Editing Comstock Lode (section)

===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.