The Gold Rush seemed to produce a lot of ghosts - or at least stories about ghosts. The conductor of a ghost tour of Nevada City calls it the most haunted town anywhere. If spirits do still wander about unsettled perhaps the cause of their unrest has to do with their lives' crushing disappointment at finding wet, cold and sickness, but no riches.

Most of the Gold Rush stories are unsolved mysteries. But not all of them.

After crossing the Atlantic and then the American continent, a young man named John J. Kelly came to the gold mines. Bob Wyckoff tells his story in his book "Local History Makes Good News."

Kelly made his lengthy journey to the gold fields in the company of a longtime friend. The friend was soon killed in a mining accident, but Kelly stayed on the job.

In the underground mine the blasting powder was kept safely out of the way in a small room. One of Kelly's jobs was to watch over the stuff and make sure it was locked up solid at night. He'd reach in through a hole cut in the door and raise the iron bar that locked the door, check things out, and then lower the iron locking bar from the outside.

The last time John J. Kelly reached through that door he ran away screaming that he had just shaken hands with his dead partner. Topside, Kelly took his final pay and left the mine. He had shaken his dead partner's cold hand and vowed never to go underground again!

Some believed he had touched a ghost, others just felt that if it seemed that way to Kelly, it was time to be moving on.

The story eventually came out about two of Kelly's fellow miners who were huddled together in the small powder room when Kelly shoved his hand through the hole in the door, groping for the iron bar. One of the men put his hand in a bucket of cold water and then grabbed Kelly's hand.

When he later heard the story Kelly refused to believe it. A man would surely know the grip of his partner. Wouldn't he?

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Copyright Don Baumgart, 2009