|
 COLONEL A. M.
EDGINGTON ----Was born in East Springfield, Ohio, in the
year 1828. At the comparatively
early age of twenty-four he turned from the quiet haunts
of his youth to seek in the distant West an adventurous
path to possible fortune.
Reaching California in 1852, he was
soon in the midst of the stirring scenes around him. For
eight years he shared the perils, excitements and
privations of frontier life in all its phases. Locating
in Placer County, he became in turn merchant, miner,
teamster and lumberman. His nature was too generous and
prodigal, however, for large financial accumulations. He
was too ready to assist the unfortunate and share with
needy friends to enroll his name among the great money
makers of the day.
In 1860 he crossed the line into
Nevada, and alter various vieisiludes became Deputy
Sheriff of Storey County. In 1865 he was appointed
Deputy Internal Revenue Assessor, which position here
served during the following year, by reason of political
complications. At this time, and
until the day of his death, ho was an uncompromising
Republican. In 1867 he became accountant at the Morgan
Mill, in Ormsby County, and in the following year was
appointed Superintendent of the Union Mill and Mining
Company-at Virginia City. In 1870 he received the
commission of Major on the Staff of Brigadier General
Batterman.
During all these years his health
had been slowly yielding to the dread destroyer,
consumption, and he was finally compelled to resign his
position, and entirely abandon the active pursuits of
life. On the fifteenth of October, 1875, he died at
Sacramento, calm and conscious to the last. His remains
were interred, a few days afterwards, at Virginia City,
with civic, military and Masonic honors. Never before
did the population of that mining metropolis betray such
unanimous respect and sorrow in memory of a departed
citizen. His benevolence, honesty and noble sense of
duty had commended him to all classes, and exacted their
esteem and love. Behind him he left an unblemished
record. He was not a scholar
in the collegiate sense, but a finely gifted brain and
persistent self-culture had made him the peer of and
with whom he came in contact. In everyday life he was a
practical exponent of Christianity, and concerning his
religious profession Bishop Whittaker wrote of him,
after his death, as follows: "He was one of the
vestrymen of St. Paul's Church, in this city, and for
years had been one of the church's warmest friends and
supporters. He was always ready
with voice and hand and purse to aid in anything that
would promote the church's welfare. By his death I feel
that I have lost not only a warm personal friend, but
that the church has also lost a zealous advocate." The
universally popular homage paid to the memory of Colonel
Edgington is not that which wealth or political station
command but such as mankind reserve for examples of the
purest and noblest manhood.
 JOHN F. EGAN
------is a native of County Galway, Ireland, and was
born June 12, a. d. 1833. His young days were spent in
the Emerald Isle, but at the age of eighteen he sailed
away, and landed in New York City, May 2, 1851. Soon
after his arrival upon American soil he located in
Delaware County, New York State, where he remained three
years.
In 1854 he bid adieu to his newly
made friends and came to the State of California, where
he at once engaged in the usual occupation in those
days, that of mining, spending the first year at Auburn,
Placer County, passing through the usual ups and downs
of the camps around that place. He then went to Orkans
Flat, where he remained until, with the rush of
thousands, he came over the mountains to Virginia City.
From the latter place he went on a prospecting tour,
through Nevada, Wyoming, Colorado, and New Mexico, and
returned to Virginia City in 1874, where he has since
resided, engaged usually in mining. Mr. Egan has
probably visited more mining camps, and seen more of the
different ways invented for the saving of the precious
metal, than any man on the Comstock.
He at present fills the position of
Superintendent of the Andes Mine; is well skilled in his
calling, an honest, upright man, universally esteemed by
his fellowmen. He was married in May, 1865, to Miss Mary
E. Bride, at Virginia City; and they have a fine family
of four children, two boys and two
girls.
 JAMES G. FAIR ----United
States Senator from Nevada, was born at Clougher, County
Tyrone, Ireland, December 3, 1831, and twelve years
later came with his parents to the United States,
settling in Illinois. Though but eighteen years of age
when the discovery of gold was announced, he was ripe
for action, and in 1850 we find him tugging as hard as
older men among the boulders at Long's Bar, in Butte
County, California, on Feather River, called by the
Californians El Rio de las Plumas-the river of feathers.
