Person:William Bearinger (4)

Wagon Maker

From the history of Wyandot County, Ohio (Upper Sandusky)

Others, from time to time, left for the Golden State, among them our lar friend, William Bearinger. During the first excitement Mr. Bearinger had no idea of leaving his then prosperous business for allurements in the apparent verdure of far-off hills, but a dream unsettled his mind. He dreamed that he was in the heart of the Rockies, and was moving along gracefully on a pair of six-foot snow shoes, when all at once he came to a very stylish and fashionable gulch. He looked over the declivity and saw that he could slide down with comparative ease, and he did. At the bottom there was a lump of gold that he could just raise a little by straining several of his left ribs, and he gave them a twist. To carry it up the incline on snow shoes was impossible, and in the act of shouting for help, he woke up. He could still see, however, the beautiful gulch, the huge lump of gold at Its bottom, and the trees all around which he had blazed to mark the spot. He goes to Dr. McConnell, tells him his dream, anti asks for advice. " Go, by all means, air," said the doctor, "examine every hole in the Rockies; be are you don't miss a gulch; go sir, for if yon don't, that lump of gold will haunt you forever." So William started for the golden shore by way of the gulches, and found the identical spot that appeared to him in his dream. In a year or two he returned well pleased over his trip, with a sly wink that it had been agreeably successful.

Everybody thought he had that gold lump, and they would examine his left ribs to see if they were in a twist from heavy lifting, and would scratch around his shop at night to see where he had hid it, and would try to call William out on heavy articles; about how much a man could lift you know, without affecting the lower part of his thorax, and how much he couldn't, perhaps; and one follow would swear that no hunk of gold that ever was born would weigh 200 pounds; and that he would like to see the chunk of gold that he couldn't hold out at arms length, and he would bet William $50 that California wasn't much of a lace for big lumps of gold anyhow, and he never would believe some of them stories until he saw the nuggets." And then William would smile so aggravatingly, and tell the boys " to not be in a harry-'twasn't late yet," and then he would go to the shop window, and look out uneasily, se if he had something hid near the bark pile, while the boys would shy around on the other side of the fence and look for fresh dirt. So whether William's dream was ever realized is not known to this day. One thing is certain, he has never been out of humor since he returned from California, and the sketcher still thinks that

William found that monster nugget; that be has it hidden under some barn, and as soon as two or three more of our old fellows die, he'll dig it out and buy the town.