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 HON. BENJAMIN CURLER -----was born in
Ferrisburgh, Addison County, Vermont, September
27, 1834.
The father of our present subject being a
farmer of no great wealth, his early days were
spent in active pursuits, and were only varied by
his attendance at the district school. In
September, 1853, he entered a high school kept by
B. B. Allen, at Vergennes, Vermont, and at the
expiration of the term, returned to his father's
farm, and worked until the school opened again the
next September, when he once more settled down to
his studies in good earnest.
After his second term, he taught a
school for four months. During his twenty-first
year of life he emigrated to Illinois, but
returned to his native State, and taught school
that winter. In the spring of 1856 he again went
to Illinois, and for a period of nearly two years
was engaged in teaching school, and reading law.
In the fall of 1857 he went to Wisconsin remaining
but a short time, however, when he returned to
Illinois, and engaged in the mercantile business.
In
the spring of 1859 he started for the mines at
Pike's Peak, Colorado, and not realizing what he
expected in that region, he continued his journey,
and reached Carson City, Nevada, on the fifteenth
of September of that year, and followed the
occupation of carpentering for some time. In 1862
he kept a stage station on the Carson River, and
continued the study of his profession.
In
1863 he was elected a member of the Territorial
Legislature, March 9, 1864, was appointed County
Commissioner, by Gov. James W. Nye, for Churchill
County; and during the same year he was elected
District Attorney, and admitted to practice law in
all the Territorial Courts. At the general
election in 1866, he was elected District Judge of
the Fifth Judicial District, comprising the
counties of Nye and Churchill; and was re-elected
to the same office four years later, his opponent
being the Hon. C. H. Belknap.
At the expiration of his last term, he resumed the
practice of his profession. In 1876 he was elected
District Attorney for Nye County; and was
re-elected in 1878, which office he still holds.
Mr. Curler is well known throughout
the State of Nevada, and is universally esteemed.
He was married in Vermont, November 6, 1856. to
Miss Rhoda A. Thompson.
 HON. GEORGE ERNST -------was born in
Kirchheim, Hessen Cassel, Germany, a. d. 1837. His
father is a stone mason, and is still living. At
the early age of two years the subject of this
sketch emigrated with his parents to America. In
1845 his family settled in Dubuque, Iowa, and
George received his education in the common
schools of that place, and also learned the trade
of his father. He subsequently entered Kenyon
College, in Ohio, from where he graduated with
high honors in 1862.
In
1863 he came to Nevada, and located at Dayton,
Lyon County, where he soon after received the
appointment of Deputy County Surveyor, under John
Day, and for three years remained in that office.
In the spring of 1866, Mr. Ernst
accompanied Governor H. G. Blaisdel on an
expedition to Pahranagat Valley, and for a time
remained there. In 1867-68 he was Assessor for
Lincoln County, being the first man elected to
that office in the county. In 1870 we find him a
farmer at Hot Creek, in Nye County, and in 1872 he
was appointed County Surveyor of the same, to
which office he was elected in 1874 and 1876. In
1877 he had charge of the office of County
Recorder and Auditor, and was elected to perform
the duties pertaining to that office in 1878. In
1880 he was elected to the Assembly of the Nevada
Legislature.
Mr. Ernst was the first to
suggest to Adolph Sutro, the
feasibility of the enterprise resulting in the
construction of the famous Sutro Tunnel, and to
him is accorded the honor of making the first
survey, locating the tunnel and shafts. In
connection with his many other duties he has been
Deputy United States Mineral Surveyor for eight
years. In politics he is a Democrat, but was a
strong Union man during the slight
misunderstanding between the North and South. He
was married to Miss Ellen Mary Hinton at Dayton,
in 1865.
 MANUEL SAN PEDRO -----In the
northwestern extreme of the Spanish Peninsula,
where the Atlantic's boisterous waves beat against
the projecting buttresses of the Pyrenean chain,
is the mountainous Province of Galicia, and
therein, forty-one years ago, the subject of this
sketch, Manuel San Pedro, first saw the light.
Unlike the coast of Spain generally, here storms
and sea and mountains combined, have formed bold
headlands, deep bays and projecting islands,
giving Galicia some of the best harbors of the
kingdom. Good harbors are the schools of sailors,
and there young San Pedro took his lessons. At the
age of fourteen he left his native land for a
voyage to Brazil, South America, and for several
years his life was on the ocean wave. With that
skill and ambition which has marked his later
years, he soon rose to the rank of Captain, and as
such had command of several ships in the
commercial marine. But the life of a merchant
sailor did not offer the opportunities to which he
aspired. His tastes, talents and inclinations led
him to mining. In his native land mining had been
the high and honorable occupation of the people
for more than a thousand years before he was born,
and in his days of early manhood, the world was
resounding with the success of mining enterprises.
