The Bonanza King

by Gregory Crouch

  “a man in California either grows”: Allen Grosh to Dear Father, April 6, 1855, Ronald M. James and Robert E. Stewart, eds., The Gold Rush Letters of E. Allen Grosh and Hosea B. Grosh (Reno: University of Nevada Press, 2012), p. 115.

  “the palmy days”: Joseph T. Goodman, “What We Owe Nevada,” San Francisco Chronicle, January 31, 1892.

  “Miners Making $8”: “Arrival of the Columbia,” Daily Alta California, April 4, 1858.

  “Fraser fever”: “City Items,” Daily Alta California, June 10, 1858.

  “unabated ardor”: “Summary of the Fortnight’s News,” Daily Alta California, May 20, 1858.

  “wild, ungovernable excitement”: “City Items,” Daily Alta California, June 21, 1858.

  “every steamer fit”: “Summary of the Fortnight’s News,” Daily Alta California, July 5, 1858.

  “while there was”: Joseph T. Goodman, “What We Owe Nevada,” San Francisco Chronicle, January 31, 1892.

  twenty-five thousand men: “Let Us Reason Together,” Daily Alta California, July 8, 1858; official port records showed 12,700 Fraser-bound passengers departed San Francisco between April 20 and August 8, 1858, while acknowledging “the number of passengers reported is considerably below the truth”; “The Rise and Fall of the Fraser River,” Daily Alta California, August 12, 1858; The editor of Prices Current estimated that “upwards of 20,000” had gone to Fraser River, ibid.

  “a cholera patient”: “The Present and Future of California,” Cincinnati Daily Press, October 19, 1861, quoting “Washoe and Our Eastern Trade,” Stockton Independent.

  15 percent: San Francisco City Directory of 1861.

  “The extent to”: Goodman, “What We Owe Nevada.”

  3,532 ounces: “By the State Telegraph Line,” Sacramento Daily Union, October 9, 1858.

  “The Fraser swindle”: “What Has the Fraser River Gold Bubble Cost California?” California Farmer and Journal of Useful Sciences, October 8, 1858.

  Hundreds, then thousands: Other Fraser River sources: Hittell, Mining in the Pacific States of North America (New York: John Wiley, 1862), pp. 29–35; “The Fraser Bubble Bursted,” Daily Alta California, November 13, 1858.

  “magnitude and importance”: “The News,” Daily Alta California, August 29, 1858.

  “a full sense”: “The Celebration,” Daily Alta California, September 22, 1858.

  “acres of many-hued”: “The Cable Jubilee,” Daily Alta California, September 29, 1858.

  “one vast crystal”: “The Celebration Continued,” Daily Alta California, September 30, 1858.

  “unrestrained rejoicing”: “The Grand Jubilee,” Daily Alta California, September 29, 1858.

  “the most magnificent”: Ibid.

  “throw a slap jack”: Mackay summary, “Probably Mr. Pratt,” Ellin Berlin Collection, UNR, 90-87/II/3.

  “lighter hearted in”: Grant Smith Collection, UCB, “Introduction to Unpublished Mackay MSS, 7, citing an interview Smith did with Gracey, who died in Virginia City in 1933, the last town resident who had rushed to the Comstock Lode in 1860.

  admitted John Mackay to its membership: Grant Smith Collection, UCB, “Introduction to Unpublished Mackay MSS, p. 7, citing the records of the secretary of the Grand Lodge at San Francisco.

  “All I want”: “Death of John W. Mackay Removes a Typical American,” New York Herald, July 21, 1902; Grant Smith Collection, UCB, Box 4, Folder 2, citing interviews with Robert Gracey and William E. Sharon.

  “Mackay worked like”: Grant Smith Collection, UCB, “Introduction to Unpublished Mackay MSS, p. 7, citing Smith’s personal interview with Pride.

  five dollars a day: “Carson Valley,” Sacramento Daily Union, April 6, 1859, citing the Territorial Enterprise, April 2, 1859.

