The Bonanza King
Page 66
“Adroit and profitable”: “Letter from San Francisco, November 6, 1863,” Marysville Daily Appeal, November 8, 1863; “The Blunders in Washoe Mining,” Daily Alta California, October 24, 1865.
At the Gould & Curry: “City Stock Reports—San Francisco Stock and Exchange Board,” Mining & Scientific Press, December 24, 1864.
firm in his belief: “California Gossip, December 23, 1863,” New York Times, January 24, 1864; George Thomas Marye, Jr., From ’49 to ’83 in California and Nevada, pp. 93–95. Marye claims Palmer’s salary was $25,000 per year. I have used the Times’ more contemporary figure.
“a good deal”: Marye, Jr., From ’49 to ’83 in California and Nevada, p. 95.
“the present generation”: “California Gossip, December 23, 1863,” New York Times, January 24, 1864.
unhappy with the mine’s management: Mining & Scientific Press, November 12, 1863; “California Gossip, December 23, 1863,” New York Times, January 24, 1864.
the Ophir’s ore body narrowed: Ferdinand Richthofen, The Comstock Lode: Its Character and the Probably Mode of Its Continuance in Depth (San Francisco, 1866), pp. 34–35; “Ophir Ore-Bodies,” Grant Smith Collection, UCB, Box 1, Folder 7; Smith, The History of the Comstock Lode, p. 81.
“money paradise”: “The Money Paradise of Lawyers,” Sacramento Daily Union, October 31, 1863.
“The Grosch [sic] Consolidated Gold”: “By Telegraph to the Union,” Sacramento Daily Union, August 4, 1863; “News of the Morning,” Sacramento Daily Union, August 4, 1863; “The Grosch [sic] Brothers, the Alleged Discoverers of Silver on the Pacific Slope,” Sacramento Daily Union, August 6, 1863, citing the newly published Directory of Nevada Territory, pp. 356–58; “The Grosch [sic] Company,” Mining & Scientific Press, September 28, 1863; “Court Proceedings, October 19, 1863,” Daily Alta California, October 20, 1863; “The Money Paradise of Lawyers,” Sacramento Daily Union, October 31, 1863; “By Telegraph to the Union,” Sacramento Daily Union, January 26, 1864; “By Telegraph to the Union,” Sacramento Daily Union, March 10, 1865.
“mammoth incubus”: “The Grosch [sic] Company,” Mining & Scientific Press, September 28, 1863.
“largely interested”: “Idaho Territory Correspondence,” Sonoma Democrat, August 20, 1864; Comstock in the South Boise mines: “Suit of the Grosch Co.,” Mining & Scientific Press, March 19, 1864
“extent and richness”: Captain John Mullan, Miners and Travelers Guide to Oregon, Washington, Idaho, Montana, Wyoming, and Colorado via the Missouri and Columbia Rivers (New York: W. M. Franklin, 1865), pp. 110–11, citing a correspondent of Daily Oregon Times, December 8, 1864.
an overshot water wheel: “Comstock Still Lives,” Mining & Scientific Press, August 13, 1864.
“this famous prospector”: “Comstock Still Lives,” Sacramento Daily Union, December 19, 1864, citing Oregonian, December 7, 1864.
“an important part”: “The Red Bluff and Owyhee Wagon Road,” Daily Alta California, January 9, 1865; Comstock, his quartz, and his arastras in Idaho are mentioned in Merle W. Wells, Gold Camps and Silver Cities: Nineteenth Century Mining in Central and Southern Idaho (Moscow: Idaho State Historical Society, 1983), pp. 16–19.
hadn’t reached him in time: “Suit of the Grosch Co.,” Mining & Scientific Press, March 19, 1864.
dismissed the lawsuit: “By Telegraph to the Union,” Sacramento Daily Union, March 10, 1865.
Did the Comstock Lode consist: The lawsuits are discussed in lengthy and occasionally entertaining detail in Lord, Comstock Mining and Miners, pp. 131–80; Stewart, Reminiscences of Senator William M. Stewart, of Nevada; Smith, The History of the Comstock Lode, pp. 66–74.
the “one ledge”: David A. Johnson, “Industry and the Individual on the Far Western Frontier: A Case Study of Politics and Social Change in Early Nevada,” Pacific Historical Review, Vol. 51, No. 3, August 1982, quoting Gold Hill Evening News, November 4, 1863.
