 Prospects looked good for Michael Brennan. As superintendent and chief owner of the Mount Hope Mining Co., Brennan had reason to believe the company's mine on Massachusetts Hill near Grass Valley would pay off in a big way. So with revenues from the gold it had already found, the firm drove a shaft deeper and deeper into the ground, using the best and most expensive equipment. More and more money was poured in; less and less gold came out. It was too much for Brennan. One Sunday neighbors found his whole family, including the children, dead from drinking prussic acid. It was two years before digging was resumed on the Brennan shaft. And only a few feet of digging further found a massive vein of gold-bearing quartz, worth millions. |