  On April 21: Territorial Enterprise, April 21, 1859, quoted in Ronald M. James “Drunks, Fools, and Lunatics: History and Folklore of the Early Comstock,” Nevada Historical Society Quarterly, Vol. 35, No. 4, Winter 1992. (I have not been able to locate the original.)

  “remarkably well”: Territorial Enterprise, April 28, 1859, reprinted in “Late from Carson Valley,” Sacramento Daily Union, May 9, 1859.

  “Comstock & Co”: “Letter from Carson Valley,” Sacramento Daily Union, May 30, 1859.

  “considerable of a stir”: Almarin B. Paul, “Early History of the Comstock,” Mining & Scientific Press, December 16, 1882, quoting his dispatch from Grass Valley to San Francisco Bulletin, June 29, 1859.

  “the diggings are”: “El Dorado,” Sacramento Daily Union, July 14, 1859, citing the Placerville Observer, July 13, 1859.

  “large quantities of”: “Domestic Summary,” California Farmer and Journal of Useful Sciences, July 22, 1859.

  “remembrance of Fraser”: “The New Silver Mines,” Sacramento Daily Union, November 10, 1859.

  CHAPTER 3: THE LURE OF THE WASHOE DIGGINGS

  discovered in 1849 and 1850: Will Bagley, ed., Frontiersman: Abner Blackburn’s Narrative (Salt Lake City: University of Utah Press, 1992), pp. 101, 140 (Sally Zanjani, Devils Will Reign: How Nevada Began [Reno: University of Nevada Press, 2006], pp. 7–11). “Nevada’s First Nugget,” Daily Alta California, May 17, 1880; Dan de Quille, A History of the Comstock Mines (Virginia, NV: F. Boegle, 1889), pp. 32–33; Davis, History of Nevada, p. 350, credits William Prouse with having made the first gold discovery in 1849.

  “rags or any old stuff”: Reese’s memories of Fenimore already established in Gold Cañon: John Reese, “Mormon Station,” Nevada Historical Society Papers, Volume 1, 1913–1916, pp. 186–89.

  “no other white man”: John Reese, “Mormon Station,” Nevada Historical Society Papers, Volume 1, 1913–1916, pp. 186–89. Confounding Reese’s early vision of Fenimore alone in Gold Cañon through the winter of 1850–51 are the recollections of Stephen A. Kinsey, one of the men who accompanied John Reese west from Salt Lake. Although he, too, wrote at thirty years’ remove, he remembered James Fenimore as one of the twelve teamsters in their wagon train who saw the train through the desert to Mormon Station in the spring of 1851, then backtracked to join the “not over six miners” already working Gold Cañon: Myron Angel, ed., History of Nevada (Oakland, CA: Thompson & West, 1881), p. 31; the early history of Old Virginny is uncertain—Daily Alta California, quoting Territorial Enterprise, remembered that “he [Fenimore] came from California to this Territory in October 1857” in an obituary: Daily Alta California, July 22, 1861; Dan de Quille, in The Big Bonanza, p. 10, remembered Fenimore as a “resident of Johntown in the early days,” by which he seems to mean 1852–53; Eliot Lord, Comstock Mining and Miners (Berkeley, CA: Howell-North Books, 1959 [reprint of the 1883 edition]), p. 34, says Fenimore had been working in Gold Cañon since 1851, citing Mrs. L. M. Dettenrieder.

  Fenimore had been born: http://www.genealogy.com/forum/surnames/topics/fenimore/20/, accessed April 7, 2016; author’s emails with Martin Fenimore, March 26 and 27, 2016.

  “a good many”: John Reese, “Mormon Station,” Nevada Historical Society Papers, Vol. 1, 1913–1916, p. 188. In 1880, Comstock historian Eliot Lord estimated 120 miners worked Gold Cañon in the 1851–52 mining season and that 150 worked the cañon in 1852–53: Lord, Comstock Mining and Miners, 24; Dan de Quille’s The Big Bonanza, p. 10, reports “a considerable number of men” working Gold Cañon in the spring of 1852.

  at thirty cents per pound: H. van Sickles, “Utah Desperados,” Nevada Historical Society Papers, Volume 1, 1913–1916, p. 191

  “with good prospects”: Sacramento Daily Union, November 8, 1854.

  five dollars per day: “Why the Comstock Went So Long Undiscovered,” Grant Smith Collection, UCB, Box 1, Folder 8, 7.

