The Pioche weekly record. [volume] (Pioche, Nev.) 1877-1900, 1882-05-13
ILL-FATED FINDERS.

The superstitious belief, says the Bodi
Free Press, is IN old cne W .th the earl,
inhabitants of the Pacific Coast minin,
towns that unless the discoverer of
camp meets On untimely Or bloody ent
the place of his creation will not descent
into the future as one of the "excite
ments." This idea seems to be not with
out foundation, wherever it originated
Of thirty-eight booming" towns il
early days, the locators of twelve wer.
killed by the bullet, one caved into {
deep shaft, and the majority of the other.
drifted with the tide of emigration into
oblivion, or died and were buried in
pauper's grave.
"Old Virginny, " who donated an ever.
lasting name to that queen of mining
camps, Virginia City, came to his death
by an cover" dose from buckins mule,
near Dayton, and the no less noted Com.
stock died by bullet administered
in Montana, and, like his predecessor, he
died financially broke. Colonel Storey,
whose name that county adopted, was
killed in battle by the Pyramid Lake In
dlans. Billy Farrell, who "struck u
Meadow Lake, died victim to remorse
in one of the leading hospitals of San
Francisco, haunted by the spirits of ten
hundred deluded pioneers and prospect
ors passing and repassing at the foot of
his bed. He made no confession. His
name is a household word. His grave
lies side by side with that of Doughnut
Bill in the Lone Mountain Cemetery,
where he was planted in 1868.
The locator of the first find in Pioche
IS said to have stopped stage-load of
shotgun messengers early in the Black
Hills excitement, and rumor says that he
was buried alongside boulder not far
from the line of the road. Kelse Austin,
whose name is attached to one of Ne
vada's pioneer mining towns, is anchored
in northeastern Elke county, and is prob
ably no nearer the golden goal than the
legion of early settlers who surround
him. Of those who first uncovered "the
lead in the White Pine mines" the world
knows little. A lone grave under a
white pine tree tells chapter in the
tale
Of Eureka's first inhabitant nothing
also is told us, but it is safe to surmise
that few nuggets weighted down his
blankets as he walked over the grade.
Tuscarora was the work of an insane en-
igrant from Massachusetts,. Legend To-
Gates his tombstone near the adobe shacks
OF the old townsite, but those posted
infer that he atoned for his misdeed by
sinking himself to the bottom of the
headwaters of the Owyhee, if, indeed, he
dld not fall into the hands of deter
mined vigilance committee. Aurora
started a goodly-sized graveyard with her
oldest inhabitant." Billy Body slept
hlmself "away" in snowstorm few
miles away from the present writing.
When his memory had reached the age of
twenty years his bones were resurrected,
and after being paraded at the head of a
procession of tenderfeet through the town
after his own name, they were identified
by his old comrades and buried with i'm
posing ceremony among the bad "men
from Bodie." A monument was raised
to his memory, and it still stands unpaid
Tor in the stone.cutter's yard.
Homer, of Homer District, followed in
the suicidal tracks of Comstock, and after
squandering small fortune shot his
brains out in the streets of San Francisco.
These are but a few of many instances,
but the fates that have befallen the many
who have ventured in the discovery of
new lodes, and succeeded, bear the old.
timers out in the belief that still has ex-
lstence in not q few minds.