The Goldfield news. [volume] (Goldfield, Nev.) 1904-1911, 1909-06-05
CHAIN OF ROMANCE ENDS
BY DEATH OF OLD FRIENDS

story in the Salt Lake Telegram about
two men well known in the annals of
Nevada.
"Old Jim Morgan died in Los An
geles about a month before the death
of Senator Stewart. Old Comstockers
will marvel a little over this, for
memory will 60 back to the time when
Senator Stewart won almost all the
mining suits in which he was counsel.
Titles were awfully mixed on the old
lode in those days. There were crop
pings all along che eastern slope Of
Mount Davidson below where the orig
inal groupings of the Ophir were found
At first the ledge pitched to the west
and Professor StiIliman gave it as his
opinion that the heart of the Comstock
would be found under Mount Davidson.
And that was the general belief, though
Prof. Frank Stewart said that if that
was true, then God Almighty made u
mistake and put the gangue on the
wrong side.
"When the ledge was sunk upon
something over 200 feet it stopped
suddenly. 1t did not pinch out but
just quit. The miners said it had
faulted, but when they drifted a few
feet and then sank they quickly found
the lost lead and found it pitching to
the east. Some mighty pressure had
broken the great vein off at this point
and bent it backwards, making it seem
to be pitching to the west. But before
this was discovered, the whole eastern
slope of the mountain had been located;
the locations because of the reckless
records had overlapped each other in
inextricable confusion; some first loca-
tions had not been recorded, but held
good under the rude code which the
men who had organized the district
and who knew nothing about quartz
veins, had framed; the United States
judges, sent out by appointment from
Washington, knew nothing about min
ing, or the handling Of mining cases;
the law itself was filed with contradic-
lions, and the world never saw such
confusion before, at least not since the
confusion of tongues around the base Of
the tower of Babel.
There was a deluge of suits CON-
meneed. Stewart had one side Of
nearly every case and was eminently
successful. But he left the outlining
OF the eases and the securing of wit
nesses to Jim Morgan. Morgan was not
a lawyer but a manipulation. he was
about the same size physically as Stew
are, the same age, a natural bulldozer
and withal a great deal of a diplomat.
In manners he was not unlike David
c. Broderick Of California except that
the exalted integrity of Broderick was
never for a moment questioned. During
those first few years both Stewart and
Morgan made fortunes. Stewart went
to the United States senate; after 4
while Morgan went to San Francisco
and later to Los Angeles, but had in.
~terests in a dozen mining camps. Mil
lions of dollars passed through the
hands of each, but their massive frames
broke down at almost the same time,
and the report is that both died poor,
though Morgan left a good deal more
property than Stewart.
"The lives Of the two men, were it
possible to obtain all the facts, would
read vastly more like a romance than
like sober history.
"They were both giants, both had
dominating natures, both had a creed
that it was the duty Of a man to win;
they fought their way for sixty years
and both died poor"