“voyages of discovery”: Ibid.
“a want of patriotism”: “California Gossip, December 11, 1861,” New York Times, January 28, 1862.
“commerce rests”: [Article title illegible], New York Herald, July 14, 1862.
“a matter of”: “Financial and Commercial,” New York Herald, July 25, 1862.
“brisk demand”: “Greenbacks,” Marysville Daily Appeal, October 31, 1862.
his first recorded transaction: The transaction was recorded on April 26, 1862: Jerome Quinlan, Recorder and Auditor, Storey County, to Grant H. Smith, August 19, 1930, p. 2, Grant Smith Collection, UCB, Box 1, Folder 18.
“rats of the”: “Underground Life in the Silver Mines,” Daily Alta California, August 5, 1862, citing Territorial Enterprise.
receiving or deeding away: Jerome J. Quinlan, Recorder and Auditor, Storey County, to Grant H. Smith, August 19, 1930, Grant Smith Collection, UCB, Box 1, Folder 18.
relocating a thousand feet: On the relocation of the mine that became the Milton, I have not been able to determine why the company felt the need to relocate the mine. The transaction is noted among those in Jerome J. Quinlan, Recorder and Auditor, Storey County, to Grant H. Smith, August 19, 1930, Grant Smith Collection, UCB, Box 1, Folder 18.
sixty feet of “the Winters Co.”: Ibid., transaction marked in pencil “#5.”
Caledonia Gold and Silver Mining Company: “News of the Morning,” Sacramento Daily Union, April 9, 1861.
a series of assessments: Caledonia Tunnel sources: “Mining Corporation,” Daily Alta California, April 7, 1861; “News of the Morning,” Sacramento Daily Union, April 9, 1861; “Mining Notices,” Daily Alta California, September 16, 1861; “Mining and Other Corporations formed in 1861,” Sacramento Daily Union, January 1, 1862; “Caledonia G. & S. M. Co.,” Daily Alta California, April 23, 1862; “Mining and Stock Notices,” Daily Alta California, August 21, 1862; work begun March 1861: “Caledonia Mining Company,” Mining & Scientific Press, December 24, 1864.
“running full time”: “Nevada Territory,” Daily Alta California, February 2, 1862, citing The Silver Age, January 26, 1862.
“not less than”: “The Ophir Works,” Marysville Daily Appeal, January 10, 1862, citing The Silver Age.
They rested secure: Ibid.; “The Ophir Works and Railroad,” Red Bluff Beacon, January 30, 1862, citing The Silver Age; “Henry de Groot, “Comstock Papers—No. 17,” Mining & Scientific Press, February 24, 1877; Lord, Comstock Mining and Miners, pp. 122–23.
“sheeted over with”: “Great Strike in the Comstock Lead,” Sacramento Daily Union, July 8, 1862, citing Territorial Enterprise, July 4, 1862.
Gold Hill doubled in value: “Prosperity of Nevada Territory,” Marysville Daily Appeal, citing Territorial Enterprise, July 30, 1862.
“a well established fact”: “Sacramento Ore,” Daily Alta California, August 12, 1862.
“to procure fortunes”: “Nevada Territory News,” Daily Alta California, May 26, 1862.
“got down where”: Twain, Roughing It, p. 277.
“It is now proven”: “Letter from Virginia City, March 28, 1862,” Daily Alta California, April 3, 1862.
“There is room”: “Letter from the Nevada Territory, April 5, 1862,” Daily Alta California, April 11, 1862
“Elbow grease is”: “Letter from Virginia City, March 28, 1862,” Daily Alta California, April 3, 1862.
“people do not”: “Prosperity of Nevada Territory,” Marysville Daily Appeal, citing Territorial Enterprise, July 30, 1862.
“with the celerity”: “Nevada Territory,” Marysville Daily Appeal, August 12, 1862, citing Territorial Enterprise, August 9, 1862.
