Statewide County NV Archives History - Books .....Chapter VIII Election And Discovery Of Silver 1881 ************************************************ Copyright. All rights reserved. http://www.usgwarchives.net/copyright.htm http://www.usgwarchives.net/nv/nvfiles.htm ************************************************ File contributed for use in USGenWeb Archives by: Joy Fisher sdgenweb@yahoo.com June 5, 2007, 10:10 pm Book Title: History Of Nevada CHAPTER VIII. ELECTION AND DISCOVERY OF SILVER. Carson County Election October 30, 1858—Hanging of "Lucky Bill" June 19, 1858—Preludes to the Silver Discovery— Searchings in Nevada for Silver—The Grosh Brothers— The Father's Account of Their Discoveries—The Lost Shaft Explained by J. M. Hunter—The Black Rock Prospectors. THE year 1858 was a preparatory one in which events shaped themselves with an apparent view of placing a silver lining to the cloud that had overhung the fortunes of those living just over the borders east from California. An attempt was made to reorganize the County of Carson that proved only partially successful. John S. Child was commissioned Probate Judge by Governor Cummings, the successor of Brigham Young, and he called an election for Carson County officers that occurred October 30th, of that year. There were six voting precincts, and two tickets in the field. One ticket purported to be anti-Mormon, although there was but one professed Mormon in the valley at the time; but the anti-Mormon movement was in fact the vigilant party who had sympathized with the act or participated in the hanging of "Lucky Bill," and they termed the Judge and his friends Mormons, or Mormon sympathizers. When the election returns came in, four of the six precincts' votes were thrown out and not counted, because of illegal voting, and the two counted were as follows:— CARSON COUNTY ELECTION OCTOBER 30, 1858. FOR REPRESENTATIVE. FOR REPRESENTATIVE. H. B. Clemons .57 Mark Stebbins 57 SHERIFF. L. Abernathy 58 George Chedic 55 SURVEYOR. C. N. Noteware 58 John F. Long 54 RECORDER. S. A. Kinsey 56 S.Taylor 53 TREASURER. M. M. Gaige 56 H. Mott, Sr. 54 SELECTMEN. W. G. Wyatt 58 James MeMarlin 57 R. D. Sides 57 John L. Cary 55 J. S. Rose 56 W. Cosser 56 Township No. 1. Justice of the Peace—Benj. Sears 25, A. G. Hammack 22. Constable—T. J. Atchison 31, J. M. Hering 15. Township No. 2. Justice of the Peace—James Farwell 38, H. Van Sickle 26. Constable—J. A. Smith 26, J. M. Howard 18. It will be seen by the above that the candidates for Representative received the same number of votes. Mr. Kinsey, the Clerk, says: "The result was declared in favor of Mr. Clemons, according to the Utah Statutes, pages 234, Sec. 12." Votes not counted on account of the illegality of the returns:— Stebbins. Clemons. Gold Canon 36 2 Washoe Valley 18 1 Eagle Valley 21 Smith's Station 1 10 Sink Humboldt... 15 Total 76 28 Stebbins' majority 48 The successful candidates were upon what was termed the Mormon ticket, except Sides and Abernathy. The people paid but little attention to the results of this election, and although those receiving the highest number of votes were declared elected, the positions became mere sinecures. HANGING OF LUCKY BILL, JUNE 19, 1858. In the meantime had occurred one of those acts on the part of a large number of the substantial citizens of the country that was, and usually is, the outgrowth of a long continued absence of adequate legal justice. The act referred to was the execution by order of a citizens' self-constituted court, of one of the most prominent citizens of the country, who up to this time, with two or three noticeable exceptions, had been a universal favorite. The unfortunate man's name was William B. Thorrington, but he was called "Lucky Bill," and was a native of Chenango County, New York, from where he removed in 1848 with his parents to Michigan. In 1850 he crossed the plains to California, and in 1853 became a resident of Carson Valley, in western Utah. His education was a moderate one, due to the fact that his excessive animal spirits and vitality would not permit a close application to study when attending school in his boyhood. In form he was large, weighing 200 pounds, and with broad, ample shoulders, stood six feet and one inch in height; his head, covered with glossy curling hair colored like the raven's wing, was massive, with a high classic forehead, and large gray mirthful eyes, looking out from beneath projecting eyebrows, that indicated strong perceptive faculties. The country had no handsomer or merrier citizen in it than Lucky Bill, a name given to him because of the fortunate result that seemed to attend his every action. He had become comfortably wealthy. It has already been noted that the Reeses turned over a large amount of property to him in January, 1855, including their Eagle Valley Ranch. He had become the successor of Israel Mott in the