May 21, 2006

Nevada's Online State News Journal

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Nevada History:

[From The Second Biennial Report of the Nevada Historical Society, 1909-1910, pp. 72-81.]

PIONEER DAYS IN NEVADA

ALLEN C. BRAGG, ESQ.[1]

            I left Sacramento in May, 1864, for Carson City, Nevada Territory. At that time I was a green, awkward boy, just out from the State of Maine. I had never seen anything of the world, and very naturally supposed that traffic was carried on with a yoke of oxen, hitched two-wheeled cart, or with one horse harnessed to a sled, "pung" or "Porter wagon."

            This was my first trip across the Sierras, and we passed one solid string of teams, reaching from Placerville to Lake Tahoe, and hardly a team on the road with less than six horses, and from that to as many as sixteen horses or mules and three wagons. The wagons were all painted red, with beds or boxes six or seven feet deep, covered with canvas to keep the freight free from dust, and dry in case of rain. Many of the teams were loaded with freight for Virginia City and adjacent towns, while not a few were engaged in freighting to Austin, Ione and other central and eastern Nevada points.

            The road they traveled was known as the "Placerville route" and the highway (toll-road) was sprinkled every night, all the way from Sportsman's Hall, about twelve miles east from Placerville, to the foot of the Sierra Nevada range of mountains skirting Carson Valley on the west. To me it was a great sight to see all the yards at every station on the road every night full of horses, mules, wagons and men. At night the animals were tied up to the tongues and sides of the wagons and fed from long feed-boxes placed on the tongues and at the sides. At night they were covered with a heavy canvas, lined with blanket, while the men who handled the "jerkline" and "blacksnake" curled up in their dusty beds under the wagons. Nearly every station on the road fed three or four hundred horses and mules and many teamsters every night.

            Another interesting sight to me was the Pioneer Stage Company's Concord coaches, with the front boot full of U. S. mail, the back loaded with gold and silver bullion bars from the Comstock, with many trunks piled on top of them, and the top and inside of the Concords filled with sturdy men, who made the old Comstock famous. The stage teams, six horses, were piloted on their mad run from Mount Davidson to tidewater by such "knights of the whip" as Hank Monk, "Curley Bill" Gearhart, Johnny Wilson, " Smokey" Lovitt, "Pony" King, Billy Wilson, " Baldy" Green, Tom Stevens, Prince Lewis, and many others, who pulled the ribbons and threw the silk, then in the prime of young manhood, but long since gone to other realms.

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            I arrived in Carson on May 31, 1864, and found a little city of perhaps three thousand souls, and everything was regarded as legitimate, from stage robbery to a pew in good Reverend A. F. White's church, that had just been organized and opened for business, which, by the way, gave proof that there were some Christian spirits who crossed the mountains in those rough but good old days to sow the seeds of Christianity in the sands in the wild and woolly territory.

            As I write my mind turns back the pages of time and I see written on the honor roll the names of many of the brave men who "hewed the bridge timber" over which so many are "crossing" today.

            There was Hon. James W. Nye, the Territory's first Governor, who afterward was elected as one of the United States Senators during the first session of the Legislature. James W. Nye was a man of fine presence, rather stout, with a big, round, smooth-shaven, full face, with the " milk of human kindness" oozing from every pore, and a head full of brains and a heart full of love for all mankind. His pocketbook was ever empty, however. He was always "hard up" and said that he had no use for money except to pay his debts. When he met a man whom he owed he regretted that he did not have the money to pay him.

            During congressional recesses he spent his time at the State Capital. He was very popular in the State and particularly so in Carson. He died of softening of the brain, in a private asylum in the East. His last days were very sad. To see a man of Senator Nye's attainments a gibbering imbecile caused many a strong man to weep tears of genuine sorrow.

