DESCRIPTION:
Jubelum Chance was born the 4th day of February A.D. 1839, the only child of Hiram A. Chance and his wife, Mary R. Bach.
Chance's progenitors were well rooted in the history of Western Europe and the English Civil War. When they were driven out of England, they traveled to the Americas and became some of the earliest settlers in Maryland.
After the death of his grandfather, his parents moved the family towards the frontier. They always resisted city-life, preferring the hardships of the wilderness instead.
Hiram and Mary settled on the south fork of the Holston River in Tennessee. It was there they met up with their cousins, Claude and Della Boring of Boring's Ford and the Chilhowee mountains.
On a Holston River tributary, Jubelum's father built a stone house and grist mill. In 1850, his parents were killed by a flu epidemic. Chance was eleven years old. His uncle, Joseph Chance, came from Austin, Texas to settle Hiram's accounts. When Joseph returned to Texas, young Chance went with him. It was here, in Texas, Jubelum learned ranching and the Mexican language.
In 1858, his uncle found work for him as a wrangler with the Army's experimental camel corps and at age 19, Jubelum traveled from Texas through New Mexico territory and on to the drum
barracks in San Pedro, California. This trip proved to be a great school in his life. Many of the places he camped along the way would be familiar in the future when it was men, not adventure, Chance hunted. He developed a friendship with the Pioute and Mohave Indians which would be valuable, as well.
Being that he had relatives on both sides, he took no interest in the quarrel between the North and the South. He stayed in California and worked a freight line between San Pedro and Fort Mohave on the Colorado River. He used the government trail he had passed over with Beale and the camels a few years before.
However, gold fever got the best of Jubelum and he eventually stayed in El Dorado Canyon on the Colorado River seeking his fortune. He quickly went broke and turned to his proficiency with weapons to provide for himself.
The Miner's League hired Chance to track down an Irish miner and thief whom had taken 10 mules and other equipment into the Mohave Desert.
Thus, his career as a lawman & bounty hunter was born. He worked for many mining camps and towns from Fort Yuma in Arizona to Bodie in California. He used much of the money he earned to purchase percentage ownerships in saloons, mines and freight lines along the way.
He is now found in Bear Valley, Holcomb Valley and Calico, California as well as east of the Colorado River in Wickenburg and Ehrenberg, Arizona Territory employed as a special agent for Wells Fargo.
