USA > Colorado > History of Nevada, Colorado, and Wyoming, 1540-1888 > Part 12
USA > Nevada > History of Nevada, Colorado, and Wyoming, 1540-1888 > Part 12
USA > Wyoming > History of Nevada, Colorado, and Wyoming, 1540-1888 > Part 12
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103
CLAIMS LOCATED.
turers, who quickly converted the quiet haunts of western Utah into roaring mining camps. Such is fame. 19
Penrod, Comstock, & Co., this being the name of the firm in Book A of the mining records of Virginia City, called their mine the Ophir, and it was the first claim recorded on this lode, but it was not the first recorded in western Utah. On the 22d of February Fennimore located a claim on a large vein lying west of the Comstock, which came to be called the Virginia lead, after the nickname of the claimant.
Among the "notices " recorded at Virginia City appears one of a location made May 12, 1859, by A. Curry, J. E. Clark, H. F. Clark, and C. W. Curry, but on what vein is not stated, though it could not. have been the Comstock at that date.20
Other mines, both placer and quartz, had been dis- covered in different parts of what is now Nevada, previous to any locations in Carson valley. As early as 1849 an immigrant named Hardin, while hunting with two other men, discovered silver in the Black Rock range, in the Humboldt country, one and a half miles from Hardinville.21 In 1857 quartz mines
19 There are many who speak of Old Virginia as the discoverer of the Comstock, but without shadow of truth. It appears probable that his claim on another large lead, above mentioned, gave rise to the belief. It was at one time thought by some to be the mother lode of the range, as the Com- stock appeared to dip toward it. The purchasers of Fennimore's claim began a suit against the Ophir company, asserting that they were on the lead located by Fennimore. The Ophir company finally paid $60,000 to quiet title. Wright's Big Bonanza, 53-4. This was probably the 'monster vein ' of the Grosch brothers. Accounts, varying according to recollection or prejudice, abound of the discovery of silver in Nevada. Instance Harper's May., June, 1877, 72; Browne's Min. Resources, 27-36, 87-S; Knox's Underground, 94-101. Mining Rev., 1876, 11-12; Sec. Int. Rept, i. 261-6, 44th cong. Ist sess .; Nev. Sen. Jour., 1866, app. 7, 19-20; Reese's Mormon Station, MS., 3; Jennings' Carson Valley, MS., 3-4; Clark's Statement, MS., 12; Min. Mag., 1860, i. 35; Barber's Western States, 490; Gazlay's Pac. Monthly, 34-40; Western Monthly, 236-41; Boise News, March 5, 1864.
20 Leaves from an oll Book of Comstock Locations, in Virginia City Evening Chronicle, Aug. 30, 1878; Gold Hill Eve. News, Apr. 10, ISSO. This early record shows evidences of altered dates in more than this instance.
21 Hardin brought specimens to Cal .; but the Indians being troublesome, nothing could be done until 1858, when he revisited that region with Albert E. Jamison and others. They failed to find the spot, and on the following year he repeated the search with like result. In IS60 several hundred pros- pectors were looking for the lost mine, but their search was interrupted by
104
THE COMSTOCK LODE.
were discovered in the Reese river country, eighteen miles from Kingston springs, on the road to Salt Lake. A San Francisco company purchased the Armagosa mine, and sending out an expensive mill, soon sunk themselves in debt. The mill remained for some months with a guard of a few men, when down upon it swooped a band of Piutes, and both guard and mill were destroyed, which ended Reese river mining for the time.
The Potosí silver mines, situated eighteen miles from Las Vegas, in the extreme southern part of western Utah, were discovered by the Mormons about the time the Reese river mines were found. Believing them to be lead, Brigham Young sent a party of miners to work in them, in anticipation of the war with the United States troops, but the product proved too hard for bullets, and the mines were abandoned.22
About the same time the silver mines of the dis- trict lying at the head of Walker river, in what was later Mono county, California, but which was then claimed as a part of western Utah, were beginning to attract attention, and in 1859 were well known. Rich diggings were also reported in the Truckee val- ley. But the principal interest centred in the so- called Washoe mines, another misnomer, not so easily accounted for as the first, since there were no mines in the Washoe valley, 23 whose name was applied
Indian hostilities. Late in 1865, however, Jamison discovered rich prospects, and in 1866 Hardinville was settied. S. F. Alta, March 1862, and Sept. 6, 1866. Mining in Humboldt county became profitable about 1869.