This kind of scrambling, however, did not suit his turn
of mind. Placer mining, as then carried on, was a
haphazard kind of business, in bonanza one day, the next
in borusea, the latter days having the
preponderance.
The peculiarity of mind which characterized his
later years, of looking for the source of minerals, or,
as a miner would say, of following cropping's or
indications, soon asserted itself, and we find him early
pounding away at the quartz veins, with the full belief
that his fortune was to be made out of quartz. He early
acquired all the knowledge attainable in regard to
quartz mining, and added considerable to the general
stock by his own experience while mining at Angel's
Camp, in Calaveras County, and acting as Superintendent
of quartz mines in other parts of the State.
On the discovery of the Comstock he
removed thither, and found a field worthy of his best
powers, his California experience soon proved of value,
and in a few years he was made Superintendent of the
Ophir Mine, and in 1867 of the Hale & Norcross. In
the Hale & Norcross, he first became associated with
John W. Mackay, and they subsequently induced Messrs.
James C. Flood and William S. O'Brien, capitalists of
San Francisco, to join them in that and other mining
enterprises.
With his judgment, knowledge of mines and
opportunity he could hardly fail to acquire money, and
when the firm, afterwards so famous as the owners of the
richest silver mine the world ever saw, was formed, he
brought into it not only a share of the funds necessary
to carry on the expensive work of exploration, but a
knowledge of mining and mines that was second to no one
on the Pacific Coast. Messrs. Fair,
Mackay, Flood, O'Brien and Walker constituted the firm,
Mr. Walker selling to Mackay, and Mr. Fair became the
Mining Superintendent of the mines of the
company.
The long and persistent search for the
lode afterward developed in the Consolidated Virginia
Mine, as well as the fortunate finding of it, are
related in the history of the Comstock Mines, and need
not be repeated here. It is well known to all the world,
and will be a subject for historical writers as long as
men search for precious metals and silver remains
money. Mr.
Fair, as well as Mr. Mackay, is an operator outside of
the mines, has large blocks of land and buildings in San
Francisco, knows as well as any one when the market is
in bonanza and borasea, and knows when to go in or go
out. In June 1881.
he commenced the construction of a grand building
on the southwest corner of Sansome and Pine Streets, San
Francisco, which will be one of the most costly and
imposing structures of that city. Aside from the power
which the possession of enormous wealth gives him, he is
a power himself, cool when others lose their heads,
consequently coming out with the balances on the right
side of the ledger. He has made
various other ventures in mining; owns mines in
Panamint, in Arizona, Georgia, and it is said in the
Lake Superior District. He has spread his net into many
out-of-the-way places, and it is quite likely that if a
discovery of rich silver mines were announced as having
occurred in Patagonia, or along the Straits of Magellan,
with the same information would come the statement that
the most promising places were owned by James G. Fair,
of Nevada. When the great diamond swindle was
perpetrated he had his trusty agents in advance of the
Ralston crowd, and knew before them that the matter was
a " first-class sell."
For many years Mr. Fair spent a great deal
of his time in the depths of his mines, visiting the
different workings at all times of the day or night, and
thus became thoroughly conversant with every part of the
vast labyrinth of drifts, cross-cuts, winzes, slopes,
shafts, and inclines, as well as with the army of men
under his charge. There are few bodies so robust as to
bear the strain, and few minds so clear as to retain all
the great works and workmen in memory, giving directions
with perfect confidence, managing the greatest work of
the age with unparalleled success, and making reports
with the remarkable accuracy and clearness shown by
Superintendent Fair. He did not
appear to know he was getting rich, or that he was a
rich man. He had been placed in charge of a great
property, and there he faithfully remained, toiling as
when years before necessity required him to carefully
husband his daily salary He was not making money in any
ordinary way, but a thousand men, deep in the sweltering
mine were picking, shoveling, tearing the precious ore
away, heaving into his coffers gold and silver in
countless dollars more rapidly than one could think the
figures; and was worth his millions before he was
reconciled to the fact. Still he kept faithfully at his
post, as in truth the property was too valuable and the
responsibility too great to entrust to any ordinary
man. Fair
had proved his ability, and with most laudable courage
scarified his comfort to his duties.
