Fairweather, William

  • Profile notes:
    • In 1863 Bill Fairweather and his party discovered gold in southwestern Montana. They were on their way to Yellowstone Country from Bannack but were waylaid by a band of Crows. While hiding from the Indians in a gulch they found gold. They named the gulch after the alder trees lining the gulch. Alder was one of the great gold producers of all time. The site of the largest placer gold strike in world history. It produced $10,000,000.00 during the first year.
    • A year later the boom town of Virginia City had a population of 10,000. People lived in makeshift tents and shacks and every third construction was a saloon. The site gave birth to two of Montana’s most famous towns: Virginia City and Nevada City.
    • The discoveries at Alder Gulch drew people away from Bannack, reducing the population, making Virginia City the first territorial capitol.
    • Returning home to Bannack from a gold-searching trip in the Yellowstone Valley, six tired prospectors were captured by the Crow Indians. Had it not been for the quick thinking of one of them, their consequent good luck wouldn’t have come about. Showing no fear and trying to prove to the captors he had special powers, Bill Fairweather placed a rattlesnake in his shirt. Impressed, the natives freed them.
    • For whatever reason, on May 26, 1863, the group paused in their journey to pan the gravels of Alder Creek. Before dark each of the men had enough “colors” in their pans to convince them that they had made a major find. While replenishing supplies in Bannack, they caused a bit of attention and 200 other would-be hopeful miners followed them back to Alder Gulch, spawning the beginning of Virginia City and the largest of all of Montana’s gold strikes. men just weren’t meant for good fortune. Bill Fairweather was a tragic example of luck gone awry. In the company of a party of miners on May 26, 1863, Fairweather panned the first gold at Alder Gulch, setting off the famous stampede. The gulch made him rich, but to Fairweather, the gold meant little. Legend has it that he would ride up and down the streets of Virginia City on his horse, Old Antelope, scattering gold nuggets in the dust. He loved to see the children and the Chinese miners scramble for them. He mixed gold dust in his horse’s oats, saying that nothing was too good for Old Antelope, the horse that brought him such good luck. But Fairweather died of hard living at Robber’s Roost in 1875. His pockets were empty and a bottle of whiskey was his only companion. He was not yet forty years old. A diet of gold dust did Fairweather’s horse, Old Antelope, no harm. He long outlived his master, enjoying the Ruby Valley pasture of E. F. Johnson into extreme old age. Fairweather’s remains lie in Hillside Cemetery, a windswept burial ground overlooking Alder Gulch where an iron fence surrounds his grave. A recent marker credits him with the Alder Gulch discovery.
  • Great Grandson of Loyalist listed in Loyalist Directory –https://uelac.ca/loyalist-directory/detail/?wpda_search_column_id=2688
  • Find a GRAVE: https://www.findagrave.com/memorial/117442158/william-fairweather