22 Afterward $20,000 was expended on these mines by Capt. Allen, who derived no benefit from it, though the wealth of the mine was unquestioned. Assays made by the 'camel ' boundary line expedition showed $35 per ton in silver. The want of railroad transportation was the chief drawback. See Sulliman's Rept on Potosí.
23 ' The name of Washoe mines has been derived from Washoe valley, which is some 25 miles distant [actual distance 12 miles]. and in no way con- nected with the mines.' B. O., in S. F. Bulletin, Oct. 11, 1859. In the Nevada (Cal.) Democrat is the following, furnished by Foster, expressman between Nevada City and Carson valley: 'Collins & Co., immigrants, located a ledge about the Ist of October, 4 miles from Washoe lake, which assayed $940 per ton in gold. Subsequently a number of locations were made in the valley, and mining districts organized; but there is nothing in this to account for the
105
EARLY DEVELOPMENT.
to the system of mines on the great silver lode, and all the region thereabout, until the name became as widely known as Comstock's.
The discovery of diggings yielding several hundred dollars a day caused from the first a fever of excite- ment, the existence of a valuable lode beneath being to most persons a matter of doubt and of secondary importance. Locations of quartz were made, because it could do no harm, so long as the same results were obtained on the surface. Miners from California hastened over the mountains to secure claims. Soon the whole country was covered with prospectors. By the time the ore had been further assayed by com- petent mineralogists, and pronounced to be richer in silver than in gold, all the ground on the Comstock had been taken up for the gold known to be present.
The Ophir company proceeded at once to make a practical test, and in order to be able to do so, ad- mitted a sixth partner, J. A. Osburn, who with J. D. Winters agreed to construct two arastras worth $75 each, and furnish the horses or mules to propel them, the proceeds of the mine on working to be equally divided between the six owners, any member of the company to have the preference should one or more desire to sell. In a few months not one of the orig- inal owners of this pioneer bonanza " firm owned any- thing on the Comstock, while more than a hundred others had claims there. 25
Among the first, if not quite the first Californians to arrive at the new mines were James Walsh and
lesser giving its name to the greater. In some of the earlier Mormon records it is written Wassaw.
21 The Spanish word bonanza, signifying prosperity, fair weather at sea, good fortune in mining, was introduced by the Mexicans, and here applied to the large finds.
25 Brown's Min. Resources, 88-9. The names of locators up to Sept. 1, 1859, according to the record, are as follows: Thomas Winters, James Webber, John S. Butler, G. F. Rogers, John Bishop, M. L. Powell, F. Leary, W. P. Morrison, P. T. Heally, H. Johnson, H. B. Camp, A. G. Hamack, A. White, Joseph Curly, W. Henderson, James Finney, John Berry, L. C. Savage, A. O. Savage, W. Sturtevant, C. Chase, R. Crall, B. Abernather, L. S. Bowers, John Murphy, James Lee. James Buchanan, Abe Field, A. Cower, Ephraim G. Scott, W. W. Capen, F. McNeil, George C. Rosenbaker, John Carter, A.
106
THE COMSTOCK LODE.