ownership of the Carson Canon Toll-road, and a possessor of valuable ranch property in the valley. In character he was both generous and brave, and his sympathies were readily aroused in favor of the unfortunate; or, which in frontier parlance would be termed, "the under dog in a fight," regardless of the causes that had placed the dog in that position. In addition to his farming and toll-road pursuits, he was a gambler, and a very successful one, his specialty being the "thimble rig game." In 1854 a couple of California bound emigrants stopped at Mormon Station, and had a falling out, and it transpired that they were partners, one of them owning the wagon and cattle that hauled it, while the other, who had a wife, supplied the provisions. The expense of this provision supply and incidentals along the route had exhausted the husband's finances, and the owner of the train refused to take the bankrupt emigrants any further. Lucky Bill passing, saw the woman weeping disconsolately by the wagon, and his sympathies were at once aroused. Upon inquiry he learned the state of affairs, and told the husband and wife to borrow no further trouble, for he would see that they reached the Sacramento without delay. That night the owner of the outfit was induced to bet against Lucky Bill in his "thimble rig game," and in the morning he had neither an outfit nor a dollar in money left. The winner gave him back fifteen dollars of the money, bought him a new pair of boots to travel in, told him to "lite out" for California on foot, and never after that to bet against any one who was playing his own game. To the bankrupt family he gave a cow, spent the loser's money in buying them provisions, etc., and then hired a man to drive the team with them to California. In 1856 three men put up one night at Lucky Bill's station in Carson Canon, on their way home to the States. One of them was a white-haired old man, poverty-stricken and discouraged with his failures in California. In the morning his horse was dead, and forced to abandon his hope of reaching his Illinois home, he stood by the roadside with a stony look in the eye and watched the departure of his companions for the country that seemed shut out to him forever. "Cheer up, old man," said Lucky Bill, in his happy, inspiring, whole-souled way, and snapping his fingers over his shoulder in the direction of the fast disappearing horsemen, added, "I'll show you a trick worth eight of that." A few days later the white-haired emigrant set out again on his homeward journey, with a fine roan horse hitched to a two-wheeled vehicle loaded with provisions for the trip that had been given to him by Lucky Bill. Numerous incidents of generosity like these are remembered by the early settlers of Nevada of this strange frontiersman, many of whose impulses were such as ennoble men. His associations in life, however, had been with individuals that had led him to look upon murder or theft as a smaller crime than would be the betrayal of a person who claimed his protection, though that man might be fleeing from justice after having committed either or both those offenses. This peculiarity of Lucky Bill being known to all, both good and bad citizens, transformed him into an obstruction, sometimes to the execution of justice upon criminals, and this characteristic eventually proved his ruin. In the spring of 1858, Bill Edwards shot and killed ______ Snelling, in Merced County, California, and fled to Carson Valley for safety. He stopped with Lucky Bill for awhile, and then went up to Honey Lake Valley, where he stopped with W. T. C. Elliott, John N. Gilpin, and others. While in the upper country, in connection with one Mullins, he murdered Harry Gordier, for the purpose of getting possession of the victim's personal effects, including a band of cattle. The body of the murdered man was found tied up in a sack and sunk in Susan River, and an innocent party named Snow was hung for doing it by citizens in the Honey Lake country, upon what was deemed sufficient evidence of his guilt. Suspicion finally began to fall upon Bill Edwards, and he started between two days for Carson Valley, where he found Lucky Bill; told of the peril that was upon his trail; claimed to be innocent, and asked to be helped out of the country. Edwards owned a valuable race horse which he wished to dispose of, and with the proceeds escape to South America. This friend of the "under dog in a fight" attempted to perform both these things, to sell the horse and help in the escape. Elliott and Gilpin, assuming the role of detectives, followed the murderer to Carson Valley, and feigning friendship for both Lucky Bill and Edwards, was admitted to their councils, helped in their plans, finally purchased the horse, and then caused the arrest, on the fourteenth of June, by an organization of citizens, of all parties connected directly or