E. B. HARRIS, M. D. -----comes of an old New England, or rather of an old England family, for the Harris family were quite prominent several centuries ago, and brought with them when they came to this country in 1632 their coat of arms, and probably also, in common with all the older New England families, expectations of inheriting much wealth. The immense fecundity of the Harris family (E. B. is one of thirteen) would have so divided the largest estate of England that but a few millions would have fallen to the share of each Harris, and the tradition has long since ceased to be valued by any member of the family, the custom of each one's looking out for himself and making his own fortune being well established among the descendants.

Elias Braman Harris was born September 13, 1827, at Richfield Springs, Otsego County, New York. At the age of eighteen he entered Fairfield Academy, Herkimer County, remaining until the age of twenty, when he entered Geneva College, where he completed his literary course. While in the last institution he commenced the study of medicine and surgery under Professor Frank Hamilton. The following year he entered the office of Dr. Wm. M. Spencer, of Otsego County, as a medical student, and also read a few books on common law at the same time, under the instruction of Judge Pomeroy of Cooperstown, New York, with the expectation of fitting himself for the profession of criminal jurisprudence, the profession involving a thorough knowledge of medicine as well as law.  This design, however, was soon abandoned and henceforth he gave his force to the medical sciences.  In 1845 he entered the New York Medical University, and completed his studies under the instruction of that world renowned authority in surgery, Dr.  Valentine Mott, graduating in 1847; also in 1848 at the College of Surgeons. During the following year he commenced the practice of medicine in Waterville, in Oneida County.

At the beginning of 1850 he took passage for Valparaiso. Not liking the place he left for Panama, where he took passage on a California-bound steamer, arriving in San Francisco in December, 1850, where he remained but a few months, going to Jackson, then in Calaveras County, by way of Stockton and Mokelumne Hill. The spectacle of a man hanging on the famous tree, executed by the court of Judge Lynch, determined him to continue his journey to lone, then a little hamlet at the head of the valley bearing that name. He soon found business in running a hotel, selling goods and practicing medicine at the same time in company with Dr. Jabez Newton. The following extract from a recently published history of Amador County will give an idea of his career there.

Doctor Harris acted quite a prominent part in the early settlement of Amador County. He was a successful physician as well as miner. He built and ran for sometime the Harris & Newton Hotel; was largely instrumental in the organization of Amador County found time to help build up the State Agricultural Society; mingled in politics; taught singing, and did many things to help build up society. He was among the foremost who went to the Washoe mines, put up a custom mill, and made thirty thousand dollars before other men had time to look around. When the civil war broke out he joined the Union army and was made full Surgeon, with the rank of Major where his known skill as a surgeon, his great executive ability and energy, were invaluable. Though genial and social in his habits, he never, either by his presence or conversation, promoted or countenanced gambling, drinking, and other vices, that swept into the vortex of ruin so many brilliant and talented young men in early days.

He was one of the first officers elected after the organization of the new county of Amador. The above remarks were made regarding the numbers of able men who at that time resided in the limits of the county.

In the history of the mines of Amador County, we find the following in regard to the Oneida Mine.  The mill and mine were leased, in 1854, to Dr. E B. Harris for a nominal rent, for the purpose of having it developed.  He was endowed with great physical strength and indomitable energy, as well as good judgment, and by selecting good rock, and acting as fireman, engineer, amalgamator, machinist, miner, and superintendent, by turns, making about a dozen men of one and that one himself, he made the mine pay for that year, about thirty thousand dollars over expenses. At that time machinery was generally taken to Sacramento for repairs, necessitating long delays and much expense. One day a cam seat or groove, on the shaft which holds the key gave way and the cam was dangling like a broken leg. To take out the shaft and send it to Sacramento was expensive, both in time and money, and it was resolved to drill a hole through both cam and shaft and put a large pin through them to hold the cam by superhuman exertion this was done in about three hours, the order to fire up bringing simultaneously with the coming through of the point of the drill and in half an hour the mill was pounding away. A year or two afterward the mine was rented to Swain & Segar, of lone, who in one year lost as much as Harris made.

