Here's a couple of interesting stories I found at the Library of Congress...

tirademan


New York 1875
Large Dark Thing Darts, Blood Curdling Howl
http://memory.loc.gov/ammem/ndlpcoop/moahtml/snchome.html

An Englewood Mystery. [Scribners monthly, an illustrated magazine for the people. / Volume 10, Issue 4, August 1875]

Page 490
...Late on a chilly autumn afternoon, not long after, I started out and sought the road which had now become familiar to me. The sun dropped behind the horizon just as I crossed the little bridge, and a gray, cheerless twilight, which was fast darkening into night, fell upon the landscape as I approached the solitary, sad looking little house. Its outlines and immediate surroundings were only half-traceable through the gathering gloom, but the bare branches of the neighboring trees stood out boldly against the cold autumn sunset. I looked calmly at the dreary scene, and asked myself if there was anything in it which justified my wild, unshaped conjectures. I hardly knew. I walked nearer, intending to enter, and at least examine the grounds and outside of the house. I paused a moment in the gateway. Just then, some large dark thing darted suddenly across the path before me, disappeared behind the bushes, and a prolonged, blood-curdling howl rung out upon the air. Perhaps it is impossible exactly to measure sound when one stands alone, in a lonely spot, where a death-like stillness is reigning, but this seemed to me the loudest, longest, and most horrible I ever heard in my life. It echoed from the house, it echoed from the woods, it seemed to resound through the whole atmosphere there was something infernal about it. Then the death-like stillness reigned again. I stood at the gate hesitating, and then Reader, was I a much greater coward than you, under similar circumstances, would have turned and walked hastily home. It was hard to shake off the gloomy impression this second visit made upon me. That dismal howl rung in my ears again and again; I could not banish its reverberations from my mind.

California, January 11, 1852
Missing Miner Found Dead, Missing Arms!
http://memory.loc.gov/ammem/cbhtml/cbhome.html

The diary of a forty-niner. Edited by Chauncey L. Canfield

SUMMARY: Chauncey de Leon Canfield (1843-1909) first published “The diary of a forty-niner” in 1906, and 1,200 of the 2,000 copies in that edition were burned. The diary of a forty-niner (1920) reprints Canfield’s 1906 publication. It purports to be the diary of Alfred T. Jackson, of Litchfield County, Connecticut, during his days as a gold prospector, 1850-1852. Jackson offers firsthand accounts of Nevada City and neighboring Rock Creek; descriptions of Grass Valley, North and South Yuba Valleys, and the Sierra Mountains; details of gold mining with accounts of pioneer overland crossings, and foreign mineworkers (including Chinese). Entries concerning Jackson’s personal life include details of his courtship of a French woman in the camps.

Chapter 15
Page 147
JANUARY 11, 1852 - The country is stirred up over a mysterious tragedy that nobody seems able to solve. Neither Ristine nor Carter, the two miners at whose cabin we ate our Christmas supper, have been seen by anybody since that night. No attention would have been paid to this, as the boys do not keep track of each other to any extent, had it not been that Sunday, a week ago, Henry Shively went down to their place to pay them a visit. He found the door of the cabin open, and no sign of the men around. This would not have seemed strange had not the inside of the shanty looked as if no one had been there for a week. The fire was dead in the fireplace and a pot of beans that hung on the hook had been there for days, as the contents were sour and mouldy. The flour sack had been gnawed open in places and flour was scattered over the floor—no doubt the work of coyotes and mountain rats. Nothing else seemed to have been disturbed. Shively went down to their claim, which was close by, and found their Tom and tools in place, the picks and shovels and the Tom iron were rusty, proving that they had not worked in the mine for a week or more. Thinking it queer he concluded to come up and tell Pard the circumstances, which he did, meeting Anderson on the trail coming back from town. Pard turned back and went with him to their cabin, taking Platt along. They found everything as Shively had told them, noted that the best clothes were hanging over their beds, a shotgun and rifle on pegs over the fireplace, and a six-shooter under one of the pillows. On a little shelf by the window, where the gold scales stood, there was a yeast powder can with about five ounces of gold in it. It was certain from the looks of things that the men had no intention of leaving, and it was also sure that they had not been near their cabin or their claim for a week or ten days. Pard came home and told me about it and next morning early we rode down to Selby Flat to see if anything had turned up to explain the mystery. Nobody there had seen anything of the missing men since Christmas. After talking it over it was agreed that a delegation should go over to Nevada and find out if they had been there, or had left by any of the stage lines, while about twenty of us formed a searching party to look the country over in the vicinity of the cabin. In the middle of the forenoon we heard some of the boys shouting up on the hill and, on going to them, found out that they had discovered Ristine’s body under a manzanita bush. It was in bad shape and the coyotes had torn off both arms, but the face was not touched. A watch was left, the coroner notified, and that afternoon an inquest was held. Outside of the fact that Ristine was dead, nothing was developed and the jury returned a verdict of “died from unknown causes.” Then a thorough search of the cabin was made and inside of the mattresses a big buckskin purse was found, which contained about eight hundred dollars in dust. In a box under the other bunk there were three yeast powder cans that were full to the top with gold. We buried Ristine close to where we found his body and it was a sickening job. From letters in the box it was learned that both men were married. One came from Reading and the other from Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. There is no suspicion of robbery, for there was nothing stolen, and it doesn’t look like murder, for if one had killed the other the murderer would certainly have hidden the traces of his crime and not have left the gold dust behind if he intended to quit the country. The general opinion is that Carter is dead and that his remains will be found somewhere around.