Recap and Background
Numerous articles and books have been written about this particular event, and so we shall not report the whole story yet again. To do full justice to the events surrounding this particular swindle, the characters involved in it, and the fallout it generated would take the writing of another fairly lengthy book. Much of the truth about what happened is obscured, as those who were involved in the hoax later endeavored to present themselves in the best possible light. There is much confusion over dates and the exact sequence of events. Although Asbury Harpending devotes many pages to the Diamond Hoax in his memoirs⁶⁴ and claims to be setting the record straight, there are many inconsistencies in his version, and many statements made by him can be easily refuted. Harpending of course depicts himself as being nothing more than an innocent and honest participant who also became a victim of the hoax.
In his memoirs, Harpending writes of how the news of a discovery of diamond fields had first reached him while he was in London in early 1871. This was at some point shortly after the failure of the Pyramid Range Company and the sale of the Mineral Hill properties. He claims that it was a telegram from William Chapman Ralston which first brought to his attention the news that a vast diamond field had just been discovered in some remote region of the United States, and that when he read the telegram he began to wonder whether or not his “old friend had gone mad.” He says that Ralston was insistent that he drop everything, book passage on the next available ship, and return to the States immediately to take up the position of General Manager of the proposed operation for the development of the diamond fields which had supposedly been discovered by Philip Arnold and John Slack. Harpending also claims that, although he had known Philip Arnold previously in California – Arnold having been employed by George D. Roberts to examine various mining properties in the west – he himself had never directly employed Arnold. Slack he says he knew only as “a plain man about town, of general fair repute.”⁶⁵
In this account we focus only on those aspects of the Diamond Hoax which relate directly to Ralston City. Local legends persist (and insist) to this day that Ralston City was at the center of the hoax, and that it was Lee Peak which was salted with the precious stones by the perpetrators.
These tales are keenly and actively perpetuated by some, who also insist that the hoax took place in 1871, and that this was the reason for that huge influx of people which supposedly caused the town’s population to swell to 3,000. Sometimes it is claimed that it was the hired “Texan guns”, brought in to protect the “Company claims”, who had also aided in both the salting of Lee Peak, and in the ushering of the gullible to the appropriate areas, where they might fortuitously stumble upon a valuable gem.
All of this is, of course, in direct opposition to the overwhelming amount of evidence dispelling this local folklore; the absence of any supporting evidence for their versions being regarded by the peddlers of these tales as further proof of the dark and secretive nature of Ralston City and its inhabitants.
The best and most reliable sources of information on the Diamond Hoax are those found in the testimonies of various witnesses in the 1874 case of Rubery vs. Grant and Sampson. This was a libel suit initiated by Alfred Rubery against Baron Albert Grant and Marmaduke Sampson. This was the suit which resulted in Sampson’s dismissal from the London Times in January of 1875.
The plaintiff, Rubery, brought a libel action against Grant and Sampson after the publication in the London Times of three articles in November and December of 1872.⁶⁶ In those articles, which related to the diamond discoveries and the subsequent exposure of the fraud, Sampson had very strongly implied that Rubery had been a party to not only that particular scheme, but that he had also played a role in the Lincoln Gold and the Pyramid Range debacles. Rubery’s response was that Sampson had implicated him in all three incidents at the instigation of Grant, who was seeking revenge against Rubery following a dispute relating to shares in the Mineral Hill properties. Rubery had previously filed suit against Grant over this, but the case failed to come to trial, Grant making an out of court settlement on the matter. It was as a result of this, Rubery alleged, that Grant had stated that if Rubery should ever again become involved in developing any company in the future, then he, Grant, would personally see to it that the company failed by having it condemned by Sampson in the columns of the London Times
The case of Rubery vs. Grant and Sampson opened at London’s Court of Exchequer on December 17, 1874. Naturally, the London Times reported it in excruciating detail, beginning on December 18 with a verbatim account of the proceedings of the previous day; a pattern which was repeated for the duration of the case. Much of what was reported in the Times was also reprinted in the American press.⁶⁷
The relevance of this libel suit to this Chapter lies in the fact that, as Rubery’s alleged involvement in both the Pyramid Range scheme and The Great Diamond Hoax were central to the case, much of the evidence given focused on these two events. Witness statements revealed many items of information about both frauds which had hitherto never been made public; information from parties with, for the most part, no vested interest in either. These witnesses included Charles Godlove Meyer who had been the assayer at Ralston in 1870, United States Marshall Charles W. Rand, who had become acquainted with Rubery during the Chapman piracy case, and Leopold Keller, diamond merchant of Hatton Garden, London. The testimonies of these witnesses, when coupled with newspaper items, throws new light on the origins of the Diamond Hoax, its relation to Ralston City, and the purposes behind it.
The origins of the Great Diamond Hoax of 1872 are so closely linked to the Pyramid Range scheme that it will be necessary to back track somewhat, reiterating some of what we have already written about the Pyramid Range affair.
Most accounts of The Great Diamond Hoax center on events which took place between late 1871, when the supposed discoverers of the diamond field – Philip Arnold and John Burcham Slack – first arrived in San Francisco with the news of their find, and November of 1872, when the hoax was exposed as such by Clarence King, whose professional geological report report proved beyond doubt that the field had been salted with the precious stones, many of which would turn out to have been purchased in London in the summer of 1871.
More often than not two key facts are overlooked. Firstly, that the very first mention of diamonds, or, at least, “crystals”, occurred in November of 1870, a year before news of Arnold and Slack’s diamond fields began to appear in newspapers. Secondly, that the earliest reports refer not to Arnold and Slack, but to Philip Arnold and James B. Cooper. In most instances, where an author is aware of these early (1870) reports, the discrepancy between the two pairs of names is ignored. This is a major mistake; the names Arnold and Cooper appearing in conjunction with each other are crucial to an understanding of the origins of the Hoax.
©2007-2024 Jim & Erica Parson
REFERENCES FOR THIS INSTALLMENT
⁶⁴Wilkins (1958). Chapter XXV forward.
⁶⁵Wilkins (1958). Page 145.
⁶⁶London Times. November 18, 1872, and December 20, and 21, 1872.
A thorough and much more easily readable account of Rubery vs. Grant and Sampson can be found in The Annual Register: A Review Of Public Events At Home And Abroad, For The Year 1875. (1876) London: Rivingtons, Waterloo Place. Pages 159-173.
⁶⁷Daily Alta California. November 24, 1870.
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