Yeomet, Ghost Town of Amador County

Ghost Town of the Gold Country in Amador, El Dorado or Calaveras County

Yeomet means "sounding rock" and is the Native American name for waterfall.

There is the Yeomet cemetery and who is buried there?
Is Yeomet my gold rush pioneer families' first California home?

In California, an extraordinary event occured in 1848. Gold was discovered in the American River, and then in many of the other tributaries of California, gold was found by those who would try their hand at panning, placer mining, and sluicing. A half of a million souls migrated to California from every state and most of the countrys of the world, to try to make their fortune in gold. My great great grandfather Jesse Hamrick was one of the thousands who came overland in 1850.

Gold mining camps sprang up and died virtually overnight, one such camp was known by the Native American name 'Yeomet'.

Yeomet was in Calaveras County, but its 'site' is now in Amador County. There are other sources which list Yeomet in El Dorado also. I am attempting to compile information on Yeomet in order to document if this is the gold mining camp my Pioneer family came to in 1850, when they originally arrived in California by covered wagon, their story is extremely captivating. In my great great aunt Cosumnes California Hamrick McMurry's family history, called, The McMurry Family it states that "Cosumnes was born on the fork of two branches of the Cosumnes River, in 1850." And in my cousin Harold Hamrick's manuscript entitled, "The Hamrick Family History" it states that "they settled in a little mining camp on the Cosumnes River." When I asked my 83 year old aunt if she knew where her great grandparents lived she said on "the forks of the Cosumnes River."

Yeomet is either Miwok or Maidu language, and in 1853 was known as "Forks of the Cosumnes River" and called so by anyone nearby. The name Yeomet does mean 'sounding rock' and was called so for the upstream waterfall. At one time a dam was proposed, the Nashville Dam, and it would of obliterated this area, so one should still be able to locate the old cemetery and maybe the ghost of an old 49'er.

I basically asked the following question on the NorCal Genealogy email subscription list:

To all California Gold Country Researchers:
I am interested in the now gone town of Yeomet. Yeomet was a Native American village, perhaps Miwok?, on the bank of 2 branches of the Cosumnes River, and in 1850 was a bustling gold mining camp. Anyone know anything else about Yeomet?

All that was left in the 1960's was a cemetery, and then some dam flooded the area, and it is now underwater? Is this true? Which dam? Where did they move the cemetery? Perhaps it was north of Amador and Jackson Valley.

Is there any chance that anyone has records of this place, Yeomet? Or a cemetery listing? In my cousins book it says my pioneer family came to nearby Amador in 1850 and "on the banks of 2 forks of the Cosumnes River" my aunt Cosumnes California Hamrick was born, almost the minute they arrived, November 1, 1850. Her little sister Sarah is my 2nd great grandmother. And it says they lived in a mining camp which had been near an "indian village".

The family had a newborn and 2 toddlers with them in 1850 in this place, you would think someone would have written that fact down somewhere, in a diary or such. The children were called Jimed, (James) Vina, (Lavina) and little Cosy(Cosumnes). I am trying to figure out where they lived, which camp near which Native American village?

If that place is not Yeomet, then where did they live? Anyone know enough about the Gold Country, north of Amador to have an educated guess?

"In the book. "Historic Spots in California," by Mildred Brooke Hoover, Hero Eugene Rensch, Ethel Grace Rensch, William N. Abeloe and Revised by Douglas E. Kyle. Printed 1995. This is the Fourth Edition and was originally revised and printed 1990. This book originally was printed in three volumes. The Southern Counties (1932), Valley and Sierra Counties (1933) and Counties of the Coast Range (1937). Yeomet is mentioned under Plymouth.

"In the Northern part of Amador County numerous minning camps were located on the Consumnes River and it's branches................"The richest location in the district was situated on the river bar on the main forks of the Consumnes, and was called by the Indian name Yeomet."

It was located four or five miles north of Plymouth which was largely known for the quartz mining."

California Gold Camps, 1975, E G and E K Gudde, Univ of Calif Press, page 379 says,

"Yeomet(Amador Co.) At the junction of the forks of the Cosumnes River, formerly in El Dorado County."

According to Hutchings Magazine(II,p208) the name is derived from the waterfalls which are a half mile downstream called yomet, 'sounding rock' by the Indians. The place was also known as Forks of the Cosumnes and as Saratoga. The camp developed in 1849 or 1850 and prospered for a number of years Knight's Scrapbooks,I, p.91;

El Dorado County History,1883,p.198). From 1854 to 1861 it had a post office with the name spelled Yornet. A number of mines and mills are shown in the vicinity on the Amador County Map of 1866. See Huse Bridge."

Page 165, "Huse Bridge (Amador County) At the confluence of the North and Middle Forks of Cosumnes River; on the site of Yeomet.

Shown on the County Map 1866. It was named for S E Huse, the proprietor of the bridge for a decade (El Dorado Co. Hist,1883,p.199)

Name Yeomet is not on the USGS/GNIS CDROM. Is this because it was buried by lake water?

