1 There is no evidence that William M. Gillespie ever started a newspaper in Nevada. When the Virginia City Old Piute began publication in April 1864, he was its associate editor. That paper suspended publication in January 1865 (Lingenfelter and Gash, 258).

2 The arrangements for the printing of the territorial laws and legislative journals were the responsibility of Orion Clemens, who encountered numerous difficulties in completing this task. In accord with a government directive that the printing be done within the territory, Orion offered the contract to the proprietors of the Virginia City Territorial Enterprise. After the Enterprise declined the work because the “terms of payment” were “unsatisfactory” (Journal of the Council, 98, 109), the contract was let to the firm of John C. Lewis and G. T. Sewall, the only other printers in the territory, who published the Carson City Silver Age. About one hundred and fifty pages of the legislative journals had been printed when, in November 1861, Lewis and Sewall dissolved their print-shop partnership. Orion was unable to comply with their successors’ demand for advance payment, and the remaining work was left undone. The territorial Council grew impatient with the delay, and in late November 1861 passed an act that “authorized and required” the secretary to contract with a printing firm in California (Laws 1862, 294). Orion finally let the work to Valentine and Company of San Francisco and dispatched William M. Gillespie to that city to oversee the printing. Gillespie apparently failed in this assignment, for Valentine and Company printed many volumes of the Laws with signatures missing and portions of the index omitted (William C. Miller, 4). In addition, the United States Treasury Department questioned Orion’s decision to employ a California firm and balked at paying the full printing bill. The matter remained unsettled until the fall of 1863, when Orion received authorization to pay the outstanding balance of Valentine and Company’s fee (Elisha Whittlesey to OC, 19 May 62; OC to Whittlesey, 3 Feb 62, 17 Sept 62, 23 Jan 63; OC to R. W. Taylor, 21 Sept 63: all in NvU-NSP).

3 Possibly the Star of Hope ledge on Last Chance Hill: on 16 June 1862 its rock was reported to have assayed from seventy to ninety dollars a ton (“From the Esmeralda Mining District,” San Francisco Alta California, 23 June 62, 1, reprinting the Esmeralda Star of 16 June 62).