DISCOVERY OF THE GREAT COMSTOCK MINE.
In the spring of 1859, a considerable number of miners returned to
Six-Mile Cañon, to work. They now made their headquarters at Gold Hill,
where two or three log-houses including a large log boarding-house, had
been erected.
Peter O’Riley and Pat M^cLaughlin set to work well up at the head of the
ravine, where the ground began to rise toward the mountain. They used
rockers and found small pay. They continued to work at this point until
about the 1st of June, 1859, gradually extending their operations up the
slope of the hill, in the hope of finding something better. They had
started a little cut or trench up the hill and were washing the dirt
taken from this in their rockers. Before they started the cut they were
making only from $1.50 to $2 per day; in the cut their pay was even
less. They were becoming discouraged, and were thinking of going to
Walker River to try their luck, placer-mines having been found in that
region the year before, but concluded to work on where they were a few
days longer—probably in the hope of being able to raise money with which
to go to Walker River.
Having but a small stream of water, it became necessary for them to dig
a hole as a sort of reservoir, in which to collect it for use in their
rockers.
They set to work a short distance above the little cut in which they
were mining, to make the needed reservoir or water-hole, and at a depth
of about four feet, struck into a stratum of the rich decomposed ore of
the Ophir Mine, and of the now world-famous Comstock silver lode.
The manner in which the grand discovery was made, was much less romantic
than in the case of the discovery of the celebrated silver-mine of
Potosi, Peru. What our miners found, was not glittering native silver,
but a great bed of black sulphuret of silver—a decomposed ore of silver
filled with spangles of native gold. This gold, however, was alloyed
with silver to such an extent that it was more the color of silver than
of gold.
The gold dug in the placer-mines of California, is worth from $16 to $19
per ounce, whereas, the gold taken from the croppings of the Comstock
was worth no more than $11 or $12 per ounce.
When the discoverers struck into the odd-looking, black dirt, they only
thought that it was a sudden and rather singular change from the
yellowish gravel and clay in which they had been digging. As any change
was welcome, the luck in which they had been working considered, they at
once concluded to try some of the curious-looking stuff in their
rockers.
The result astounded them. Before, they had only been taking out a
dollar or two per day, but now they found the bottoms of their rockers
covered with gold as soon as a few buckets of the new dirt had been
washed. They found that they were literally taking out gold by the
pound.
However, as the gold they were getting was much lighter in color and
weight than any they had found below on the cañon, or even on the
surface in their cut, they began to fear that all was not right. They
thought that, after all, what they had found might be some sort of
“bogus stuff”—base metal of some new and strange kind.
It is not strange that these impecunious miners, tinkering away there on
the side of a lone, sage-covered mountain, with their rockers, should
have felt a little alarmed on account of the great quantity of gold they
were getting, as in a few weeks after the discovery had been made—and
the work had been advanced further into the croppings of the lode—they
were taking out gold at the rate of $1,000 per day. This they were doing
with the rockers. Taking the harder lumps left on the screens of the
rockers, one man was able to pound out gold at the rate of $100 per day
in a common hand-mortar.
[Illustration: COMSTOCK DISCOVERING SILVER.]
In the evening of the day on which the grand discovery was made by
O’Riley and M^cLaughlin, H. T. P. Comstock made his appearance upon the
scene.
“Old Pancake,” who was then looking after his Gold Hill mines, which
were beginning to yield largely, had strolled northward up the mountain,
toward evening, in search of a mustang pony that he had out prospecting
for a living among the hills. He had found his pony, had mounted him,
and with his long legs dragging the tops of the sage-brush, came riding
up just as the lucky miners were making the last clean-up of their
rockers for the day.
Comstock, who had a keen eye for all that was going on in the way of
mining in any place he might visit, saw at a glance the unusual quantity
of gold that was in sight.
When the gold caught his eye, he was off the back of his pony in an
instant. He was soon down in the thick of it all—“hefting” and running
his fingers through the gold, and picking into and probing the mass of
strange-looking “stuff” exposed.
Conceiving at once that a wonderful discovery of some kind had been
made, Old Pancake straightened himself up, as he arose from a critical
examination of the black mass in the cut, wherein he had observed the
glittering spangles of gold, and coolly proceeded to inform the
astonished miners that they were working on ground that belonged to him.
He asserted that he had some time before taken up 160 acres of land at
this point, for a ranche; also, that he owned the water they were using
in mining, it being from the Caldwell spring, in what was afterwards
known as Spanish Ravine.
Suspecting that they were working in a decomposed quartz vein,
M^cLaughlin and O’Riley had written out and posted up a notice, calling
for a claim of 300 feet for each and a third claim for the discovery;
which extra claim they were entitled to under the mining laws.
Having soon ascertained all this from the men before him, Comstock would
have “none of it.” He boisterously declared that they should not work
there at all, unless they would agree to locate himself and his friend
Manny (Emmanuel) Penrod in the claim. In case he and Penrod were given
an interest, there should be no further trouble about the ground.
After consulting together, the discoverers concluded that, rather than
have a great row about the matter, they would put the names of Comstock
and Penrod in their notice of location.
