Frank Williams memoir, page 23

mortgage upon this place which we assumed. Harry wanted to attend college so Will and I bought him out for $300.Returning to Vanderbilt, I went to work in the Boomerage Mine. Early in March, my uncle, Manning Thomas, came out from Wetmore and we went to work upon the Webster mine. Two months' work gave us a twelve ton milling of ore that paid us good wages for the work we had done. Since there was not a very encouraging prospect of getting more ore, both of us went to work for wages in the Boomerang. Believing that I could better myself by taking a lease upon the St. George mine, I took it up, by letter, with the owner, Mr. Campbell, who was then in Salt Lake. In September of this year, 1897, I secured the lease and hiring two men, I started work. For a time I did pretty well as the ore milled about $35.00 a ton.Along in January, however, the grade of the ore dropped to about $20.00 and for the first two months in 1898, I made almost nothing. In fact, I got considerably in debt. Mr. Campbell then offered me and my friend Charley Stewart, a contract to mine the ore for $5.00 per ton. In addition, we agreed to clean out and re-timber fifty feet of an old shaft. We did quite well upon this contract. When finished, late in June of that year, I was enabled to pay all my debts and had some money left. In April of this year, the war with Spain broke out and both Charley and I thought of joining the army. Charley was much older than I and his chances of being accepted were not good. But when our contract was finished and our debts paid, the war was clearly going against Spain, with prospects of an early end.I went to Los Angeles and stayed there during most of July. Was tempted to join the 7th California regiment then being recruited in Southern California. On the day that I arrived in