About 1857 the placer diggings along Gold Canyon showed signs of failing, all the best bars and banks being pretty well worked out. It was only occasionally that a rich spot could be found, and most of the miners were only making small wages. That this was the case is evident from the fact that about this time the Johntowners, the mining men of the land, began to scatter out through the country and make prospecting raids in all directions among the hills.
In 1857, several men from Johntown, struck gold diggings in Six-mile Canyon. This canyon heads on the north side of Mount Davidson, while Gold Canyon, in which gold was first found, heads on the south side of the same mountain. The heads of the two canyons are about a mile apart, and through the eastern face of Mount Davidson, across a sort of plateau, runs the Comstock Silver lode. The lode (or lead), extends across the heads of both canyons, and the gold that was being mined in both came from the decomposed rock of the outcroppings of the vein. Thus, it will be seen, these early miners were approaching the great silver lode from two points on Gold Canyon towards the south, and on Six-mile Canyon toward the north side of Mount Davidson. But not a man among them knew anything of what was ahead. They were only working for gold and were looking for that nowhere but in the gravel of the ravines; none of them having thought of looking for gold-bearing quartz veins. The men who were mining on Six-mile Canyon first struck paying ground, at a point nearly a mile below the place where silver ore was afterwards found in the Ophir mine. The gold was in clay, which was so tough that before it could be washed out in rockers it was necessary to "puddle" it - that is, put it into a large square box or a hole in the ground, and dissolve it by adding a proper quantity of water and working it about with hoes or shovels. Even working in this way, the men were able to make from five dollars to an ounce per day. The gold found at this distance down the canyon was worth about $13.50 per ounce.
The miners on Six-mile Canyon sold their dust in Placerville, California. Being acquainted with some California boys who were mining in a place called 'Coon Hollow near Placerville, our Washoe miners were in the habit of buying a certain quantity of fine dust of them, which they mixed with the gold from Six-mile Canyon, when they were able to sell the whole lot at such a price as was equal to fifteen dollars per ounce for their own dust. As they worked further up the ravine, toward the Comstock lode, the gold deteriorated so rapidly in weight, color and value, that this game could no longer be played. The gold-buyer looked upon the mixture of Six-mile Canyon and 'Coon Hollow products and pronounced it a delusion and a snare. In the spring of 1858, which the snow was going off and water was plentiful, the men who had worked in Six-mile Canyon the year before, with a number of other miners from Johntown, returned to their diggings. The newcomers set to work on the canyon above the claims of those who had mined there the previous year, planting their rockers wherever they found a spot of ground that would pay wages. Among those who came to mine on Six-mile Canyon at this time were Peter O'Riley and Pat McLaughlin, the discoverers of the Comstock silver lode, and "Old Virginia" who gave his name to Virginia City, under the streets of which now lie the bonanza mines. Nick Ambrose, better known in that country as " Dutch Nick," also moved up to Six-mile Canyon, following his customers in their exodus from Johntown. Nick came not to mine, but to minister to the wants of the miners. He set up a large tent and ran it as a saloon and boarding-house. The boys paid him $14 per week for board and "slept themselves" - that is, they were provided with blankets of their own, and rolling up in these, they just curled down in the sagebrush, wherever and whenever they pleased. At this time, H. T. P. Comstock was engaged in mining on American Flat Ravine, a branch of Gold Canyon, a short distance above the point where Silver City now stands. He was working with a "Long tom" (a contrivance for washing auriferous gravel which combines the principles of the rocker and the sluice-box), and, the water used in the tom being some distance below where his "pay-dirt" was found, he had a number of trusty Piute Indians employed in packing the dirt to where he was engaged in washing it and supervising things in general, as became the proprietor of the " works." Meantime, while "Old Pancake" (Comstock) was thus toiling in American Flat Ravine, and utilizing the native muscle of the land in his struggles with the stubborn matrix of auriferous deposits, the miners on Six-mile Canyon were steadily working along the channel of the same, picking out the richer places, and the gold extracted was gradually becoming lighter in color and weight, consequently less valuable; a condition of things that puzzled them all not a little. As, at that time, the presence of silver was not suspected, the miners could not imagine what was the matter with the gold, further than that there seemed to be some kind of bogus stuff mixed with it in the form of an alloy. This light metal, whatever it might be, seemed gradually taking the place of the gold and changing the color of the dust. As a small percentage of silver alters the color of a great quantity of gold, the value per ounce was not so much reduced as one would have supposed from looking at it; but in the value there was a slight but steady decrease. The miners on Six-mile Canyon worked on in the fall of 1858 with tolerable success making small wages until it became so cold that the water they had been using in rocking was frozen up, when all hands broke up camp and returned to Johntown, to go into winter quarters.