“a general row”: “A General Mess,” Sacramento Daily Union, December 1, 1862.
in less than thirty-six hours: “Late from Washoe,” Sacramento Daily Union, July 22, 1862.
“mint juleps, sherry”: “Letter from Nevada Territory,” Daily Alta California, April 9, 1862.
“smart and fashionable”: “Notes of Nevada Travel, June 25,” Marysville Daily Appeal, June 29, 1862 (part II of the letter; part I published the day before).
the real muscle of Virginia City: “Underground Life in the Silver Mines,” Daily Alta California, August 5, 1862, citing Territorial Enterprise.
“choice works”: “Virginia City,” Mariposa Gazette, March 18, 1862.
“draped with great”: “Letter from Nevada Territory,” Daily Alta California, April 9, 1862
of 417 children: “Schools in Nevada Territory,” Sacramento Daily Union, November 20, 1862.
hares, sage hens, and ducks: “Game in Washoe,” Marysville Daily Appeal, November 18, 1862, citing Territorial Enterprise, November 15, 1862; “Game in Washoe,” Sacramento Daily Union, December 19, 1862.
Knowing Washoeites as: “Omnibus for Washoe,” Sacramento Daily Union, August 5, 1862.
“a grand dog”: “Letter from Nevada Territory,” Daily Alta California, May 8, 1862.
“Such men as”: “Becoming Civilized,” Marysville Daily Appeal, May 15, 1862, citing Territorial Enterprise.
boy died of smallpox: “The News,” Pacific Appeal, May 3, 1862; “Washoe Items,” Marysville Daily Appeal, May 20, 1862; “Smallpox in Washoe,” Sacramento Daily Union, June 6, 1862.
“late of the”: “From Powder River,” Sacramento Daily Union, June 20, 1862, citing Oregonian, June 11, 1862.
“venture in the”: De Quille, History of the Big Bonanza, p. 45.
$12,000 and $15,000: Henry de Groot, “Comstock Papers No. 6,” Mining & Scientific Press, September 30, 1876. The range makes sense in the context of the sums mentioned in other sources.
sold his wife to Comstock: de Quille in The Big Bonanza (p. 45) claims Comstock bought the woman for “a horse, a revolver, and sixty dollars,” but a more contemporary source, “The Shooting at Gold Hill,” Sacramento Daily Union, July 25, 1862, citing Territorial Enterprise, July 22, 1862, says that “a man named Comstocks [sic]” bought the wife for $350. I have cleaved to the more contemporary source. The Union’s July 25 article incorrectly asserts that “Comstocks” was “the same man who committed suicide last winter by blowing out his brains in Dayton,” but a correspondent’s letter published in the Union a few days later, on July 29, corrects the mistake, saying that “the Comstock The Enterprise speaks of is not the Comstock that committed suicide. . . . The Comstock The Enterprise has reference to is H. P. T. Comstock [sic], the one that discovered and located the Comstock Ledge,” and “the last was heard from him had gone to the new mines.” (The author of the correcting letter was related to the man who had committed suicide.)
“a long-legged”: De Quille, History of the Big Bonanza, p. 47; the story of Comstock’s marriage is told Twainian fashion in De Quille, History of the Big Bonanza, pp. 45–48; it is also mentioned in Bancroft, The Works of Hubert Howe Bancroft, Volume XXV, p. 107, note 29.
what remained of his “raise”: “Comstock Still Lives,” Sacramento Daily Union, December 19, 1864, citing an article in Oregonian, December 7, 1864.
doing well on a placer claim: “From Powder River,” Sacramento Daily Union, June 20, 1862, citing Oregonian, June 11, 1862.
nine hundred pounds of bullion: “Bullion,” Red Bluff Independent, June 27, 1862, citing The Silver Age.
