John Wemple Searles
November 16, 1828 - October 7, 1897Son of George and Helen Wemple Searles was born at Tribes Hill, Montgomery county, New York. He inherited fortitude and tenacity from ancestors who won renown with the American army in the Revolutionary war. He came to California to find gold, but found riches and and built a legacy of benefits and blessings through the discovery of the glittering borax crystals in the lake bed which now bears his name. This is his story:
He came by way of wagon train in 1849 to join his brother Dennis in the California gold fields. An intrepid pioneer, courage and fearlessness were his only possessions.
Mining and farming in Indian creek, Shasta county, California, for several years the two brothers eventually disposed of their holdings and moved on searching for better prospects. In 1862 the brothers began working mining claims in the Slate range, just east of the present Searles lake. The vast dry lake was thought to be carbonate of soda.
Confiding in no one, Searles gathered samples of the crystals and took them to San Francisco to be assayed. Reports were uneven, first Searles heard the samples contained borax, then other analysis reported there was not a single trace. Disappointed, he returned to the desert and continued to develop his homestead and work his claims.
He built a home, developed a well and prospected the mountains. Searles would bring in supplies and feed for his stock from Tehachapi in the mountains over 100 miles away.
While on a deer-hunting expedition in Kern county, Searles had a gruelling battle with a grizzly bear. The fight left Searles with one side of his face and a shoulder badly mangled. Companions on the hunt managed to get him to Los Angeles where surgeons miraculously saved his life. Grim reminders of the encounter he kept with him were 21 pieces of broken teeth and bones of the bear, and a Spencer rifle with dents from the grizzly's teeth all over it.
History records 1873 as a year of note for Searles, first with his marriage to Mary Covington in Los Angeles California on January 1st, then later in the year when a man drifted into the Searles mining camp. He had samples from a new borax discovery in Nevada and showed them to Searles. Searles immediately recognized them as the same type crystals he had taken to San Fransisco years before.
His interest in his discovery was renewed. With a pack outfit, he went to the south end of the lake and located 640 acres (one square mile) containing the crystals and then traveled north to San Fransisco. He was told again that his samples contained no borax, he became suspicious. When he left San Fransisco for Los Angeles he was followed.
In Los Angeles he struck up a partnership with Charles Grassard, Eben M. Skillings and his brother Dennis. Searles packed some supplies and left, but in a different direction, camping and prospecting along the way, still being trailed. His partners gathered simple mining equipment for starting operations and left directly to the claims. Once he was certain he eluded his followers Searles moved on to join his partners and working the claims began.
Word reached the outside world about the discovery of borax in Searles lake. Hordes of men came to stake out claims. The discovery of borax is one thing, and certainly can in its own right can make a man famous, collecting the mineral and transporting it is another matter and if done can make a man rich. Claim jumping and murder knew no law. Searles and his group continued working and perservered while most of the claimants were starved out and abandoned their claims.
The work was done in the extremes of the desert. With crude equipment Searles' little band collected borax in cowhide baskets and carried it to large boiling pots where it was boiled for 36 hours. The solution was cooled and run into vats. It cooled and the crystals formed on the sides where scraped off after drying and loaded into 70 pound bags. To haul the borax to San Pedro for shipping Searles had hired Oso Viejo to build and drive 20 mule team wagons, the first ever of such to be put into operation.
source - Desert Magazine
John Searles
Courtesy Searles Valley Historical Society