Editing Comstock Lode (section)

== Discovery of silver ==
[[File:Comstock ore09.jpg|thumb|Bonanza ore, Consolidated California and Virginia Mine, Comstock Lode]]

Gold was found in this region in the spring of 1850, in Gold Canyon (near present-day [[Dayton, Nevada]]), by a company of [[Mormon]] emigrants, one of whom, Abner Blackburn, was their guide. After arriving much too early to cross the Sierra, the wagon train camped on the [[Carson River]] in the vicinity of [[Dayton, Nevada|Dayton]], to wait for the mountain snow to melt. William Prouse (also spelled Prows) soon found gold along the gravel river banks by panning, but left when the mountains were passable, as they anticipated taking out more gold on reaching California.  Orr named the [[gulch]] Gold Cañón.<ref name=Smith/>{{rp|1}}

Other emigrants followed, camped in the canyon and went to work at mining. However, when the supply of water in the canyon gave out toward the end of summer, they continued across the mountains to California. The camp had no permanent population until the winter and spring of 1852–53, when about 100 men worked part of the year along the gravel banks of the canyon with [[Cradle (mining)|rocker]]s, Long Toms and [[sluice]]s.  After nine years, the Gold Canyon [[placer mine|placers]] were producing less, and many miners left for the [[Mono Lake]] placers.<ref name=Smith/>{{rp|2}}

The gold from Gold Canyon came from [[quartz]] veins, toward the head of the vein, in the vicinity of where [[Silver City, Nevada|Silver City]] and [[Gold Hill, Nevada|Gold Hill]] now stand. As the miners worked their way up the stream, they founded the town of Johntown on a plateau. In 1857, the Johntown miners found gold in Six-Mile Canyon, which is about five miles (8&nbsp;km) north of Gold Canyon. The heads of both these canyons form the north and south ends of what is now known as the Comstock Lode, defined by the Ophir Discovery and the Gold Hill Discovery.<ref name=Smith/>{{rp|2–3}} The early placer miners never worked out the location of the placer gold, since the Lode surface structure was "largely worn away and covered with debris from the mountain sides above."<ref name=Smith/>{{rp|65}}

===Grosh brothers===
[[File:Comstock miners.jpeg|thumb|Comstock miners, 1880s. Caption on original: "To Labor is to Pray."]]
Credit for the discovery of the Comstock Lode is disputed. It is said to have been discovered, in 1857, by Ethan Allen Grosh and Hosea Ballou Grosh, sons of a Pennsylvania clergyman, trained mineralogists and veterans of the California gold fields.<ref name="smith">Smith, G., ''History of the Comstock Lode'', (1943).</ref> Hosea injured his foot and died of [[sepsis]]<ref name="RMBucke">Rechnitzer, Peter A.; ''R.M. Bucke: Journey to Cosmic Consciousness''. Fitzhenry & Whiteside, Markham, Ontario. 1994 {{ISBN|1-55041-155-1}}.</ref> in 1857. In an effort to raise funds, Allen, accompanied by an associate, [[Richard Maurice Bucke]],<ref name="RMBucke" /> set out on a trek to California with samples and maps of his claim.

[[Henry Comstock]] was left in their stead to care for the Grosh cabin and a locked chest containing silver and gold ore samples and documents of the discovery. Grosh and Bucke never made it to California. They suffered from frostbite while crossing the [[Sierra Nevada (U.S.)|Sierra Nevada]], and lost limbs by amputation in a last-ditch effort to save their lives. Allen Grosh died on December 19, 1857.<ref name="Comstock History">Comstock, John Adams; ''A History and Genealogy of the Comstock Family in America''. Commonwealth Press, Inc. Los Angeles, California. 1949. (Note: this is a first-edition limited pressing original book. There is no ISBN for this book.)</ref> R.M. Bucke lived, but upon his recovery returned to his home in Canada.

When Henry T. P. Comstock learned of the death of the Grosh brothers, he claimed the cabin and the lands as his own. He also examined the contents of the trunk but thought nothing of the documents as he was not an educated man. What he did know is that the gold and the silver ore samples were from the same vein. He continued to seek out diggings of local miners working in the area, as he knew the Grosh brothers' find was still unclaimed. Upon learning of a strike on Gold Hill which uncovered some bluish rock (silver ore), Comstock immediately filed for an unclaimed tract directly adjacent to this area.

===Gold Hill Discovery===
Four miners discovered the Gold Hill outcropping, at the head of Gold Canyon, making placer claims after finding traces of gold on January 28, 1859.  They were James Finney ("Old Virginny"; a contemporary rumor was that he changed his name from Fennimore to Finney after murdering a man), John Bishop ("Big French John"), Aleck Henderson, and Jack Yount.

These claims were followed by claims from Lemuel S. "Sandy" Bowers (see [[Bowers Mansion]]), Joseph Plato, Henry Comstock, James Rogers, and William Knight.  In the spring of 1859, after digging down to a depth of about ten feet, they found a gold-rich reddish quartz vein.  Their discovery was actually part of the Comstock Lode, the Old Red Ledge.<ref name=Smith/>{{rp|5–6}} The four men are therefore credited with the rediscovery of the mine previously found by the Grosh brothers.<ref name="Comstock History" />

===Ophir discovery===
In the spring of 1859, two miners, Peter O'Riley and Patrick McLaughlin, finding all the paying ground already claimed, went to the head of Six Mile Canyon and began prospecting with a rocker on the slope of the mountain near a small stream fed from a neighboring spring. They had poor results in the top dirt as there was no washed gravel, and they were about to abandon their claim when they made the great discovery.