            Hon. William M. Stewart, the other Senator, left Nevada at the end of eight years' service in the Senate of the United States, dating from 1864, and took up the practice of law in San Francisco, with a branch office in Bodie, when Bodie was contributing large sums of money to the world's wealth. He resided in the city by the Golden Gate for twelve years, returning to Nevada to again become a candidate for the United States Senate. He had but one friend in the State who advocated his election, many classing him as a Southern Pacific carpet-bagger. That friend was Sam C. Wright of Carson. Before many days had passed Stewart interested "Bill" Thompson, quite a noted politician in Reno, in his candidacy, and from the nucleus formed by Wright and Thompson his "popularity" began to grow. He had for an opponent the Hon. C. C. Powning of Reno, but so well did Stewart manipulate the political cards that Powning did not prove very troublesome, with the result that Stewart was chosen and again represented Nevada for three terms, eighteen years, with Senator John P. Jones as his colleague, retiring from public view in the winter of his life. At the expiration of his last term he returned to Nevada and entered upon the practice of law at Rhyolite, in the hope of retrieving his shattered fortune. Senator

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Stewart was a member of the Constitutional Convention, and had much to do in framing the State's organic law as did any other half dozen members.

            Chauncey N. Noteware, now living in Carson, and traveling down life's pathway on the upper side of 80, is another of the brave men who helped carve a State from a waste in the Great American Desert. Mr. Noteware was the Commonwealth's first Secretary of State, and is man who has always occupied a front place in the ranks of progress. For years he has been the Grand Secretary of the Grand Lodge Masons, and when his time shall have arrived to go the gates will be opened wide for him and St. Peter can well say: "Well done, thou good and faithful servant; enter upon the rest prepared for thee."

            In the 60's Lawler's Institute in Carson was a very popular school and next, perhaps, to the school conducted by Misses Clapp and Babcock was the best in the State. Many young men now stooped with age got their educational start in life at the Lawler Institute. James D. Torreyson, at one time Attorney-General of Nevada, and during his younger days a clerk in the State Controller's office, was fitted for Yale in the little brick schoolhouse of the Lawler Institute. Mr. Torreyson graduated from Yale in the same class that graduated President Taft. "Jimmie; as every one in Carson called Mr. Torreyson for so many years, solved the problem several years ago in the city of his nativity. Mr. Torreyson was always deservedly popular, socially and professionally. He was well-seasoned in the practice of Blackstone, and a lawyer of state-wide reputation.

            John W. Mackay, of the Comstock bonanza firm of Mackay & Fair, was another strong character in the pioneer days of the State. He dug from Nevada's hills many millions of dollars, and made many more in his manipulation of mining shares, and took his wealth and departed after the milk in the cocoanut had supposedly all been withdrawn.  John W. Mackay, however, maintained for the State and many of her people a warm place in his heart. Clarence H. Mackay, his son, and his widow, are doing much for the University of Nevada in the way of buildings and money. Nevada gave Mackay wealth, but now his legal heirs are giving to the rising generation an educational "lift" that is appreciated at its full worth by every man, woman and child within Nevada's confines.

            Abe Edgington is another who was prominent on the Comstock in an early day. Mr. Edgington was the superintendent of the Union Mill Company, a corporation that was formed by Senator William Sharon, and the name of Abe Edgington was at the head of many mining ventures, and a man who stood high in the mining world in the 70's.

            Alvinza Hayward and W. S. Hobart were early-day state history makers.

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            Father Manogue, at the head of the Catholic Church in Virginia City, was another much beloved man all over Nevada.

            Good old "Goggles" Wright is still another whose memory will remain green for many days among the old-time Comstockers.

            Governor L. R. Bradley, or "Old Broad Horns" as he was called, occupied the state executive chair at a time when Nevada needed honest, God-fearing men to steer the ship of state, and when he passed away the State lost a noble man.

