NEVADA SILVER. 737 



cabins, water ditclies, and other property, loaded one hundred and 

 fifty-three wagons, and were on the road in three weeks. A few 

 years later one of them, the noted Orson Hyde, wrote to the pos- 

 sessors of a sawmill he had built, demanding its return, and add- 

 ing : " This demand of ours remaining uncanceled shall be to the 

 people of Carson and Wassau as was the ark of God among the 

 Philistines. You shall be visited of the Lord of hosts with thun- 

 der and with earthquakes and with floods, with pestilence and 

 with famine, until your names are not known among men." The 

 letter was printed, and the camps of 1860 rang with loud laughter. 

 But in 1857 no one could see anything amusing in the departure 

 of the Mormons. Emigrant travel had ceased, traders had gone, 

 villages were deserted, plows left in the furrows, cabin doors 

 flung open. Even Gold Caiion placers were nearly exhausted. 

 Everything seemed " played out." 



The early miners of Nevada knew nothing of prospecting as a 

 business. They were so thoughtless and ignorant that it never 

 occurred to them to look for the source of the metal they were 

 obtaining in Gold Caiion and other ravines that headed in Mount 

 Davidson. The little gold they found became more and more 

 alloyed with silver, so that its value decreased from nineteen 

 dollars an ounce to twelve dollars. The camp of Johnstown in 

 Gold Caiiou, where they wintered, dwindled in size, and discour- 

 aged miners went to other districts. Meanwhile two prospectors 

 of education and ability, the Grosh brothers, were secretly ex- 

 ploring the Washoe Mountains for silver. Their letters home 

 prove that they found " a monster vein " and other good pros- 

 pects, and they began to organize companies in the Atlantic 

 States and in California to work these claims. But one brother 

 died from an accident early in 1857 ; the other lost his life in the 

 Sierra the following winter. The first knowledge of the Com- 

 stock perished with these two brave, thoughtful, reticent young 

 prospectors. 



All the men who aided in the discovery of the famous mines 

 wintered in Johnstown in December, 1858. Among them was one 

 Henry Thomas Paige Comstock, a curiously ignorant, credulous, 

 and speculative miner, familiarly known as " Old Pancake." " My 

 first recollection," he wrote, " is packing beaver traps ; trapped 

 all over Canada, Michigan, Indiana, and the Rocky Mountains." 

 Comstock, "Old Virginia," Peter O'Riley, Pat McLaughlin, 

 " Kentuck " Osborne, " Long John " Bishop, Manny Penrod, 

 Sandy Bowers, and a few others had been more or less together. 

 Sometimes they were in Gold Caiion, sometimes in Six Mile Canon, 

 sometimes crossing from the head of one to the head of the other, 

 along the side of Mount Davidson, over the top of the Comstock 

 ledge. In January, 1859, a streak of warm weather tempting 