But the best work being done he concluded
to have a little recreation, and proposed a journey with
his family in the circumnavigation of the globe. The
tour of the world is now easily made, the steamer and
the rail car taking the traveler in comfort to all the
great cities and points of interest through the various
countries and climes in the circuit. Mr. Fair made the
journey in triumph, visiting all the places of note, and
enlarging his mind in the studies and associations of
the different countries, men and governments he met, and
returning the enlarged and cultivated gentleman, he was
prepared to enter upon the higher walks of life.
His countrymen welcomed his return by an
invitation to stand for the office of United States
Senator, as successor to the position held by Wm.
Sharon. The State of Nevada had always been represented
in the Senate by Republicans and it seemed impossible
for a Democrat to win the high prize. The course had
been made easier by the neglect of Mr. Sharon to attend
to his duties, and the people of Nevada desired a
change. To Mr. Fair, one who had been so faithful to the
trusts reposed in him in a private capacity, one who had
labored and dwelt among them from the earliest
Territorial days, they turned for a Senator. His
colleague was a miner, and had proven the ablest of the
Senators, to try another, was the cry, and James G.
Fair, on the eighteenth of January, 1881, was
triumphantly elected United States Senator from Nevada,
to hold office from March 4, 1881, until March 4,
1887. He
has the hearty, whole-souled expression that comes from
a healthy- body and well-balanced mind, and makes
friends instantly. His social qualities and financial
abilities are likely to make him an honor to Nevada and
a useful member for the country at large. He is a
Democrat in politics, but so broad in his views, so
independent in character, that the party shackles will
fail to hold him to any rigid line of party
action.
He is a family man, having a wife and four
interesting children, who, it is hoped, will perpetuate
the name of a deserving and successful man, and inherit
the forty or fifty millions he has taken from the depths
of the earth and added to the wealth of the
world.
JAMES C. FLOOD ----Was born in
the city of New York in 1826, coming to California in
1849. His early years in California were spent in a
retail liquor business, where in connection with W. S.
O'Brien he accumulated the funds which afterwards
enabled him at the opportune moment to purchase the
grounds or portions of it on which the famous mine was
developed. He has been successful in every move in his
life, and his judgment and executive ability seem equal
to any emergency. His operations in the Hale &
Norcross and other mines evinced a high order of talent,
and when the great discovery threw $30,000,000 into his
hands he proved himself a first-class financier,
eventually overthrowing all his competitors, involving
in ruin some of the strongest financial institutions on
the coast. This looks like a heartless warfare, but it
is the rule among financiers and not the exception.
 CHARLES FORMAN
--- one of the oldest and most practical raining
Superintendents on the Comstock, and the subject of this
sketch, was born in Tioga County, New York, in January,
1835. His education was received at Owego. At the early
age of eighteen years he left his home and emigrated to
California, reaching Sacramento in 1853, where for four
years he was box clerk and cashier of the post-office at
that place. Subsequently he received the appointment as
Deputy Secretary of State.
During 1860 Mr. Forman came to
Virginia City to examine the mining interests of that
place, and was offered, and accepted a position in the
express office of Wells, Fargo & Co., with whom he
remained about one year. After which date he devoted his
time wholly to mining at Gold Hill, having the
superintendence of the Eclipse Mill and Mining Company,
which position he filled until 1867. During this time,
however, he superintended the Bacon Mill and Mining
Company, Piute Mill and Mining Company, and the
Confidence Mining Company, also the Vivian Mill. In 1870
he went to Pioche, Lincoln County, as General
Superintendent of the Meadow Valley Mining Company,
where he remained only about ten months. The following
three years he spent partly in San Francisco, and the
remainder in Salt Lake City, Utah, being a member of the
firm of B. F. Sherwood & Company, brokers. In Salt
Lake City he was engaged in the lumber business.
Upon his return to San Francisco he
conceived the idea of a trip through the northern
Territories, to examine the coal mines said to exist
there. His trip was an extensive one, taking him through
Oregon, Washington Territory and British Columbia. He
returned to Virginia City in 1874, and at once assumed
the position as Superintendent of the Overman Mine, at
Gold Hill, and soon after that of the Caledonia Mine,
both of which he superintends at the present time. He
resides in Virginia City, having one of the finest
residences in the city.
 HON. L. T. FOX
-----Is a native of Virginia, born in Accomack County,
in the year 1828, and was brought up on a farm, until at
the age of eleven years his attention was directed to
the " briny deep," which occupation he followed until
1850, serving in every capacity on board a vessel from
cabin-boy to Captain. At the early age of sixteen he was
an officer under the American flag, which is evidence of
more than ordinary ability. In his travels by sea he
visited nearly every port of any consequence in the old
world and the new.
