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 J. A.
BLOSSOM -----was born in Miamisburg, Montgomery
County, Ohio, Juno 9, 1836, where his father still
resides. In his youth he learned the
trade of his father, that of harness maker, but
did not work at the business after he reached his
majority. In 1856 he left his home and went to
Missouri, and took charge of a land office in the
interests of an Eastern company, where he remained
until March, 1860, when became to California by
way of the Isthmus of Panama, and located in
Tehama County.
The next year he came to the
Territory of Nevada, and settled in what is now
Humboldt County, being one of the first settlers
and locators of the celebrated Humboldt mines. He
was also one of the founders of Star City, on the
Sheba Ledge. During his twenty years residence in
Nevada, Mr. Blossom has seen much of the State,
living at Dun Glen, Winnemucca, and other
places.
He was one of the first settlers in Battle
Mountain, where he now resides, and built the
first house, with the exception of the railroad
station house, erected in that town. He was also
one of the founders of the flourishing towns of
Galena, and Lewis, and was the most extensive
freighter in that section of the country. His
mining transactions have proved very successful,
he having sold no less than six different mines
within the past five years. He has always been an
active business man, and is now engaged in
merchandising, and is well known as a mining man;
is also largely interested in stock-raising. In
1879 he, under contract, graded the Nevada Central
Railroad from Battle Mountain to Austin, employing
as high as 800 men and 500 horses in the work.
During the years intervening
between the years 1861 and the present time, Mr.
Blossom has had many curious and thrilling
adventures, in his wanderings among the mountains
in search of the precious metal, and in fighting
the "dusky sons of the sage-brush." He was married
in April, 1866, to Miss Elvira Hunter, at Star
City, Nevada, and they have three children, two
sons, aged twelve and fourteen years, who are at
the present time at school at Santa Clara College,
in California.
 ALLEN A. CURTIS ----the subject of this
sketch, Is a native of New Jersey, born November
1, 1838, in Passaic County, near the town of
Belleville, on the Passaic River. His father was
an extensive paper manufacturer, and his
grandfather on his mother's side, Robert Morris,
of New Jersey, was one of the signers of the
Declaration of Independence.
Mr. Curtis came to California in
1850, by water, and at once entered the employ of
Van Winkle & Duncan, iron merchants, at
Sacramento, at thirty dollars per month and board.
He remained in the employ of this firm until 1865.
During that time he visited Austin, Nevada, in the
interest of his employers, and being well pleased
with the prospects in that section of the country,
concluded to locate there, which he did in April,
1865, and filled the position of book-keeper for
the Oregon Milling and Mining Company, until, in
August of that year, the company sold its interest
to the Manhattan Company, at which time Mr. Curtis
entered the employ of that company, and, with the
exception of two months, filled the same position
he had held in the Oregon Company, until February,
1867, when he was appointed Superintendent, in
which capacity he served three years, at which
time he resigned, and his brother was appointed in
his stead.
From the time of his arrival in the country
he has been a stockholder in that company to a
limited extent, and, to demonstrate his faith in
the value of the property, assumed all he was able
of the indebtedness of the Manhattan Company, in
1800, that eventually proved the sagacity of his
judgment, and resulted greatly to his pecuniary
advantage.
At the time he became Superintendent, the
indebtedness of the company was S180,000 and
within one year that obligation was paid, and
eventually Mr. Curtis, with his associates, became
the purchasers of the entire property. He built a
narrow gauge railroad from the mill, a distance of
two miles, which connects with the Nevada Central
Railroad, in the outskirts of
Austin.
He is one of the firm of Paxton
& Curtis, of the Bank of Austin, and also
connected with the Paxton & Co. Bank of
Eureka. He has twice held the office of County
Treasurer, and is interested in the wholesale
grocery house of Gage, Curtis & Co., at
Austin, Lander County, Nevada. In connection with
others, he erected a fifteen-stamp mill at Mineral
Hill, that was under his supervision while being
Superintendent of the Manhattan Mill, and was
situated eighty-five miles northeast therefrom.
With a relay of three horses he often made the
trip between these two points in eight and
one-half hours. The Smoky Valley Salt Works, in
Nye County, are also his property. In Reno, Washoe
County, there is also a banking house controlled
by Paxton, Curtis & Co., and, in the palmy
days of Belmont, they also had an establishment of
the kind there.
