage and prospected around what is now the Lead-Deadwood area and then headed west towards the Tinton area and went north towards Spearfish after they "got all the gold [they] could carry". As Oroblanco
mentioned earlier, in
Old Deadwood Days by Estelline Bennett it is mentioned that old mining operations were found in Gold Run Gulch in 1876. Also, in
Pioneer Days in the Black Hills by John McClintock he tries to dispel rumors of an old tunnel found up in Rutabaga Gulch (which is roughly two and a half miles northwest as the crow flies), the rumor that McClintock was referring to was published in 1915 by and George Martin Smith in a book entitled
South Dakota: Its History and Its People, wherein it is mentioned that evidence had been found in the hills indicating many fights between the white men and the Indians. The writer goes into a theory that an abandoned tunnel found up Rutabaga Gulch could have been linked to a party of very early prospectors fleeing the Indians (he directly relates it to two skeletons being found up in the Bear Lodge Mountains... which I think is a bit farfetched, but who's to say he isn't correct?) The two skeletons mentioned likely have nothing to do with the Ezra Kind party (1833/34) because there was a leather book cover found with them with the only legible numbers being "1 52", so of course this would date their time in the area to 1852, eighteen years after Ezra Kind carved his fateful message into his stone. This would help explain some of the evidence of early prospecting in the Lead-Deadwood area, and the False Bottom Creek drainage was one of the more often used pathways into the hills, not only during, but also before the Black Hills Gold Rush. The Ezra Kind party probably came from the Missouri area and came up and around the Black Hills from the east and into the hills from the north. There was also evidence of previous mining operations around the Tinton area (specifically Spotted Tail Gulch if I remember correctly) when that area was explored just slightly after Deadwood's big boom had started. There, in Spotted Tail Gulch (or close to it), an old sluice box was found buried (I believe about 13 feet deep) and near it was a horse's leg with a horseshoe still nailed to it, most likely the 13 feet of soil was probably due to a flash flood many years earlier. The only thing that doesn't add up is that the Ezra Kind party, in his own words, had "ponies", not horses. Could this early mining activity out by Tinton have been related to the Ezra Kind party? The Tinton area and the many gulches there host some of the best gold in the Black Hills and it wouldn't have taken long for a party of prospectors to get "all the gold [they] could carry", granted, this could probably be said about any of the rich placer areas in the Black Hills prior to the Black Hills Gold Rush, as the gold had been sitting in essentially the same spot for tens of thousands of years and you could freely pick nuggets out of the stream just like you could any other type of rock that was to be found. It is also possible that the Ezra Kind party got their gold from some other source other than the Lead-Deadwood and Tinton areas (although those would have been the best spots they could have went). There is a lot of documented evidence of early prospectors prior to the 1875/6 rush: bullet holes in trees, abandoned mines, cabins and remains of cabins, etc. Where the Ezra Kind party got their gold is one thing, but what happened to it is another. Did they bury the gold? Doubtful. They had to have had the gold on their ponies at the time of the ambush, as they were probably done with prospecting the hills and headed back home to [we presume] Missouri. They could have been storing the gold in a cache somewhere, but I highly doubt this because they wouldn't have wanted to spend any more time in or around the Black Hills than they would have had to in order to get their gold. The Indians who ambushed them would have had no use for the gold, they thought white men were stupid for risking life and limb after those little rocks and the gold would have more than likely meant absolutely nothing to them; although it would have had trade value with with white men so the Indians could have used the gold to trade for guns and other supplies, but I think this is rather unlikely since at that time most of the Indians on the western half of what is now South Dakota would have probably scalped and killed just about any white person they came across (because the Indians knew there was gold in the hills and did everything they could to keep things silent about it). The Indians could have buried the gold in a very-near shallow spot "then and there" after the majority of the Ezra Kind party was killed, just for the sole purpose that no white men would ever find that same gold again and get crazed over it. I think this is likely. If the Ezra Kind party's gold is still out there, it's probably not far from the place where the massacre of their party took place. And just where did the massacre take place? Well, I think the best way to find out where
"beyond the high hill" might be, is to go to the site of the quarry where the Thoen Stone was found almost 130 years ago. I can't remember for sure what side of Lookout Mountain the Thoen Stone was found on (I believe on the west/southwest side, can anyone confirm this?), if that's the case then the west half of Crow Peak could very well be the spot where the massacre of the Ezra Kind party took place if we take into account that Ezra wrote the stone in the same area where it was found. Crow Peak has an elevation of 5,760 feet, so it would make it one of the highest hills in the very near vicinity to where the Thoen Stone was found. If the Ezra Kind party are the ones responsible for the old workings found in Spotted Tail Gulch, then this would make a little more sense too because they could have came down from Spotted Tail and went northeast (back somewhat toward the direction they likely entered from) and ended up going down Higgins Gulch which would have brought them near the base of Crow Peak. The best evidence for narrowing down where the gold of the Ezra Kind party may lie would be the skeletal remains of those in the party. From everything I've ever read, no human remains (dating back to the 19th century) have ever been found around Lookout Mountain, Crow Peak, or anywhere in the nearby vicinity of either place. I could be wrong, maybe there's some book or way-old newspaper article I haven't read yet, but if these seven men were all killed somewhere in that area then their bones are still lying there. Human bones can last thousands upon thousands of years in soil; and if their bones were still above ground when settlement in the Black Hills began (because you know the Indians wouldn't have buried them), then we'd certainly know about it as it would have made the newspaper headlines back then. Unfortunately, the last time any new, real "evidence" was added to the story of the Thoen Stone was probably when Frank Thomson traveled across the United States for thousands of miles in search of rumors and facts to put into his book. Until we unearth some more relics and artifacts, old human bones, or the treasure of the Ezra Kind party itselfl; each and every time we wonder about the Thoen Stone and the Ezra Kind party, we are going to end up with far too many questions to the very few answers that we're fortunate enough to have. I believe Ezra's gold is still out there and it accompanies his party's unmarked and unknown graves. I strongly believe that the Black Hills were explored much earlier than most people think or that written history gives credence to, and that there are still more mysteries waiting to be discovered until the right person digs up the right patch of ground, maybe then we'll end up with some more answers, or if not, many more questions.
- Maitland
Edit: I uploaded a topographic map showing the elevation of some of the points around Spearfish. Clearly, Crow Peak is the highest one in the area of Lookout Mountain.
I also found this picture showing the site of where the Thoen Stone was found, courtesy of "
Black Hills The Hike".
(I can SEE the boxes of books now, so have more ambition to get at them, heh heh)
) 
)![:-\](https://www.treasurenet.com/smilies/undecided.gif "Undecided :-\")