In view of acquiring a knowledge of mineralogical
science, and familiarizing himself with the
practical operations of the business, he visited
all the great mines of South America, Central
America and Mexico, spending several years in his
studies.
While engaged in these explorations,
the news of the wonderful silver mines of Nevada
was spreading over the world and Senor San Pedro
saw that there was the proper field for his future
operations. In 1861, he came to Virginia City,
bringing with him most valuable knowledge of mines
and mining. With the experience of a year in the
mines of the Comstock, he plunged forward into the
wilderness, being one of the pioneers in tile
mines of Humboldt County. The Sheba and other
mines of that region were then attracting the
attention of miners, and causing a great
sensation. But San Pedro did not rest satisfied
with the prospects of that region, and he went
exploring the new discoveries of Reese River,
which carried him into Nye County, examining all
the country of the Toiyabe and the Shoshone ranges
of mountains, becoming particularly interested in
the mines of Union District, which he helped to
organize, and, at a later date, to found the town
of Grantsville.
The White Pine excitement of 1869
called him to new fields, and since then his
operations have been varied and extensive
throughout this State as well as in
California.
Always observing, always learning, he has
become an authority on mining matters, and his
opinions are sought, and his sound and
well-matured judgment relied upon by those seeking
information in mining matters: for the development
of mining property, or intending to invest in the
same. With his twenty years' experience in the
mines of Nevada, together with the exact knowledge
obtained by his studies in the Spanish-American
States, he has risen to the front rank as a mining
expert, and his judgment is regarded as
infallible. The proof of this is given in his
faith in the mines of Grantsville, which among his
earliest discoveries are now among the most
valuable of the State, returning large profits for
capital invested in them and a promise of being
inexhaustible in their resources. He has seen grow
up around him, greatly the result of his sagacity
and enterprise, the thriving town of Grantsville,
and with it he has thrived and prospered.
 Some seven or eight years
ago he became associated in his mining operations
with James B. Cooper, Esq. a gentleman of great
business ability, and in 1877 organized the
Alexander Mining Company with Mr. Cooper as
President and Don Manuel San Pedro as
Superintendent. The mines of this Company are in
and around Grantsville, and with one of the best
mills of the coast, using fifty stamps and all the
modern improvements, employs quite a colony of
men. So successful have the operations been that
extensive additions are expected to be made to the
mill, quadrupling its capacity. This
sketch is necessarily brief; the full history of
the gentleman's life, with all its incidents,
adventures, explorations and successes being
sufficient to fill a volume. He is still in the
prime of life, with the port of vigorous manhood,
and many more triumphs in fortune's battles are in
store for him.
JAMES B. COOPER
 HON. J. T. WILLIAMS -------Is a native
of Arkansas, born in Conway, July 21, 1842. His
father was a planter and died when the present
subject was quite young. At the early age of
seventeen years he came to California, by way of
the plains and arrived in 1859 in the land of
promise.
He having no relatives or friends on this
coast, was obliged to follow the promptings of his
own nature.
He settled in Calaveras County and engaged
in mining until 1862, when he came to the then
Territory of Nevada, and followed the occupation
of silver mining.
In
1863 he went in company with Gov. L. R. Bradley to
Austin, during the Reese River excitement, and
assisted in the organization of Nye County, and
has since resided in that county. He was married
to Miss Sophia Ernst, September 20, 1870, a lady
of cultured tastes, and more than ordinary
ability.
Mr. Williams is a descendant of an
old Democratic family, and is himself a Jackson
Democrat of the strictest kind. His ancestors on
his father's side were from Wales, and settled in
North Carolina long before the American
Revolution. His mother's ancestors were of French
descent, settling in Virginia about the same time,
both families being strongly identified in the
cause of American Independence. His
grandfather was an officer in the Revolutionary
War, and his brother, Colonel Williams, fell at a
place known as Williams' Pond, in South
Carolina.
The works of Thos. Benton, "Thirty years in
the United States Senate," reveals the fact that
Mr.
Williams comes from good stock. His brother
Lewis Williams, of North Carolina, was a member of
Congress for many years, and Jonathan Williams, at
one time United States Senator from Tennessee,
whose father fought in the Revolution, and who
participated himself in the war of 1812, was also
a member of the same family.
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