indirectly with the affair, except Edwards, who eluded them for a time, but was finally secured in the following manner:— Lucky Bill had a son named Jerome, a small lad, who knew the lurking place of the man they wanted. The boy was told that if he would secure the arrest of Edwards that his father would be turned loose, and that if he did not, his parent would certainly be hanged. To save his father the son betrayed the murderer into the hands of the citizens, and then found that instead of working his sire's deliverance, he was in danger of being hanged himself. The trial and conviction took place on the seventeenth. Everything was conducted with order, and in close imitation of similar cases occurring in regularly constituted courts. W. T. C. Elliott acted as Sheriff, John L. Cary as Judge, and eighteen jurors determined the question of guilt. The evidence under oath was written down by C. N. Noteware, late Secretary of State for Nevada; and the writer of this has read it all. Not a thing appears there implicating Lucky Bill in anything except the attempt to secure the murderer's escape. The absence of any knowledge on the part of the accused of the guilt of Edwards, is a noticeable feature in that testimony; that party, after having acknowledged his own guilt, swore positively that he had assured Lucky Bill that he was innocent, and no one else testified to the contrary, yet the jury believing that he did know, decided that he was guilty as accessory to the murder after the fact, and condemned him to be hanged. Edwards having acknowledged the killing of Gordier, was also condemned, his sentence being to be hanged at the scene of the murder, in Honey Lake Valley. Of the other accused, two of them were fined $1,000 each, and ordered to leave the country; the balance being discharged. An unsuccessful attempt was afterwards made to collect that fine; and one of the parties, at least, still lives in Carson Valley. Theodore Winters, Walter Cosser, and Samuel Swager, were appointed a committee to go with Edwards to Honey Lake, and see that he was hanged, which they did, the execution taking place between six and seven p. M., on June 23, 1858. On the nineteenth of June, at between three and four P. M., Lucky Bill, whose scaffold was building while the trial was going on at the Clear Creek Ranch, on Clear Creek, was placed in a wagon with the fatal noose around his neck, when, the team being started, he was dragged by the tightning rope out from the rear of the vehicle, where, with body swinging back and forth and twisting round and round, he slowly choked to death. His son is now dead, and the widow is wearing out her life in the Stockton Insane Asylum, in California. PRELUDES TO THE SILVER DISCOVERT. In June, 1858, the stage line between Placerville and Genoa, that had been first established in June, 1857, was continued to Salt Lake, and at about the same time the excitement in regard to the Walker River placers began to spread. Wild stories at first reached California regarding them that were soon tempered down to reports of returns only equal to ordinary day's wages. April 17, 1858, the Mountain Democrat, of Placerville, California, reports prices in Carson Valley upon information received from Major Ormsby just from Genoa, as follows:— Flour, per hundred.... $8 00 Corn, " " ...4 00 Bacon, per pound. 30 Pork, " " 20 Beef, " " 15 Potatoes, " " 02 Butter, " " 62 1/2 In August, the Rose Ditch, designed to take water from the Carson River to use in mining at the mouth of Gold Canon, was completed, and the proprietors were surprised to find the proposed outlet higher than its head. This ditch was dug by Chinamen who camped at the mouth of the canon, and from this fact the place became known as Chinatown. The search for gold during the year was prosecuted farther up the canon above Johntown, and H. T. P. Comstock, after whom the great lode was named, passed the season operating with poor success, working Pah-Utes in the American Flat Wash. To the north, in Six-mile Canon, a number of parties worked, among whom were Fenmore, known as "Old Virginia," after whose nickname Virginia City was christened, Peter O'Riley, Patrick McLaughlin, and Emanuel Penrod. A saloon was there, and a restaurant, where board could be had at fourteen dollars per week, both institutions the property of Nicholas Ambrosia, known as "Dutch Nick." When the winter set in, and the cold weather shut down placer mining, Six-mile Canon was abandoned for the general rendezvous at Johntown. Thus matters stood at the end of 1858. Just before the great change caused by the discovery of silver, and before entering upon the details of that event, let us take a backward glance at a few important incidents that have been omitted from the chronology of occurrences already noted. SEARCHINGS IN NEVADA FOR SILVER. In an interview with Mrs. Laura M. Dettenrieder, who