$500,000: The Ophir traded at about $1,600 per foot that week ($1,625 per foot on July 3, 1862: “Weekly Trade Summary,” Daily Alta California, July 3, 1862), making Comstock’s original share worth about $375,000; half of the Mexican was probably worth more than $100,000, and his original slice of Gold Hill would have sold for between $10,000 and $20,000.
considerable jealousy and resentment: “Notes from Washoe,” Daily Alta California, May 16, 1861.
“as rich as”: “Powder River and John Day Mines, August 15, 1862,” Sonoma Democrat, September 18, 1862. Other contemporary Comstock stories: “Letter from Virginia City, March 28, 1862,” Daily Alta California, April 3, 1862; “By Telegram to the Appeal,” Mar
ysville Daily Appeal, June 25, 1862; “By Telegraph to the Union,” Sacramento Daily Union, June 25, 1862. “Powder River Mines,” Marysville Daily Appeal, June 17, 1862, citing Dalles Mountaineer, March 24, 1862; “How Towns Spring Up in the World,” Marysville Daily Appeal, October 1, 1862; “The Ups and Downs of a Miner’s Life,” Marysville Daily Appeal, October 21, 1863; “Comstock and His Feet,” Sacramento Daily Union, October 23, 1863; “Bear Creek, South Boise, December 3, 1863,” Boise News, December 26, 1863; also, Bancroft, The Works of Hubert Howe Bancroft, Volume XXXI, History of Washington Idaho, and Montana, 1845–1889 (San Francisco: History Company Publishers, 1890), p. 415, note 19; “The Boise News,” Marysville Daily Appeal, December 12, 1863, citing Boise News; also, Hubert Howe Bancroft, The Works of Hubert Howe Bancroft, Volume XXXI: History of Washington Idaho, and Montana, 1845–1889, p. 257, note 47. Comstock wasn’t alone in his humbling. Alva Gould, one of the original locators of the Gould & Curry, was cutting wood shingles in Washoe Valley.
“Dixie-ite”: “Commerce-Intercourse-Taxation,” Sacramento Daily Union, September 26, 1862
“treasonous sentiments”: “News of the Morning,” Sacramento Daily Union, September 17, 1862.
“invoke the considerate”: The phrase is in Lincoln’s Emancipation Proclamation, issued on January 1, 1863, but not in his Preliminary Emancipation Proclamation, issued on September 22, 1862; text of both online at Historynet.com, http://www.historynet.com/emancipation-proclamation-text, accessed December 7, 2016.
“The effect of”: “Opinions of the Press on the President’s Proclamation,” Red Bluff Independent, January 23, 1863, quoting Washoe City Times.
“The thunder in”: Ibid., quoting the Territorial Enterprise.
“to forget the fearful”: “Commerce-Intercourse-Taxation,” Sacramento Daily Union, September 26, 1862.
“patriotic and union-loving”: “The War Feeling in California,” New York Times, February 20, 1860.
“whisky-begotten”: “Arrests for Treason in Nevada Territory,” Sacramento Daily Union, December 26, 1862.
“the big swear”: “Letter from Esmeralda, August 19, 1862,” Daily Alta California, August 25, 1862.
“three hundred millions”: “Mountains of Silver,” Cleveland Tri-Weekly Leader, October 23, 1862, citing The Silver Age.
$18 million: “Yield of the Washoe Mines,” Sonoma Democrat, October 23, 1862.
topics of conversation: “Letter from San Francisco, October 11, 1862,” Sacramento Daily Union, October 13, 1862.
“There is not”: Mining & Scientific Press, September 11, 1862, citing Territorial Enterprise, August 30, 1862.
“handsome dividends declared”: “News from San Francisco,” New York Times, August 29, 1862.
Ophir stock soared past: “Letter from Washoe, September 3, 1862,” Sacramento Daily Union, September 6, 1862.
“fever, not to say mania”: “Legitimate Profit vs. Wild Speculation,” Daily Alta California, October 23, 1862.
“Are all [you] folks”: “Letter from Nevada Territory, October 15, 1862,” Daily Alta California, October 20, 1862.