“The Great Grab-All”: “The Money Paradise of Lawyers,” Sacramento Daily Union, October 31, 1863, citing Virginia Daily Union.
“a moneyed effort”: “The Ophir Monopoly,” Daily Alta California, September 4, 1863.
“floated”: Smith, History of the Comstock Lode, pp. 69, 91.
“Jarndyce v. Jarndyce”: Grant Smith, “The Panic of 1865,” Grant Smith Collection, UCB, Box 2, Folder 7.
squandered $1.3 million: S. H. Marlette, Annual Report of the Surveyor-General of the State of Nevada for the Year 1865, p. 28.
“pretensions to architectural”: “Notes of Nevada Travel, June 25, 1862,” Marysville Daily Appeal, June 28, 1862.
“useless ornament”: “Blunders in Washoe Mining,” Daily Alta California, October 24, 1865.
Before it all lay: “Notes of Nevada Travel, June 25, 1862,” Marysville Daily Appeal, June 28, 1862; “Mill and Reduction Works of the Gould & Curry Company,” Sacramento Daily Union, November 14, 1862; “Items from Washoe,” Daily Alta California, November 22, 1862; “The Gould & Curry Mill,” Sacramento Daily Union, January 31, 1863; “The Gould and Curry Mine,” Marysville Daily Appeal, July 21, 1863, citing Virginia Daily Union, July 16, 1863; “Blunders in Washoe Mining,” Daily Alta California, October 24, 1865; Henry de Groot, “Comstock Papers No. 17,” Mining & Scientific Press, February 24, 1877; Smith, The History of the Comstock Lode, p. 85; Lord, Comstock Mining and Miners, pp. 124–29.
a lady could pass: “California Gossip, December 23, 1863,” New York Times, January 24, 1863.
“why so much money”: “Notes of Nevada Travel, June 25, 1862,” Marysville Daily Appeal, June 28, 1862.
worse than the extravagance: “Virginia City Correspondence—By Our Lady Contributor,” Mining & Scientific Press, December 17, 1864; “Annual Report of the Gould & Curry,” Mining & Scientific Press, December 24, 1864.
“pacing the roof”: Lord, Comstock Mining and Miners, p. 125.
“Snake it out”: Lord, Comstock Mining and Miners, p. 127, citing an interview with Alpheus Bull, president of the Gould & Curry, 1864–72.
“the deeper they”: “The Comstock Lead,” Mining & Scientific Press, November 23, 1863.
“clusters of virgin”: “A Visit to the Gould & Curry Mine,” Los Angeles Star, June 11, 1864, quoting Virginia Daily Union.
“a thousand merry”: “Virginia City, Underground,” Mining & Scientific Press, December 3, 1863, quoting the “local” of Territorial Enterprise, Dan de Quille or Mark Twain.
“Satan’s sooty kingdom”: Ibid.
Few had much desire: Gould & Curry descriptions: “A Visit to the Gould & Curry Mine,” Los Angeles Star, June 11, 1864, quoting Virginia Daily Union and “Virginia City, Underground,” Mining & Scientific Press, December 3, 1863, quoting the “local” of Territorial Enterprise, Dan de Quille or Mark Twain; also, Samuel Bowles, Across the Continent: A Stage Ride Over the Plains to the Rocky Mountains, the Mormons, and the Pacific States in the Summer of 1865 with Speaker Colfax (Springfield, MA: Samuel Bowles & Company, 1869), pp. 317–20.
lamented a recently struck: “A Visit to the Gould & Curry Mine,” Los Angeles Star, June 11, 1864, quoting Virginia Daily Union; “Our Summary of Mining News,” Mining & Scientific Press, July 30, 1864.
fifteen feet of third-class ore: The Gould & Curry bonanza pinches out and pitches south, into the Savage: Smith, The History of the Comstock Lode, pp. 34–35.
“big fish”: “Deserting,” Mining & Scientific Press, August 6, 1864.
