Haunted Virginia City
My last spooky book for the month of October is Haunted Virginia City by Janice Oberding.
This book certainly included ghost stories, but more than that, it was a brief history of Virginia City, NV. Brief because the book was only 142 pages and Virginia City was founded around 1859 with the discovery of silver, so the City predates the State of NV, which joined the union October 31, 1864, just in time to help elect President Lincoln for his second term.
The story starts with “The Unfortunate Grosh Brothers.” Hosea and Ethan Allen Grosh had initially traveled to California to try and find some of the gold on the American River in 1849. So they were part of the original ‘49ers. Now, they had no luck in California, but in 1852 they heard about gold in the western part of Utah territory, which is modern day Nevada. So they headed back east, but just over the Sierra Nevada’s to Gold Canyon in…for ease, I’m just going to call it Nevada, but then it WAS still part of Utah. So the Grosh brothers are in Nevada and they are actually the ones to notice the bluish sludge being cast off as trash by the other miners. And they suspected it was silver. What they lacked was funding to confirm their belief. But, they were not fools, they kept their beliefs close until they could actually confirm silver.
Unfortunately, before they could confirm such, Hosea died on September 2, 1858 of blood poisoning following an unfortunate mishap where he struck his foot with a pickax. Ethan Allen was devastated. His brother was his best friend. He paid the brothers creditors and then left his claim in the hands of foreman….friend….? Henry Comstock, he headed to CA for the assay on the metal. And like the Donner Party before him, fell prey to severe winter storms, which resulted bad frostbite. Ethan Allen declined amputation and died of sepsis in California on December 19, 1858.
Henry Comstock…not being a complete fool….recognized that opportunity was knocking on his door, and he immediately claimed the Grosh’s stake for himself, and went on to become famous for having discovered the Comstock Lode. And as sad as the Grosh’s story is, they do not appear to be ghosts on the Comstock. But Comstock is. He sold his claim for $10,000, which is an absolute pittance to the millions the silver vein would eventually disgorge, and he would kill himself in 1870, alone, in a shack in Montana. So if he died in Montana, why would he haunt Nevada? Guilt over his good fortune? I mean, he discovered nothing, but his name is attached historically the greatest silver find in the nations history. A find that would have national implications, as politicians would fight in DC over whether or not to allow our nations currency to be backed by both silver and gold, largely as a result of the Comstock “find.” Learned that in the Grover Cleveland book.
Or maybe it was Rage over how little he sold his claim for in relation to it’s eventual worth. Regardless, he said to haunt the Ophir mine, both above and below the mine entrance, chasing away anyone who wanders near his claim.
Oberding goes on to describe Sandy and Eilley Bowers, who were the first couple to become millionaires off the Comstock lode…also the first to return to rags after their riches were wasted on….eh….frivolous purchases. After Sandy died, they couples daughter Persia died, and this left Eilley all alone. So she did what a great many women who suddenly found themselves with no means of support did: she became a medium, using her peep stone…aka crystal ball…to commune with the dead. She became quite good at it, too, garnering a solid reputation as a seeress and entering Nevada folklore.
You can’t really discuss Virginia City, NV without discussing her most famous resident, Samuel Clemens, aka Mark Twain, who took up residency and was a local journalist for a while, even providing a graphic description of an execution…one of the more famous executions, actually, that of John Millian for the murder of Comstock Courtesan, Julia Bulette, who on January 20, 1867 was beaten to death at her residence. Millian maintained his innocence to the end, and he well may have been. He was French…like from France, not just of French descent, and barely spoke English. So on the day of his execution, he addressed the crowd in French and said basically he didn’t know what he was confessing to because he didn’t speak the language. Didn’t matter—he was hung on April 23, 1868. And Twain witnessed it and wrote a lengthy and eloquent recitation of what the execution entailed. And I believe both Bulette and Millian are known to haunt the Silver Terrace Cemeteries.
Most of the hotels in town are haunted, as is the one just down the hill, the Gold Hill Hotel. As are the Fourth Ward School, now a museum, Virginia City Middle School, Silver State National Peace Officers Museum, which was once the Storey County Jail, there’s the infamous suicide table at The Delta Saloon, the St. Mary’s Art Center, Piper’s Opera House, Mackay Mansion, St. Mary’s in the Mountains, St. Paul’s Episcopal Church, The Chollar Mansion… In fact most of the business buildings and a significant chunk of the residences are haunted. Mostly harmless spirits. Some hostile, but other than dropping things or tapping people on the head, the occasional licentious butt pinch, it’s more a feeling or sensation than proof positive of anything.
Don’t get me wrong, there are plenty of anecdotes of spectral presences, and physical manifestations, and not all from the 19th century….there was a meme going around about no ghosts from 2007…well Virginia City has one from at least 1990.
This book was entertaining. It had a lot of local history and local lore, and while it’s clear Oberding is a believer, she doesn’t scoff at sceptics. She admits it can be hard to believe without proof and proof can be hard to come by when dealing with spirits that work on their own time. So I quite enjoyed it. Even if you’re not much of a ghost hunter, the history was fun to read, and if you ARE a ghost hunter, Oberding directs you where you might have the most success of having an encounter.