Mr. Curtis was married November 1, 1877, to
Mary C. (Curtis)-who, though bearing the same
name, was no relative, until after the date
mentioned above-in Austin, and is a native of
Sacramento, California. Their union has been
blessed with one child, now living, about two
years of age, named Allen Ralston. Mr. Curtis has
been closely identified with many enterprises, and
is one of the solid men of the
State.
 HON. M. J. FARRELL ----Was
born at Mount Hope, near Rockaway, Morris County,
Now Jersey, March 29, 1832. He is of Irish
parentage, his parents coming from the Emerald
Isle when they were very young, his father at the
age of eighteen and his mother when only six years
of age.
Mr. Farrell was educated in his native
State and sailed from New York for California on
the old steamer Georgia, April 5, 1853. The
steamer was wrecked on her next trip.
On the fifth of May, 1853, Mr.
Farrell arrived in San Francisco, and immediately
went to the mines in Nevada City, where he found a
friend with whom he engaged in mining in Myer's
Ravine, about four miles north of Nevada City. His
next anchorage was at Jones Bar, on the South Yuba
River, where he bought a flume claim. After that
he wandered through Northern California,
principally in Nevada, Sierra and Plumas Counties,
as a miner, school-teacher, hotel-keeper, butcher,
and in fact, as he says, "turning his hand to
almost anything," until in 1863, he came to Nevada
during the Reese River excitement, and located at
what is now Austin, in Lander County, arriving
there about the fifteenth of April.
The summers of 1863 and 1864 he
spent in prospecting, and the winters in the town.
In the summer of 1865 he took charge of a
lumber-yard, as agent for Hendrick &
Bowstead.
During the same season he furnished tools
and provisions for his brother and another man to
prospect, and they discovered and located what is
now Ruby Hill, in Eureka County. These
locations-about eight of them-covered nearly all
of the hill. They also located claims in Secret
Canon, which have since proved valuable. For three
years Mr. Farrell and his associates kept up the
assessment work on these claims, but there being
no demand for base metal claims at that time, they
were bonded to Gov. J. H.
Kinkead, for sale in Europe, which proved a
failure, and Mr. Farrell turned his attention to
other matters and let them go. The claims referred
to covered the ground row known as the Eureka
Consolidated and Richmond Mines, and would have
proven a " bonanza " to their owners had they
continued to hold them.
In August, 1867, Mr. Farrell entered the
office of the Manhattan Mining Company as
Secretary, and has since remained in the employ of
that company. In 1872, he was elected to the
office of County Clerk of Lander County by a large
majority. In 1878 he was elected to the Senate of
the Nevada Legislature and re-elected in 1880. He
was married April 20, 1871, to Miss L. C.
Peterson, of Austin, Nevada. They have no
children.
 ANDREW NICHOLLS ----Is a
native of New York; born in the town of Genesco,
Livingston County, September 6, 1832. His parents
were from Scotland. In the year 1836 they moved
from the native town of the subject hereof to
Coburg, Canada. His education was consequently
obtained on Canadian soil, and at the age of
seventeen years he was apprenticed to a dry goods
firm, and after a time was a clerk in the same
establishment. In 1855 he
went into business for himself in western Canada,
achieving success; but in the year 1858 was taken
with the mining fever, and started for California.
On his arrival he found the Frazer
River excitement somewhat subsided, and turned his
attention in other directions, spending four years
in the mines in Butte County. In January, 1862, he
crossed the mountains to the Territory of Nevada,
and located in Carson City; and about one year
later came to Austin, Lander County, where he
engaged in the hardware business, which he still
continues. In 1869 he started a lumberyard, and is
now in full possession of that branch of industry
in that town.
During his residence in Austin he
has made many investments in mines, which have not
proved as remunerative as he could wish. In 1866
Mr. Nicholls received the appointment as Assistant
Assessor of United States Internal Revenue, and
held the position until 1871, at which time he
resigned. In the years 1875 and 1877 he was a
member of the Nevada Legislature, and was one of
the parties to procure the passage of the bill
that resulted in giving Lander County a railroad,
of which he is a director and stockholder.
In politics he is a Republican. His rise in
the world to his present high position among his
fellowmen, and the accumulation of his estates, is
wholly due to his own energy and perseverance,
having received no pecuniary assistance from any
one. He was married March 9, 1863, to Miss E. H.
Wells, of San Francisco,
California.
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