            Aaron D. Campton, now living at Pasadena, Cal., was a playfellow of mine in Carson. He went to White Pine, a young boy, when the White Pine mining excitement was on in '68, and lived in that county until his hair had turned white and time had put wrinkles in his face. Mr. Campton figures very prominently in White Pine history from the date of the county's organization down to the present time. He owned the site where Ely is located, and "cleaned up" something like $100,000 when the first boom came, and has taken up his home under the shadow of Mount Lowe, where the orange blossom's fragrance can take the place of sagebrush scent and where the sunny climate of southern California can warm up the "joint water" that the rigors of winters spent in eastern Nevada had partly "congealed." Mr. Campton was a messenger in the Constitutional Convention, and was one of the pages in the lower house of the first session of the Legislature ever convened in the State. To such men as Campton, Robinson District is greatly indebted, for it was such as he who blazed the trail to the "greatest copper camp on earth."

            E. D. Kelley, one of the first newspapermen who ever penned an editorial and "locked up a form" in Nevada, was one of Humboldt's best loved and best known men. After quitting the editorial chair he was elected State Surveyor-General, and for eight years made one of the best state officers Nevada ever had. He has finished his work in this life, but will be remembered for many years as a state builder who fought the battle for Nevada for more than a generation.

            Governor J. Neely Johnson, Hon. Thos. P. Hawley, H. M. Yerington, D. L. Bliss, Senator William Sharon," Sandy" Baldwin, "Sandy" Bowers, Charley Van Gorder, B. C. Whitman, C. A. Bragg, Gilman N. Folsom, A. C. Cleveland, William E. McGill, J. W. Haines, Hannah K. Clapp, good old farmer Aaron D. Treadway, a strong man in the 60's and 70's and who always took a little water before drinking his whisky and a sip afterwards so, in case he "got hold of shiftless whisky he would have it well entertained."

            S. C. Wright, who was for many years Register of the United States Land Office at Carson, and afterward superintendent of the branch mint located in the same city; Jonas Seely, a prominent Comstock attorney in the 60's; G. A. Whitney, the Chairman of the Board of County Com-

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missioners of Esmeralda County, at a time when that county was ripped from "center to circumference" by a vigilante committee which ha several men. Mr. Whitney is spending his old age under his own orange trees in southern California, in the beautiful town of Pasadena. He is a neighbor of Aaron Campton and the two old pioneers of Nevada spend many hours together talking over the stirring times in the early days of Nevada.

            Hal. Clayton, who practiced law in Carson, and who, during the War of the Rebellion, was sent to Fort Churchill to "pack sand" for giving out expressions disloyal to the "government of the people, by the people and for the people"; Harry F. Rice, Wells, Fargo & Co.'s Carson agent at a time when Wells-Fargo had the only banking house in the State excepting the Bank of California at Virginia City; Hon. Thomas Wren, Chas. F. Bicknell, Governor J. W. Adams, Governor John H. Kinked, Governor H. G. Blasdel; Chancellor C. Derby, who piled up a million dollars or more in Alta, and afterward lost it all and died poor; Henry A. Comins, now living at Ely, White Pine county; H. S. Mason, at the head of the firm of Mason, Huff & Co. at Carson, when that firm was the largest mercantile firm in the State; A. B. Driesbach, another Carson merchant; Charley De Long, who was a candidate for United States Senator and was defeated by James W. Nye; Colonel Bob Taylor, a story-teller and lawyer of note on the Comstock when Virginia City was at its zenith.

            Joe Goodman, Charley Goodwin, now of the Salt Lake Evening Telegram, and Rollin M. Daggett, who each successively occupied the editorial chair on the Territorial Enterprise when that paper molded public opinion for the young State; John J. Musser, an early-day attorney at Carson; General Robt. M. Clarke, second Attorney-General the new State had; Alf Doten, editor of the Gold Hill News, a newspaper that carried much influence, and its editorials always had the true ring; Sam Clemens, known in literature as Mark Twain; Dan De Quille, reporter on the Enterprise, who was on the staff with Mark Twain under the editorship of Goodwin; Colonel Abe Curry, the man who had the government contract for building the United States Mint in Carson City and was the Mint's first superintendent; M. S. Bonnifield of Winnemucca, and oh, so many, many others that my heart grows sad as I recall them, and when I reflect that I, too, will soon follow those who have gone and those who are soon to go, to that "undiscovered country from whose bourne no traveler returns" my pen refuses to be guided.