became a resident of Nevada in 1853, the following was elicited regarding Allen and his brother, Hosea B. Grosh, and their operations while in the country. Said she:— I was not acquainted with them in 1853, but became so in 1854, in the fall of which year they returned to California, and wintered at Volcano. In the early part of 1855 they came back, packing what they had on a little jenny, and stopped at my house for dinner. On taking leave, Hosea said that they were hurrying away because they had to reach the Sugar Loaf in Six-mile Canon that night, where they proposed making a camp at a spring. From the Sugar Loaf camp they intended to prospect farther for silver in the vicinity of where they had found it the year before. Hosea and Allen both said, We will put you, Mrs. Ellis (that was her name at that time), in the "Pioneer claim," to be located for the "Pioneer Silver Mining Company." They had organized a company by that name at Volcano, in the spring before coming over. I don't remember much, about them that summer, and in the fall I went to California myself. In the summer of 1857 I came back to Nevada, went up the Humboldt, then across to Honey Lake, from where I returned to Dayton. In passing down the trail along the American Flat Wash on my way to Dayton, I came upon the cabin of the Grosh brothers, and found Hosea B. sitting by the door with a sore foot, that had been injured by driving a pick into it. The wound seemed to be doing well, under water treatment, which kept down the inflammation. The two brothers had a partner, named Captain Galpin; and Allen returned to the cabin with the partner before I left. He handed me a piece of rock, and said, "It is from the claim you are in, a little above the pioneer location, and we have put your name down for three hundred feet." Then we went out upon some elevated ground, and pointing to Mount Davidson, he said " It is down at the base of that point." I had learned, while up the Humboldt River, of the murder of a station-keeper at Gravelly Ford, named George Brown, and told the boys about it, and they felt very bad, as they said he was their partner; that he had intended to come to Gold Canon in the fall, with what he made out of the station, where he had six hundred dollars buried; and all his effects was to become common property for the assistance of the firm in opening their silver mines. They all seemed disheartened at the news I had brought them, and I told the boys that if they were sure it was safe for me to do so, I would go back to California, sell out all my property, and put in $1,500 to open the mines with. Then they showed me the book in which their locations were entered, and after I had agreed to furnish the money I went on down to Johntown. In three days after that, Hosea died from the effects of blood-poisoning from the wound in his foot. Allen started to reach California, leaving Comstock in charge of his things and cabin. He was snowed in on the Sierra before he could get over, and when relief reached him he was so badly frozen that they had to cut off his legs, from the effects of which he died. "I should like to know what became of the record book they showed me, that was left in Comstock's possession." THE FATHER'S ACCOUNT OP THEIR DISCOVERIES. The following communication was addressed to friends of the Grosh family, who visited Nevada in 1879, and while here went to the Silver City cemetery where Hosea's grave was pointed out to them by Mrs. Dettenrieder. The letter tells its own story:— WASHINGTON, July 8,1879. MRS. C. B. WINSLOW, M. D., PRESENT—My Dear Friend: You desire me to give you a detailed statement of my sons' labors and discoveries in Nevada (then Utah), as you are about to visit there, and would like to speak of their discoveries of silver ore in Carson Valley, correctly. It is a long story, and I presume it will be difficult to locate the scenes of their actions after the many and great changes since 1857. But I will give you the outlines briefly, as gathered from the letters now before me. E. Allen and Hosea B. Grdsh, whom you knew in your and their childhood and youth, went from Reading, Pennsylvania, in a company in 1849, and reached California, via Tampico and Mazatlan. They soon engaged in gold mining, most of the time at or near "Mud Springs" (now El Dorado), El Dorado County, with varying, but never very prosperous, fortunes. They visited Carson Valley in 1851, but soon returned to California. But in 1853 they made it a longer visit, and pretty thoroughly "prospected " portions of what they called "Carson Valley," "Gold Canon," "Lake Valley" and "Washoe Valley," and many of the adjoining mountains. After their return to California, with specimens for fuller examination, they wrote many letters, giving details of their discoveries, and of the information they were gradually acquiring respecting modes of