Daily Kennebec journal. [microfilm reel] (Augusta, Me.) 1870-1975, 1895-10-18
THE COMSTOCK LODE.
STORY OF IT'S DISCOVERY BY ONE OF
THE SEVEN LUCKY MEN.
They Had Struck Bed OF Iron
Ore, and Scheme Was Connected to
Make Them Continue So to Think-Some
Were Skinned, but Others Held On.

Make Them Continue So to Think-Some
Were Skinned, but Others Held On.
81 was one of the seven men who dis
covered the Comstock Lode said John f..
Clarke, once familiarly known as ''Ophir
jack SJoe Winters and ! We're working
near Forest City, making small returns,
when I heard of placers over near Gold
Hill, and l gave Joe money and told him
to go there and buy claim. He bought
an interest for $3.50. There We're seven in
the party-old man Comstock, Pat Nc
Laughlin, Pete Reilly, Emanuel Penrod
or Nanny, as we called him; kaintuck
Osborne, Joe Winters and myself. We had
no tents and slept in our blankets under a
big spruce tree. We We're making any
where from 81 to Sc a day where we were
working Going back and forward between
the spruce tree and our rockers, we for
long time passed over what was afterward
the Ophir mine without paying any atten-
ton to the bright sand at that point. One
day Comstock, in passing, said;
"'Boys, this sand looks very bright.
And he picked up double handful and
carried it to one of our rockers.
"Just as soon as the water struck it we
saw that what we had for weeks been care
lessly walking over was the richest SAND
we had ever seen or heard of. You may be
sure we We're not long in changing the
base of our operations. We constructed an
ordinary V shaped chute to carry water
from the spring about quarter OF mile
away and went to work. The bulge OF
soft, disintegrated ore was about IL feet
across and nearly circular. Its edges were
clearly defined and went down with
slight dip to the east The dirt was eX-
traordinarily rich, some OF II running as
high as SO an ounce. Our Washlngs We're
measured almost literally by the bucket
full We divided our wealth by weighing
it on a common set of grocers' scales. 1t
was not long until our rich strike became
generally known and miners came from
all directions during the following winter,
and the town of Virginia City, named aft
er q drunken, worthless miner called VIZ
ginny, rapidly sprang into existence.
but no one found dirt like that we
struck. The great crowd skipped out as
lively as it came when the Piutes went on
the warpath in the spring OF 1860. feel
like laughing every time l think of that
event. Major Ormsby, who kept store
and the overland stage station, when he
heard about the Indians, said, Whenever
they see me, boys, those Indians will quiet
down. He got together all the miners
who had guns and pistols and marched for
the scat of war. BY the time they found
the Indians the men had shot away all of
their ammunition at rabbits and birds,
and when the Piutes showed up tho min
ers, instead of seeing the Indians running
skipped themselves, and most of them
didn't stop until they were back in Cali
fornia.
eve were not disturbed, however, and
soon afterward at the depth of about nine
feet our mine petercd out The soft,
easily washed dirt and sand stopped short
on Il bed of hard dark gray rock of ore
that we all thought was iron ore. Then
the discovery of the real ComstOck lode
was made under somewhat extraordinary
circumstances. 1t must be remembered
that in those days we did not know much
about mining and did not have any facili-
ties at the camp for testing. We were not
exactly down in the mouth about the mine
running out, for we had each made q
handsome stake; but, while we all thought
we had run into q bed of iron, we had
sense enough to reflect that if it was iron,
where did the pocket we had worked come
from? l insisted that we have the stuff
assaycd. l hired train of pack horses,
and after digging about ?, 500 pounds of
the rock / placed it in charge of Il man
named Judge Walsh and gave him money
to take the rock to San Francisco and have
it assaycd.
"While he was gone we did nothing. In
about three weeks Judge returned, and in
u very matter of fact way confirmed our
original opinion that we had struck iron
ore.
There's little gold in it, he said,
and q little silver, but it don't amount to
anything and isn't worth working
"The fact was as we afterward learned,
that the ore Walsh took with him assayed
over $500 to the ton, and the 9, 500
pounds produced a total of over SIG, $50.
The men in Frisco who heard about it
were so astonished that they could scarcely
believe the report. A scheme was concoct-
cd to deprcciato the find and get control
of it. l never could discover all of the de-
tails, but Judge Walsh was 20 report to us
that our mine was of no account, and the
others in the plot were to quietly buy up
the claim. The ore was stored in David
sons bank, and a suit in replevin had aft
onward to be brought to get it.
while we all had no reason to doubt
the truth of Walsh's report, the fact that
he brought no certificate of the assay with
him caused some talk, but in those days
we were careless. In a few days two mud
wagon loads of men came, and they quiet
ly began trying to buy out our interests.
Joe Winters and had a sixth between us.
In short time Mclaughlin sold his one
sixth for So, 900, and Comstock, Penrod
and Osborne for about the same amount.
They offered Reilly $40, 600 for his one
sixth, and when he, after consideration,
refused, they increased the offer to SEQ
600. He didn't take that, either, and I
think he afterward got something like
S40 900 in all.
Winters got rather nervous and want
ed to sell, but told him it looked very
suspicious for those men to be so anxious
to buy the mine SO soon after Judge Walsh
had come back. We refused to sell When
they found they could not get our sixth,
they began developments Some one called
it the Ophir, and the mine ever after has
gone by that name. 1t paid dividends from
the very start. The vein was about 8 feet
wide, and for 800 feet the ore continued to
maintain its almost uncxampled richness
| notice by the last report that a total of