History of the big bonanza

by Dan De Quille

Notwithstanding that Mr. Fair is the superintendent of the mine owned by the firm[firm], Mr. Mackey also does duty as superintendent, and the pair generally hold a grand council on all matters of moment. When this council is in session in the private office at the works, the miners in passing back and forth hold up their fingers to one another as a sign that no noise is to be made that will interfere with the deliberations that are in progress near at hand. No man in Nevada more thoroughly understands the Comstock lode than Mr. Mackey. He has made it his study for years. No change of rock can occur but that he knows what it portends. He appears to know almost every clay-seam, and streak of quartz, and porphyry that runs through the vein. By looking at a sample of ore he can tell the amount of silver it contains almost as well as if he had seen it assayed. He is particularly at home in the northern part of the Comstock, where he has had most acquaintance with the mines, and may be said to have that part of the lode by heart. As regards mining knowledge, Mr. Mackey is the “boss” of the big bonanza.

The Hon. William Sharon, who for many years figured so prominently in the mining and milling interests of the Comstock lode as to earn for himself the title of the “King of the Comstock,” was born in Jefferson county, Ohio, in 1821. His family were Quakers and his ancestors were among those who settled at Philadelphia with William Penn. When a boy of seventeen Mr. Sharon thought that the life of a boatman would suit him. He purchased an interest in a flatboat, and started down the Ohio River, bound for New Orleans, but “landed his boat” when he reached Louisville. At this point the boat struck a rock in crossing the falls, and was left a total wreck. Mr. Sharon then returned to his native town disgusted with a “seafaring” life, and went to college a few years, then studied law and practiced for a time in St. Louis, Missouri.

Giving up the practice of law on account of bad health, he figured as a merchant, at Carrollton, Illinois, until the discovery of gold in California. He was among those who crossed the Plains in 1849, and in August of that year reached Sacramento, where he purchased a stock of goods and opened a store. The floods of the winter of 1849-50 swept his stock into the Pacific Ocean, leaving him about as he was left when he struck the falls at Louisville, on the Ohio River.

After his store had been carried away by the flood he went down to San Francisco and opened a real-estate office. He continued in this business until 1864, and had accumulated a fortune of $150,000, when he began speculating in mining-stock. In this he again struck the Louisville Falls and again “landed his boat,” a total wreck. Being once more foot-loose and ready for anything that might offer in the way of business, he was sent over the Sierras to Virginia City, Nevada, by the Bank of California to look after certain of the affairs of that institution which required attention. After reaching Virginia City he soon arranged all the affairs of the Bank of California, and while looking about and probing into matters in so doing, was shrewd enough to see that he had at last reached the place where all the money on the Pacific Coast was coming from. He at once urged upon the officers of the Bank of California the necessity of opening a branch at Virginia City, which was done and Mr. Sharon was placed at the head of the new institution, with unlimited powers. He remained in Virginia City a number of years as the head of the branch bank in that place, and finally resigned in order to look after affairs of his own, leaving in his place an excellent and capable man in the person of Mr. A. J. Ralston.

Mr. Sharon is the father of the Virginia and Truckee Railroad, undoubtedly the crookedest railroad in the world, and a wonderful road in many other respects. In building this road Mr. Sharon secured a subsidy of $500,000 from the people of Washoe in aid of the project, constructed as much of the road as the sum would build, then mortgaged the whole road for the amount of money required for its completion. In this way he built the road without putting his hand into his own pocket for a cent, and he still owns half the road—worth $2,500,000 and bringing him in as Mr. Adolph Sutro says, $12,000 per day. On this trip he got his boat over the falls in good shape. The road, however, has been of great benefit to the country, and Mr. Sharon was a good man for the country while he was at the head of the Virginia branch of the Bank of California, as he had the nerve to advance money for the development of mines and the building of mills at the time when no outside banking-house would have ventured a cent. He saw that, though some of the mining companies were in “borrasca” there was every likelihood of their being in “bonanza” soon again, provided they were furnished with a sum sufficient to make proper explorations.

Mr. Sharon is the principal owner of the Palace Hotel, San Francisco, the largest and most costly hotel in the world, and of a vast deal of other property in the city named, and in various places in California and Nevada. In all he is probably worth seventy or eighty million dollars. In 1874, he was elected United States’ Senator from Nevada, for six years, to take the place of Mr. Stewart. Mr. Sharon has a very clear head, a thorough understanding of financial questions, is a shrewd business man, and a man of large capabilities in all the walks of life.

JAMES G. FAIR.
(Supt. California and Consolidated Virginia Mines.)

James G. Fair Esq., one of the principal owners and the superintendent of the Consolidated Virginia and California mines, was born in the north of Ireland. He came to the United States in his youth and settled in Illinois. Upon the discovery of gold in California he determined to try his “luck” as a miner. He left Illinois, in 1849, and reached California, in August, 1850[1850], when he went to Long’s Bar, Feather River, called by the Mexicans el Rio de los Plumas—the river of feathers.

On Feather River, Mr. Fair learned the art of mining for gold in the bars and river channels, among boulders so large that to look at them made one sick at heart. In 1860 he gave up mining for gold, and made his way across the Sierras to Virginia City, where he has ever since made his home, and where he has constantly been engaged in mining and other enterprises. In 1857 he became the partner of John Mackey in the Hale & Norcross mine, when both he and Mr. Mackey made a “snug bit” of money.