After the termination of his lease of the Oneida Mill and Mine, he took a trip to the East, with the design of remaining, but he had too long been in California to live contentedly in the East, and in 1855 he returned and invested in the Volcano Canal Company, becoming Superintendent. An unusually dry season followed, and even his energy could not make it a success, and it made a grave of nearly all the money he had saved in mining, and he returned to the practice of medicine at lone in Amador County, which he followed with success until the opening of the Washoe mines.

With his usual great energy he plunged into the exciting business of mining, and erected the first stamp quartz mill in the Territory. There have been several claimants to the honor of having started the first mill, but Dr. Harris is most emphatic in the assertion that his was the first, starting the machinery with his own hand, on the eleventh of August, 1860, at 2 p. m. of that day, in the presence of 500 people.  At this time the mill, which was a nine-stamp rotary battery, ran about an hour, when it was stopped on account of a difficulty with the pans. The next day Mr. Knox was engaged to remedy the defect, and again started the mill, but he was unable to manage the pans, when Dr. Harris' engineer undertook the work and made it a success. From that date the mill was run with great profit, being the most popular one in the district, which was soon supplied with many works of the kind.

On the breaking out of the war of the Rebellion he left for the East, and joining the army remained until the close of the war. December 21, 1865, he married Miss Anna Isabella Stevens, youngest daughter of the Hon. James A. Stevens, of Hoboken, New Jersey. Not even the changed condition of his domestic affairs could induce him to remain in the Eastern States, and on the twenty-first of March, following, he left for the Pacific Coast, which he has since made his home, practicing medicine in Sacramento and Virginia City. He has a family of three children-daughters-and his domestic relations are all pleasant.

As a man, he is social, cheerful, hopeful, possessed of a splendid physique, indomitable energy, with excellent intellectual developments. The fault of his character, if he has any, is a tendency to attempt too many things at once, instead of concentrating his forces on one object.

I. E. JAMES ----Is a native of Ohio, and was born in Marion county, January 6, 1830. The first twenty years of his life were passed in his native State. He received a thorough education at Granville College, and studied civil engineering, a profession in which he has gained a name throughout the Pacific Coast, his first situation as an engineer was with the Bellefontaine and Indiana Railroad Company, where he was employed two years.

In 1833 he came to California by the Nicaragua route, reaching San Francisco in the month of January, and settled in Downieviile, Sierra County, where he followed his profession and was elected County Surveyor of Sierra County.

In May, 1860, Mr. James crossed the mountains to Nevada, settling at Virginia City, making the Comstock his headquarters, as a mining surveyor, until 1878. During this time he was chosen Chief Engineer of the Virginia and Truckee Railroad, which road was built under his supervision in 1870.

He also located the boundary line between Utah and Nevada, from the Idaho line to the Colorado River. In 1873 he made an exploration from Blue River Station, on the Colorado Desert, to the Gulf of California, encountering numerous dangers and difficulties, abounding in that comparatively unknown region. Mr. James filled the responsible position as Superintendent of the Yellow Jacket Mine for one year, and was then chosen to the same position at the Sierra Nevada Mine, where he is at present engaged. He is also Consulting Engineer of the Carson and Colorado Railroad, now under course of construction.

HON. JOHN P. JONES -----Few, if any, of the mining men or politicians of Nevada have made a more world-wide reputation than he whose name heads this paragraph. John P.  Jones was born in Hereford County, England, near the border of Wales, in 1828. His father, a man of considerable force of character, moved to America when his son was but an infant, and settled in Cleveland, Ohio, where he carried on the business of a marble cutter until his death about ten years ago.  John P. received the ordinary education of American youth in the common schools of Cleveland.

In company with his brother, he sailed for California in 1849 and arrived on the golden shore early in 1850.  His early experience in California was that which usually attended young men of those days, seeking their fortunes in the mines, rushing from place to place, making a fortune one season and exhausting it in some great enterprise the next, constantly rebuilding and never discouraged, with faith, honor, and ambition as their anchor and their star, in their mature years they are the stalwarts of the land.  Jones' first experience was in 1850 in the mines of Poorman's Creek, in the Feather River region, then in the southern mines, in Tuolumne and Calaveras Counties; in 1852 he was in the far northwest on the Trinity, in 1853 back again in Tuolumne, and back to Trinity again in 1855, where he remained for several years, being Sheriff of Trinity County, volunteer in an Indian war, miner, debater. State Senator for Trinity in 1861, and candidate for Lieutenant Governor of California in 1867, on the ticket with George C. Gorham. At that time "Jones of Trinity" was a power in the Republican party and the most popular man in the State, but the ticket was not popular and was defeated.

