The morning news. [volume] (Savannah, Ga.) 1887-1900, 1900-04-01
PALACE IN A WILDERNESS.
.xrR .ORDINARY MUTATIONS OF
FORTUNE OF A NEVADA MINER.

Ruflt "A Mansion in Which He
Lived in Regal spIendor - His
widow Is Now Compelled to Tell
Fortunes for n Livelihood.
RS Angeles Letter in Chicago Inter Ocean.
| said ex-Gov. Wilson of Nevada the 9TH
or day: There's more pathos about de-
serted busted mining camps than about
| any other spots on earth and there's
scarcely anything more touching 10 a
genuine gold and silver miner than a meet
ing with person once a popular king or
oueeu in a booming mining camp but in
old age reduced to poverty and distress.
I've been put in this philosophic mood be-
cause to-day 1 saw Mrs. Bridget Bowers,
vrinkled. white-haired and ragged. telling
fortunes at Is cents a head. AS 1 looked
about the squalid room where she is living
nv mind went back to the superb mansion
she once ruled in Nevada 1 have been
thinking here for an hour of the wonderful
yicissitudes that Mr.. and Mrs. Sandy Bow
ers experienced in a few short years.
There have been many instances of prodi-
eality in Western mining camps, but I
never heard of any other case quite so
reckless as that of Sandy Bowers and his
wife.
EVERYONE in Nevada and California has
heard about Mr.. and Mrs. Sandy Bowers
and the way they threw money to the
Winds Sanford Bowers came from SYRIA
che. ~ Y, in the early sos. His parents
lived on an Erie canal boat. and he was
stable boy until he was Is, wehn he drifte1
10 New York and there signed with ship
ping master for a cruise on a whaler
around Cape Horn to the Pacific ocean.
When he reached San Francisco he desert
ed and struck for the mines. He was cook
for the miners in camp at Dutch Flats,
CAL, for year. Then he cooked at Hang
town and finally followed score of min
ers over the Sierras into Nevada. That was
in 1857.
Married a Good Cook.
There were less than thirty white men
altogether in the region. Bowers locat-
ed a mine in a desolate canyon and for
weeks pegged away hopefully. One day
there came riding into the camp of Mount
Davidson Mrs. Bridget Cowan. She had
previously run a boarding house for min
ers at Downieville. Chivalrous Sandy
resigned his job as cook for the camp
and installed Mrs. Cowan in his place.
Not only that: he also told the widow
where she might locate a claim near his
own Later he married Mrs. Cowan.
The bride had scarcely had her mining
claim recorded before assays showed that
the heavy black sand which abounded in
that locality and made the gold seekers
swear every day was a sulphuret of gold
and silver and the richest ore found in
the West up to that time The famous
stampede of miners to the Washoe valley
began in March, 1859, and lasted four
months The Bowers claims were worth
$50 900, then $50, O00 then $3.50, 900 But San
dy and his wife said they were content
to live in a tent and sleep in blankets
while their property increased in value
$500 to $1,000 a week The sides of
Mount Davidson and Gold canyon became
scenes of intense activity almost in a
night. Capital began to sink shafts and
dig drifts and laterals. The Ophir, the
greatest silver, and gold mine ever known
in the West. was opened and the Com
stock lode was partially revealed. The
lodges of the Ophir were traced some 600
feet southwest to the joint claims Of
Sandy Bowers and his wife so it was
necessary to take the Bowers couple into
the Ophir mining corporation and divide
with them the enormous profits derived
from developing the ledge of sulphurets.
By January, 1860 Sandy Bowers was
drawing for himself and wife monthly
dividends of $4,000 and six months later
the monthly dividends averaged 100000.
Then they arose suddenly to $4,000 and
$4,000, and in the fall of 1861 they went
to $3l, 900 a month.
Wealth Came Apace.
The wealth that came pouring in upon
the couple stupefed them at first. They
could merely give directions to deposit
all the dividends to their credit in a San
Francisco bank, and they continued for
several months to live in their redwood
cabin, to cook their meals over fire on
the ground at the door and to sleep in
hunks After a while it became necessary
far thaf 10 m Go N Fa moi
they got their first ideas of how people
with a bank account of $i50,000 and an
income of about $4,000 a year might live.
They decided 90 have a mansion in the
Washoe valley equal to any home of the
rich elsewhere. Sandy sought out an ar
chiect. showed him the amount of the
bank deposit and said: Now you go
ahead and put up the biggest, finest house
that you fellows can think of. Sandy
Bowers has got the rocks and he'll pay
YOU. Go to New York and look around;
hunt in Europe for ideas and then come
back West and build me a house what is
a house" That was enough for abe ar
chitect. He started in, and il was nearly
four years before he told Bowers that he
had the job
A few weeks later Sunday Bowers and
his wife started out to see the world. They
went across the plains by abe stage coach
line, which had become an established IN
had begun when they reached Kansas.
While they were in Chicago they gave
5000 toward the equipment of a regiment.
In Syracuse, N. Y, they gave people un-
used to the extravagances of Western
mining enough TO talk about to this day.
Sandy wanted to show his boyhood friends
how he had prospered. He wound up with
an elaborate banquet. There were over
fifty guests. Some of them wore overalls,
a few were without collars to their shirts
and several were CARRIED just as they were
when they knocked off work on the canal
boat and FASTENED to the feast Probably
less than a half dozen of the guests had
ever before seen champagne. Champagne
was served in goblets and scores of quarts
of 1t were wasted
Cut n swell in Europe.
Having left orders in New York city
for furnishing his house in the Washoe
Valley regardless of expense, Sandy and
his wife sailed for Europe Artemus
Ward wrote a sketch describing the Bow
erses of Washoe in the Venetian palaces.
In Scotland, where Mrs. Bowers was
born, another big banquet was given;