USA > Colorado > History of Nevada, Colorado, and Wyoming, 1540-1888 > Part 11
USA > Nevada > History of Nevada, Colorado, and Wyoming, 1540-1888 > Part 11
USA > Wyoming > History of Nevada, Colorado, and Wyoming, 1540-1888 > Part 11
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66 The only instances of Roop's official action were in connection with the Indian difficulties of 1860, of which I shall speak hereafter.
91
POLITICAL MATTERS.
tined to another year of trial. Delegate Musser re- turned from Washington, having done no more than to reiterate the appeals of his constituents and his predecessor, which reiteration may have served to deepen the impression already produced, and thereby to hasten in some degree the end.
CHAPTER V.
THE COMSTOCK LODE.
1849-1860.
CONFIGURATION-PLACER GOLD-EARLY MINING IN GOLD CANON-SILVER FOUND BY THE GROSCH BROTHERS-DEATH OF THE DISCOVERERS-COM- STOCK, OLD VIRGINIA, AND ASSOCIATES-JOHNTOWN AND GOLD HILL CLAIMS AND LOCATIONS-OPHIR, SILVER CITY, OR VIRGINIA TOWN- DISCOVERIES ELSEWHERE-WALSH AND WOODWORTH-TESTING AND SEPARATING-INTRODUCTION OF MILLS-PROCESSES-DESCRIPTION OF THE CALIFORNIA, A REPRESENTATIVE MILL.
THE state of Nevada came into being through the discovery and development of the Comstock lode. No doubt the corruption of the federal judiciary hastened the formation of a state government. Nowhere else in the annals of the world do we find a society spring- ing up in a desert wilderness, so wholly dependent on a mountain of metal, so ruled by the ever-changing vagaries attending its development, and which finally attained the full measure of a fair and prosperous commonwealth. Hence it is that the history of the Comstock lode is to a great extent the history of Ne- vada. The yield of this vast deposit aided greatly in enabling the nation to resume specie payment after the close of the civil war.
The range of mountains in which the great mineral vein of western Utah was situated is separated from the eastern slope of the Sierra Nevada by a continu- ous parallel depression, which is divided into the smaller valleys of the Truckee, Washoe, and Carson rivers. Irregular in outline and height, it gradually slopes at the south into the basin of the Carson, be- coming more elevated farther south, where it merges
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93
GEOLOGY.
in the Pine Nut range. Toward the west the hills sink rapidly to the detrital beds of the Washoe and Truckee valleys, being connected with the Sierra Nevada by two granite ridges crossing the northern and southern extremities of Washoe valley. To the north the range extends, with several breaks, to the boundary of Oregon, and to the southeast it melts away abruptly into the Carson valley. The culminat- ing point of elevation is a peak something over thirty miles from Genoa, and eighteen from Carson City, known as Sun peak by the earliest settlers, and some- times as Mount Pleasant by subsequent mining in- habitants. It was named Mount Davidson1 in later years by the California state geologist, who ascertained its height to be 7,827 feet.
Down from the south side of this peak runs a ravine to the Carson river, a distance of several miles, which is the Gold cañon referred to in the previous chapter. It obtained its name from the fact that some gold mining had been carried on in it ever since the settle- ment of the valley. It comes quite down to the im- migrant road, and consequently was well known to early passers-by. Beatie relates that in 1849, while he and one of the Blackburns were on their first visit to the California gold mines, Abner Blackburn occu- pied himself in prospecting in the lateral ravines of Carson valley, and discovered gold in this cañon in the month of July,2 but not in quantities sufficient to cause a fever in the blood of the saints. No mining
1 After Prof. George Davidson of the coast survey-a fitting tribute to his genius.
2 First in Nevada, MS., 4-5. There are various versions of the first dis- eovery of gold in western Utah, but none more authentie. See Brown's Min. Resources, 87; Virginia City Occidental, in Downieville Mountain Messenger, May 14, 1864; San Jose Mercury, April 14, 1864; Sac. Transcript, Aug. 30 1850 (steamer edition); S. F. Herald, July 1, 1850; Mariposa Gazette, March 23, 1878; Morgan's Trip (1849), 19-20; Wright's Big Bonanza, 26; Gold Hill Eve. News, Feb. 24, and May IS, 1880; Cal. Courier, July 23, 1850; Petaluma Aryus, June 18, ISSO; S. F. Alta, May 17, ISSO; Elko Independent, May 20, and 23, ISSO. The Reno Gazette of Feb. 12 ISSO, gives the date as 1851. That 1850 has been so generally named as the year is due, probably, to the faet that the newspapers did not publish the Mormon discovery until miners began to go to Cal.
