Editing Comstock Lode (section)

=== 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>