George Hearst, the consummate: Hearst, The Way It Was.
explained away the insiders’ move: “California Gossip, June 13, 1864,” New York Times, July 10, 1864; Gould & Curry situation: “New Superintendent,” Mining & Scientific Press, April 2, 1864; also, “Mining Share Market,” Mining & Scientific Press, May 7, 1864; “Gould & Curry,” Mining & Scientific Press, May 14, 1864; “Gossip from San Francisco, May 23, 1864,” New York Times, June 19, 1864; “Greenbacks in Nevada,” Sacramento Daily Union, May 26, 1864; “The Mining Bubble—Greenbacks at Par,” Marysville Daily
Appeal, May 28, 1864; “The Daily Press on the Mines and Mining,” Mining & Scientific Press, May 28, 1864; “Washoe,” Marysville Daily Appeal, June 4, 1864; “Startling,” Mining & Scientific Press, June 4, 1864; “The Nevada Bubble,” Marysville Daily Appeal, June 9, 1864; “Mines in Nevada Territory,” Sacramento Daily Union, citing Virginia Daily Union; David A. Johnson, “Industry and the Individual on the Far Western Frontier: A Case Study of Politics and Social Change in Early Nevada,” Pacific Historical Review, Vol. 51, No. 3, August 1982.
“transpired icicles and”: Harry M. Gorham, My Memories of the Comstock (Los Angeles–San Francisco–New York: Suttonhouse, 1939), p. 23.
treasurer of the Ophir, the Gould & Curry: “A Washoe Mining Company,” Sacramento Daily Union, May 4, 1860; Cecil Tilton, William Chapman Ralston: Courageous Builder (Boston: Christopher Publishing House, 1935), p. 103
fortune in greenback arbitrage: David Lavender, Nothing Seemed Impossible: William C. Ralston and Early San Francisco (Palo Alto, CA: American West Publishing Company, 1975), p. 171.
“rousing, reaching, staving”: “California Gossip, December 11, 1861,” New York Times, January 28, 1862.
recently relaxed California laws: Leroy Armstrong and J. O. Denny, Financial California: An Historical Review of the Beginnings and Progress of Banking in the State (San Francisco: Coast Banker Publishing Company, 1916), pp. 20–21
Ralston began the change: “Donohoe, Ralston & Co.,” Marysville Daily Appeal, October 27, 1863.
The Bank of California formally: “Certificate of Incorporation of the Bank of California,” Daily Alta California, June 16, 1864; “A New Bank,” Sacramento Daily Union, June 16, 1864; “The Bank of California,” Mining & Scientific Press, June 25, 1864.
leading financial institution on the Pacific: Zoeth Skinner Eldridge, History of California, Volume V, Special Articles (New York: Century History Company, 1915), pp. 433–34.
The selling panic climaxed: “Talk on ’Change,” Daily Alta California, November 19, 1865; Gould & Curry at $950, Ophir at $415: “Mining Share Market,” Mining & Scientific Press, July 30, 1864; “Fluctuations in Leading Mining Shares for the Past Six Months,” Mining & Scientific Press, October 15, 1864.
“went up the flume”: A mining expression meaning the same as “went up the spout.”
“completely destroyed”: “Washoe Silver Mining in 1864,” Daily Alta California, December 24, 1864.
“contact with the world”: “A Checkered Career,” Daily Alta California, November 14, 1885.
too pronounced to: H. H. Bancroft, Chronicles of the Builders of the Commonwealth, Historical Character Study, Volume IV (San Francisco: History Company, 1892), p. 29.
“distasteful”: Ibid.
two years at Athens College: “A Checkered Career,” Daily Alta California, November 14, 1885, and “Death of Sharon, “San Francisco Chronicle, November 14, 1885, both say two years; Bancroft, “William Sharon,” Chronicles of the Builders of the Commonwealth, Historical Character Study, Volume IV, p. 29, says three years, as do most sources published after. I have cleaved to the most contemporary sources.
“Circumstances”: Ibid.
“Frytown”: California Historical Society Quarterly, Volume II, 1923–24, p. 207.
