This shrub grows to the height of from one to four feet, and its leaves are not green, but of an ashen-grey—much the color and much the same in shape as the leaves of the common garden sage. The botanical name of this shrub is artemisia tridentata. Through the scanty covering of sage-brush the rocks everywhere rise up as though they might be the bones of the land peeping through its skin.
The first house built in Virginia City was a canvas structure, eighteen by forty feet in size, erected in 1859 by Lyman Jones, one of the pioneers of the country. Mrs. Jones was the first white woman who lived where Virginia City now stands, and her daughter Ella, was the first white child seen in the camp.
The first white child born in Virginia City was a daughter of J. H. Tilton, one of the pioneer wagon-road builders of the country. She was born on the 1st of April, 1860, and was named Virginia. She still lives in the town in which she first saw the light.
In Virginia City are to be seen as many large and substantial buildings, both public and private, as in any town of like population on the Pacific Coast. The Catholics, Episcopalians, Presbyterians, Methodists, Baptists, and other leading Christian denominations have fine and costly churches in the town, and these are as well attended as the churches in any other land. The Masons and Odd Fellows have fine halls, and both societies are in a very flourishing condition.
VIRGINIA TILTON.
There are in the city most of the orders and societies found in other large towns; as, the Knights of Pythias, Ancient Order of Druids, Improved Order of Red-Men, Knights of the Red Branch, Champions of the Red Cross, Crescents, Irish Confederation, Ancient Order of Hibernians, Caledonia Society, Society of Pacific Coast Pioneers, two Turn Vereins, Miners’ Union, Printers’ Union, and several similar societies.
In the way of benevolent associations, there are, the Virginia Benevolent Society, Italian Benevolent Society, Hibernian Benevolent Society, St. Vincent de Paul Benevolent Society, and several others. In the city is St. Mary’s Orphan Asylum and School (under the charge of the Sisters of Charity), built at the cost of about $100,000, and the St. Vincent Hospital, which cost $40,000 or $50,000. In the town are five military companies—the National Guard, Emmet Guard, Washington Guard, Montgomery Guard, and the Nevada Artillery.
In the several wards of the city are handsome, commodious and comfortable school-houses, and there are several flourishing Sunday-schools, conducted under the auspices of various religious societies. The city is lighted with gas, is supplied with pure water from the Sierra Nevada Mountains, and has telegraphic communication with all parts of the world.
Two daily papers are published in Virginia, the Territorial Enterprise, and the Evening Chronicle. The Enterprise is a morning paper, and the Chronicle, as its name implies, is published in the evening. The Enterprise is the oldest newspaper in Nevada. The first number (it was then a weekly), was issued at Genoa, on Saturday, December 18th, 1858. This was the year before the discovery of silver in Nevada, and Genoa was then a town of about 200 inhabitants. The office of publication was removed to Carson City, in November, 1859, and remained there till November, 1860, when it was removed to Virginia City. The office in which the Enterprise was first published in Virginia City, was a small, one-story frame building with a shed or lean-to on one side, and was a queerly arranged establishment. The proprietors had the shed part fitted up as a kitchen and dining and lodging-place. Bunks were ranged along the sides of the room, one above another, as on shipboard, and here editors, printers, proprietors, and all hands “bunked” after the style of the miners in their cabins. A Chinaman, “Old Joe,” did the cooking, and three times each day the whole crowd of “newspaper men” were called out to the long table in the shed to get their “square meal.” The “devil” went for numerous lunches between meals, and often came flying out into the composition-room with a large piece of pie in his mouth, and the old Chinaman at his heels.