REMINISCENCES OF EARLY MINING DAYS.
When news began to be received in various parts of California from the
first parties of these adventurers, upon their arrival in Washoe, their
reports were confirmatory of all that had before been said and imagined
of the new mines, and an almost unparalled excitement followed. Miners,
business men, and capitalists flocked to the wonderful land of silver
that had been found in the wilderness of Washoe, beyond the snowy peaks
of the Sierras.
The few hardy first prospectors soon counted their neighbors by
thousands, and found eager and excited newcomers jostling them on every
hand, planting stakes under their very noses and running lines round or
through their brush-shanties, as regardless of their presence as though
they were Piutes. The handful of old settlers found themselves
strangers, almost in a single day, in their own land and their own
dwellings.
There were numerous sales of mining claims almost daily, at what then
was thought high prices, and the hundreds who were unprovided with money
with which to purchase mining ground swarmed the hills in search of
ledges that were still undiscovered and unclaimed. The whole country was
supposed to be full of silver lodes as rich as the Comstock, and the man
who was so fortunate as to find a large unoccupied vein, containing rock
of a color similar to that of the Ophir, considered his fortune made.
The Mining Recorder of the district now drove a thriving trade; he could
hardly record the locations of mining claims as fast as they were made.
Some of these notices were literary curiosities, particularly those to
be found in the old Gold Hill book of records.
V. A. Houseworth, the “village blacksmith,” was the first Recorder at
Gold Hill, and the book of records was kept at a saloon, where it lay
upon a shelf behind the bar.
The “boys” were in the habit of taking it from behind the bar whenever
they desired to consult it, and if they thought a location made by them
was not advantageously bounded they altered the course of their lines
and fixed the whole thing up in good shape, in accordance with the
latest developments.
When the book was not wanted for this use, those lounging about the
saloon were in the habit of snatching it up and “batting” each other
over the head with it.
The old book is now in the office of the County Recorder, at Virginia
City, and is beginning to be regarded as quite as curiosity. It shows
altered dates, places where leaves have been torn out, and much other
rough usage.
The majority of the notices of location recorded by the early miners are
very vague. The first notice recorded in the book is one of the location
of a spring of water by Peter O’Riley and Patrick M^cLaughlin. It reads:
“We the undersigned claim this spring and stream, for mining
purposes.”
Nothing is said about where the spring is located. For aught the person
reading the record can discover, it may be in California or Oregon.
In the book are scores of locations made and recorded in the same loose
manner. Many of the recorded notices read:
“We the undersigned claim 2,000 feet on this quartz lead, ledge, lode,
or vein, beginning at this stake and running north.”
Not a word is said about where the stake is to be found. No wonder that
the lawyers drove a thriving trade in the early days of Washoe!
During the progress of a mining suit in the early days the lawyers
quarrelled for nearly two days about a certain stump from which one of
the parties to the suit desired to begin the measurement of their claim.
They produced witnesses who said they could identify the stump, and the
next morning the court adjourned, and jury and all concerned went out to
take a look at the landmark in question. No stump could be found. The
parties of the opposite side had dug it up the night before and packed
it away. Not even the spot where it was supposed to have stood could be
found, so completely had the ground been levelled in all directions.
I give the following verbatim copy of the original location-notice of
the Yellow-Jacket mine—a mine that has yielded many millions of
dollars—as it stands on the old Gold Hill records:
NOTICE.
That we the undersign claim Twelve hundred (1200) feet of this Quartz
Vain of its depths & Spurs commencing at Houseworth claim & running
north including twenty-five feet of surface on each Side of the Vain.
This Vain is known as the Yellow Jacket Vain. Taken up on May 1st.
1859—recorded June 27th, ’59.
H. B. CAMP.
JOHN BISHOP.
J. F. ROGERS.
The claim was called the Yellow Jacket because of the fact of the
locators finding a nest of yellow-jackets in the surface rock while they
were digging about for the purpose of prospecting the vein. Future
developments proved this claim to be on the Comstock lode.
What the locators meant by “depths,” in their notice, was dips—no matter
in what direction the “vain” might dip, they desired to put on record
their right to follow it.
Many notices read—“This vein with all of its dips, spurs, angles, and
variations.” The word ‘variations’ was presumed to capture everything in
the vicinity.
A practice prevailed among the early miners of locating quartz ledges as
“twins.” This was when they found two parallel veins so near together
that they feared, in case of their locating but one, that parties would
take up the other and give them trouble in some way. None of the twins
ever became famous.
The owners of the Ophir, and some of the adjoining claims on the
Comstock lead, continued to use rockers and arastras for some time after
it was ascertained that what was at first supposed to be worthless, was
silver ore of the richest description, but they no longer threw the
“blue stuff” away. It was all saved and sacked up for shipment to San
Francisco, thence to England for reduction. Many arastras were running,
and the camp soon presented quite a bustling appearance. The first house
erected in Virginia City, was built by Lyman Jones, who is still a
resident of Nevada. It was a canvas structure, 18 × 40 feet in size, and
stood near the present corner of B Street and Sutton Avenue, at no great
distance from the Ophir Mine.
It was kept as a boarding-house and saloon. Mr. Jones opened his house
with two barrels of “straight” whisky, but being of an accommodating
disposition and wishing to suit all tastes, he dignified the contents of
one of these barrels with the name of brandy. As alcohol was the
foundation of nearly all the liquors seen in the country at that time,
it made little difference by what name they were announced to the
consumer, Mr. Jones had an old sluice-box for a bar, and the bar
fixtures were by no means numerous or costly.
At this time the Ophir Company were in the habit of bringing their
gold-dust to Mr. Jones’s house, and leaving it for safe-keeping, and
frequently he had in his place as high as twenty and thirty thousand
dollars.