testing their value. One stated that they found what they believed to be "carbonate of silver," in "Gold Canon"— a "dark gray mass, tarnished, probably, by the sulphuric acid in the water. It resembles thin sheet lead, broken very fine—and lead the miners supposed it to be. The ore we found at the forks of the canon; a large quartz vein—at least, boulders from a vein close by here shows itself. * * * * Other ore of silver we think we have found in the canon, and a rock called black rock—very abundant—we think contains silver." These and other discoveries of this period, led to many conversations with "Old Frank," an experienced Mexican miner, and to numerous experiments-in assaying as their limited means allowed, preparatory to a return to Carson Valley. They also organized a large company of kindred and friends in the middle Atlantic States, called the "Utah Enterprise Mining Company," of which they were part, and for which they were agents—which was to enable them to hold and work their various and numerous discoveries. But lack of means delayed their return to Carson Valley until May, 1857, when they obtained an outfit by organizing the "Frank Mining Company"— named after "Old Frank" aforenamed, constituted of themselves and a few wealthier friends who advanced the money. They soon rediscovered their former discoveries, and what they called "Our Monster Vein," they located in the name of the Frank Company, and other veins in the name of the Utah Enterprise Company, and located in their own name what they termed "a smaller but richer vein"— "a much more promising vein, because more easily worked." Both of these are said to be at or near "the forks of the canon." They also mention "suits of veins crossing the canon at two other points," and "a mammoth vein of copper—copper pyrites—twenty-five or thirty miles north of the canon, containing considerable silver," and resembling copper, then about being mined for its silver, some distance from theirs. They found great difficulties in making reliable assays, in the nature of the ores, being, "not, as we had supposed, magnetic oxide of iron, but the magnetic sulphuret of iron," and other mixtures (antimony, etc.), adding difficulties in their toilsome and tedious labor, with deficient materials and imperfect apparatus. But all their assays showed the blackish, purple and violet rock to be rich in silver. The greatest difficulty—one they could not surmount except after much time and labor—was their poverty. To procure food, they must use nearly every hour not absolutely needed for rest in gold digging and washing—leaving only a few spare hours for roasting and smelting. While engaged in digging earth on Gold Hill* for washing, Hosea struck his pick into the hollow of his foot. This was on August 19th, and mortification set in and caused his death on September 2d. He was buried respectably by his fellow-miners, and his remains have since been removed to a cemetery at Silver City, and a memorial stone (which I had ordered at my expense) has been placed over them— as I am informed. * Allen's letter says, "from a small ravine to the right fork of the main canon." Allen, as early as he could, on the fifteenth of November, in company with his friend Mr. Bucke (now Dr. B. M. Bucke, Superintendent of the Dominion Insane Asylum, London, Canada), started for California. They were hindered by the loss of their mule and his recovery, and caught in the great snow storm of that year, while in the Divide of the Sierra Nevada, and compelled to kill their mule, and throw away their specimens and other baggage, and continue their journey on foot through the deep and trackless snow. Their powder and matches got wet, and the mule meat being consumed, they were four days and nights without fire or food, sleeping in their blankets under the snow. They reached a Mexican miner's camp, legs frozen to above the knees, and from thence were taken on sleds to Last Chance, by the miners of the latter place, where Mr. Bueke had one leg and foot, and part of the other foot, amputated, and recovered. But Allen, after lingering most of the time unconscious, died December 19th, and was tenderly buried. Mr. Bucke has since marked the grave of his fellow-sufferer with a suitable memorial stone. A writer from Virginia City, in the New York Herald of December 30, 1878, in giving a description of the "Comstock" Lode and other mines, gives an account of my sons, their discoveries and deaths, which is generally correct, and says: From association with the two brothers Grosh, previous to their unfortunate deaths, Comstock, in some way or other, at their melancholy ending, came into possession of what property they left. Dr. Bucke, who knew all the parties well, says there was no intimacy between Comstock and my sons, nor was there any likelihood of there being any confidence reposed in the former by the latter, so