between $4 million and $4.5 million: Makley, The Infamous King of the Comstock, p. 117, citing Stephen Franklin’s biography of William C. Ralston (Franklin was the bank’s secretary in 1875) and an 1886 statement by bank director Thomas Bell, both in “Biography of William C. Ralston prepared for Chronicles of the Kings: and material used in its preparation, 1886–1889,” UCB.
and refused the offer: “The Great Bank Failure,” Sacramento Daily Record-Union, August 28, 1875; “The Death of W. C. Ralston,” Sacramento Daily Record-Union, August 30, 1875.
“I fear that”: “The Bank Excitement in San Francisco,” Sacramento Daily Record-Union, August 28, 1875, quoting San Francisco Bulletin, August 27, 1875.
left the bank shortly after 9:30: For the scene at the bank and all quotes, see “The Bank of California,” Daily Alta California, August 27, 1875.
“great hope and”: “The Voice of the People,” Daily Alta California, August 29, 1875, citing an interview with A. A. Cohen, a lawyer, lobbyist, and speculator greatly involved with “the Associates” of the Central Pacific Railroad—see White, Railroaded, 179–85.
directors met again at 1:00 p.m.: “By State Telegraph,” Sacramento Daily Record-Union, August 28, 1875.
“fully understood” . . . “committee of one”: “The Death of W. C. Ralston,” Sacramento Daily Record-Union, August 30, 1875.
“generally commented on”: “Dead. William C. Ralston Drowned Off Black Point,” Daily Alta California, August 28, 1875.
from the words they contained: Death of Ralston and all quotes primarily from “Dead. William C. Ralston Drowned Off Black Point,” Daily Alta California, August 28, 1875. See also, “No Proof That Ralston’s Death Was Suicidal,” Daily Alta California, August 29, 1875; “The Inquest,” Daily Alta California, August 29, 1875.
“Best thing he”: Gertrude Atherton, California: An Intimate History (New York and London: Harper & Brothers Publishers, 1914), p. 279.
“Did you do”: Grant Smith, “Ralston’s Death Stuns the Coast,” Grant Smith Collection, UCB, Box 2, Folder 8, p. 449, citing an interview with H. L. Slosson.
“sad that such”: “William C. Ralston,” Daily Alta California, August 28, 1875.
Rumors abroad already claimed: “The Financial Situation,” Daily Alta California, August 30, 1875.
“resuscitated”: “Brokers and Mining,” Daily Alta California, September 1, 1875.
“proud and manly”: “A Night of Rejoicing,” Daily Alta California, October 3, 1875.
“a feat that”: “The Bank of California,” Daily Alta California, October 3, 1875.
net worth at $75 million . . . “richest man”: This is likely an estimate puffed up by the capital value of his stock holdings, which he couldn’t have sold without cratering their value. “The Effect in This City,” New York Times, August 28, 1875.
“Fire!”: “Virginia City Destroyed by Fire October 26, 1875,” Grant Smith Collection, UCB, Box 2, Folder 8, pp. 455–61.
“lodging house [of]”: “Virginia’s Calamity,” San Francisco Chronicle, October 28, 1875.
“flamed like a”: “Virginia City Destroyed by Fire October 26, 1875,” Grant Smith Collection, UCB, Box 2, Folder 8, pp. 455–61.
“hideous and demoralizing”: “The Burning of Virginia City,” Sacramento Daily Union, August 28, 1875.
“with a rush”: “The Burning of Virginia City,” Sacramento Daily Union, August 28, 1875.
“cyclone of fire”: “Virginia City Destroyed by Fire October 26, 1875,” Grant Smith Collection, UCB, Box 2, Folder 8, pp. 455–61.
“Oh, Mr. Mackay”: Goodwin, As I Remember Them, p. 161.
“his old miner”: “Characteristic,” Territorial Enterprise, October 28, 1875, photostat copy in the Grant Smith Collection, UCB, Box 1, Folder 17.
“superhuman”: “Virginia’s Calamity,” San Francisco Chronicle, October 28, 1875.
“all the small”: “Latest Despatches,” Daily Alta California, August 28, 1875.