Jones then turned his attention to the Comstock, and was made Superintendent of the Kentuck and Crown Point Mines, taking up his residence at Gold Hill, where he has since maintained his home. His career in Nevada has been both successful and honorable to an eminent degree, and the reward has been fortune and fame unsurpassed by the most brilliant tales of romance. Soon after taking charge of the Kentuck and Crown Point a disastrous fire occurred in the Yellow Jacket, an adjoining mine, which wrought death and destruction in his own mines. In rescuing and caring for the miners injured and his kindness to the families of those who perished, ho attached himself to the people by ties which can never be sundered. With great intelligence and characteristic courage he devoted his energies to retrieve the property entrusted to his care, and in December, 1870, came upon a body of rich ore in the Crown Point Mine 1,100 feet below the surface, then the deepest workings on the Comstock Lode.  Disaster and oft-repeated assessments had depreciated the shares of the company from $100 in June, 1868, to two dollars in November, 1870, with an assessment of $3.50 per share, due in December. At this low rate Jones invested all his earnings and all he could borrow, and induced his friends to take shares. One wealthy friend he called upon and told of his discovery with all the happiness of a miner and the glowing enthusiasm of his nature, but the friend was unmoved, replying, "Jones I will loan you the money to buy with, but as for me, I have seen the time when I reached through the holes in my pants and scratched a poor man's hide, and I don't mean to ever take any risks that will make me do it again." Jones got the money on his promise to pay; the stock in May, 1872, was $1,825 a share, and the determined miner was enjoying an income of $1,000,000 a year.  This was the largest and richest bonanza found up to that date, extending into the Belcher Mine on the south, and yielded about $60,000,000, of which nearly half was paid to stockholders in dividends. 

Jones again entered the political field. The campaign of 1872 was believed to be vital to the Republican party, and extraordinary efforts would be required to carry Nevada to insure a Republican Senator. The stalwarts of the State looked to Jones for a standard-bearer, and the monopolists were all opposed to him from his known opposition to their selfish schemes and tyrannical conduct, consequently he bore the burden of the campaign. For this the party by a unanimous vote rewarded him with Senatorial honors, while the monopolists, even those professing to be Republicans, conspired to achieve his ruin, to destroy his power and counteract his influence.  Fortunately he triumphed over all, and in 1879 was re-elected to the high position he now holds.

Mr. Mackay was born in Dublin, Ireland, November 28, 1835, and is the youngest of the "Bonanza" firm. He received his education in Dublin, where it is said the purest English in the world is spoken, consequently he shows very little of the brogue in his speech. He came to America in 1850, and was engaged for a short time in a commercial house in Boston.

The discoveries of gold in California were then shaking the foundations of values, and breaking up the old routines of business, and young Mackay thought proper to bid good-bye to that old and highly respectable, though somewhat fossilized specimen of eastern cities, and push out for California, the country of boundless possibilities, where the customs, habits and thoughts, had not petrified into a social bedrock which could not be penetrated with shaft or tunnel, or blown up with giant powder.  In the spring of 1852 we find him hard at work close up to the snow-banks of that elevated town, Downieville, in Sierra County. It is not related of him that he made a fortune there in mining, or that he lost one, but here he met the talented and accomplished lady who afterwards became his wife.  Few made fortunes in those days at mining; the miner's dust, as a usual thing, came in small quantities, and only made a bulk after it was gathered in by merchants and speculators, who laid all kinds of games and pit-falls to induce the miner to part with it.

Mr. Mackay was not of that kind, so he delved away until the breaking out of the Washoe fever, when he changed his location, and also his luck, though as far as that term is concerned nothing could be more inapplicable to his case than the word luck, for if ever man achieved a fortune out of hard and persistent endeavor, together with good judgment, it was John W. Mackay; but this is anticipating.  He commenced a tunnel in company with other miners, in what is now known as the Union Ground, and soon exhausted all the results of his California mining. He did not curse Washoe and leave it as so many others did but went to work on the Comstock at four dollars per day, which, however, was but a small portion of the benefits he derived from the labor he performed, for while engaged in this way he was gradually acquiring a knowledge of the great silver lode, and preparing the way for the big work of his life.