94
THE COMSTOCK LODE.
was done by Beatie's company, which returned to Salt Lake the same season. But on his second visit to California, Beatie informed the Mormon company in the mines of the discovery, and subsequently some of them, with immigrants from the states on their way to California, stopped to mine for a while in Gold cañon. The gold it produced was poor, being worth no more than fourteen dollars to the ounce; but as
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the diggings continued to yield a fair day's wages, there were at work generally in the mining season from one to two hundred men, some of whom had made settlements upon land claims near by. But down to the period where the last chapter ends, there had never been any marked recognition of western Utah as a mining country.
Gold cañon was the only mining ground worked in this district before 1857, It opens from the north-
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95
GOLD CAÑON.
west near where the Carson river turns rather abruptly to the southwest. At the distance of about four miles from its mouth it forks, the middle branch of three being called American Flat ravine. Near the head of this ravine is a mound, which in 1858 acquired the name of Gold hill, to distinguish it from Gold canon. This hill is a mile or more from Mount Da- vidson. Coming from the north side of the mountain is another large ravine, whose head is within a mile of the head of Gold canon, whose mouth is on the Carson river, a few miles northeast of Gold cañon, and which was known as Six-mile cañon. It had no settlement at this period, but at the mouth of Gold cañon was the little town of Dayton, then known as Chinatown, from the presence there of a camp of Chinese employed in digging the canal before men- tioned, for which Reese obtained a franchise, and which was finished by Rose. The white inhabitants called the place Mineral rapids, and it never received its final christening until November 3, 1861, when in a public meeting this important matter was decided.3
About four miles up the cañon was another camp, known as Johntown. Neither of these places had a dozen houses of any kind, the migratory habits of the miners and the scarcity of timber, with the entire absence of lumber in that part of the valley, causing them to live in tents, which at the end of the season were easily removed. Nor were there ever more than 150 or 200 miners in Gold cañon at one time before 1859.
That mysterious something which is called fate by pagan, and providence by Christians, and which like
Wright's Big Bonanza, 28-9. William Wright, whose nom de plume as a popular writer on Nevada journals was Dan De Quille, was reporter on the Vir- ginia City Territorial Enterprise for 16 years, and had the best facilities for acquiring historieal facts. His book is made popular by the introduction of facetious anecdotes, and a style of raillery mueh in vogne in writing of min- ing affairs, with no better reason than that in early times one or two humor- ons journalists set the fashion, which few have been able to follow with similar suceess. Wright's book is, however, a storehouse of information, generally correet, on current events connected with the mining history of Nevada, which gives it a permanent value among my authorities.
96
THE COMSTOCK LODE.
love and justice should be painted with bandaged eyes, with one extended hand holding a crown, and the other the emblematic cap-and-bells, that whoever passed under the one or the other should be its pos- sible recipient, held now suspended above the mining camp of Johntown the fateful wreath. How it fell where the cap-and-bells would have been more fitting let me here relate.
As early as 1849 two brothers, E. Allen Grosch and Hosea B. Grosch of Reading, Pennsylvania, sons of a universalist preacher, educated and serious- minded young men, came to the Pacific coast via Tampico and Mazatlan, and engaged in mining in El Dorado county, California. In 1851, hearing of the Gold cañon placers, they paid them a visit, returning the same season to California. In 1853 they made another and longer visit, prospecting in Carson, Lake, and Washoe valleys, Gold cañon, and in some of the adjacent mountains. In Gold cañon they found what they called "carbonate of silver," which they described as a "dark gray mass, tarnished probably by sulphuric acid in the water. It resembles thin sheet-lead broken very fine, and lead the miners supposed it to be. The ore we found at the forks of the cañon; a large quartz vein-at least, bowlders from a vein close by here-shows itself ... Other ore of silver we have found in the cañon, and a rock called black rock, very abundant, we think contains silver."'
In 1857 the Grosch brothers were living in a stone cabin in American Flat ravine. In their later corre- spondence with their father they mentioned a mine which had been named the Frank, after a Mexican called Old Frank, an experienced miner, who corrob- orated their impressions concerning the nature of their discoveries. They spoke also of "our monster vein," and of a " smaller but richer vein," and "suits of veins crossing the cañon at two other points."5
+ Letter to A. B. Grosch, the father, in 1853.