turned to light rain: For the Virginia City fire, see “Terrible Calamity,” San Francisco Chronicle, October 26, 1875; “A Disaster to San Francisco,” “A Terrible Fire!,” “Despatches to Senator Sharon,” “Financial and Commercial,” “Help Virginia City,” “The Virginia Disaster,” “Mining Stocks and Mining,” “The Very Latest on the Fire,” Daily Alta California, October 27, 1875; “Pacific Coast” and “Local Brevities,” Los Angeles Herald, October 27, 1875; “Conflagration at Virginia City,” Marysville Daily Appeal, October 27, 1875; “A Fortunate Precaution,” “The Great Fire,” and “The Virginia City Fire,” Sacramento Daily Union, October 27, 1875; “The Virginia Fire,” San Francisco Bulletin, October 27, 1875; “After the Fire,” “Financial and Commercial,” and “The Latest Despatches,” Daily Alta California, October 28, 1875; “Lessons of the Fire,” Some Consequences of the Fire,” and “The Burning of Virginia City,” Sacramento Daily Union, October 28, 1875; “Virginia City. Condition of the Mines,” San Francisco Bulletin, October 28, 1875; “Financial and Commercial,” “The Future of Virginia City,” “Virginia City,” Daily Alta California, October 29, 1875; “After the Great Fire,” “The Future of Virginia City,” Sacramento Daily Union, October 29, 1875; “The Great Mining Camp Destroyed,” Pacific Rural Press, October 30, 1875; “Virginia City Destroyed by Fire October 26, 1875,” Grant Smith Collection, UCB, Box 2, Folder 8, pp. 455–61; Goodwin, As I Remember Them, p. 161. For all pertaining to Mary Jane Simpson and her death, see “Mary Jane Simpson. The Wonderful Mule of the Big Bonanza,” San Francisco Bulletin, January 27, 1876.
A series of heavy showers: Doten, The Journals of Alf Doten, pp. 1261–62, entries for October 26 and 27, 1875.
“begrimed with dust”: “Characteristic,” Territorial Enterprise, October 28, 1875, photostat copy in the Grant Smith Collection, UCB, Box 1, Folder 17. (Plausibly, it was Dan de Quille who spoke.)
CHAPTER 16: THE BONANZA KING
“determined to come”: “Virginia Rising from Her Ashes,” San Francisco Chronicle, October 29, 1875.
business was O. C. Steele: “The Burning of Virginia City,” Sacramento Daily Union, October 28, 1875.
“the Virginia sufferers”: “Virginia Rising from Her Ashes,” San Francisco Chronicle, October 29, 1875.
“Do it thoroughly”: Goodwin, As I Remember Them, p. 161. In “Noted Actors Recipients of His Bounty,” San Francisco Call, July 21, 1902, the number is $450,000.
“no more fire”: “The Bonanza Mines,” San Francisco Chronicle, October 29, 1875.
“all right”: “Reports in the City Yesterday,” John W. Mackay to Flood and O’Brien, San Francisco Chronicle, October 29, 1875.
“coming from you”: “Reports in the City Yesterday,” President S. F. S. and E. Board to John W. Mackay, San Francisco Chronicle, October 29, 1875.
“sixty days will repair”: Ibid.
“The City Rapidly”: “Virginia’s Energy,” San Francisco Chronicle, October 31, 1875.
“Virginia comes up”: Ibid.
“I mean Mr. Mackay”: Ibid.
“keen, penetrating eyes”: “Millionaire Mackay,” Marin Journal, September 29, 1881, citing Washington Capital, undated.
worth many tens of millions of dollars: “The Big Bonanza,” New York Tribune, August 27, 1875 (1875 estimates of Mackay’s worth varied wildly, but never seemed lower than $20 million).
“a fine Havana”: “Virginia’s Energy,” San Francisco Chronicle, October 31, 1875.
“Sacred to the Memory”: “Mary Jane Simpson. The Wonderful Mule of the Big Bonanza,” San Francisco Bulletin, January 27, 1876.
seven weeks after the fire: Raymond, Mines and Mining West of the Rocky Mountains, Eighth Annual Report, 1877, p. 154, citing James Fair’s annual report for the year 1875.
International Hotel rose: Drury, An Editor on the Comstock Lode, p. 121.
body was simply colossal: Henry de Groot in John J. Powell, Nevada: The Land of Silver, pp. 94–95; George Becker’s “Comstock Mine M
aps, Number III,” in the U.S.G.S.’s 1882 survey of the Comstock Lode.
“about as high as”: Young, Men and Memories: Personal Reminiscences, p. 442.
wasn’t on the lode for a period: Smith, History of the Comstock Lode, p. 199, places Fair in the east; Lewis, Silver Kings, pp. 162–63; “Too Much for the Bonanza Firm,” New York Times, December 12, 1879, mentions Fair “ailing.”
Mackay’s cash income: Calculations based on figures in “The Big Bonanza,” New York Tribune, August 27, 1875, which said the Firm owned 62,000 of the Con. Virginia’s 108,000 shares (57.4 percent) and 295,000 of the California’s 540,000 shares (54.6 percent) and then calculating based on Mackay’s three-eighths share of the Firm (57.4 percent of $1.08 million = $619,920; $619,920 x 3/8 = $232,470 from the Con. Virginia dividend) + (54.6 percent of $1.08 million = $589,680; $589,680 x 3/8 = $221,130 from the California dividend) = $453,600 per month. High-end figures based on other sources claim the Firm’s ownership reached 75 percent.
half the states in the Union: The Firm’s nemesis Squire Dewey made the very comparison at the Con. Virginia’s annual meeting in January 1877.
length of the bank: “San Francisco Items,” Sacramento Daily Union, May 16, 1878.