He soon began to acquire feet, and made a respectable raise out of the Kentuck Mine in Gold Hill This enabled him to operate still more largely, and a few years later he felt safe, from the condition of his purse and his knowledge of the Comstock, to enter upon the project of original explorations. In company with James G. Fair he undertook, by contract, in 1869, to develop the Hale & Norcross Mine, which had previously paid large dividends. Heavy assessments were then in order, and the stock fell in the market, but the contractors, having faith in the mine, induced Messrs. Flood & O'Brien, successful mining operators of San Francisco, to aid in securing control, when shortly after another "bonanza" was opened and dividends resumed. This laid the foundation for the great fortune since acquired. With the profits of successful mining and successful speculations the firm, now composed of Messrs. John W. Mackay, James G. Fair, J. M. Walker, James C. Flood, and William S. O'Brien, extended their possessions until they had control of some 3,000 feet of the Comstock vein north of the Hale & Norcross, and along that property they sent an exploring drift. Mr. Walker becoming discouraged, sold his interest to Mr.  Mackay, giving the latter a two-fifths interest in the firm.

The result of the drift was the discovery of the "bonanza" in the Consolidated Virginia and California Mines, which paid between the years 1874 and 1879, $100,000,000 in dividends to its stockholders. It was on Mr. Mackay's judgment that the territory afterward known as the California and Consolidated Virginia was purchased; that in addition to the money paid for the ground, $500,000 was spent in tunneling and crosscutting before a sight of the ore body was obtained. It may be asked why Mr.  Mackay believed in an ore body? Why did he induce others to invest also? It must be answered that he had studied the lode in its entirety. He had compared its formation with the great lodes of Mexico, which had been deposited in similar openings between the same kind of walls. He had calculated on the average value of the foot in depth and length, and the chances of an ore body in so many hundred feet long and deep. There might have been nothing.  It was entirely possible the ore bodies should skip his ground both in length and depth, as much as it is possible for a man to go through a hundred battles without harm. He had, however, no right to expect more than the average deposit, and when the great body of ore was found, the largest, the richest the world ever saw, that much was luck or good fortune, just as you choose to name it. Though millions have come at his call, he still is studying among the levels. He dons the mining suit, takes his hammer and candle and goes prodding around 2,000 feet underground, observing the dip of the wall rocks, the stratification and character of the ores, and is just as keen in searching out the secrets of the mine as when he was pleading with Flood and O'Brien to test the ground. He knows from the shade of ore whether it is good or bad; whether to order it mined out for milling, or whether to let it remain where the great convulsion left it. With him it is a science. He searches out the secrets of the Comstock as the astronomer studies the stars, or the movements of a planet or a comet; as the botanist the structure of a plant, or a politician the secrets of political economy. Though money is a factor in the problem the strong motive is the love of knowledge, in his case the knowledge of mines. Let no one, because silver is in the lode, say that such knowledge is beneath any man's attention. When we look at the convulsion of the earth in which the Comstock fissure had its origin, the wonderful circulation of subterranean currents (solfataras) which fill the fissure with minerals, when we look for the sources of the mineral, the sources of the power that lifted up the rocks, and set them in order, we are lost in wonder, as much as the star-gazer, or the theologian.

Fortune has not spoiled Mr. Mackay as a citizen.  When not beset with adventurers he is as plain and approachable as when swinging a pick in the Union Tunnel, or putting a set of timbers in to a Belcher drift. Like all wealthy men, he is annoyed with applications for charity and assistance, many of which are doubtless deserving cases, but far the greater part are impositions, deserving only contempt.  The very circumstances compel a hedging about of forms for self-defense.

Mr. Mackay married, in 1867, the daughter of Col.  Daniel E. Hungerford, who had served with distinction in the campaign against the Indians in 1860. This was before the discovery of the "bonanza," and must have been a union founded on mutual respect and esteem. He has had two children by her, a boy and a girl. She is a most accomplished lady, and resides most of the time in Paris, where she represents well the culture and wealth of the United States, and is doing much to bring about a feeling of respect for the citizens of the wonderful Republic, whose sources of wealth and power are unfathomable, and whose progress in culture and refinement is a marvel to the world.