The most successful speculators: “Making Money,” Marysville Daily Appeal, September 13, 1862.
“perplexing question”: “The Ophir Company,” Mining & Scientific Press, December 6, 1862.
had advised the Ophir’s: Adolph Sutro, “A Trip to Washoe, Part II,” Daily Alta California, April 13, 1860.
stock market panicked: “Gossip from California, October 21, 1862,” New York Times, November 14, 1862.
“filibustering arrangement”: “Commercial and Financial—Weekly Summary,” Daily Alta California, October 23, 1862.
“a narrow escape”: And description of the Virginia Ledge’s threat to the Ophir: “Gossip from San Francisco, December 11, 1862,” New York Times, January 18, 1863; also, “Compromised,” Sacramento Daily Union, December 15, 1862; “The Ophir Company,” Mining & Scientific Press, December 20, 1862; “Commercial and Financial,” Daily Alta California, October 20, 1862.
“Stock job” complete: Daily Alta California, October 24, 1862, brags about the San Francisco stock market’s “bulls,” “bears,” “operators,” and “sellers short.”
“pasty conglomerate”: Browne, “Washoe Revisited,” Harper’s New Monthly Magazine, May 1865.
shop to shelter: “Washoe Items,” Daily Alta California, November 13, 1862; “Mammoth Carpenter Shop,” Sacramento Daily Union, December 5, 1862.
toward the mine’s southern boundary: “Mining Stock Report,” Mining & Scientific Press, December 29, 1862. See also for other Gould & Curry developments: “Mining Operations About Virginia City,” Mining & Scientific Press, February 2, 1863; Gould & Curry developments: “Nevada Territory,” Marysville Daily Appeal, September 28, 1862, citing Territorial Enterprise, September 25, 1862; “Lively Business,” Sacramento Daily Union, December 12, 1862; “Washoe Items,” Daily Alta California, December 18, 1862; “On the 15th Instant,” Marysville Daily Appeal, December 20, 1862; Mining & Scientific Press, December 20, 1862; “Washoe Items,” Daily Alta California, December 23, 1862, citing Territorial Enterprise, December 17, 1862.
Other Comstock mines: “Washoe Items,” Daily Alta California, November 13, 1862; “Virginia City Items,” Sacramento Daily Union, December 15, 1862, citing the Virginia City papers of December 12, 1862; “Washoe Items,” Daily Alta California, December 18, 1862; “Tunneling in Washoe,” Mining & Scientific Press, December 20, 1860; “Washoe Items,” Daily Alta California, December 23, 1862, citing Virginia Union, December 17, 1862; “The Mines in Virginia City,” Sacramento Daily Union, December 24, 1862, citing Virginia Union; “Gold Hill Mines,” Sacramento Daily Union, December 25, 1862.
Smoke trailed from smokestacks: “Hoisting Houses,” Mining & Scientific Press, December 13, 1862.
penetrated fifteen hundred feet: The Caledonia Tunnel was 1,700 feet long in mid-January 1863: “Mining Notabilia,” Mining & Scientific Press, January 19, 1863.
levied another modest assessment: “Mining and Stock Notices,” Daily Alta California, September 28, 1862.
The water gushing from: “Burst of Water,” Sacramento Daily Union, October 2, 1862
$450 per month: “Caledonia Mining Company,” Mining & Scientific Press, December 24, 1864.
“full satisfaction”: James Keefe to J. W. Mackay, November 25, 1862, Storey County Records, Book I of Deeds, p. 188, quoted in Margaret M. Quinlan, Office of the Storey County Recorder and Auditor, to Grant H. Smith, August 19, 1930, Grant Smith Collection, UCB, Box 1, Folder 18.
deeded away thirty feet: Mackay deeded twenty-five feet of the Milton to A. C. Wightman and five feet to S. W. Wulff on January 30, 1863: John Mackay to A. C. Wightman, January 30, 1863, Records of Gold Hill Mining District, Book H of Deeds, p. 397, and John Mackay to S. W. Wulff, Records of Gold Hill Mining District, Book K of Deeds, p. 132, quoted in Margaret M. Quinlan, Office of the Storey County Recorder and Auditor, to Grant H. Smith, August 19, 1930, Grant Smith Collection, UCB, Box 1, Folder 18.