            With but few exceptions all whom I have mentioned have long since joined the "silent majority."

            Every one of them is deserving of more than a passing notice. Space however, forbids, but I cannot complete this little sketch without giving

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to the memory of A. C. Cleveland a line or two. Mr. Cleveland, or “Cleve" as nearly every one called him, was prominent when Nevada wore the garb of a Territory, and he grew with the times until at his death he was at the head of the procession of progressive citizens. He was prominent in western Nevada when the Territory was made a State; he was one of the County Commissioners of Washoe in 1866; he represented that county in the lower house of the Legislature. He was caught in the tide that carried so many to Hamilton during the White Pine mining excitement of 1868-69, where he helped to carve a part of Lander's territory and make of it the County of White Pine. He was afterward chosen to represent White Pine in each branch of the Legislature. He "settled down" in Spring valley early in the 70's and with his wife commenced to reclaim a home from land that was considered a desert waste. A visit to the farm today would be a revelation to any one. The acres and acres under fence and growing hay, grain, fruit and, in fact, everything known to the temperate zone is an object-lesson that future generations may profit by. It shows what one man can accomplish in home building in forty years. The large grove of shade and fruit trees stands today as a monument to Cleveland's memory.

            "Cleve" was always prominent in Nevada's business world, and in the halls of the Legislature, in political conventions and, in fact, in and on all lines that led to the State's betterment. He was first a true friend, but a relentless enemy; he was a good farmer and better cattleman; he was a politician of the higher order and was never known to "put his ear to the ground" to sound the popular wave and weigh public opinion. What he always asked himself was: "Is it right?" If it was, he advocated the question whatever it might have been, and was always true to his convictions, no matter how many or how few followed him. There was none of the demagogue in the Cleveland make-up. He went to sleep never to awaken in this life at his home in Spring Valley in 1902 or 1903, on the spot where he and Mrs. Cleveland had spent more than a generation. Mrs. Cleveland lives there today, and the ranch is home for the people within a radius of fifty miles.

            Mr. Cleveland, as I said before, was a politician of the higher order and was ever ready to render a friend or his party a service. He was the standard-bearer for the Republican Party for Governor, afterward for United States Senator, but that was in the days when the Silver Party was in the political saddle and he stood but small chance of election, but his candidacy showed his loyalty to his convictions, and there was great honor in defeat.

            "Cleve's" name is prominent on the pages of Nevada's history and will grow brighter and brighter as time goes on its never-ending cycle. Virginia City in 1864 contained about 30,000 people, and the build-

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ings were hung to the sides of Mount Davidson, over ground hone combed with timbered shafts, tunnels and winzes, and in many respects was the most wonderful city in the world. Twenty-dollar pieces were more plentiful than nickels today, and everybody had a-plenty, from the servant girl to the millionaire. Its inhabitants were made up brave men and women, who set the pace for other and larger cities. San Francisco was largely built up on Comstock money, and, indeed the great city of New York felt a quickening when Comstock money was dumped into Wall Street. Virginia was the largest town in the State with Carson the second, but a good way behind. Then there was Washoe City, at that time one of the most prosperous in the State, Galena, Ophir and Franktown, all to the north of Carson, and the little Mormon village of Genoa, under the shadow of Job's Peak, fourteen miles to the south, Empire, three miles east of Carson, was a place of much activity and was headquarters and the lumbering manufacturing center for the Carson River Lumber Company, under the directorship of Russell and Crow. It was also the "port of entry" for nearly all the wood consumed in the mines of the Comstock and by the quartz mills on Carson River, as far down that stream as Dayton. Gold Hill was a "live one" and, in fact, Silver City and Dayton were much in evidence also. The saw logs cut up at Empire were floated down the Carson from the forest of Alpine County, Cal., and cut into dimension stuff at the mills of Russell and Crow. The wood was also floated down the Carson from same source and taken from the river at Empire, where is was ricked up, seasoned and loaded upon quartz wagons that came down from Virginia City with ore for reduction at the various mills along Carson, and hauled to Virginia.