1856 Vigilance Committee: Robert M. Senkewicz, Vigilantes in Gold Rush San Francisco, p. 183.
owned in others: “Mining Items” Daily Alta California, December 18, 1863, mentions Sharon as trustee of the Chase and Cornwall Silver Mining Company and the Alpine Silver Mining Company, both in the Reece River mines; “Crockett Consolidated Mining Company,” Daily Alta California, March 2, 1864, notes Sharon owning in the named mine, and “Napoleon Copper Mining Company,” Daily Alta California, March 25, 1864, lists him as owing $2,290 in assessments; “Death of Sharon,” San Francisco Chronicle, November 14, 1885, mentions Sharon losing money in the Hale & Norcross, and Michael J. Makley, The Infamous King of the Comstock: William Sharon and the Gilded Age in the West (Reno: University of Nevada Press, 2009), pp. 14–15, says Sharon lost a massive sum in a Washoe mine called the North American—a transaction in which Sharon always believed he’d been scammed.
“permanence”: Bancroft, “William Sharon,” Chronicles of the Builders of the Commonwealth, Historical Character Study, Volume IV, p. 47.
“every cent of”: “Death of Sharon,” San Francisco Chronicle, November 14, 1885.
“the world before”: “A Checkered Career,” Daily Alta California, November 14, 1885.
luminaries among its directors: The Pacific Insurance Company ran daily newspaper ads featuring Ralston’s and Sharon’s names; Lavender, Nothing Seemed Impossible, p. 118, agrees that it seems likely they knew each other before 1858.
“manly action”: San Francisco Call, November 14, 1885, quoted in Makley, The Infamous King of the Comstock, p. 24.
kept him afloat: Julian Dana, The Man Who Built San Francisco: A Study of Ralston’s Journey (New York: Macmillan Company, 1936), p. 388.
“bird’s-eye porphyry”: “Death of Sharon,” San Francisco Chronicle, November 14, 1885.
He wired the idea: Lord, Comstock Mining and Miners, pp. 244–46; Smith, The History of the Comstock Lode, pp. 49–51; Tilton, William Chapman Ralston, p. 136; Lavender, Nothing Seemed Impossible pp. 167–87; James, The Roar and the Silence, pp. 77–79; Makley, The Infamous King of the Comstock, pp. 21–22.
“Come down, and”: C. C. Goodwin, As I Remember Them (Salt Lake City Commercial Club, 1913), p. 127.
“He sounds like”: Makley, The Infamous King of the Comstock, p. 25, citing “many sketches,” including San Francisco Examiner, September 22, 1899, and Ira Cross, Financing an Empire: Banking in California, p. 405.
“Rattle him?”: “Death of Sharon,” San Francisco Chronicle, November 14, 1885.
“superlatively grand”: “SOMETHING ABOUT VIRGINIA, N.T.,” Golden Era, May 22, 1864.
“keen-eyed”: “Keen-Eyed Ki,” Daily Alta California, November 18, 1885 (an interview with Ah Ki).
“No offence was more”: “A Checkered Career,” Daily Alta California, November 14, 1885.
They hailed William Sharon: Lord, Comstock Mining and Miners, pp. 244–46; Tilton, William Chapman Ralston, pp. 141–42; Makley, The Infamous King of the Comstock, pp. 27–28; James, The Roar and the Silence, pp. 78–79.
quickly accumulated influence: “Gould and Curry,” Territorial Enterprise, December 7, 1871, transcribed in the Ellin Berlin Collection, UNR, 90-87/Box 6; “Stock Swindling. How Buyers Are Induced to Buy, and How They Are Cheated,” San Francisco Chronicle, February 23, 1872; Adolph Sutro, Closing Argument of Adolph Sutro on the Bill Before Congress to Aid the Sutro Tunnel Delivered Before the Committee on Mines and Mining of the House of Representatives of the United States of America, Monday, April 22, 1872 (Washington, D.C.: M’Gill & Witherow, Printers and Stereotypers, 1872), pp. 43–44; Bancroft, Chronicles of the Builders, Historical Character Study, Volume IV, p. 53; Angel, ed., History of Nevada, p. 594.
to seek fresh pastures: Tom Fitch, “Nevada,” Harper’s New Monthly Magazine, August 1865.