5 This description should fix the fact of the discovery of the great silver
97
THE GROSCH BROTHERS.
But the development of silver mines requires capital, in order to obtain which a company was formed in the east of the friends of the young men, called the Utah Enterprise company, and another partly in El Dorado county, California, and partly in Carson valley. There seems not to have been much money in either, for in the autumn of 1857 they were waiting for a partner named Brown, who kept the mail station at Gravelly ford on the Humboldt, to close his season's operations and bring his profits to be applied to opening what they called the Pioneer claim.
While they waited, they heard of the murder of Brown, by which, and the loss of the expected aid, they were much cast down. About the same time Hosea struck a pick into his foot, from which blood- poisoning resulted, and he died on the 2d of Septem- ber. A friend had, however, in the meantime, offered pecuniary aid ;6 and Allen, having to go to California on business, started about the middle of November, with one other person, to cross the mountains." They were caught in a terrible snow-storm, compelled to kill and eat their pack-mule, and to abandon their baggage and specimens, while they wandered about in the trackless waste of snow for eleven days, at the end of which time they reached the camp of a Mexi- can miner on the west side, with their legs frozen to and above the knees. Grosch would not submit to amputation, and died December 19, 1857.
It was said that when Allen Grosch left for Cali- fornia, he placed his cabin in charge of Henry T. P.
lode with the Grosch brothers, as it crosses the heads of both canons. Wright's Big Bonanza, 31. Two of their claims were near the forks of the cañon, as described in their letters. See account of Comstock lode, in Mining Review and Stock Ledger, 1878, 149-61; Nev. Sen. Jour., 1866, app. no. 7, 19.
6 This was Mrs Ellis, afterward Mrs Dittenreider, who was so much im- pressed by the faith of the Grosches in the value of their discoveries that she offered to sell some property in California and furnish them $1,500. Mrs Dittenreider states that she saw the brothers at their cabin, and that Allen took her to some elevated ground, and pointing to Mount Davidson, said that the Pioneer claim was 'down at the base of that point.'
7 This person was R. M. Bucke, since superintendent of the Dominion insane asylum, at London, Canada.
HIST. NEV. 7
98
THE COMSTOCK LODE.
Comstock,8 a miner in Gold cañon, who also lived about Johntown, and had been in western Utah since 1856. How much or how little Comstock knew of the plans of the Grosch brothers previous to coming into the possession of their books and papers through the death of Allen Grosch is uncertain ; but probably he had never been admitted to their confidence fur- ther than to engage his services, and to explain to him what the consideration would be,' with assurances of the prospective value of their mining claims. The total disappearance of their books and papers, with all the evidences of their company and individual rights, is strong presumptive evidence against Com- stock as the person in charge. Whatever knowledge he had he kept to himself, and with equal care re- moved the traces of their claims,10 which might lead
8 William Jennings, in his Carson Valley, MS., 3, states that Comstock came into the valley in 1856, driving a flock of sheep, but that 'the Indians got most of the sheep.' Comstock says of himself that his name was Henry Thomas Paige Comstock, and that he was the son of Noah Comstock of Cleve- land, Ohio, and was born in Canada in 1820. He declared that he had been in the wilderness from childhood hunting and trapping, except when he was serving in the Black Hawk, Patriot, and Mexican wars. His mind was ill balanced, or if not so naturally, he had suffered so many shocks of fortune that the last years of his life were but the record of a feeble struggle against advancing dementia. After leaving Nevada, which he did in 1862 to go to the eastern Oregon and Idaho mines, he wandered about in those countries for several years, and constructed a road from Auburn to Baker City, Oregon, before going to Boisé, and finally going to Montana. He accompanied the Bighorn expedition in 1870, and on his return, September 27th, when near Bozeman, committed suicide by shooting himself in the head with his revolver. Wright's Big Bonanza, 82-7; Silver City Nevada Times, Aug. 27, 1879; Eureka Sentinel, July 14, 1875; Gold Hill News, Aug. 30, 1875.