            In this connection I will add a few lines about Senator H. A. Comins, now living at Ely, and who was prominently connected with the Carson Lumber Company, and a man who has left his tracks in the sands, both in western Nevada as well as White Pine County. Senator Comins was caught in the White Pine mining excitement of 1868-9, and left the western part of the State for Hamilton, where he engaged in the manufacture of lumber, and when decline was Hamilton's lot in the business world Senator Comins moved to Ward, and when Ward "died" the Senator assisted in performing "the last rites" and moved to Cherry Creek, then a hustling, busy mining town of great promise. He engaged in lumbering at that place, and when Cherry Creek "got sick" he concluded to make the proverbial "two blades of grass grow where but one grew before" and took up a ranch in the Steptoe Valley, and for twenty-two years conducted one of the largest ranch properties in White Pine County. As the years went rolling by H. A. Comins was called upon to represent the people of White Pine County in both branches of the Nevada Legislature, and to his keen judgment, perhaps, as much or more

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is due to keeping the ship of state off the rocks at the time of great danger than to any one else. He was a leader in shaping legislation fitted for a declining State, and has lived to see his handiwork in statecraft appreciated by the people of every county of the Commonwealth. Senator Comins bears his years of strenuous life with becoming dignity, and now in the "sear and yellow leaf" is enjoying the fruits of a life spent in well-doing. He still takes great interest in public affairs and maintains the position he has always filled of being a leader in advanced thought. To such men as Henry A. Comins Nevada owes much.

            Another important lumbering point was at Central Mills located at Little Bangor, one mile south of Franktown and operated by Gilman N. Folsom, Charles A. Bragg and Albert Bragg, under the firm name of Folsom, Bragg & Co. This firm worked several big teams between Central Mills and had yards at Carson and Dayton, besides delivering a good deal of lumber on the ground at the various mines on the Comstock. In this connection I am reminded that I owe to the memory of my father, Charles Allen Bragg, and to my mother, Marcia Bryant Bragg, a few words, for it was such men and women as they who left their imprint on the pages of Nevada's early history. They spring from the loins of Maine's most sturdy race of people. They spent the honeymoon of their lives in the Pine Tree State, father coming west in about 1860, followed by mother and five children—Mrs. J. E. Dealey, of San Francisco, Mrs. Addie E. Bacon, who passed to the beyond in February, 1907, in New York, Mrs. R. L. Fulton of Reno, Mrs. W. R. Jenvey of Hoboken, New Jersey, and myself—in 1864. Father was located at the Carson yard and did the outside business for the firm of Folsom, Bragg & Co. He shipped much lumber to Austin, Ione, and Hamilton, White Pine Mining District, then a part of Lander County. The firm of Folsom, Bragg & Co. cut nearly all the fence lumber used in Churchill and Douglas Counties up to 1865.

            My father was in company with G. N. Folsom in the manufacture of lumber on the Truckee River, ten miles east of Truckee, in the 70's, furnishing for two or three years nearly all the timber used in the Crown Point mine at Gold Hill, when it was one of the greatest bullion-producers on the. Comstock. United States Senator John P. Jones was superintendent at the time. Mother and father traveled down life's pathway hand in hand, sharing each other's pleasures and disappointments for more than half a century and celebrated their golden wedding at the home of Mr. and Mrs. R. L. Fulton of Reno in 1891. At that time they were nearing the end of the road, father dying in August, 1893, and mother, God bless her, following him in 1907, with nearly eighty-eight full years of noble deeds standing to her credit. They were pioneers in the truest sense, and there are many people living in the State today who have been the recipients of their hospitality and

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kindly acts. Father was not a politician, but he always took a lively interest in every movement that promised betterment to the State and its people, morally or financially. He could always be counted on the right side of every question touching public weal. With these few words about father and mother, for which I trust I may be pardoned, I will on with my story.