Joseph Woodworth of Grass Valley. Walsh had procured an assay of a piece of the ore from the Ophir early in July, and immediately started with Woodworth to inspect it. The result of the exam- ination was that on the 12th of August Walsh offered and Comstock accepted $11,000 for his one-sixth in- terest in the Ophir mine, which was exclusive of the 100 feet owned by Penrod and Comstock in the midst of the claim. 26 The transfer from Comstock conveyed also "one undivided half of 200 feet of mining ground being worked by the California company at the pres- ent time under an agreement made with me," besides. certain claims in Six-mile cañon known as the Cald- well claims, one half of the spring before mentioned,27 and " also my recorded title to a ranch, on which the aforesaid village of Ophir is located." In Septem- ber Mclaughlin sold his interest in the company's
Bell, S. P. Randall, M. Guinness, S. Stogle, G. A. McBride, J. McConnell, T. A. Reid, L. S. Pickering, H. Bacon, E. T. Martin, A. R. Jenkins, S. S. Penry, J. S. Crenshaw, Charles Whitehead, David Ebaugh, Ellen Cowan, Benjamin Cahoon, J. E. Squire, Edwin C. Morse, M. Benham, N. Pearman, W. Ross, D. R. Loyd, Hiram Eckert, P. C. Van Horn, Alexander Gilmore, John Lowe, Joseph H. Gardiner, A. B. Cole, Robert Johnson, S. M. Beard; William Justice, I. W. Hastings, G. W. Heperly, A. D. Allen, William Pratt, John Havens, A. Thornton, John Correr, W. B. Boyden, A. Lovewell, E. Scott, Melville Atwood, A. Delano, W. K. Spencer, A. H. Walsh, Richard Tibbals, Joseph Woodworth, A. E. Head, W. P. Morrison, M. S. Powers, W. W. Caperton, Joseph Webb, A. Richard, R. Wilkins, W. Gill, I. I. Col- lin, G. Wilson, Nicholas Mellon, D. H. Rule, Fred Miller, G. W. Aurgin, Edward Connor, T. J. Atchison, H. Jacobs, D. F. McNeil, E. Belcher, John Blackburn, Geo. Stead, Thomas Stead, Arthur E. McHugh, John Braclim, S. P. Lord, John Vignot, Stephen Wood, John Black, D. E. Rice, J. W. Rice, I. W. Rice, I. Green, L. Green, Ed R. Bucklin, T. P. Mallone, Nelson Brobrant, Michael Daley, Michael Cloona, G. S. Fisher, G. H. Ingersoll, G. Kenny, E. Payne, F. Eaton, John Becker, M. B. Thompson, D. S. Blanding, Cook, G. A. Whitney, J. Spitzer, James Corey, William Vaughn. The list is not complete, owing to the wear to which the book of record has been subjected, having rendered some names undecipherable.
26 In October Walsh and Woodworth shipped 12,000 pounds of ore, and the Central Mining Company 3,000 pounds. About 150 persons arrived from Downieville during the last week of the month. S. F. Alta, Oct. 31, 1859.
27 In the contract it is said that the three owners of the mine were only entitled to use the water so long as they continue to own in the mine. Wright's Big Bonanza, 73.
28 Whether this claim of Comstock's to 160 acres of land on which Vir- ginia City was erected, with the water supply, was bona fide is open to doubt. In a communication written for the public press a short time before his death, and when his mind wandered, he asserted that he used to raise all his potatoes and vegetables on it, hiring Indians to do the work. In the same letter to the public he states that Riley and Mclaughlin were working for
107
TRANSFERS OF CLAIMS.
mine for $3,500 ; Osburn sold for $7,000 ; O'Riley, who was the last to sell, received $40,000- all being well satisfied with the prices obtained. California miners knew nothing about silver-mining, expected their claims to be worked out in a few months, and were pleased to part with them for a few thousand dollars. In November Penrod sold his share in the 100 feet segregated to Gabriel Maldonado, a Mexi- can, for $3,000.29 He had already sold his interest in the company mine for $5,500 to prevent being, in mining phrase, " frozen out," by the threatened erec- tion of a costly mill, and the consequent assessments.
