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Robert
Lee Hatcher was born June 24th 1867 in Montague, Texas. He arrived in
Alaska in 1888. Hatcher had started prospecting
in White Oaks, New Mexico, came north
at twenty-one, spent time prospecting in Atlin, Canada, and southeast
Alaska before heading to south-central Alaska.
In
September 1906, Hatcher located hard rock gold. The Skyscraper
Vein was a quartz gold
claim 1,200 feet above
the floor of Fishhook Valley and nearly 5,000 feet above sea
level. It was on a ridge below Skyscraper
Mountain in the southern Talkeetna Mountains.
Robert
Lee sold a 25 percent interest
in his gold discovery for
$1500.00 worth of cash and some
food. In 1909 Hatcher and his partner, J.H. Carnegie, sold
the remaining 75% of the claims for $6000.00. The
$7500.00 received for the claims is worth over a quarter of a million dollars today.
In 1910 Hatcher was back in Alaska prospecting
on the Kenai Peninsula with
a new partner, C. A. "Scotty"
McPherson. The Hatcher-McPherson Groundhog claim was sold for $30,000. The purchaser
was Samuel I. Silverman who started, and sold stock in, the Seward Gold Company.
Within a year Silverman had sold the Seward Gold Company for
$225,000 to a group of British investors. Unfortunately the ledge pinched out, the gold disappeared
and the first payment was
never made.
 
By 1943, Robert Lee Hatcher had been responsible for the discovery of the Independence, Martin, Talkeetna, Jam, Ray Wallace and Gold Mint
mines.
At the age of seventy-six
he announced what he called
the greatest gold discovery
of his career. There was no interest from investors even though the grade, at an estimated $7 per ton, was very high. In 1933, US President Franklin
D. Roosevelt had increased
the price of gold from
$20.67 to $35.00 per ounce. The increase
in price led to more gold
mining in Alaska. This expansion continued until the early years of World War II when federal
order E-208 shut down
gold mines throughout the United States - the
United States War Production Board
thought gold mining was not essential to the war
effort.
In 1950, Hatcher was found in his cabin on Ptarmigan Creek twenty-three miles north of Seward; he was
paralyzed on his left side and unable to speak. Robert Lee Hatcher died in Seward, Alaska, 24th September
1950 and was buried October 1st 1950 in an unmarked
grave in the Seward Pioneer Cemetery.
Seekers Of Gold
“You
see we prospectors are a dying breed. The world doesn't function around us anymore like it used back in the gold rush.
The people who care for you
can’t understand. What in the world would make you want
to risk your life to look
for gold? They don’t
understand the dream, but
in the old days everybody understood. You didn’t have to worry
about your wife leaving ya or your friends scorning you because you wanted
to find the gold.
Everyone was doing it.
Everyone dreamed of the day when they
would be the one to strike it rich.
represent freedom for
all, but what does it mean to people today? I’ll tell you, a big house and a nice car. People don’t see that it’s so much more than just finding
the golden score. It’s not seen as a building block for freedom.
It’s been twisted
and messed up to the point of being
stuck on a scratch and win
ticket. That is what is left of the prospector’s dream in today’s world. All the people around
you don’t understand, they can’t see the freedom and the hope it brings you
when you chase the dream. They just think
you’re dreaming,
but we know the truth don’t we?
The
truth is you’re living and they
are the ones that are dreaming. Their search for the big car and the nice house. Ha! Illusions I tell you
brought onto their brain less minds
by a media machine. How I wish
I could chase after it still,
but the fight’s over for me lad. I’ve got a bad ticker you
see, but you can, can’t you son?" he explained eyeing me almost enviously, there is nothing
better than standing high
up on a mountain top and gazing
down upon the world. It makes
you feel like your own
man. Free from all prison that
the world tries to make of your
life. You see the world doesn’t
want you to be your own
man. If they did, they wouldn’t be trying to make you swallow
the lie all the time and you know how they do it. Through
that little box over there, he said
pointing to the television
across the room.
Look
at those people over there, he explained
pointing to the people staring
at the TV. They’re swallowing every word of it and it makes me sick.
Our pioneer brothers are rolling in their graves I tell ya. They wouldn’t
have wanted it this way, this
isn’t freedom.