  “Arcadian” simplicity: R. M. Bucke, “Twenty Five Years Ago,” Overland Monthly, Vol. I, No. 6, June 1883.

  “a reasonable stock”: Henry de Groot, “Comstock Papers, No. 2,” Mining & Scientific Press, July 29, 1876.

  sold for four dollars: Tennessee letter to San Francisco Herald, April 16, 1859, The Tennessee Letters
from Carson Valley, 1857–1860, compiled by David Thompson.

  as savage “diggers”: For a dissertation on the pejorative “Digger Indian,” see: Allan Lönnberg, “The Digger Indian Stereotype in California,” Journal of California and Great Basin Anthropology, Vol. 3, No. 2 (Winter 1981), pp. 215–23.

  striking one of the ore bodies: Grant Smith Collection, “Why the Comstock Went So Long Undiscovered,” Box 1, Folder 8; also, “Gold Cañon was richest in gold from the mouth up three or five miles”: William Hickman Dolman, Before the Comstock, 1857–1858, p. 32. Many historians incorrectly suppose that the ignorance and sloth of the early miners delayed discovery of the Comstock for most of a decade—those persons are incorrectly appreciating the mining conditions of Gold Cañon and taking facile swipes at the early miners, all of whom had much experience.

  three or four dozen: Dr. Richard M. Bucke, “Twenty Five Years Ago,” Overland Monthly, June 1883, p. 553; Allen Grosh to Dear Father, September 7, 1857, James and Stewart, eds., The Gold Rush Letters of E. Allen Grosh & Hosea B. Grosh, p. 174, says the mining population of Gold Cañon numbered “less than fifty.”

  In a letter Comstock wrote: In a letter to Sacramento Daily Union, H. T. P. Comstock claimed “three years mining residence in that locality”: Sacramento Daily Union, October 31, 1859, but in a letter he wrote to Saint Louis Republican reprinted by de Quille in The Big Bonanza, p. 49, Comstock said that he first appeared in Washoe in 1853; biographical details: “The Comstock Lode—Letter from HTP Comstock,” New York Herald, December 30, 1878; De Quille, History of the Big Bonanza, pp. 49–53.

  “a singular genius”: “The Comstock Lode—Letter from HTP Comstock,” New York Herald, December 30, 1878.

  “wild and visionary”: Austin E. Hutcheson, ed., “A Life of Fifty Years in Nevada: The Memoirs of Penrod of the Comstock Lode,” Nevada Historical Society Quarterly, Vol. I, No. 3, Winter Issue, March 1958, p. 133.

  “fond of the bottle”: De Quille, History of the Big Bonanza, p. 52.

  Downhill, in one of: Austin E. Hutcheson, ed., Before the Comstock, 1857–1858: Memoirs of William Hickman Dolman, p. 23, said they were located “a few hundred feet” below the bench; Manny Penrod, in Austin E. Hutchinson, ed., “A Life of Fifty Years in Nevada: The Memoirs of Penrod of the Comstock (Part 2),” Nevada State Historical Society, Vol. 1, No. 3, Winter 1958, p. 132, says the first Six Mile Cañon diggings were located “at a point about a half mile east of where the discovery of the Comstock Lode was made,” and De Quille, History of the Big Bonanza, p. 13, states that the first 1857 diggings in Six Mile Cañon “first struck paying ground nearly a mile below the place where silver ore was afterwards found in the Ophir mine.” Below the Virginia City Cemetery, according to “Sketch of Early Times,” the Territorial Enterprise, June 20, 1875, reprinted in “The Story of the Water Supply for the Comstock,” Geological Professional Survey Paper, Volume 779, U.S. Government Printing Office, 1949.

