CHAPTER VII.
REMINISCENCES OF EARLY MINING DAYS.
When news began to be received in various parts of California from the first parties of these adventurers, upon their arrival in Washoe, their reports were confirmatory of all that had before been said and imagined of the new mines, and an almost unparalled excitement followed. Miners, business men, and capitalists flocked to the wonderful land of silver that had been found in the wilderness of Washoe, beyond the snowy peaks of the Sierras.
The few hardy first prospectors soon counted their neighbors by thousands, and found eager and excited newcomers jostling them on every hand, planting stakes under their very noses and running lines round or through their brush-shanties, as regardless of their presence as though they were Piutes. The handful of old settlers found themselves strangers, almost in a single day, in their own land and their own dwellings.
There were numerous sales of mining claims almost daily, at what then was thought high prices, and the hundreds who were unprovided with money with which to purchase mining ground swarmed the hills in search of ledges that were still undiscovered and unclaimed. The whole country was supposed to be full of silver lodes as rich as the Comstock, and the man who was so fortunate as to find a large unoccupied vein, containing rock of a color similar to that of the Ophir, considered his fortune made.
The Mining Recorder of the district now drove a thriving trade; he could hardly record the locations of mining claims as fast as they were made.
Some of these notices were literary curiosities, particularly those to be found in the old Gold Hill book of records.
V. A. Houseworth, the “village blacksmith,” was the first Recorder at Gold Hill, and the book of records was kept at a saloon, where it lay upon a shelf behind the bar.
The “boys” were in the habit of taking it from behind the bar whenever they desired to consult it, and if they thought a location made by them was not advantageously bounded they altered the course of their lines and fixed the whole thing up in good shape, in accordance with the latest developments.
When the book was not wanted for this use, those lounging about the saloon were in the habit of snatching it up and “batting” each other over the head with it.
The old book is now in the office of the County Recorder, at Virginia City, and is beginning to be regarded as quite as curiosity. It shows altered dates, places where leaves have been torn out, and much other rough usage.