Clinch Valley news. [volume] (Jeffersonville, Va.) 18??-2019, 1889-05-10
BONANZA KINGS.
THE RIsE OF FOUR MODERN
MONTE CRISTos
From Humble Surroundings They
Achieved Fame and Fortune
The Great Comstock Lode
AMI the Big Bonanza

There were four Monte Cristos in the
United States. Now there are but two.
The recent death of James Clair Flood
In heidelberg, Germany, reduces TO q
par the four bonanza kings of the
racine Slope. These are ex-United
States Senator James G. Fair and John
w. Mackay.
The career OF this quat tet of favoritcs
OF Fortune, the sorry old iade who gives
most men more kicks than she does
emlles-l tho most remarkable record of
rise from poverty to n iiuence in this
country of quickly acquired fortunes.
These four quick-wittcd Irishmen went
to California with thousands of other
men who, when they started in the race
Tor riches had every advantage Of them,
put their competitors never overlook
them after they were once started.
10 the people Of San Francisco
Mhere the four pen were best Known
MIR. Flood was tho embodiment OF every
thng omnipotent in financial specula-
ton. 1t has been said that he was born
n Ireland. This is not true He vas
hinsS,,s sr.....lhoritv for the statement that
az VA, i53ofh IN New Yorh, October 35,
1926. and that he received Common
school educatin in the metropolis. In
i649 he went to California, did some
placer mining on the Yuba River, but
met with Indifferent success. In 1861
he had accumulated about $4,000, and re-
turned to New York He found that
his modest purse did not constitute a
fortune, and he returned to the West.
In San Francisco he, with William s.
O'Brien-afterward his bonanza partner
engaged in the saloon business. Their
saloon was dubbed the "Auction Lunch
Bar" At that time the business of San
Francisco was transacted within the area
OF half dozen squares. The ships were
discharged, the political speeches were
made. the merchandise of the town sold,
the games of chance run, the theatres,
the dance halls, the dues and the hang.
ings by the Vigilance Committee
were carried to happy contamination
within the six bustling blocks of wooden
shanties.
Thithcr on occasions came John w.
Hackay, bright, alert miner from the
Comstock, and James G. Fair, another
fine but entirely di.-erent type of the
sturdy Nevada gold. seeker. O'Brien
was intimate with Fair: Fair had the
confiden. of Mackay, and in course of
time social friendship and financial
combination were formed which after.
ward mado the four men interested the
most notable posscssors of suddenly
acquired wealth in the West.
Flood was the iinancicr of the CO..
partnership then as later on. O'Brien
was the good natured, easy going, never
fpcak-ill lrishman, who hnd more good
nature than ability, and who served to
tho fri. Aol, st a.
quartet. Fair was the shrcwd, cautious,
snpicious adventurer who never lost
more than five cents of any dollar that
got into his vigorous grasp. Ma.kay
was the same John w. rs now. only on a
less princely scale. He aspired at that
early date only to control the great Com
stock lode on which the ill-fated falston
Alvinger, Hayward aud other magnates
held imperious sway.
l. lood, the balance. wheel and super
conservative iinancier OF the copartner-
ship, was satisfied with the pros
pect of controlling one mine for a
starter, and so eventually the quartet
got the stock of the Little Kentuck
where they wanted it, and 1.-THE Auc-
ton Lunch Bar " was able to loom up
in new coat of paint, fresh dress of
cut glass and other evidences of pros
perity.
Jim Fair put his profits away in the
HiberDia Savings Bank, Flood bought a
modest two story and basement wooden
house uptown for the wife and daughter
Jennie. O'Brien laid in s stock OF ele-
CANT clothes and brought over three rela-
tives from Ireland, and Mackay went
back to the Comstock and fastened his
eye on the Hale IL Norcross mine.
Jim Fair was figuratively watching
the dump OF the Hale " Nor ross with q
microscope, and every ton of orc passed
under his critical eye. Mackay was
flying between Virginia City and San
Francisco, giving points to Flood how
to corner the stock and ms to who held
it. Finally the able quartet got the game
in proper shape and. to the astonish-
ment of Halston and other magnates,
walked in at the annual election and
boldly took possession of the board of
directors with full majority of the
stock. The sequel TO this proceeding
was q cleverly- executed deal in Hale d
Norcross, which nude the four partners
millionaires. attracted the respectful
attention of mining operators to the new
copartnership, and completely pros
tratcd all the gin-solers within four
blocks OF the Auction Lunch Bar.
1t was not until the discovery Of the
"Big Bonanza" however, that the
bonanza kin attained the great
notoriety which afterward distinguished
them. 1t is not generally known exactly
what part each of the partners had in
the development of the bonanzas. 1t is
generally believed in the West that to
Fairs sagacity and wonderful knowledge
of quartz mining were due the first in.
terest taken by the bonanza firm in the
Consolidated California Il Virginia
mines.
Finally, when everything was in readi-
ness for deal, in February, 1888, the
Big Bonan was uncovered to the as
tonished world.
The body of ore revealed seemed to
surpass in extent the widest dreams of
modern gold-seekers. and the people of
California, as well as some of the East
ern cities became bereft of their pru.
.dence.
The bonanza-which is the miners
idiom for chimney or chute in which
In Il l. 4.