People today don’t
know what freedom is. That little box over there tells them that they’re free, but they’re not. You see when somebody tells you something enough times you’ll start to believe it. Tell me you won’t give up, tell me you will follow
the dream to the ends of the earth.
If not for yourself then
do it for your pioneer brothers who help create this world and you become one of them. Remember freedom is worth dying
for and I’m not talking
about dying in a war fighting for some illusionary freedom that your government
tells you have. I’m
talking the real stuff that comes from
the open spaces and when you spent enough
time in the mountains you’ll
know what I’m talking about. It will grab your soul and won’t leave you until the day you die. It’s what pushes all great men and once you see it
you’ll chase it for the rest of your days.”
Seekers of gold is
dedicated to all the prospectors
out there who have searched for the dream and all
of those who are still out there searching for it. Daryl Friesen
author, Seekers Of Gold
Conclusion
Prospectors are today
still scouring the bush,
in remote, and not so remote places – chasing
the rainbow and its pot
of gold - looking for the next
discovery. Alaska, Canada’s
Yukon Territory and Province of British Columbia
are still vast and underexplored places.
Prospecting is
of course the integral first step
in the process of discovery,
walking the bush and hammering
rocks means boots on the ground.
It's people walking through the bush that have found the worlds mines. Staking claims and making a
deal with a junior resource
company, a vendor’s
agreement, is often the
second step – the prospectors
claims are turned over to be
worked for shares and or
cash and a one or two percent net smelter royalty (NSR) from a mine if the showing goes all the way. Most prospectors don’t have
the wherewithal, the money raising
capabilities or the expertise to develop a showing so this is
where a junior would come
in. Being publically traded they have access to capital and expertise the prospector
most often does not.
Only a few prospectors among the many thousands who search ever
find an economic to mine deposit. But prospecting success and drill programs that
are targeting these showings should be on every investors
radar screen.
Most
of us can’t be prospectors, but we can dream of discoveries made and money hard won, we
too can chase the rainbow through our publically
traded junior resource companies. Have you got an exploration, or drill program, on your radar screen?
If
not, maybe you should.
Richard (Rick) Mills
rick@aheadoftheherd.com
www.aheadoftheherd.com
Richard is
the owner of Aheadoftheherd.com and invests in the junior resource/bio-tech sectors. His articles have been published
on over 400 websites, including:
WallStreetJournal, SafeHaven, MarketOracle, USAToday, NationalPost, Stockhouse, Lewrockwell, Pinnacledigest, UraniumMiner, Beforeitsnews, SeekingAlpha, MontrealGazette, CaseyResearch, 24hgold, VancouverSun,
CBSnews, SilverBearCafe, Infomine, HuffingtonPost, Mineweb, 321Gold, Kitco, Gold-Eagle, The Gold/Energy Reports,
Wealthwire, CalgaryHerald,
ResourceInvestor, Mining.com, Forbes, FNArena, Uraniumseek, FinancialSense, Goldseek, Dallasnews, SGTReport, Vantagewire, Resourceclips, Indiatimes, ninemsn, ibtimes and the Association of Mining
Analysts.
If you're interested in learning more
about the junior resource and bio-med sectors, and quality individual company’s within these sectors, please come and visit us at www.aheadoftheherd.com
***
Legal Notice / Disclaimer
This document is
not and should not be construed as an offer to sell or the solicitation of an offer to purchase or subscribe for any investment.
Richard Mills has based
this document on information obtained
from sources he believes to be reliable but which has not been
independently verified.
Richard Mills makes
no guarantee, representation
or warranty and accepts
no responsibility or liability
as to its accuracy or completeness. Expressions of opinion are those of Richard Mills only and
are subject to change without
notice. Richard Mills assumes no warranty, liability or guarantee for the current relevance, correctness
or completeness of any
information provided within
this Report and will not be held liable for the consequence of reliance upon any opinion or statement contained herein or any omission.
Furthermore, I, Richard Mills, assume no liability
for any direct or
indirect loss or damage or, in particular,
for lost profit, which you may incur
as a result of the use and existence of the
information provided within
this Report.
As a general rule, the most successful man in life is the
man who has the best information
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