The claim in which Maldonado had purchased a half-interest was called the Mexican. John H. Atch- ison also obtained a share equal to one-eighth 30 in
him when Ophir was discovered, and that he gave the other members of the company their elaims; also, that he located the Savage and Gould and Curry, and owned the Hale and Noreross and the principal part of Gold Hill, giving claims to Sandy Bowers, William Knight, and Joe Plato. He entertained the idea of bringing suit to reeover all these properties, of which he imagined himself deprived. That he did set up a elaim to the ground on which Vir- ginia is located at the time of the discovery of O'Riley and MeLaughlin, basing his right upon the fact of having paid a Mexiean something for the spring elaim, seems to be corroborated by other eireumstanees, and does not seem to have been disputed; but all his right to the land was conveyed to Walsh. There is no record in existenee showing Comstoek's claim, and at the best he could have had only a squatter's title.
29 It is interesting to follow the subsequent histories of these sports of for- tune. Comstoek engaged in merchandising in Carson City. He had married the wife of a Mormon in regular orthodox fashion before a gentile preaeher in Washoe valley. But she ran away from him, as she had from her first hus- band; and after many ineffeetual attempts to bind her to him indissolubly, he allowed her to go her way. He soon failed in his mereantile venture, and finally ended his life, as I have said, in Montana by suicide. O'Riley received a considerable fortune for his interest, and ereeted a stone hotel in Virginia City with a portion of it. He then indulged in stoek-gambling, and soon was foreed to resort to piek and pan for a living. Like most illiterate persons who have lost money, he became extremely superstitious, and finally insane, dying in a private asylum at Woodbridge, Cal., about 1874. Me- Laughlin soon spent the little he received, and in 1875 was engaged as eook at the Green mine in San Bernardino eo., Cal. Penrod also soon became a poor man, living at Elko, Nev. Osburn went east; and Winters to Cal., where he was no better off than the others.
30 Penrod says that while the original company still held the Ophir, a threat was made to change the mining regulations, and reduce the width of a claim to 200 feet. Under this apprehension the company each seleeted a inan to whom was deeded fifty feet off the north end of Ophir, thus voluntarily limiting their ground to 1,200 feet. This 300 feet was afterward ealled the Atehison. Some of the ground was recovered subsequently. 'The mining law was changed in the Virginia distriet September 14, 1859, the first article reading, 'All quartz claims hereafter loeated shall be 200 feet on the lead,
10S
. THE COMSTOCK LODE.
this mine. 31 Buying and selling were of daily occur- rence. Before the end of the year there were four thousand people in Carson and the adjacent small villages, where in June there were hardly so many hundreds. A town sprang up about the Ophir mine, which, as I have just shown, was first called after the mine. It was afterward named Silver City by Com- stock, but by a drunken whim of Fennimore's became, in October, Virginia Town, after himself.32 A month later, at which time it had eight stone houses, it was proposed to call the place Winnemucca, after the Piute chieftain of that name; but the idea being un- popular, Virginia City was finally adopted.
The importance of the new town was at once per- ceived,33 and it was spoken of with respect as "the most important town in the newly discovered dig- gings," even at this time. It was described as situ- ated in a " kind of mountain amphitheatre leading down the eastern slope of the Sierra Nevada into Carson valley," distant fifteen miles from Carson City, six from Steamboat springs, and 162 from Sac- ramento. A hundred miners were at work, and quartz was being broken in fifteen arrastras. There was no hotel, and only one restaurant, where half a dozen persons at a time could be supplied with poor meals at seventy-five cents. Travellers found lodg - ings by spreading their blankets on the east flank of
including all its dips and angles.' But this regulation did not affect titles already acquired to 300 feet. Hittell' : Hand-Book of Mining, 199.
31 It was from this part of the original ground that the first ore was taken. Virginia Union in Mer. Gazette and Price Current, Nov. 17, 1865.
32 Wright, in his Big Bonanza, 28. 59, 84, quotes Comstock's account: ' Old Virginia and the other boys got on a drunk one night there, and Old Virginia fell down and broke his bottle, and when he got up he said he bap- tized that ground-hence Virginia City.' Fennimore, who is much paraded by all the historians of Nevada, without any discoverable reason, unless a fondness for whiskey may be accounted a distinguished as well as distinguish- ing trait, was killed at Dayton in July 1861, being thrown from his horse while intoxicated, and suffering a fracture of the skull.
