[A Card from the Grosch Consolidated Gold and Silver Mining Company, Sacramento Union, August 17, 1863]

 

A Card — The Grosch Brothers in Washoe.

            In the year 1853, two young men, brothers, of highly cultivated intellects, by the name of J. A. and Hosea B. Grosch, sons of Aaron B. Grosch, clergyman, of Marietta (Pa.), crossed the plains en route for California. In August of that year they arrived at the point now called Dayton, in the then Territory of Utah, where they stopped a few weeks in order to recruit themselves and animals before attempting to cross the dreaded Sierra Nevadas. While there they prospected for gold in the small cañon near by, and extending to Gold Cañon above the Devil's Gate. During their stay they discovered what they subsequently found to be the "sulphate carbonate of silver," in considerable quantities, above the Devil's Gate and near where Silver City now stands. In September, they crossed the mountains and located at Sugarloaf District, near Mud Springs, in El Dorado county, mining in the gold placers during the Winter of 1853-4. In the Spring following they determined to return to Utah and more definitely explore their silver district, where they labored hard the whole Summer, sinking numerous shafts in the cañon about Silver and Gold Hill, taking therefrom rich rock, which they assayed in a smelting furnace they erected in a ravine near by their cabin, where both are now plainly to be seen, together with many other specimens taken from the croppings of ledges in the vicinity. In the Fall they returned to their claims in El Dorado county, in order to furnish themselves with provisions to continue their operations the coming Spring where they worked the Summer of 1855, keeping their own counsels until they again returned to Mud Springs in the Fall. In the Spring of 1856, several of their neighbors to whom they had communicated their discoveries and exhibited their assays, in many instances yielding from $400 to $600 per ton, joined them; some furnishing them money, others returned with them to Washoe and worked for several months in the Summer of 1856, with satisfactory results, all returning to El Dorado in the Fall. In the Spring of 1857, the Grosch brothers employed other help and returned early to continue their prospecting, as also to prove more thoroughly the veins already opened, extending their prospecting on the ravine above where now Silver City and Gold Hill are located. They tested the croppings of the ledge where the Gould &Curry claim is now located, in what the Grosch brothers then styled the Hill or Mountain District. Further north a few hundred yards, they sunk a shaft on the identical ground now occupied by the works of the Ophir Company, where Virginia City is built. From this shaft they took out several tons of rock, which they in their assays pronounce " Carbonate of Silver," or Carburet of Silver and lead. This rock, in several letters to their father, they pronounce to be eighty-five per cent. silver ore, and the quantity inexhaustible. They further say, in letters to their father : "We have the highest hopes and are entirely sanguine of success." In the month of September, Hosea B., while engaged on the shaft, struck his foot with a pick; erysipelas ensued and he died. In December, E. Allen gave up the idea of working on the claim through the Winter. On the 11th of December, 1857, under a written contract with a man with whom he had became acquainted, by the name of Comstock, to the effect that Comstock should go into their cabin and take charge of the Hill claim during the absence of E. Allen to Winter in El Dorado, for which service he stipulated to give Comstock a fourth interest in the hill claim which they had taken up, giving the usual notice by posting, and also made a record and diagram of the ground, claiming three thousand seven hundred and fifty feet north of the ledge where the first notice was posted, and extending beyond the ravine on the north side of Virginia City. On the 14th of December, E. Allen starred, in company with a young man by the name of Burk (now of Montreal, Canada), to cross the mountains to California. Passing the first summit to Lake Valley, they were overtaken by a snow storm and after wandering for eleven days, hardly knowing where, they were taken by some Mexicans to a place called " Last Chance," in Placer county, exhausted by hunger and having their feet frozen. At the house of Mr. Harrison (late of the Assembly from Placer county, now of Healdsburg) they received every possible attention. Burk had one foot amputated and he recovered. Young Grosch refused to submit to amputation, and the third day he died. In the Spring following, Comstock hearing of the death of young Grosch, begun to bestir himself to realize the value of his suddenly acquired fortune, he soon found willing listeners to his exhibits of the marvelous assays by the Grosch brothers, who at once contracted with him that for his title and possession they would pay him (Comstock) ten thousand dollars in cash and ten thousand dollars in merchandise, provided the rock proved as rich as the Grosch brothers' assay. Judge Walsh and others tested several hundred pounds of the rock, found it rich, bought out Comstock's title, gave the lodes the name of the Comstock Claims, and at once commenced operations on a gigantic scale, claiming the whole district as included in their purchase of Comstock. All parties holding under Comstock took good care to sell out as soon as possible for a few hundred thousand dollars, before the extent of their plot should be discovered to preclude the Grosch brothers and their legal representatives of the benefit of their discovery and location.

            Parties resident of El Dorado who had known of the above, and had furnished means to the Grosch brothers during the time of the early development of the claims, concluded that they had undoubted rights, and that the father of the Grosch brothers had also equitable and just claims.  They, in the Spring of 1860, organized a company (I send their certificates of stock — The title of the " Washo Gold and Silver Mining Company"), furnished means, employed a Business Agent, who went to the States and made, for a valuable consideration in cash, a contract with the father of the Grosch brothers to take possession of the entire interest of his deceased sons. Matters of form only delayed their action, which having now been obviated, the said parties have organized their company under the general incorporation laws of this State, and now claim and demand their legal and equitable rights, which they will at once proceed to enforce, under the name and style of the "Grosch Consolidated Gold and Silver Mining Company. "

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