widely different were they in character, disposition and habits. And if reports may be relied on, Comstock himself told so many differing stories in accounting for his possession and sale of the lode, that it came to be believed that he took possession of books, maps, and other papers which Allen had boxed up for safe keeping, and thus learned of the existence of the mines they had discovered, and claimed them—sometimes as his own discovery ; sometimes as having been left in his charge, for which he was to receive one-third or one-fourth-; sometimes, as their partner ; and sometimes as being on the spot, and therefore nearer to them than any distant heirs: having the best right, that of possession. Thus, my friend, have I again gone over the letters of my sons, and of their friends communicating their sad fate, and given you briefly some of their numerous details of cares, labors, trials and discoveries. 1 have omitted more than I have given; but what I have given may aid you to find the scenes of their toils and Hosea's grave—and may serve to correct any errors and misunderstandings which rumors and traditions may have implanted in the minds of those who have succeeded them in the places they once occupied. You can rely on their statements, for you knew them; and you also know that I would not misquote or pervert what they wrote to me. Wishing you all needed health, recreation, pleasure and profit on your journey, I remain, Very respectfully, Your friend, A. B. GROSH. "Dan De Quille," in mentioning these men in his "Big Bonanza," stated that:— The Grosh brothers were well educated, and had considerable knowledge of mineralogy and assaying. * * * In their cabin, which stood near the present town of Silver City, about a mile above Johntown, they are said to have had a library consisting of a considerable number of volumes of scientific works; also chemical apparatus and assayer's tools. They did not associate with the miners working in the canon, and were very reticent in regard to what they were doing. They, however, informed a few persons that they had discovered a vein of silver-hearing quartz, and it was well known among the miners that they had formed a company for the purpose of working their mine. The majority of the members of their company were understood to be in California (about Volcano), and in one of the Atlantic States. * * * In 1860 I saw their old furnaces unearthed, they having been covered up to the depth of a foot or more by a deposit of mud and sand from Gold Canon. They were two in number, and but two or three feet in length, a foot in height, and a foot and a half in width. One had been used as a smelting and the other as a cupel furnace. The remains of melting-pots and fragments of cupels were found in and about the furnaces; also a large piece of argentiferous galena, which had doubtless been procured a short distance west of Silver City, where there are yet to be seen veins containing ore of that character, some of which yield fair assays in silver. * * * With the brothers was lost the secret of the whereabouts of their silver mine, if they ever discovered any silver except that contained in the ore of the veins of argentiferous galena I have mentioned. After the discovery of the old furnaces of the Grosh brothers in 1860, there was much search by miners in the neighborhood for the mine they had been prospecting, but no mine was ever found. In a sort of sink, on the side of a large mountain, at the foot of which stood the cabin and furnaces of the brothers, was found an old shaft. Here was supposed to be the spot where they had worked, and the place was "located" ("claimed" or "preempted") and called the "Lost Shaft." About the first discovery made by the locators, when they began cleaning out the shaft, was the body—a sort of mummy—of a Piute squaw, who had been murdered some years before by members of her tribe, who had tumbled her remains into the old shaft. After finding this "dead thing," the owners of the claim let a contract for the further sinking and exploration of the old shaft. The men who took the contract soon gave it up. They said they could not work in the shaft; that stones were falling out of its sides without cause. Others took the contract, and each party of miners that went to work in the shaft gave it up, saying that their lives were endangered by the stones which suddenly and at unexpected times, jumped out of its sides. A tunnel was then started to tap the ledge on which the old shaft was supposed to have been sunk, but it never was completed. It is now well known that the old shaft was sunk by a party of Gold Canon miners in 1851, they having taken it into their heads that from this curious-looking pit, or sink, in the side of the mountain came all the gold found below in the canon. There was also a story current among the miners in 1860, that before