“W-w-well”: Grant Smith heard the story from William E. Sharon, nephew of William Sharon: Grant Smith Collection, Mackay MSS, 13, Box 4, Folder 2; versions of it are in “The Bonanza Boss,” New York Times, July 8, 1878, citing Paris Figaro and “John W. Mackay Dies After a Brief Illness,” New York Herald, July 21, 1902, quoting Robert Gracey.
approximately 20,000: New York Tribune reported 25,000 in Virginia City in the summer of 1875, but Storey County’s 1875 census reported 19,528 in the whole county. That number probably increased in 1876 and 1877. Smith, History of the Comstock Lode, p. 197.
operated by the Bonanza Firm: The Con. Virginia and California mines had 933 men on their payroll in October 1876: “Mining Intelligence,” Mining & Scientific Press, October 14, 1876.
“drinking saloons more”: “The Big Bonanza,” New York Tribune, August 27, 1875. Although written the previous year, I’m confident the article’s observations hold true for the summer of 1876.
“ask no better”: “Sunday on the Comstock,” Mining & Scientific Press, October 28, 1876.
“one expects streets”: Pacific Tourist, 1877, p. 210; see also Miriam Florence Leslie, California: A Pleasure Trip from Gotham to the Golden Gate, April, May, June, 1877 (New York: G.W. Carleton & Co., 1877), p. 277. “a curiosity to find”: “Comstock Sparks and Cinders,” Daily Alta California, November 14, 1875, citing Gold Hill Daily News.
John and Louise decided: Although Silver Platter, a fictionalized account of Louise Mackay’s life written by John and Louise’s granddaughter, Ellin Mackay Berlin, and accepted as gospel by many subsequent historians, makes much of Louise Mackay’s moving to New York in the summer of 1876, having her attempts to break into “society” brutally snubbed by Yankee aristocrats, and then boldly moving to Paris in the aftermath, events likely didn’t play out in such pat novelistic fashion. A small item in the April 16, 1876, issue of the San Francisco Chronicle gives evidence that John and Louise Mackay had the Paris move planned before they left California. The blurb said Mackay and his family would soon leave for the Centennial Exhibition and that “Mrs. Mackay will next proceed to Paris, where her father, Major Hungerford, now is.” Louise Mackay had passed through New York on several previous occasions. She was almost certainly well aware of the painful humiliations an upjumped Catholic seamstress received in the foyers and parlors of Yankee blue-blood Protestant society. The author has found no contemporary evidence or memory attributed to one of the Mackays’ contemporaries that supports the account in Ellin Berlin’s novel, including in Ms. Berlin’s four boxes of research in the University of Nevada archives; also, the timeline doesn’t leave much opportunity for an attempted move to New York. The Mackays left California in mid-May, toured the Centennial Exhibition, then departed New York for Europe on June 10 or 11; Louise’s parents and sister had been in Paris since at least the previous November: “Californians in Paris,” Daily Alta California, December 4 and 16, 1875, and January 16 and 28, March 19, and June 7, 1876.
escaped California in mid-May: “Going to the Centennial,” San Francisco Chronicle, May 17, 1876.
SS Adriatic: “Passengers Sailed,” New York Times, June 11, 1876.
Van Bokkelen had also been: “The Virginia Calamity,” Mining & Scientific Press, July 5, 1873.
1.5 million francs: “Grant in Paris,” New York Herald, November 22, 1877.
Mackay back in the Comstock: “News Items from Nevada,” San Francisco Bulletin, August 15, 1876; “J. W. Mackay” had arrived in New York aboard the SS St. Germaine from Le Havre on August 3: New York Times, August 4, 1876.
he sold the house: Real estate agent William Magee to Grant Smith, June 9, 1930, Grant Smith Collection, UCB, Box 1, Folder 18.
Con. Virginia raised $16.7 million: “Nevada Production,” Mining & Scientific Press, January 20, 1877, although Smith, History of the Comstock Lode, p. 200, credits the Con. Virginia with $15.3 million for the year. I cleaved to the more contemporary number; California mine in 1876—$13.4 gross yield, $8.64 in dividends: “The California Bonanza” and “Nevada Production,” Mining & Scientific Press, January 20, 1877.
That year, the three mints: Mint statistics for 1876—$46,583,450 in gold coin, $24,245,257 in silver, $70,828,707 total: “Financial and Commercial,” Daily Alta California, January 12, 1877.
