To Orion Clemens
28 April 1862 • Aurora, Calif./Nev. Terr.
(MS: NPV, UCCL 00046)

Esmeralda, Apl. 28.

My Dear Bro:

Well, if Perry has found something, I take it all back. But I am dubious yet—very dubious—for I confess that I can’t see anything but a little sulphate of copper and a few sulphurets, iron pyrites, &c., in the specimen which Bagley brought.1 However, I mean to pan it out to-morrow, and then we shall see what we shall see—and I will hope for the best, until I see the ledges myself.

You have described exactly the spot on Dr. Ives’2 hill where Bunker and I found very good specimens of silver quartz. We traced the ledge some distance, but didn’t think it worth while to locate it. D—n Carson, I wouldn’t have a claim that close to it. How is the “Lady Washington[”] doing?3 Why don’t they go down on the ledge in your new claims? I am afraid of “shenanigan” and “wildcat” when a miner shirks his ledge.

I have been at work all day, blasting, and picking, and gadding4 and d—ning one of our new claims—the “Dashaway,”—which I don’t think a great deal of, but which I am willing to try. We are down, now, 10 or 12 feet. We are following down, under the ledge, but not taking it out. If we get up a windlass [to-morrow], we shall take out the ledge, and see whether [ is it] is worth anything or not.5

I mean that the “Live Yankee” is recorded, and that makes it all right, Allen says, because no transcript of the Records has yet been made by the Co.

Raish has been hunting for the ledge which produced the fine specimen shown you by Mr. Larue6—but this hunting needles in a haystack is “played out,” you know.

Ma and Pamela seem to be down on my last to the Gate City. Well, what’r they going to do about it—[be] Jes–s?—(though I would hate to ask them the question, you bet.[)] 7

I have attended to Barstow.8

Yes, I got the money.

Touch the new claims carefully, you know, as far as cash is concerned. Don’t buy anything, by any means.

Well, I shall know in the morning, but I can’t see anything in the M. House specimen.

Yr. Bro.

Sam.

Remember me to Tom9

Explanatory Notes | Textual Commentary

Editorial Signs

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1 H. W. Bagley was the driver of William H. Brown and Company’s weekly stage between Carson City and Aurora (“Aurora and Owens River,” Stockton Weekly Independent, 12 Apr 62, 1, reprinting the Carson City Silver Age of 28 Mar 62). The specimen, given to Orion by the unidentified Perry, was from the Mountain House ledge near Carson City.

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2 Dr. John Ives had accompanied Governor James W. Nye from New York to Nevada. He practiced medicine in Carson City and was a member of John Nye and Company (see 18–21 Sept 61 to JLC and PAM, n. 5; Mack 1936, 222; Kelly 1862, 82).

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3 The Lady Washington, in the Gold Hill district of Storey County, was an “outside mine”—that is, a mine parallel to the Comstock lode. Such mines numbered “hundreds, perhaps thousands” and were located “in every conceivable place, and according to the most absurd theories.” Nevertheless, the Lady Washington belonged to a cluster called “perhaps as promising a field as any of the outsides” (Angel, 616). Its proprietors incorporated it sometime before 1 June 1863, with a claimed capital value of $660,000 and shares worth $200 each (Kelly 1863, 11, 15).

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4 A “gad” was a “small iron punch with a wooden handle used to break up ore” (Raymond, 38).

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5 By 12 May Clemens owned one-fifth of the Dashaway claim, located on Silver Hill, Aurora (11 and 12 May 62 to OC). On 22 July he purchased from Horatio Phillips, as part of a package of stocks costing $300, seventy-five additional feet in the claim (deed in CU-MARK). In March 1863, however, he was not listed among the “first trustees” who incorporated the Dashaway Gold and Silver Mining Company with a capital stock of $180,000 and shares valued at $300 each (“The Mining Roll Continued,” San Francisco Evening Bulletin, 16 Mar 63, 3).

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6 J. D. LaRue, the local deputy recorder, was soon to be one of Clemens’s partners in the Clemens Gold and Silver Mining Company (Kelly 1862, 249; Clemens Gold and Silver Mining Company trust deed, 9 May 62, PH in CU-MARK, courtesy of Michael H. Marleau).

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7 Clemens refers to his 30 January 1862 letter to his mother, which appeared in the Keokuk Gate City. Although by now his family must have received his 20 March letter about Nevada’s Indians, which also appeared in the Gate City, their reactions to it probably had not reached him yet.

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8 About this time Clemens began contributing letters, under the pen name “Josh,” to the Virginia City Territorial Enterprise. These letters, none of which survive, caught the eye of William H. Barstow, formerly assistant secretary of the Council of the first Territorial Legislature, who was now employed in the business office of the Enterprise. Barstow soon helped Clemens win a place on the newspaper’s regular staff (see 30 July 62 to OC, n. 1). For a description of one of Clemens’s “Josh” letters, see Daggett, 15.

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9 Thomas C. Nye.

Description of Texts and Provenance

Source text(s):

MS, Jean Webster McKinney Family Papers, Vassar College Library (NPV).

Previous publication: L1, 199–201; MTB, 1:196–97, excerpt; MTBus, 69, brief excerpt.

Provenance:see McKinney Family Papers, pp. 459–61.

Emendations and textual notes:

to-morrow • to-| morrow

is it • ist [‘t’ over ‘s’]

be • [sic]