This being arranged to his satisfaction, Comstock next demanded that 100
feet of ground on the lead should be segregated and given to Penrod and
himself for the right to the water they were using—he stoutly asserting
that he not only owned the land, but also the water, and, as they had
recognized his right to the land, they could not consistently ignore his
claim to the water flowing upon it. In short, he talked so loudly and so
much about his water-right that he at last got the 100 feet, segregated,
as he demanded. This 100 feet afterwards became the Spanish or Mexican
mine, and yielded millions of dollars.
Comstock would probably not so easily have obtained what he demanded,
had the men who made the discovery been fully aware of its great value.
They, however, did not know that the “blue stuff” (sulphuret of silver),
which they had dug into, was of any value, and even the gold itself
seemed altogether too plentiful as well as a good deal “off color.”
Comstock had probably at some time posted up a notice claiming 160 acres
of land, somewhere in that neighborhood, as a ranche, but if he did so
he never had his notice recorded. Men in those days, while roving about
the country, very frequently wrote out and stuck up notices claiming
land, springs, the water of streams, quartz veins, gravel deposits, or
anything else that they might for the moment think valuable, but unless
such claims were properly recorded and worked they could not be held, as
all miners and others well knew—a mere notice expiring at the end of ten
days, when the property might be taken up, recorded and held by the
first man that came along. Comstock had some show of right to the water
and to the placer-mines along the upper part of Six-mile Cañon, as the
year before, he, Old Virginia and Penrod, had bought of old Joe Caldwell
a set of sluice-boxes and the water of a spring. However, the possession
of a set of sluices on the cañon and a right to use water from a certain
spring in the neighborhood, by no means gave Comstock or his friends the
right to lay claim to a vein of quartz found in a hill somewhere in
their section of the country.
John Bishop, who bought Old Virginia’s interest in the sluices,
gravel-diggings and water, got no share of the quartz vein discovered by
Pete O’Riley and Pat M^cLaughlin, though he managed to get in on the
lead, locating the mine known as the Central No. 1; now a part of the
California, one of the bonanza mines with millions of ore in sight.
Bishop put up the first arastra ever built on the lead, starting it up
two or three days before that of the Ophir folks began running. He sold
his interest in the Central No 1. for $4,000 and shortly afterwards the
purchasers sold the same ground for $1,800 per foot—now (as incorporated
in the California mine) the ground is selling at over $50,000 per foot,
and John Bishop still works, as a miner, at Gold Hill.
After Comstock had managed to become largely interested in the new
discovery, and after the gold taken out by O’Riley and M^cLaughlin had
been carried down to Gold Hill and exhibited and examined, there was at
once a great local excitement in regard to the new diggings, and all
were anxious to get an interest in the claim, or on the lead as near to
the original discovery as possible.
Those who were finally recorded in the Ophir notice as original locators
were the following persons: Peter O’Riley, Patrick M^cLaughlin, H. T. P.
Comstock, E. Penrod, and J. A. (“Kentuck”) Osborne. The men named had
one-sixth each of 1,400 feet of ground on the lead and, in addition,
Comstock and Penrod had 100 feet segregated to them, making 1,500 feet
taken up by the party.
The 100 feet of Comstock and Penrod, though in the midst of the 1,400
feet of ground, was not reckoned as a part of the Ophir claim and was
soon sold and worked as a separate mine, under the name of the Mexican
or Spanish mine.
The Ophir claim was the first that was located, as a quartz claim, at
any point on the Comstock lode, though as early as February 22nd., 1858,
Old Virginia made a location on a large vein lying to the westward of
the Comstock. This vein is known as the Virginia lead or Virginia
croppings. It has never yielded much ore, but contains vast quantities
of base metal of various kinds.
At one time it was thought by some that this would prove to be the main
or “mother” lead of the range, as at the surface, and for a considerable
distance below the surface, the Comstock vein dipped west toward it.
Parties bought Old Virginia’s claim, and began suit against the Ophir
Company, asserting that the lead on which they were at work was the same
as that located, in 1858, by Old Virginia. It was a sort of speculation
on the part of those who brought the suit, and it is understood that
they succeeded in obtaining $60,000 from the Ophir Company.
At the beginning of this suit it was necessary, if possible, to produce
the original notice placed upon the croppings of the lead by Old
Virginia, but the parties to whom he had sold his claim could never get
him sufficiently sobered up to show where it could be found. Growing
desperate, they at length seized the old fellow one evening, and
thrusting him into the mouth of a big tunnel, closed and locked upon him
a heavy iron gate. The next morning when they went to the tunnel they
found Old Virginia sober, but very savage.
He would say nor do nothing until they had taken him down town and given
him half a tumbler of whisky. This swallowed, he was ready for business.
He marched directly up the side of the mountain, and going straight to a
large tower of croppings, drew out a small block of rock, and lo! behind
it was seen snugly stowed the much-desired notice.
It was probably on account of his having made this location that Old
Virginia was given the credit of having been the discoverer of the
Comstock lode, his interest in which he was said to have sold for an old
horse, a pair of blankets, and a bottle of whisky. He sold a third
interest in the sluices, water, and diggings in the cañon to John
Bishop, for $25.
James Hart, who had an interest in the sluices, and diggings in the
cañon, sold his right to be “considered in” on the big discovery to J.
D. Winters, of Washoe Valley, for a horse and $20 in coin. In this way
Winters got into the Ophir as one of the locators, and from this came
the “old horse” story that has always been saddled upon Old Virginia—to
fix it still more firmly upon the old fellow, the bottle of whiskey was
added.