The root problem was: “Fair’s Misleading Report,” Grant Smith Collection, UCB (box and folder unrecorded due to author oversight); Smith, History of the Comstock Lode, pp. 199–202; Makley, John Mackay, pp. 106–8.
“good name”: “Americans Mourn Loss of Mackay,” San Francisco Call, July 21, 1902, quoting P. H. Lannan.
“like Jews”: “San Francisco,” Chicago Tribune, May 12, 1878.
“Square dealing”: “The Bonanza Kings,” New York Times, May 21, 1885, quoting the correspondence of St. Louis Globe-Democrat, May 9, 1885.
“the sharpest and”: Ibid.
“hired fighters”: “The Senatorship,” Carson Morning Appeal, September 30, 1882, which said Fair had kept the bodyguard “for years.”
“Those lads would”: “John W. Mackay and the Comstock Lode,” Grant Smith Collection, UCB, Box 1, Folder 12.
“the jolly millionaire”: “San Francisco, May 5, 1878,” Chicago Tribune, May 12, 1878.
the most handsome: “ ’Frisco,” Chicago Daily Tribune, December 2, 1877; Benjamin Lloyd, Lights and Shades in San Francisco, pp. 334–35.
“given their time”: For the smoking anecdote, see “Tales of His Life,” San Francisco Chronicle, December 30, 1894; Goodwin, As I Remember Them, pp. 180–81; “Flush Times on the Comstock,” San Francisco Chronicle, April 3, 1898; William Gillis, Memories of Mark Twain and Steve Gillis (Sonora, CA: Banner, 1924), pp. 94–96; John Taylor Waldorf, A Kid on the Comstock: Reminiscences of a Virginia City Childhood (Sanger, CA: American West Publishing Company, 1970), p. 62.
“the more oil”: “ ’Frisco,” Chicago Daily Tribune, December 2, 1877; Lloyd, Lights and Shades in San Francisco, pp. 334–35.
“Pat, have you”: Grant Smith, “Mackay as the Comstock Knew Him,” Grant Smith Collection, UCB, citing an interview with “Pat,” who was probably too embarrassed to allow Smith to use his surname.
“What son-of-a-bitch stopped”: Grant Smith, “Mackay as the Comstock Knew Him,” Grant Smith Collection, UCB, citing an interview with H. H. Bailey.
“I never received”: Sam Davis, “He Was Manly, He Was Kind, and He Was Honorable,” San Francisco Examiner, July 21, 1902.
“If I had”: Ibid.
“How much for”: Waldorf, A Kid on the Comstock, p. 62.
“on good terms”: Drury, An Editor on the Comstock Lode, pp. 135–37.
“I’ve lost the”: Grant Smith Collection, UCB, Box 4, Folder 1, citing Robert L. Fulton,
of Reno.
“I always got”: Drury, An Editor on the Comstock Lode, pp. 65–66.
“It’s a John Mackay!”: Ibid., p. 65.
“dirty purse pride”: “Flood’s Foes,” San Francisco Chronicle, January 12, 1877; also, “Mining and Mining Stocks,” Daily Alta California, January 11 and 12, 1877; “Annual Meeting of Consolidated Virginia Stockholders,” Sacramento Daily Record-Union, January 12, 1877; “Rights of Stockholders,” Mining & Scientific Press, January 20, 1877.
“We believe that”: “Mackey [sic] and White,” Daily Alta California, January 14, 1877.
“So explodes another”: Smith, History of the Comstock Lode, p. 204, citing Daily Stock Report, May 2, 1877.
“The Bonanza Kings”: “The Bonanza Kings,” San Francisco Chronicle, March 31, 1878.
“great disinclination to any”: “The Bonanza Kings,” New York Times, May 21, 1885, quoting the correspondence of St. Louis Globe-Democrat, May 9, 1885.
relaxing with his family: “Pacific Coast Items,” Sacramento Daily Union, September 7, 1877.
absence of five months: “Brevities,” Daily Alta California, October 4, 1877.
The dividends were financing: Ron Chernow, Grant (New York: Penguin Press, 2017), p. 868.
“buy their old”: “The Mackay Family in San Francisco and Paris,” Grant Smith Collection, UCB, Box 2, Folder 8, citing a series of interviews with Alexander O’Grady, son of Alice O’Grady, the Mackay family nurse during those years. Both mother and son lived in the Mackay household through the Paris years. (The author could find no contemporary reference to the quip.)
stepped down from the carriages: “The Big Bonanza,” Chicago Daily Tribune, December 7, 1877.
switching between four languages: “The Bonanza King,” Daily Alta California, October 20, 1883, citing an interview with Colonel Tom Ochiltree.
“an abundance of jewels”: “The Big Bonanza,” Chicago Daily Tribune, December 7, 1877.
The Bonanza King Page 74