            William N. McGill, now living at Ely, White Pine County, is another state builder who has added many "bricks" to Nevada's "building" and is deserving of a prominent place in the commonwealth's history when it is fully compiled. Mr. McGill came to Nevada fresh from a college of engineering in 1870, full of vigor and western push, and his first employment was running lines for Sutro's "big bore" into the Comstock Lode, and known today as the Sutro Tunnel. He was associated with Ross E. Browne, Gott Haist, Ike James and several other prominent engineers of their time in doing the preliminary work on one of the greatest engineering feats that was, up to 1870, ever completed in any country. In 1873 he moved to White Pine County, and at once became prominent as a state builder and history-maker for the Battle-Born. How well he has performed his task is shown on the farming lands of Steptoe Valley, and, in fact, all over White Pine County. He now "flocks on a thousand hills" and the McGill and Adams "home ranch" is one of the busiest places in the county during the sheep-shearing season. When the mines of Robinson District became developed and attracted the attention of capital it was found that Mr. McGill had "builded better than he knew" and many thousands of dollars was his reward for labor faithfully performed.

            Mr. McGill and his family now reside in Ely, and he modestly puts in at least a part of his time clipping interest coupons from his wide-spread holdings. He is now on the shady side of fifty and living in luxury on the proceeds of his active life. Several times he has been strongly urged to become a candidate for Governor, but has always put the request aside, and is one of the few who at some time in their life have not been carried away in the whirlpool of politics. He was forced to accept a seat in the lower house of the Nevada Legislature, however, in the session of 1891, and was one of the cleanest and most far-sighted members of that session. There has never been a campaign fought in this State that Mr. McGill has not taken an interest in and given his party valuable advice, not, however, as a seeker of office.

            I remember October 31, 1864, the day Nevada walked into the sisterhood of States and took an honored seat at the table on President Lincoln's right. Uncle Sam needed Nevada in the dark hour the Union of States was passing through ; he needed the silver from the Comstock to assist in carrying on the great civil strife then going on between the North and the South ; he needed the votes of another loyal

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State in the United States Senate to strengthen President Lincoln's hand in holding the Union together. Uncle Sam had Nevada's most loyal support in not only upholding President Lincoln, but he had the millions the Comstock was producing for the asking.

            I well remember April 15, 1865, when the news reached the State Capital that President Lincoln had been shot down in Ford's theater, Washington, by an assassin, and how quickly flags were floating at half-mast, and the city draped in somber black, expressing the people's great love for the dying President. The exciting times in frontier life gave way for the moment to genuine grief, and expressions of great loyalty were heard from men of every political faith.

            I can remember when the ground where the State Capitol now stands was used as a baseball diamond for the old Silver Star baseball club, with nothing on the "Plaza" as it was called in those days, but a low, unfinished, half-burned structure the people called a pavilion; not a tree ornamented the grounds, and the "Plaza" was fenced with planed 6x6 timbers, unpainted.

            I can remember when the Ormsby House, in Carson, was the political tenting ground for all parties, and it was the only place in the State where politicians of both high and low degree congregated to compare notes, fix slates, and "paddle in the filthy pool."

            But, alas, alas, there came another and darker day when Nevada began to decline, and for more than twenty years was a very sick child. But she had good nursing by a handful of people who were always optimistic as to the State's future, and some of us have lived to witness the change that we all knew would come sooner or later, but many became tired of waiting, finished their earthly tasks and have long since returned to the God who gave them the power of thought, speech and action in this life.