33 O. H. Pierson laid off the town in lots some time in July. Comstock offering him the land on which at that time John L. Blackburn and one other man had spread their tents; but Ormsby of Carson City, for whom Pierson had been a clerk in 1849 at Sacramento, offered him a corner lot in his town, and thither he went. Carson Tribune, Aug. 1870.
109
GOLD AND SILVER.
Sun peak, or Pleasant hill, as it was not infrequently called. The country being treeless in the immediate vicinity, and the one or two saw-mills at a considera- ble distance, lumber was worth $50 per 1,000 feet, and was scarce at any price, being more valuable for mining purposes than for houses. These facts did not deter people from hurrying to the new diggings, and during the severe winter which followed many lived in excavations in the earth.
At Gold Hill, which was nature's dump of tailings from the Comstock lode, was less excitement, but equal industry, and eight or ten arrastras were grind- ing up quartz for the gold it contained, without refer- ence to the silver. In truth, the Californians wished to conceal the actual value of the ores until they could buy at a low price. 34 A few mule-loads were sent to
34 I find in the Virginia City Union of Oct. 14, 1863, the following account of the Gold Hill mines and their first owners: 'Late in the fall of 1858 [it was really in January 1859] four men, named James Finney, alias Virginia, John Bishop, alias Big French John, Aleck Henderson, and Jack Yount, were prospecting in the vicinity of the place where Gold Hill is now situated. . . As they were passing along the ridge immediately cast of the canon in which the town of Gold Hill is now located, Virginia pointed to the large mound, now known as Gold Hill, and remarked to his comrades, 'Boys, I believe there are some good diggings over there. In a few days we will go over and try it.' They returned, . . . and in a few days went to the mound pointed out by Virginia, as agreed upon. . . . Virginia in hunting around over the mound, discovered a hole which had been made by a gopher. From this they tock out a considerable quantity of gold and carried it down to Crown Point ravine. . .. All there immediately thought that they had at last found the long looked for El Dorado, . . and the bleak monntains which surrounded them echoed and reechoed their wild shouts of delight. They immediately staked out 4 claims of 50 feet cach and divided them among each other, giving Virginia, as the discover, the first choice. A few days afterward 5 other men, named James Rogers, Joseph Plato, Sandy Bowers, Henry Comstock, and William Knight, who had been prospecting in and about Spanish ravine, came down to the newly discovered diggings and staked out another claim of 50 feet, being 10 feet to each.
' Of these 4 discoverers, not one owns a foot of ground on Gold Hill, and of the second locators, only one and the heirs of another now own an interest. Virginia first gave John Vignot, alias Little French John, 9 feet in consider- ation of his having attended him during a spell of sickness. This 9 feet is now incorporated in the Logan and Holmes claim. He then sold 21 feet to Dugan & Co. for $50 per foot. Of this, 103 feet now compose the Coover and Stevenson claim, and 103 feet the Lindaner and Hirschman claim. The re- maining 20 feet he sold to L. E. and J. W. Rice. Of this, 62 feet is now in- corporated in the Logan and Holmes claim. The remaining 13§ feet is still known as the Rice claim. John Bishop sold his claim to Logan and Holmes for $50 per foot. Jack Yount sold 30 feet to J. D. Winters, and 20 feet to Henderson and Butler. Aleek Henderson retained an interest until last year, in partnership with his brother W. Henderson, when he sold out and returned to the states.
110
THE COMSTOCK LODE.