In January 1859, there came a spell of fine weather, when some of the Johntowners struck out in various directions, for the purpose of prospecting; water being plentiful in all the ravines, owing to the melting of the snow. On Saturday, January 28, 1859, "Old Virginia," H. T. P. (Pancake) Comstock, and several others struck the surface diggings at Gold Hill, and located a considerable number of claims. They claimed the ground for placer-mining but had no idea of there being a rich vein of gold and silver-bearing quartz underlying the whole region upon which they were staking off their gravel-mines. They had struck upon the little knoll to which the name of Gold Hill, was soon after given, which knoll stood at the north end of the site of the present town of Gold Hill. Although at first mistaken for placer-diggings, the ground forming this hillock was in reality nothing more than a great mass of the decomposed croppings of the Comstock lode. This discovery was made at a point on the head of Gold Canyon about a mile south of where, a few months later, silver was discovered in the Ophir mine, at the head of Six-mile Canyon.
John Bishop, one of the men who made this strike, thus describes the manner of it. I give his own words: "Where Gold Hill now stands, I had noticed indications of a ledge and had got a little color. I spoke to ' Old Virginia” about it, and he remembered the locality, for he said he had often seen the place when hunting deer and antelope. He also said that he had seen any quantity of quartz there. So he joined our party and Comstock also followed along. When we got to the ground, I took a pan and filled it with dirt, with my foot, for I had no shovel or spade. The others did the same thing, though I believe that some of them had shovels. I noticed some willows growing on the hillside and I started for them with my pan. The place looked like an Indian spring, which it proved to be. " I began washing my pan. "When I had finished, I found that I had in it about fifteen cents. None of the others had less than eight cents, and none more than fifteen. It was very fine gold; just as fine as flour. Old Virginia decided that it was a good place to locate and work. " The next difficulty was to obtain water. We followed the canyon along for some distance and found what appeared to be the same formation all the way along. Presently Old Virginia and another man who had been rambling away, came back and said they had found any amount of water which could be brought right there to the ground."
I and my partner had meantime had a talk together and had decided to put the others of the party right in the middle of the good ground. "After Old Virginia got back we told him this, but were not understood, as he said if we had decided to 'hog' it we could do so and he would look around further; but he remained, and when the ground was measured off, took his share with the rest. "After we had measured the ground we had a consultation as to what name was to be given the place. It was decidedly not Gold Canyon, for it was a little hill; so we concluded to call it Gold Hill. That is how the place came by its present name."
The new diggings were discovered on Saturday, and the next day (Sunday) nearly all the male inhabitants of Johntown went tip to the head of Gold Canyon to take a look at and "pass upon" the new mines. The majority of the sagacious citizens of the then mining metropolis of the country did not think much of the new strike. They had placer-mines near at home, five miles below, that prospected much better. However, "Old Pancake" and some of others interested in the new diggings, blowed about them as being the big thing of the country. Although the prospects at first may not all have been as large as stated by Bishop, who is quoted above, yet Comstock, Old Virginia, and party soon reached very rich dirt very much richer than Comstock had ever found in any part of his American Ravine claim, where he worked the braves of the Piute tribe. Starting in at about $5 per day, they were soon making from $15 to $20, and for a time even more to the man. Believing they were working placer-mines, they were at times moved too far away from the main deposit of decomposed croppings, when they made small wages until they got back and started again on the right track.
It was not long before most of the Johntowners had moved to Gold Hill, camping under the trees at first, then building shanties and eventually putting up substantial log-houses. Thus was first discovered, located, and worked that portion of the Comstock lode lying under the town of Gold Hill, and containing the Belcher, Crown Point, Yellow Jacket, Imperial, Empire, Kentuck, and other leading mines of the country mines that have yielded millions upon millions in gold and silver bullion. It was not, however, until these mines had been worked for two or three years, that they were positively known to be silver mines and a continuation of the Comstock lead, then being so successfully mined upon a mile north, at Virginia City.
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