9 A writer in the Sac. Union of Aug. 17, 1863, signing himself " **** " but speaking as one who knows, says that Allen Grosch made a written con- tract with Comstock to go into his cabin and take charge of the 'Hill' claim during his absence for the winter, for which service he was to receive a fourth interest in that claim; said claim being recorded with a diagram and marked by posts, the claim covering 3,750 feet north of the ledge where the first notice was posted, and extending beyond the ravine on the north side of Virginia City. This, if true, would fix the locality and the value of the Grosch mines.
W Wright says that he saw the old furnaces of the Grosch brothers unearthed in 1860, they having been covered up with a foot of mud and sand from Gold canon. They were 2 in number, only 2 or 3 feet in length, a foot in height, and 1} feet in width. One had been used as a smelter, and the other as a cupel furnace. The remains of melting-pots and fragments of cupels were found in and about the furnaces; also a large piece of argentifer- ous galena, which had doubtless been procured a short distance west of Silver City. After the discovery of the furnaces there was much search by
99
GOLD DISCOVERIES.
to identification by either of the companies, or by the heirs of the Grosch brothers. For more than a year after the death of Allen Grosch, Comstock remained in Gold cañon, keeping a silent watch upon the pro- gress of discovery, and ready to profit by it. At the last it came, as he expected.
Returning to the history of mining for gold by the residents of Johntown: during the summer of 1857 a number of men from Gold cañon, prospecting in Six-mile cañon, discovered a new field about a mile below the ground now occupied by Virginia City. The gold was not found in auriferous sand and gravel, but in blue clay so tough that it had to be dissolved to free the metal. From $5 to $13.50, the value of an ounce, was a day's wages, and in 1858 the same miners returned to these diggings, puzzled to under- stand their peculiar features, but satisfied with the pay. With them came a few others, who were forced to take claims higher up the cañon.
Among the newer comers was James Fennimore, an intemperate Virginian, without either brains or educa- tion, who for some breach of lawful etiquette com- mitted elsewhere, had found it convenient to remove to Carson valley in 1851,12 where he had remained ever since, digging his season's wages out of the earth to pour it down his throat in bad whiskey during his leisure months. When he first came to Carson valley he called himself James Finney, until outgrowing his apprehensions, he acknowledged his true name to be Fennimore. But although so well supplied with ap- pellations,13 he was dubbed by the miners Old Virginia,
miners in the neighborhood for the mine they had been prospecting, but it was not found. Big Bonanza, 34.
11 Wright relates that Comstoek obtained the sobriquet of Old Paneake among the miners, because he could not take time to make bread. 'Even as, with spoon in hand, he stirred up his pancake batter, it is said that he kept one eye on the top of some distant peak, and was lost in speculations in regard to the wealth in gold and silver that might rest somewhere beneath its rocky erest.' Big Bonanza, 41.
12 It is said that Fennimore eame to Carson valley with Reese's company in 1851 as a teamster. Thompson && West's Hist. Nev., 31.
13 He is often ealled Mr Berry. See Territorial Enterprise, Sept. 24, 1859; S. F. Alta, Sept. 28, 1859.
100
THE COMSTOCK LODE.
a sobriquet significant of his characteristics rather than of his years, which really were not yet in the decline of life. In company with Fennimore were Peter O'Riley, Patrick McLaughlin, Joseph Kirby, and Nicholas Ambrose, the latter not a miner, but a restaurateur. They worked contentedly in their new claims through the summer of 1858, returning to John- town to winter. But in January 1859, during some warm weather, which melted the snow, and gave plenty of water, prospecting in Gold cañon was resumed by the residents of Johntown, and among others, by James Fennimore, John Bishop, and H. T. P. Com- stock.
On the 29th, after further examination of the mound at the head of the canon, aud finding the prospects rich, though the gold was very fine, Comstock, Fenni- more, Bishop, and others staked off claims, and called the place Gold Hill. In connection with their claims, Fennimore discovered and claimed a spring of water, which could be brought to their ground. Several log houses were soon erected at Gold Hill, which became the centre of the mineral region, the miners in Six .. mile cañon, who had worked to within a mile or two on the north side, making it their headquarters.
Although the gravel in which the Gold cañon miners were now working was evidently decomposed quartz, and almost black in color, no one appears to have guessed the secret of it at this period.14 The miners also in Six-mile cañon continued to work their claims, which, as they advanced toward the head, be- came darker in color. Early in June, being short of water, they excavated a small reservoir a short dis- tance above their claims, in which to collect it from a
14 James Thompson, a Norwegian, who carried the mail from Carson val- ley to California on snow-shoes, used to bring specimens to Frank Stewart, geologist, connected with the Placerville Observer. Among others, in the winter of 1857-8 he brought to Stewart a small package of black-looking rock, rich in gold, which he said came from Gold cañon, and the miners desired to be informed of its nature Stewart called it black sulphuret of silver, containing gold. Virginia Enterprise. in Stockton Independent, June 10, 1875. The writer is evidently more than a year too early in his date, unless the package came from Comstock, and was found in Grosch s cabin.