California to be tested, in the autumn of 1859, and the owners suspecting something unfair in the returns, the following spring put up a quantity of ore in sacks, reserving every alternate sack for assay by experienced Mexican miners, and found that the ore tested in California yielded but about half as much as that assayed by the Mexicans. 35 A San Francisco firm
' Of the 5 later locators, Rogers sold his 10 feet to Mrs Cowan (now Mrs Sandy Bowers) for $100 per foot. This, with the 10 feet which Sandy Bowers owned, and still retains, form what is now known as the Bowers claim. Com- stock sold to one Frink. This 10 feet is now known as the Harold & Co. claim. Knight's interest was sold, and also passed to Harold & Co. These 2 interest are now incorporated in the claim of the Empire Mill and Mining company. Plato died, but his wife inherited and still owns the 10 feet which he located. Finney, alias Virginia, Plato, and Rogers are now dead, the latter having committed suicide a few months since. Bishop still lives about Virginia . .. Comstock, immortalized by the famous lead in this district which bears his name, is now in the northern mines. Sandy Bowers and wife reside in Washoe county.'
35 The process of testing consisted in beating the rock to a powder in a mortar, or grinding it fine on a large flat stone with a lesser stone. The pulverized ore was placed in a small canoe-shaped ve sel, made of a split ox- horn, and carefully washed out, much in the same manner in which auriferous gravel was worked in a pan. The gold would be found lying in a yellow streak at the bottom of the horn. This was a very simple process, and any miner could prospect his discovery of gold rock to decide whether it would pay to work it in a mill. In testing for silver, acids were used. The quartz was pulverized as in the first instance, and the lighter matter washed out in the horn. The residuum was then washed from the horn into a mattrass (a flash of annealed glass with a narrow neck and broad bottom). Nitric acid was then poured in until the matter to be tested was covered, when the flask was suspended over a lamp and evaporated by boiling until the fumes es- caping changed from red to white. After cooling, the liquid contents of the flask were poured off into a vial of clear, thin glass, called a test-tube. A few drops of a strong solution of common salt were then poured into the vial. If the ore contained silver, the liquid in the tube would take on a milky hue where the salt first came in contact with it, changing gradually toward the bottom. If much silver was present, the milky matter formed little ropes, which sank to the bottom of the vial. Muriatic acid was some- times used in place of salt, to produce the formation of chloride of silver. To dispel all doubts, the prospector held the test-tube in the strong light of the sun for a short time, when the chloride would assume a rich purple hue. To reduce the chloride to a metallic state, it was dried and placed in a small excavation scooped out in a piece of charcoal, and the flame of a candle blown upon it until it was melted, when a button of pure silver would be formed.
Chloride ores of silver could not be tested by this process, being already a chloride, but had to be smelted in a crucible. Lead ore treated with nitric acid, as in testing silver, produced a chloride somewhat resembling silver, but more granular in appearance. It did not turn purple in the sunlight, and it dissolved in 20 times its bulk in water, whereas the chloride of silver did not dissolve in any amount of water. If copper was present, a piece of bright iron wire or the blade of a penknife dipped in the solution would show a coating of it.
36 Donald Davison & Co. Territorial Enterprise (Genoa), Oct. 1, 1859.
111
MILLS AND REDUCTION.
purchased 200 tons of ore, at $200 a ton, to be sent to England for practical testing. The first arrastra put in operation was at the Ophir mine. Others quickly followed at the Mexican and other claims, which were operated by horse-power. Woodworth and Hastings erected two arrastras at Dayton, to be run by water-power from the Carson river. The next advance in milling in 1859 was a horse-power, four-stamp battery, erected at Dayton by Logan and Holmes. This was followed in August 1860 by two steam quartz mills, erected by E. B. Harris and Al- marin B. Paul, both of which started running on the 11th in close competition, Harris' mill blowing the first whistle.37 The introduction of mills, by saving the cost of freight to California, where the ores were being sent to be crushed, was an important step in advance. At first the process called dry crushing was practised, which was found unprofitable, one Howland battery of nine stamps crushing only a ton in twenty- four hours. In October the Pioneer mill adopted the wet process, and was soon followed by the others. By this method ten times the work was done, and a larger amount of gold saved. The cost of crushing and working the ore was about $6 a ton, while the mills charged $100, falling to $75, and afterward to $50 per ton. The retorted bullion was worth from $10 to
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