As the walls of his “hotel” were constructed of nothing more substantial
than a single thickness of cotton cloth, safer places might have been
conceived of, in which to deposit such an amount of gold. At length,
when the grand rush from California came, and adventurers of all kinds
swarmed along the lode, Mr. Jones refused to any longer act in the
capacity of banker to the Ophir folks, as he did not care to run the
risk of having his throat cut for gold not his own,—in fact did not want
his throat cut at all.
At first it was almost impossible to procure lumber of any kind for
building purposes, and the houses erected were principally of canvas;
though a few rough stone-houses were soon built and the miners
constructed cabins of the rough rocks lying about on the sides of the
hills. Many dug holes a few feet square in the sides of steep banks, and
covering these with a roof of sage-bush and dirt announced themselves
“at home” to their friends.
As winter came on, not a few who had been living in tents or the open
air, betook themselves for shelter to the tunnels they had begun to run
into the hills; widening out a place at some distance back from the
mouth for bedroom and parlor.
Some of those who thus made habitations of tunnels did their cooking in
the open air, under a brush-shed placed in front; others, displaying
more industry and ingenuity, made a kitchen some distance back in their
underground quarters, working a hole up to the surface of the earth,
through which the smoke of their fire found egress, presenting the
curious appearance of a small semi-active volcano, when seen at a
distance by one who knew nothing of the subterranean lodging-house
whence the smoke proceeded.
A Scotchman tunnelled into a hill of dry and soft rock near Silver City
and excavated a habitation in which he dwelt for years, and in which he
finally died. He worked out several chambers of considerable size in the
rock, one of which was his library and contained three or four hundred
volumes of books, principally of a religious character.
His place was on a secluded ravine, a mile from the town, and he led the
life of a hermit; indeed, his home not a little resembled the
rock-dwelling of Robinson Crusoe. He had been educated for the ministry
in his youth, and now in his old age, became again a student and gave
nearly his whole time to pious meditations. During pleasant weather, in
summer, the ladies of Silver City frequently visited the recluse on the
Sabbath, when, sitting on a bench at the mouth of his subterranean
habitation, he would talk beautiful sermons to them.
In 1859, when the discovery of silver was made, the only wagon-road in
all the country was the old Emigrant Road; coming in across the Plains,
passing through Carson Valley and thence ascending and crossing the
Sierra Nevada Mountains to California, by the way of Placerville.
Virginia City being situated on a sort of sloping plateau, on the
eastern face of Mount Davidson, at the height of over 6000 feet above
the level of the sea, was a place difficult of access. Wagons could be
used in the surrounding valleys, but Virginia City could receive no
freight except such as could be carried up the mountain on the backs of
pack-mules. Soon after the discovery of silver, however, companies
located routes for wagon-roads to the place, and began the difficult
work of building them, blasting out passage-ways in many places through
solid rock along the sides of cañons shut in by almost perpendicular
walls. Men swarmed on these roads during their construction, the
explosion of heavy blasts was almost constant along the cañons, and it
was not many months before they were completed, when lumber, timber, and
many other much-needed articles, that could not be packed on the backs
of mules, poured into Virginia City whose streets were soon crowded with
huge “prairie schooners”—as the great mountain wagons are called—drawn
by long lines of mules or horses, all musical with bells.
The completion of a practicable wagon-road to Virginia City was at that
time considered a great achievement, but now locomotives rush and shriek
round the mountain steeps up which the patient mules tugged and groaned
in former days.
While the wagon-roads were being built, the miners were not idle.
Supplies for their use could readily be packed up the mountain, and the
rich silver ore, securely sewed up in canvas bags, made convenient
return loads for the trains of pack-mules. In a month or two the several
companies working on the Comstock discontinued the use of rockers and
arastras. The richest of their ore was sacked up and sold for shipment
to Europe, and that of a lower grade was piled up in dumps and ore-bins
to be worked in mills in the country at some future day.
[Illustration: THE EUREKA MILL—CARSON RIVER.]
The following extract from the _Territorial Enterprise_, then published
as a weekly newspaper at Genoa (it is now published as a daily and
weekly at Virginia City, and is the leading paper of the city and
state), will give some idea of what was being done three months after
the discovery. The item was published on Saturday, October 1, under the
title of “The Mines:”
“The mines at Virginia Town and Gold Hill are exceeding the most
sanguine expectations of their owners. At Virginia Town, particularly,
the claims on the main leads promise to excel in richness the
far-famed Allison lead in California in its palmiest days.
“Claims are changing hands at almost fabulous prices. No fictitious
sales either, but _bona-fide_ business operation. The main lead, on
which is the celebrated Comstock and other claims, appears to be
composed of ores producing both silver and gold, and the more it is
prospected the richer it is proving.
“Donald Davidson & Co., of San Francisco, have purchased 200 tons of
the rock, containing gold and silver in conjunction, at $2,000 per
ton, and are shipping it to England by way of San Francisco, for
assay. (Smelting is meant). Other parties are investing heavily. All
that are now interested are but making preliminary arrangements for
next spring, when we may expect to find an amount of either dust or
ore sent from that section that will astonish some of the now
incredulous ones in California.”
They were not only selling and shipping large quantities of ore at this
time, but were also beginning to work ores in mills and water-power
arastras on the Carson River, near Dayton. In October, 1859, Logan &
Holmes had a four-stamp mill in operation (by horse-power) at Dayton,
which crushed four tons of ore per day, and Messrs. Hastings & Woodworth
had two water-power arastras running, which reduced three tons each per
day. The ore being worked by these mills was from Gold Hill, where the
ore of the vein as yet contained only gold, they not yet having
penetrated to a sufficient depth to reach the silver.
[Illustration]