101
THE DISCOVERERS.
rivulet for the use of their rockers. On the 10th, at a depth of four feet, they came to a stratum of strange- looking earth, the nature of which they did not under- stand. It is upon record, however, that Comstock, who appears to have been extremely watchful of the movements of prospectors, immediately appeared upon the spot, with the remark, "You have struck it, boys,"15 the persons addressed being McLaughlin and O'Riley. At the same time he made known that the spring from which they were conducting the water was claimed by himself, Emanuel Penrod, and Fennimore (Old Virginia), the latter owning but one share. As McLaughlin and O'Riley tested their discovery, and found it as rich as it was queer, Comstock further in- formed them that the ground they were on belonged to some persons then absent ; namely, Fennimore, Joseph Kirby, James White, and William Hart, and thereupon proposed an arrangement by which these persons were to be bought off, and himself admitted to a firm consisting of Penrod, Comstock, Mclaughlin,
and O'Riley.16 As the claim was evidently a valuable one, and as it could not be worked without water, which Comstock controlled, the proposition was agreed to. Penrod was employed to obtain a bill of sale of the claimants, only three of whom could be found. To these he paid $50 for their rights, and Comstock negotiated the purchase of Fennimore's interest in the spring for an old blind horse. But there yet remained one of the original claim-owners, who was not satisfied, and Joseph D. Winters seeing that it was yielding $300 a day to the rocker, made haste to find the missing share-owner, and secure his right, without informing him of its value To avoid
15 This exclamation has been taken as proof that Comstock knew of this deposit, or at least that he recognized its value from knowledge obtained from the contents of the Grosch cabin, such knowledge not being possessed by the other miners. If this were truc, he acted with consummate tact throughout the whole subsequent proceedings.
16 Book of Deeds of the White and Murphy Ground, by George Wells, MS., 2 In this document it is stated that 'they also busied themselves that day to secure the surface claims previously located.' This manuscript is a history of the Great Bonanza, from evidence found in searching for title.
102
THE COMSTOCK LODE.
litigation. Winters was admitted as a partner, after the lode was discovered upon which the fame of the state of Nevada was so soon to be built.
For only about one week did the claim continue to pay in the rich decomposed ore, of which the miners were ignorantly throwing away the greater part of the value,17 when the miners came, on the 11th of June, to a solid ledge four feet in width, which Pen- rod declared to be a quartz vein, but which Comstock at first denied, and finally admitted, the other two partners still assenting and objecting to " locating " as such. Penrod and Comstock, however, prevailed, giving notice of their claims, which included 1,500 feet on the ledge-300 for each man in the company, and 300 additional for the discoverer, according to the mining laws in California. 18 Comstock claimed 100 feet to be segregated to himself and Penrod, where- ever he should chose in the company's claim, in con- sideration of their services in securing O'Riley's and McLaughlin's claims to them by including them in the location. This segregated claim became the famous Mexican, from which millions of dollars were taken. By these methods, without ever having dis- covered anything, and always claiming everything, by much loud talking and a display of stolen knowl- edge-for the hints obtained from the papers of the Grosch brothers, never before well understood, now enabled him to discourse with a show of learning-Comstock caused people to talk about the Comstock lode. Many located claims upon it. The ore was sent to California to be assayed, and with the astonishing returns came hordes of new adven-
17 Assays from the top of this mine (the Ophir) yielded $1,595 in gold and $4,791 silver. S. F. Alta, Nov. 16, 1859; N. Pac. Review, i. 149-51; Blake's Review, in Min. Mag., 1860, 221-5.
18 Hittell's Hand-Book of Mining, 184. In Well's Book of Deeds, MS., it is said that the public meeting mentioned in the previous chapter was called by Comstock and associates the day after their discovery, and before it was made known, in order to induce the miners to pass laws and regulations which would enable them to hold quartz claims. This is an error, as it was not known to be a quartz claim until about the 17th, and the meeting was held on the 11th.
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