At that time Comstock, whose name is now heard in all parts of the world in connection with the great silver lode bearing his name, was familiarly known to the miners of Johntown and neighboring mining camps as “Old Pancake.” This name was given him by his brother miners because he was never known to bake any bread. He always had—or imagined he had—so much business on hand that he could spare no time to fool away in making and baking bread. All of his flour was worked up into pancakes. And even as, with spoon in hand, he stirred up his pancake batter, it is said he kept one eye on the top of some distant peak and was lost in speculations in regard to the wealth in gold and silver that might rest somewhere beneath its rocky crest.
Meantime, while “Old Pancake” was thus toiling in American-Flat Ravine, and utilizing the native muscle of the land in his struggles with the stubborn matrix of auriferous deposits, the miners on Six-mile Cañon were steadily working along the channel of the same, picking out the richer places, and the gold extracted was gradually becoming lighter in color and weight, consequently less valuable; a condition of things that puzzled them all not a little. As, at that time, the presence of silver was not suspected, the miners could not imagine what was the matter with the gold, further than that there seemed to be some kind of bogus stuff mixed with it in the form of an alloy. This light metal, whatever it might be, seemed gradually taking the place of the gold and changing the color of the dust. As a small percentage of silver alters the color of a great quantity of gold, the value per ounce was not so much reduced as one would have supposed from looking at it; but in the value there was a slight but steady decrease.
The miners on Six-mile Cañon worked on in the fall of 1858 with tolerable success—making small wages—until it became so cold that the water they had been using in rocking was frozen up, when all hands broke up camp and returned to Johntown, to go into winter quarters.
In January 1859, there came a spell of fine weather, when some of the Johntowners struck out in various directions, for the purpose of prospecting; water being plentiful in all the ravines, owing to the melting of the snow.
On Saturday, January 28, 1859, “Old Virginia,” H. T. P. (Pancake) Comstock, and several others struck the surface-diggings at Gold Hill, and located a considerable number of claims. They claimed the ground for placer-mining but had no idea of there being a rich vein of gold and silver-bearing quartz underlying the whole region upon which they were staking off their gravel-mines.
GOLD DIGGINGS OF 1859.
They had struck upon the little knoll to which the name of Gold Hill was soon after given, which knoll stood at the north end of the site of the present town of Gold Hill. Although at first mistaken for placer-diggings, the ground forming this hillock was in reality nothing more than a great mass of the decomposed croppings of the Comstock lode. This discovery was made at a point on the head of Gold Cañon about a mile south of where, a few months later, silver was discovered in the Ophir mine, at the head of Six-mile Cañon. John Bishop, one of the men who made this strike, thus describes the manner of it. I give his own words:
“Where Gold Hill now stands, I had noticed indications of a ledge and had got a little color. I spoke to ‘Old Virginia’ about it, and he remembered the locality, for he said he had often seen the place when hunting deer and antelope. He also said that he had seen any quantity of quartz there. So he joined our party and Comstock also followed along. When we got to the ground, I took a pan and filled it with dirt, with my foot, for I had no shovel or spade. The others did the same thing, though I believe that some of them had shovels. I noticed some willows growing on the hillside and I started for them with my pan. The place looked like an Indian spring, which it proved to be.
“I began washing my pan. When I had finished, I found that I had in it about fifteen cents. None of the others had less than eight cents, and none more than fifteen. It was very fine gold; just as fine as flour. Old Virginia decided that it was a good place to locate and work.