  needed to be “puddled”: Austin E. Hutcheson, ed., Before the Comstock, 1857–1858: Memoirs of William Hickman Dolman, p. 23; De Quille, History of the Big Bonanza, p. 13.

  five dollars to the hand: S. H. Marlette, Annual Report of the Surveyor-General of the State of Nevada for the Year 1865, pp. 19–20; Austin E. Hutchinson, ed., “A Life of Fifty Years in Nevada: The Memoirs of Penrod of the Comstock (Part 2),” Nevada State Historical Society, Vol. 1, No. 3, Winter 1958, pp. 132–34; Austin E. Hutcheson, ed., Before the Comstock, 1857–1858: Memoirs of William Hickman Dolman, pp. 32–34; Grant Smith Collection, “Why the Comstock Lode Remained So Long Undiscovered,” UCB, Box 1, Folder 8.

  dark, crumbly rocks: Allen Grosh to Dear Father, July 29, 1855, Ronald M. James and Robert E. Stewart, eds., The Gold Rush Letters of E. Allen Grosh & Hosea B. Grosh, p. 126.

  “mastered the rock”: Austin E. Hutchinson, ed., Before the Comstock, 1857–1858: The Memoirs of William Hickman Dolman, p. 29.

  Desperados murdered the man: Interview with Mrs. Laura M. Dettenrieder, Myron Angel, ed., History of Nevada, p. 52; Allan Grosh to Dear Father, August 16, 1857, Ronald M. James and Robert E. Stewart, eds., The Gold Rush Letters of E. Allen Grosh and Hosea B. Grosh, pp. 166–68.

  “frightful gash”: Allen Grosh to Dear Father, September 7, 1857, James and Stewart, eds., The Gold Rush Letters of E. Allen Grosh & Hosea B. Grosh, p. 169.

  had managed to amass: Additional Grosh brothers source: Sam Davis, History of Nevada, pp. 382–86, citing an interview with Johnson Simmons.

  California’s various quartz: A video of a vintage five-stamp California mill in operation is available on the Mariposa Museum & History Center’s website: http://mariposamuseum.com/on-the-museum-grounds/our-stamp-mill/. A number of other videos are available on YouTube.

  “Pioneer Quartz Company”: The Pioneer Quartz Company was the first quartz claim in what would become the state of Nevada: “The Pioneer,” Mining & Scientific Press, November 2, 1863, citing Territorial Enterprise.

  They sank a round post: Arastra description: “Californian Discoveries in the Amalgamation of Silver,” Daily Alta California, October 23, 1863; Professor L. Lanszweert, “The Problem of Gold and Silver Extraction—A General Review,” Mining and Scientific Press, July 29, 1865.

  “cold bath”: Austin E. Hutchinson, ed., Before the Comstock, 1857–1858: The Memoirs of William Hickman Dolman, p. 27.

  “Boys, I believe”: An October 9, 1863, article in the Virginia City Union (presumably the Virginia Daily Union), quoted at length in the footnote on pp. 109–10 of Hubert Howe Bancroft, The Works of Hubert Howe Bancroft, Vol. XXV: History of Nevada, Colorado, and Wyoming, 1540–1888 (San Francisco: History Company Publishers, 1890).

  January 28, 1859: De Quille, History of the Big Bonanza, p. 21, says that Gold Hill was located on “Saturday, January 28, 1859”—however, only one of those data points can possibly be true because in 1859, January 28 was a Friday; Alfred James, “Early Days in Washoe,” Historical Society of Southern California and Pioneer Register, Vol. 5, 1901, p. 189, says that “an item in the Enterprise of January 29, 1859,” mentions the new diggings, which makes it plausible that the Gold Hill locations were made a few days before, since it’s hard to imagine news reaching Genoa in a single day.