In my previous message on the Yeomet subject I referred to the Official Amador County map. I gave the wrong date for it -it should have been 1866. That perhaps tells why it shows Yeomet and the Huse Suspension Bridge. By the time of the USGS Placerville map, Yeomet was gone. The Fiddletown map I referred to was the USGS 7.5' quadrangle map, dated 1949, updated 1973 and originally from photos made 1946 and field checked 1949.

My guess of the way things are now is that Highway 49, ex-Placerville Road has been moved a little. Hwy 49 now crosses the Cosumnes River immediately south of Big Indian Creek which would be about 0.2mile south of the Huse Bridge location. The Huse Bridge would have been immediately below the confluence of the two branches. The town would have been south of the Huse Bridge, north of the creek, east of the Cosumnes and west of the hills. Highway 49 is now west of the river at this location, whereas the Placerville Road seems to have been east of the river. It would be fun to poke around there. The Huse Bridge location and maybe even some of the town might be findable. Where is the cemetery?

I looked in my copy of Logan's Alley by Larry Cenotto and found a description of Yeomet in Volume II.

Page 142 states " You cross the Cosumnes on the highway 49 bridge, gently curve northeasterly along the El Dorado side of the river, and speed by the spot where the north and the middle forks join, and Indian creek enters 300 yards below.............Circa 1881, historian Jesse D. Mason wrote, ' Some of the cabins built in 1850 maintain a tottering standing, with the aid of props and braces. Inside you may see gold pan and pick as of yore, but the men, weary and worn with a quarter century of unsuccessful search for gold, seem waiting for the last act of the play.......'The earliest account of the place the writer has seen is Jeddo's, appearing in the October 12, 1853 issue of the Placerville Herald........the place was 'Forks of the Cosumnes' or Saratoga Village as it is now being called. He and later observers agreed that the camp was not only naturally beautiful but tastefully beautified by the residents and merchants there with trees, fences, shrubs and fountains."

The article in Logan's Alley also relates that the name Yeomet means "sounding rock." A merchant by the name of Bowman operated a hotel, a store and the bridge from 1853 til 1857 at least. Another successful merchant by the name of Simpson ran a large store, and in 1863 Simpson was elected assemblyman for Amador.

Additionally in Logan's Alley on page 268, Yeomet is listed as operating a post office from July 14, 1854 til 1861, when it was discontinued. E. Bowman is listed as postmaster.

Here is the story of YEOMET as described in The Ghost Towns of Amador by John Andrews, 1967- my edition is the Valley Publishers, Fresno CA 1978 "It is difficult to comprehend how a town-of the size that the old records assert occupied this space-could have been squeezed into the scant dimensions at the bottom of the gorge formed by the confluence of the north and middle forks of the Cosumnes and Big Indian Creek. The large mercantile establishments of Simpson Beebee &Co., Broman and Co. and others handling all kinds of merchandise were housed in the usual masonry structures, massive in form, iron-doored and iron-shuttered of window, and constituted a solidly built downtown area. This whole space was attached and ground sluiced, as returns from the outlying gulches diminished. They buildings were demolished and their footings worked to a depth of many feet.

The printed page makes reference to a large Mexican population in the mid-fifties, and of a sticky period of great tension and stress at a time just subsequesnt to the Rancheria massacre and the ensuing riots and disorders. Fortunately, very few overt acts of violence are reported and the tensions were gradually lessened.

In a sort of incongrous balance or counterpoise, we are informed that the other population group was composed in a large part of miners from Pennsylvania and mainly from the area of Pittsburgh. They were said to be struck by the fancied resemblance of the place to the confluence of the Alleghany and the Monangahela, where the Ohio takes its begining. Their imaginations must have really been working overtime if this be so. Were any of them around now it would be most interesting to see where they would park even a scale model of the Golden Triangle.

The town Yeomet is asserted to be taken from the Miwok toungue and is, by translation, rocky falls, this in reference to the up-stream rapids of the Cosumnes. This must have been the extreme northern extension of the Miwok language and culture, as by all anthropoligists' reckonings the Consumnes is placed as the line of demarcation between Miwok and Maidu.

Of this town we have left just one thing: a cemetery. When last seen it was quite impressive in its live oak shaded isolation at the bottom of the canyon. A perimeter wall of cut, neatly fitted and mortared stone, topped by lacy black English ironwork, gives it definition and aptness. The marking gravestones are in good taste and charming in their quiet simplicity. Some date back to the fifties but a surprising number are in the 1870's and 1880's and many of them bear the crest of the Masonic Order. Even at this period of time, which is far back in our thinking, the town, as such, had long since ceased to be.

This illustrates a practice that is by no means abandoned right in our time. These old cemeteries outlived their towns and many of them are still in use. Many persons, then and now, and doubtless will in the future, express a wish which is often carried out, that their mortal remains return to the good earth of the scene of their trials, triumphs, and tribulations.

Within the decade ahead the Nashville Dam is scheduled to be built just below the confluence of the streams. The cemetery will of course be moved to higher ground. Its site and that of the town will be the most deeply immersed of any to which this fate has been assigned. At low water it will be more than four hundred feet down".

Note: The Nashville Dam has not been built to date, so perhaps the old cemetery is in existence. If anyone has additional information on Yeomet I would be glad to add it to this compilation.