They sank a small, deeper pit in which to collect water to use in their rockers. In the bottom of this hole was a "layer of rich black sand", "concentrate from the top of the hidden Ophir bonanza".  Henry T. P. Comstock learned of the two men working on land that he allegedly had already claimed for "grazing purposes". Unhappy with his current claim on Gold Hill, Comstock made threats and managed to work himself and his partner, Immanuel "Manny" Penrod, into a deal that granted them interest on the claim.<ref name="Comstock History" />

On June 12, a trench they were digging exposed black manganese sand mixed with bluish-gray quartz and gold. Two [[arrastra]]s built by John D. Winters and J. A. Osborn made them additional partners on June 22. Comstock and Penrod made an additional claim, called the "Mexican", but later called the "Spanish", adjacent to the "Ophir" claim.<ref name=Smith/>{{rp|2–3,7–9}}

With the "blue stuff" found in this trench, silver mining in America was born. In the rocker, along with the gold, was a large quantity of heavy blue-black material almost like putty that clogged the rocker and interfered with the washing out of the fine gold. When assayed on June 27, it was determined to be a rich [[sulfide]] of silver; in fact, the ore was three fourths silver to one fourth gold.<ref name=Smith/>{{rp|8–9,11}}

The geographic accounts on the location of the Comstock Lode were muddled and inconsistent. In one report, the gold strike was "on the Eastern fork of Walker's river" and the silver strike "about halfway up the Eastern slope of the [[Sierra Nevada (U.S.)|Sierra Nevada]]" and "nine miles West of Carson River."<ref name="doten">[[Walter Van Tilburg Clark|Clark, Walter Van Tilburg]] [ed] ''The Journals of Alfred Doten 1849–1903'', University of Nevada Press, (1973), {{ISBN|0-87417-032-X}}.</ref>

=== Fate of the discoverers ===
[[File:ComstockShafts.jpg|thumb|300px|North Comstock Lode ore bodies and claims: south (left) to north (right), Potosi, Chollar, Hale & Norcross, Savage, Gould & Curry, Best & Belcher, Con. Virginia, California, Ophir, Mexican, Union and Sierra Nevada, the last three not depicted.<ref name=Becker/>{{rp|Sheet X}}]]
[[File:ComstockShafts2.jpg|thumb|300px|South Comstock Lode ore bodies and claims: south (left) to north (right): Caledonia, Overman, Belcher, Crown Point, Kentuck, Yellow Jacket, Challenge Confidence, Imperial, Alpha, Exchequer, and Bullion Ward, the last not depicted.<ref name=Becker/>{{rp|Sheet XI}}]]

The miners who discovered the mines, and the investors who bought their claims, did not know whether they had made a small or large strike. The size, richness, and cost of exploiting a buried ore body is very hard to estimate even today. Most of them assumed they had made a small to modest strike like nearly all other gold strikes.

All of them knew they did not have the money or expertise to investigate the strike thoroughly. The size of the strike and its potential value would take many years of extensive work by thousands of miners and the investments of millions of dollars—which none of them had.  "Weighing the chances of gain and loss as they stood in 1859 the prospectors had no cause to reproach themselves with lack of foresight."<ref name=Smith/>{{rp|17}}

Patrick McLaughlin sold his 1/6 interest in the Ophir claim for $3,000 to [[George Hearst]].<ref name=Smith/>{{rp|17}}  McLaughlin soon lost the money. He then worked as a cook at the Green mine in California. He died working odd jobs.

Emanuel Penrod, partner to Henry Comstock, sold his 1/6 share of the Ophir mine for $5,500 to Judge James Walsh, and his half interest in the "Spanish" mine for $3,000, for a total of $8,500.<ref name=Smith/>{{rp|17}}<ref name="Comstock History"/>

J.A. Osborn sold his 1/6 of the Ophir "for a good price".<ref name=Smith/>{{rp|17}}

Peter O'Riley held on to his Ophir interests collecting dividends, until selling for about $40,000.<ref name="Comstock History" /> He erected a stone hotel on B Street in Virginia City called the Virginia House, and became a dealer of mining stocks. He began having visions and began a tunnel into the Sierras near [[Genoa, Nevada]] (an area of no known mineralization), expecting to strike a richer vein than the Comstock. He eventually lost everything, was declared insane, and died in a private asylum in [[Woodbridge, California]].

Henry Comstock traded an old blind horse and a bottle of whiskey for a one-tenth share of the spring at Ophir, formerly owned by James Fennimore ("Old Virginny"), but later sold all of his Ophir holdings to Judge James Walsh for $11,000.<ref name="Comstock History" />  Comstock also sold his half of the "Spanish" mine for $5,500.<ref name=Smith/>{{rp|17}}  He opened trade good stores in [[Carson City, Nevada|Carson City]] and Silver City. Being reportedly slow mentally, having no education and no business experience, he went broke. After losing nearly all his property and possessions in Nevada, Comstock prospected for some years in [[Idaho]] and [[Montana]] without success. In September 1870, while in [[Bozeman, Montana]], he died of a gunshot wound, believed to be a suicide.<ref>{{cite web |last1=Comstock |first1=Mike |title=Henry T.P. Comstock |url=https://bozemanmagazine.com/articles/2010/09/08/100062-henry-tp-comstock |website=bozemanmagazine.com |access-date=7 February 2021 |language=en}}</ref>