starting on the trip over the Sierra, which resulted in his death, Allen Grosh boxed up the library and all the chemical and assaying apparatus, and cached the whole somewhere about Grizzly Hill, the mountain at the base of which stood the cabin occupied by the brothers. There was much search by curious miners in the neighborhood for this supposed deposit of valuables. They crawled under the edge of shelving rocks, peered into crevices among the cliffs, and probed all suspicious-looking stone-heaps, but no bonanza of scientific apparatus was ever discovered. When Allen Grosh left to go over the mountains to California, Comstock was placed in charge of the cabin, and it is very probable that whatever books and apparatus there may have been were carried away by such visitors as took a fancy to them, and thus were scattered and lost. On the 27th of June, 1865, Schuyler Colfax and party who were en route for California overland, and about two hundred others, participated in the ceremony of erecting the marble slab mentioned by the father at the grave of Hosea B. Grosh, in the cemetery at Silver City, Lyon County. "Upon the slab is the following inscription:— Hosea B., second son of Rev. A. B. Grosh, born in Marietta, Pa., April 23, 1826, died at Gold Canon, Nevada, September 2, 1857. Such is a brief sketch of the lives, discoveries, and sad fate of the two men who first discovered silver in Nevada, and they were the undoubted first, unless the discovery in the Black Rock country as hereafter related, was a genuine find. THE "LOST SHAFT." The mystery and the history of the "Lost Shaft" has been explained by Mr. J. M. Hunter, a responsible citizen of Montecito Valley, Santa Barbara County, California, who, under date of August 8, 1881, relates the following:— While in the mines at Sonora, Tuolumne County, in the summer of 1850, there were continued reports of rich diggings on the eastern slope of the Sierra, which created quite an excitement among the miners who were, as everybody recollects, constantly pushing for new discoveries, leaving good claims in hopes of finding better; also for the adventure of prospecting, and to be the first explorers of a new country. Immigrants from over the plains the preceding year reported having been shown by the Mormons, in Carson Valley, large nuggets of gold purported to have been found in the neighborhood. To search for this "fountain head" of gold a party of fifty men organized, and went over the mountains, going by the old emigrant road, through Hope and Strawberry Valleys to Carson Valley, passing the old Mormon Station, now Genoa. We prospected the country from Walker's River to Devil's Gate, spending some eighteen or twenty days in doing so. On the eighth of August, 1850, we commenced sinking a shaft at Devil's Gate, which was undoubtedly the first hole sunk in that region. Some gold was found in our prospecting trip, but in small quantities. That which we found at Devil's Gate was much lighter, in comparison to its bulk, than what we had mined in California, and we did not think it of much value. The company disbanded on the twenty-fifth of August, at the point where Empire City now is, some returning direct to California. Myself and six others went to Washoe Lake, thence to Truckee, and crossed the mountains to Nevada City, where I remained ten years, and then returned to Nevada. The reason given by the immigrants of 1849 for not stopping to mine in Carson Valley, when shown the coarse gold and nuggets by the Mormons, who represented it to be in large quantities in the hills north of them, was that they were short of provisions; would be unable to winter there, and were anxious to reach California, the land of their destination. While residing in Nevada City, I became acquainted with Henry Meredith, who was killed in the Ormsby massacre, near Pyramid Lake, and after my return to Nevada Territory, I saw his gun in the possession of a Piute Indian. This I bought in 1863, of the Indian for $10, and sent it to Mr. John Meredith, brother of Henry Meredith. I had known the gun well, and recognized it at once. I have never claimed that our party was the first on the Comstock, as that lode was not found for several years after our prospecting trip, and Devil's Gate was lower down the canon. We prospected the foot-hills from Walker's River to Pyramid Lake. THE BLACK ROCK PROSPECTORS. In the summer of 1849, Allen Harding and two other parties, whose names are not known, at daylight one morning, left the emigrant road to hunt for game, being short of provisions. They were on their way from the States to California at the time, and had arrived, almost destitute, at a point between Black Rock and Mud Meadows, in what is now Humboldt County. The emigrant road in that county runs to the northwest in the direction of California, and these three men, in seeking game, for food, had passed