In 1850 he reached the Pacific
Coast, and desiring a change of occupation, he left the
sea and engaged in mining in Sierra County, California,
which he followed about one year, and then engaged in
the stock raising and butchering business in the same
county until 1863, at which time he came to Nevada. From
1863 to the present time he has been a resident of
Storey County, making and losing several fortunes.
In politics he has always been an
earnest and consistent Democrat, and has filled several
positions of trust to the entire satisfaction of his
constituents. In 1870 he was elected
to the State Senate from Storey County, and reelected in
1880 for a second term; has been County Commissioner,
President of the Board of Trustees for the town of Gold
Hill for five years, and is Major General of the State
Militia, and is withal a popular man, esteemed by all of
his large circle of
acquaintances.
 WILLIAM GARHART
-----Or " Curly Bill," as he was called in early days,
is a native of Pennsylvania, and was born at Reading,
April 3, 1834. His youthful days were passed in
Cincinnati, Ohio, until, at the age of sixteen years, he
came to California, arriving in San Francisco, April 3,
1850. After a stay of six weeks in the city he sought
his fortune in the mines, and for one year worked in
French Gulch, in Shasta County.
He then turned his attention to the
stage, and for the succeeding eighteen years followed
the business for a livelihood, not, however, as Booth or
Forrest, but on a Concord coach, as one of the finest
reinsmen on the Pacific Coast. His first route was from
Sacramento to Nevada City, where he drove for five
years. He then drove from
Folsom to Nevada City, by way of Auburn, until 1858. In
1859 he drove from Forest City to Marysville and
Downieville. In 1863 he commenced driving from Donner
Lake to Virginia City, Nevada, where he continued until
1869.
He then formed a partnership with C.
Derby, at Virginia City, and opened a livery stable. In
this, as in other callings, he was successful, and at
the present time rejoices in the part ownership of one
of the finest establishments in the State, and has done
a prosperous business. " Curly Bill " was a popular
driver, a genial, whole-souled man, and a general
favorite with the traveling public, and it is said that
a passenger who was fortunate enough to occupy the box
seat with him, when he held the reins, considered it a
streak of good luck.
 JOHN GRANT M D.
-------was born in Lenox County, Ontario, Canada, in
1831, and as the name strongly indicates, is of Scottish
ancestry. From early youth he
evinced a desire for study, giving preference at that
time to civil engineering, with the design of making
that his profession for several years he pursued this
branch of scientific study, till in 1854 he entered the
Albany Medical College, New York, and adopted the
profession of medicine and surgery, to which he has
since assiduously devoted his life. From this college he
graduated in 1857. Subsequently he graduated from
Jefferson Medical College, of Philadelphia, and is al.so
a graduate of the University of Victoria College, of
Ontario, and of the Royal College of Surgeons,
England.
The Doctor's residence on the
Pacific Coast has been chiefly in California and Nevada.
For fifteen years he followed his profession in Santa
Cruz, the pleasant summer resort on the Bay of Monterey,
California. Here he practiced with great success, his
fame and skill extending to surrounding counties,
extending his business, proportionately. During his
residence at Santa Cruz his acquaintance was
wide-spread, embracing the prominent members of the
profession and the principal politicians and gentlemen
of the State. Subsequently, for several years he was a
prominent physician and surgeon in Virginia City. In
every sense Dr, John Grant is a gentleman of fine
culture, thoroughly imbued with the sacred cause of
professional proprieties and obligations, a man of the
strictest integrity, blessed with the inheritance of a
nature that finds happiness in cheering the afflicted
and downcast, and extending a hand to help the weary
through life. A fine form and manly
carriage; a countenance always genial, pleasant and
intellectual ; and with all this the Doctor remains a
consistent bachelor, too loyal to Hygeia to admit
another goddess to his
devotions.
The information on Trails to
the Past © Copyright
may be used in personal family history research, with
source citation. The pages in entirety may not be
duplicated for publication in any fashion without the
permission of the owner. Commercial use of any material
on this site is not permitted. Please respect the wishes
of those who have contributed their time and efforts to
make this free site possible.~Thank
you! |