$100 per foot: “Washoe Mines and Mining,” Marysville Daily Appeal, February 7, 1863, citing Territorial Enterprise; “Washoe Stock Remarks,” Mining & Scientific Press, February 16, 1863.
“although not rich”: “Washoe Stock Report,” Mining & Scientific Press, January 19, 1863.
“formidable ledge”: “Washoe Stock Report,” Mining & Scientific Press, December 20, 1862
“exceedingly good rock” . . . “industry”: “Mining Notabilia,” Mining & Scientific Press, January 19, 1863
“utmost vigor”: “Mining Operations about Virginia City,” Mining & Scientific Press, February 2, 1863; also, “San Francisco Mining Notices,” Mining & Scientific Press, December 20, 1862.
$1 million per month: “Mines at Virginia City,” Sacramento Daily Union, December 22, 1862.
bars of Washoe bullion: Mining & Scientific Press, December 29, 1862.
$470,000: Mining & Scientific Press, December 29, 1862.
m
ill finally began crushing: “The Gould & Curry Mill,” Sacramento Daily Union, January 7, 1863.
dividend to $100 per foot: “A Big Dividend” and “Mining Operations about Virginia City,” Mining & Scientific Press, February 2, 1863.
“impossible to portray”: “Letter from Washoe, September 3, 1862,” Sacramento Daily Union, September 6, 1862.
“I feel very much”: Mark Twain, The Works of Mark Twain: Early Tales & Sketches, Vol. 1, 1851–1864, Edgar Marquess Branch, Robert H. Hirst, and Harriet Elinor Smith, eds. (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1979), pp. 192–98.
CHAPTER 7: THE FIRST BOOM, FRENZIED AND EXUBERANT
“Our father Mammon”: “Stock Broker’s Prayer,” Red Bluff Independent, October 20, 1863, citing the Territorial Enterprise.
“no place in”: Albert Bigelow Paine, Mark Twain: A Biography, Vol. I (New York and London: Harper & Brothers Publishers, 1912 [?]), p. 170.
“hard and long”: Twain, Roughing It, p. 233.
“the bowels of”: Samuel Langhorne Clemens to William A. Moffett, January 30 and February 1, 1862, Mark Twain Project, letters, http://www.marktwainproject.org, accessed October 19, 2016.
“blasting, and picking”: Sam Clemens to Orion Clemens, April 28, 1862, Mark Twain Project, letters, http://www.marktwainproject.org, accessed January 2, 2017.
“a dead sure”: Sam Clemens to Orion Clemens, June 22, 1862, Mark Twain Project, letters, http://www.marktwainproject.org, accessed January 2, 2017.
trying to sell writing: Sam Clemens to Orion Clemens, July 23, 1862, www.marktwainproject.org, letters, accessed January 2, 2017.
“They pay me”: Samuel Langhorne Clemens to Jane Lampton Clemens and Pamela A. Moffett, February 16, 1863, www.marktwainproject.org, letters, accessed October 19, 2016.
preserved petrified man: San Francisco Bulletin reprinted “The Petrified Man” story from Territorial Enterprise on October 15, 1862, along with the in good faith comment about the interior journals.
“A Bloody Massacre”: “Bloody Massacre,” Sacramento Daily Union, October 30, 1863, quoting Territorial Enterprise, October 28,1863; Mark Twain (edited by Branch, Hirst, and Smith), The Works of Mark Twain: Early Tales & Sketches, Volume 1, 1851–1864 (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1979), pp. 320–26, including detailed editorial commentary.
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