  “decidedly not Gold”: De Quille, History of the Big Bonanza, p. 23, quoting Bishop.

  they settled on: The Gold Hill discovery: The most convincing are the account of John Bishop in De Quille, History of the Big Bonanza, pp. 21–23; excerpts of an October 14, 1863, article in the Virginia City Union (presumably the Virginia Daily Union) published in footnote 34 on pp. 109–10 of Bancroft, The Works of Hubert Howe Bancroft, Vol. XXV, and “Pioneer Reminiscences in Washoe,” Sacramento Daily Union, October 10, 1863, citing Territorial Enterprise, October 7, 1863; also “Letter from Washoe,” Sacramento Daily Union, May 8, 1860 (which includes the usual characters and tells a variant of the John Bishop tale, but places the discovery in November 1858); “Sketch of Early Times,” Territorial Enterprise, June 20, 1875, reprinted in “The Story of the Water Supply for the Comstock,” Geological Survey Professional Paper, Volume 779, pp. 1–2, which claims Gold Hill was named on February 8, 1859, and that mining began in mid-April; Myron Angel, ed., History of Nevada, p. 55, which repeats The Big Bonanza testimony of John Bishop; Lord, Comstock Mining and Miners, pp. 35–36, citing a Territorial Enterprise story of October 7, 1863, and other newspaper and interview sources; Charles Howard Shinn, The Story of the Mine (Reno: University of Nevada Press, 1896), pp. 35–38; Grant Smith collection, UCB, Box 4, Folder 1; and Grant Smith Collection, “The Original Gold Hill Bonanza: The Discovery,” UCB, Box 1, Folder 8.

  “pass upon”: De Quille, History of the Big Bonanza, p. 23.

  “Johntown unbelievers”: Angel, ed., History of Nevada, p. 56.

  “We the undersigned”: De Quille, History of the Big Bonanza, p. 35; “Litigation in Washoe,” Daily Alta California, June 3, 1862, citing Territorial Enterprise; A General Business and Mining Directory of Storey, Lyon, O
rmsby, and Washoe Counties, Nevada (Virginia City: John D. Bethel & Co., 1875), transcription in the Ellin Berlin Collection, UNR, 90-87/II/8.

  “every man naturally”: Lord, Comstock Mining and Miners, p. 49.

  William Sides stabbed John Jessup: “People’s Trial in Carson Valley in the case of William Sides,” Sacramento Daily Union, June 1, 1859; A General Business and Mining Directory of Storey, Lyon, Ormsby, and Washoe Counties, Nevada, p. 8; Hutchinson, ed., Before the Comstock, p. 16; Henry de Groot, “Comstock Papers No. 13,” Mining & Scientific Press, December 12, 1876.

  to say them nay: Hutchinson, ed., Before the Comstock, p. 38; the story of McLaughlin and O’Reilly jumping the claim while the others were at the Sides trial is also in Annual Mining Review and Stock Ledger (San Francisco: Verdenal, Harrison, Murphy & Co., 1876), p. 12.

  “scarcely an inch”: “The New Silver Mines,” Sacramento Daily Union, November 9, 1859.

  they’d gleaned nearly: Commonly reported figure for the first day’s clean up; the closest to contemporary source for this I have found is “Rich Discovery Near Washoe Valley,” Sacramento Daily Union, July 2, 1859, reprinting from Nevada Journal, July 1, 1859, which says, “He took out in half a day three hundred dollars, with two hands.”

  June 8 and June 12: Lord, Comstock Mining and Miners, pp. 37–38, says the strike was made on June 8, 1859, citing the testimony of James Corey, March 29, 1877, in S. C. Barnes et al. vs. California Mining Company; testimony in Kinney v. Consolidated Va. Min. Co. et al., November 1, 1877, Circuit Court D, California, Case No. 7,827, p. 9, says the strike was made on June 10; ibid., p. 20, Circuit Judge Sawyer says the strike was made on June 10 or 11.

  Comstock rode up: De Quille, History of the Big Bonanza, p. 25.

  “You have struck”: Angel, History of Nevada, p. 56.

  “honesty and good”: Henry DeGroot, “Comstock Papers No. 12,” Mining & Scientific Press, December 16, 1876.

  “something good”: Austin E. Hutcheson, ed., “A Life of Fifty Years in Nevada: The Memoirs of Penrod of the Comstock Lode,” Nevada State Historical Society, Vol. I, No. 3, Winter 1958, p. 133.