into the mountains, to the northeast of it. It was a barren, desolate, burned region of black igneous rocks, and volcanic ashes, where they had gone, and the hunters found no game. On their return to camp about noon, they brought with them, however, a chunk of bright metal that weighed about twenty-five pounds, and pronouncing it silver, tried to get a man who was short of sufficient oxen to haul his own property, to take it to California for them. The party in question politely informed them that he would not pack it even though it were pure gold, and they were forced to leave it beside the road. Before going, however, they took a piece and melting it down, made a button by molding it in the sand. The button Allen Harding took with him to California, intending to raise a company, and go back to work his mine of native, or pure silver. When he arrived in the country about Mount Shasta he showed his specimen, and related the manner in which he had become possessed of it, and his narration was confirmed by the other two parties. He said that after becoming discouraged in their hunt for game they had started back down the mountain towards camp, and in doing so passed along the margin of a shallow gulch that had been cut by water, a little to their right. As they were going along some bright metallic substance lying in its bottom, and for a short distance up the banks, attracted their attention, and they went down to take a closer look. At first they supposed it was lead, but finally concluded the substance must be native silver; and there it lay scattered along the head of the wash, and sticking out from the sides of the gulch in chunks, from the size of a bean to thirty, forty, and fifty pounds. It was there by the wagon-load; an Aladdin's cave uncovered; and "there was millions in it." The gold miners of Shasta informed Mr. Harding it was gold they wanted; that they would not take the Black Rock country as a gift if it was all silver, and he soon came to think much in the same way himself. A great many people saw the button and pronounced it silver; when finally he sent it, in 1850, to San Francisco to be tested, and it was lost in the great fire that swept over the city that year. Eventually turning his attention to farming, he settled in Petaluma Valley, Sonoma County, California; and a little later a man named Frederick Alberding, coming from the Rogue River country, also located there, and became Harding's neighbor. One day the last comer chanced to hear the story of Harding's native silver mine, and he at once pronounced a decided belief in its being a genuine find, stating that the same story had been told him in the Rogue River country by a party who said he was one of the original discoverers. The result of all this was the organization of a company in Petaluma to go and locate it. The members of the company were M. S. Thompson, now a State Senator in Nevada; Allen Harding, A. B. Jamison, Fred. Alberding, H. Whiteside, Charles Humphries, Major James Pingley, Holt Fine, P. McGuire. and ____ Oman, and they all arrived at Black Rock in quest of this Silverado, on the eighth of July, 1858. For three years Thompson, Harding and Jamison searched for this treasure-house of the mountain-gnomes with parties numbering sometimes as high as seventy members, but the invisible wand had been waved over the spot. Its lurking-place became an ignis-fatuus—tantalizing the brain, and luring the prospector to his death among the rocks at the hands of prowling bands of savages, that were never at peace with the whites in that locality. It was never found, and the search was futile, but Mr. Thompson still believes that Harding told the truth. He believes that the mineral had recently been sluiced out by a water-spout, and thus exposed to view when seen in 1849, and that the storms of the years that intervened, before the place was sought again, had caved the banks and covered up the deposit with washings from the country around. At the time of the battle with the Pah-Utes, when they defeated Major Ormsby, in 1860, M. S. Thompson, with a party of about seventy men, was out in the Black Rock country searching for the lost mine, when he received news by a pony express that the Indians were laying waste the whole country, and also a call for him to come in and help protect the settlers in Honey Lake Valley. The request was promptly complied with, and none of the original Black Rock prospectors ever went back to that country again in search of the lost treasure-house of the gnomes. Additional Comments: Extracted from: History of Nevada with Illustrations and Biographical Sketches of its Prominent Men and Pioneers Oakland, Cal.: Thompson & West 1881 File at: http://files.usgwarchives.net/nv/statewide/history/1881/historyo/chapterv11gms.txt This file has been created by a form at http://www.genrecords.org/nvfiles/ File size: 40.0 Kb