“a true fissure vein”: Prussian geologist Baron Ferdinand von Richthofen (uncle of famed World War I flying ace Manfred von Richthofen, “The Red Baron”) inspected the Comstock mines in 1864–65. Although Richthofen’s report The Comstock Lode: Its Character and the Probable Mode of Its Continuance in Depth, wasn’t available to the general public until 1866, he’d published his “true fissure vein” opinion in Adolph Sutro’s pamphlet The Advantages and Necessity of a Deep Drain Tunnel for the Comstock Lode (San Francisco, February 1865), p. 21, in February 1865. William Sharon had likely been acting on Richthofen’s advice before that. (The Mining & Scientific Press announced the beginning of a mining survey that was probably Richthofen’s in its issue of November 26, 1864, just two months after Sharon opened the Bank of California’s Virginia City branch.)
“The Bank Ring”: For the Bank Ring’s rising influence in the Yellow Jacket and at the C
hollar-Potosi, see Makley, The Infamous King of the Comstock, pp. 31–32, citing “Yellow Jacket Silver Mining Company Records 1861–1911,” Vol. 1, 1863, August 4, 1864, February 11, 1865, April 1, 1865, July 10, 1865, and July 9, 1866, UNR, Special Collections; “City Stock Reports—San Francisco Stock and Exchange Board,” Mining & Scientific Press, April 8, 1865 mentions William Sharon becoming a trustee of the Overman mine; also, James, The Roar and the Silence, pp. 78–79.
As the leading mines delved: Lord, Comstock Mining and Miners, p. 233
“Grand Drain Tunnel”: Adolf Sutro, The Advantages and Necessity of a Deep Drain Tunnel for the Great Comstock Ledge, p. 9.
“to devote, if”: Report of the Commissioners and Evidence Taken by the Committee on Mines and Mining of the House of Representatives of the United States in Regard to the Sutro Tunnel, Together with the Arguments and Report of the Committee Recommending a Load by the Government in Aid of the Construction of Said Work (Washington, D.C.: M’Gill and Witherow Printers and Stereotypers, 1872), p. 864.
“for a century”: Sutro, The Advantages and Necessity of a Deep Drain Tunnel for the Great Comstock Ledge, pp. 7–8.
Physically massive and imposing: Goodwin, As I Remember Them, p. 240.
Sutro had been involved: Adolph Sutro, “A Trip to Washoe, Part II,” Daily Alta California, April 13, 1860.
unable to enjoy a laugh: Mark Twain, “Letter from Dayton” (likely published in Territorial Enterprise between November 1863 and February 1864), in Branch, Hirst, and Smith, eds., The Works of Mark Twain: Early Tales & Sketches, Volume I, 1851–1864, pp. 418–19.
exclusive fifty-year franchise: “From Our Exchanges,” California Farmer and Journal of Useful Sciences, February 10, 1865; “A Great Project,” Virginia Daily Union, February 7, 1865, quoted in Adolph Sutro, The Mineral Resources of the United States, and the Importance and Necessity of Inaugurating a Rational System of Mining, with Special Reference to the Comstock Lode and the Sutro Tunnel, in Nevada (Baltimore, MD: John Murphy & Co., 1868), p. 208.
Sutro threw himself into: “Talk on ’Change,” Daily Alta California, January 15, 1865; “By State Telegraph,” Daily Alta California, January 29, 1865; “The Nevada Legislature,” Sacramento Daily Union, January 31, 1865; “From Our Exchanges,” California Farmer and Journal of Useful Sciences, February 10, 1865; “Important Enterprise,” Mining & Scientific Press, February 11, 1865; “The Great Drain Tunnel for the Comstock Lode,” Daily Alta California, March 12, 1865; “The Comstock Drain Tunnel,” Mining & Scientific Press, March 25, 1865; Sutro, The Advantages and Necessity of a Deep Drain Tunnel for the Great Comstock Ledge; Sutro, The Mineral Resources of the United States, and the Importance and Necessity of Inaugurating a Rational System of Mining, with Special Reference to the Comstock Lode and the Sutro Tunnel, in Nevada; Lord, Comstock Mining and Miners, pp. 233–43; Smith, History of the Comstock Lode, pp. 107–15.