William McNaughton was foreman of the Magnet gold mines near O’Neals at the turn of the 20th century. Apparently the community did not hold him in very high repute, especially when it came to paying his debts. Such was McNaughton’s reputation that when one of his prospective miners learned the kind of fellow for whom he was going to work, he quit before he started.
Strangely enough, when the man didn’t show up for work, McNaughton took his frustration out on an elderly stage driver, but he didn’t get by with it; the mine boss paid dearly for it in the end.
The brouhaha began on May 21, 1901, when Samuel Wear, the stage driver who carried mail and passengers from Madera to O’Neals, pulled up to the mountain stage stop with two passengers and a package for McNaughton. As the riders, both of whom were on their way to begin work at the Magnet mine, climbed down from the stage, one of them heard Wear instruct the clerk not to give McNaughton his package until he paid for it.