Saturday Trivia: Namesakes *more clues added* We Got Us a Winner!

[WoodenJefferson]

What is named after my namesake?

 

I was nick-named after a stale breakfast food.

 

At age 50, I committed suicide with my revolver.

 

* I can be found West of the Mississippi River.

 

**I traded an old blind horse and a bottle of whiskey to open a trade good store.

 

Todays Prize: Gallagher's Slab-O-Matic

 

We've seen imitations of slab crackers before, but this is the original Slab-O-Matic

(additional O.S.H.A. safety equipment available upon request, highly recommended)

Gallagher is a registered ®

[rbrown4]

Would it be Henry Comstock of the famous Comstock Lode?

 

Rey

[WoodenJefferson]

Would it be Henry Comstock of the famous Comstock Lode?

 

Rey

 

Edit: Rey answered this question after about 50 views...hmmm

 

~Ding...ding...ding~ We have a winner! Two weeks in a row now Rey! Dynasty in progress?

 

 

I am the Comstock Lode, Virginia City, Nevada

 

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 minister, trained mineralogists and veterans of the California gold fields. Hosea injured his foot and died of tetanus in 1857. In an effort to raise funds, Allen and an associate, Richard Burke, set out on a trek to California with samples and maps of their claim. Henry Thompkins Paige Comstock was left in their stead to care for the Grosch cabin and a locked chest containing silver and gold ore samples and documents of the discovery. Grosch and Burke never made it to California, suffering the fate of severe hardship while crossing the Sierran trails. The two suffered from gangrene and at the hands of a minor-surgeon lost their limbs through amputation, a last ditch effort to save the lives of the pair. Allen Grosch died on December 19, 1857. Richard Burke lived, but upon his recovery returned to his home in Canada.

 

When Henry T. P. Comstock known as Old Pancake, a simple sheepherder and prospector learned of the death of the Grosch brothers, he took it upon himself to claim 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 Grosch 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 area directly adjacent to this area.

 

The Comstock Lode yielded more than $400 million in gold and silver and remains the richest known U.S. silver deposit. The excavations along the fissures the vein descended more than 3200 feet until the inflow of hot water, plus the halt in silver dollar coinage, brought operations to an end in 1898.

 

James Finney, nicknamed "Old Virginny" from his birthplace, is reported to have named the town during a drunken celebration. He dropped a bottle of whiskey on the ground and christened the newly-founded tent-and-dugout town on the slopes of Mt. Davidson "Old Virginny Town," in honor of himself.

 

Comstock traded an old blind horse and a bottle of whiskey for a one-tenth share formerly owned by James Fennimore ("Old Virginny"), but later sold all of his holdings to Judge James Walsh for $11,000. He opened trade good stores in Carson City and Silver City. Having no education and no business experience, he went broke. After losing all his property and possessions in Nevada, Comstock prospected for some years in Idaho and Montana without success.

 

In September 1870, while prospecting in Big Horn country, near Bozeman, Montana, he committed suicide with his revolver.

 

Sunset Hills Cemetery, Bozeman, MT

 

 

The ore was first extracted through surface diggings, but these were quickly exhausted and miners had to tunnel underground to reach ore bodies. Unlike most silver ore deposits, which occur in long thin veins, those of the Comstock Lode occurred in discrete masses often hundreds of feet thick. The ore was so soft it could be removed by shovel. Although this allowed the ore to be easily excavated, the weakness of the surrounding material resulted in frequent and deadly cave-ins.

 

 

The cave-in problem was solved by the method of square-set timbering invented by Philip Deidesheimer, a German who had been appointed superintendent of the Ophir mine. Previously timber sets consisting of vertical members on either side of the diggings capped by a third horizontal member used to support the excavation. However, the Comstock ore bodies were too large for this method. Instead, as ore was removed it was replaced by timbers set as a cube six feet on a side. Thus, the ore body would be progressively replaced with a timber lattice. Often these voids would be re-filled with waste rock from other diggings after ore removal was complete. By this method of building up squares of framed timbers, an ore vein of any width may be safely worked to any height or depth.

 

 

 

On March 2, 1861, the Nevada Territory separated from the Utah territory and adopted its current name, shortened from Sierra Nevada (Spanish for "snowy range"). On October 31, 1864, just eight days prior to the presidential election, Nevada became the 36th state in the union. Statehood was rushed through despite Nevada's tiny population to help ensure Abraham Lincoln's reelection and post-Civil War political dominance in congress. As Nevada's mining-based economy tied it to the more industrialized Union, it was viewed as politically reliable (as opposed to the more agrarian and Confederate-sympathizing California).

 

Last mine to operate the Comstock Lode

 

The Lode

 

Conditions in the mines.

 

 

Political pressure, not public demand, brought the Morgan dollar into being. There was no real need for a new silver dollar in the late 1870s; the last previous “cartwheel,” the Liberty Seated dollar, had been legislated out of existence in 1873, and hardly anyone missed it.

 

Silver-mining interests did miss the dollar, though, and lobbied Congress forcefully for its return. The Comstock Lode in Nevada was yielding huge quantities of silver, with ore worth $36 million being extracted annually.

 

After several futile attempts, the silver forces in Congress—led by Representative Richard (“Silver ”) Bland of Missouri—finally succeeded in winning authorization for a new silver dollar when Congress passed the Bland-Allison Act on February 28, 1878. This Act required the Treasury to purchase at market levels between two million and four million troy ounces of silver bullion every month to be coined into dollars. This amounted to a massive subsidy, coming at a time when the dollar’s face value exceeded its intrinsic worth by nearly 10%.

 

In November 1877, nearly four months before passage of the Bland-Allison Act, the Treasury saw the handwriting on the wall and began making preparations for a new dollar coin. Mint Director Henry P. Linderman ordered Chief Engraver William Barber and one of his assistants, George T. Morgan, to prepare pattern dollars, with the best design to be used on the new coin. Actually, Linderman fixed this “contest” in Morgan's favor; he had been dissatisfied with the work of the two Barbers—William and his son, Charles—and in 1876 had hired Morgan, a talented British engraver, with plans to entrust him with new coin designs. The rest is history.

 

Note: Although it was possible to order silver dollars through banks or directly from the Treasury, few noticed or cared. In the late 1930s, however, several Washington dealers learned that the Treasury Department’s Cash Room near the White House was paying out uncirculated Carson City dollar—coins having a market value of $5 or more at the time! More than a few dealers quietly exploited this discovery throughout the 1940s and ‘50s.

 

 

 

Map with north at top

Famous Ponderosa Ranch where the Catwright’s used to ride into Virginia City (2 hours by horse back)

All these years, the map of the Ponderosa needed to be turned like this to show true north at top. (go figure)

 

I visited Virginia City in 1999 and one old bearded man sitting on the wooden sidewalk bench told me the town hadn’t changed much since 1899!

[rbrown4]

Woody,

 

Thanks for the new coin tool!!!!!!!!!!!!

 

I think we all know that the true prizes in these are the interesting facts and history that you are able to provide to us through these posts. Excellent explanation and history of the Comstock Load, etc.

 

Rey

[ldhair]

Great thread. Thanks.

[IGWT]

That was a fun read!