The Hurds in Virginia City: Life on the Comstock (Hurd)

Annie, Hattie, Winnie and Edith standing in front of their home at 203 Summit street Virginia City, Nevada.  Shared by Mimi Swaney (great granddaughter of Winnie Hurd) on Ancestry.com. I am not sure when the family moved into this house, but it may have been after Harriet's death in 1893.  The house is on the side of a hill..... 

   What happened to the Hurd family after William died in a mining accident at the Ophir mine in August of 1876?  I found a Virginia City directory for the year 1878 on Ancestry.com which provided a great deal of information.  The family was living at 204 North Howard street.  John, aged 25, was working as a miner in the C and C shaft.   Ella, aged 18, was working as a teacher at the 1st Ward School (no longer in existence), Frank, aged 16, was working as a clerk in town.  There were other Hurds in town, but I don't think they were related to this family.  If you look down the page, you will see a N. Hutchinson, working as an engineer at the Mariposa Mill.  I believe he is the Nelson Hutchinson who married Ella Hurd in 1881.  Harriet was living with the family on North Howard; she was not mentioned until the 1880 census. 

  William George was living in Amador County by 1880, aged 23, and  was a watch maker; he probably left Virginia City shortly before or after his father died.   Carrie, aged 12 in 1878, was most likely attending school, as was Winnie, aged 9, and Annie, aged 6.  Hattie was just 5 years old and Edith was just 3 years old when their father died.  Elizabeth Jane (my Great Grandmother) was living in Grass Valley and married to Alexander Burrows.  

 I'm sure the family pulled together the best they could after William's death.  They also received a "subscription" from employees at the mine for a total of  $1,240; charitable help and support was a common occurrence for injured miners or surviving family members in the community. 

 

    A current map of Virginia City.  Howard and Summit streets are on the north side of town. #9 is the Piper Opera House, #7 is the Story County Court House for reference. The Ophir Ravine was off of the end of Summit Street.  The C and C shaft was down the Sixmile Canyon road, between L and R Streets. John  worked at the C and C shaft.  

A view of Virginia City around 1870 taken from the hillside north of town looking down B and C streets. The largest building in the foreground on C street is the 1st Ward School, which no longer exists.  From The Comstock History Center Museum FaceBook page, shared March 6, 2015. The Hurds would have been living on the hill at the right side of the picture. 

The First Ward School, Virginia City, Nevada. Ella Hurd taught here in 1878. It is perched on a hill, as was most of the town.....Image complimentary of the J Curtis Special Collection shared by the Comstock Foundation for History and Culture FaceBook page on January 6, 2016. 

  By the 1880 US Census, the family had moved to Sacramento Road.  I don't know the exact location of this house, as Sacramento Road no longer exists, but it could have been north of town near the Sacramento and Meredith mines.   The family continued living all together, with Harriet listed as head of household.  John was working as a machinist, which was the job he had in Pennsylvania.   It is interesting to note that Elizabeth Jane was listed twice in the 1880 census.  In addition to being listed as living in Virginia City  as a married  family member of  Harriet on June 5th, she was also enumerated as living in Grass Valley and married with 3 children on June 9th.  She may have been visiting at the time of her enumeration in Virginia City, or someone in Grass Valley verbally gave the Census worker her information as she was not at home. 

Mine map from 1873.  Geiger Grade comes in from the top right into town.  I believe 

Sacramento Street may have been in the vicinity of the Sacramento and Meredith Mine.  

Post card of the Ophir Mine, Virginia City, Nevada circa 1910.  William Hurd worked and died at this mine. 

                                                             The C and C shaft.  John Hurd worked here. 

                                Virginia City at the turn of the century. 6 Mile Canyon is in the background.

  On Saturday the 9th of September, 1893, Harriet Hurd passed away in Virginia City. The Morning Union (Grass Valley) reported on September 14th that she died of heart failure after a long illness.  My Great Grandmother, Elizabeth Jane, was alerted before her death and had traveled from Grass Valley to be with her.  She was 59 years old.  

  My future posts will continue the story of the Hurd family on the Comstock and beyond.  Their journeys continued.  

This is an excerpt from the book, Silver Fever edited by Robert R.  VanRyzen (Krause Publications, 2009).  It provides a glimpse into the working conditions of miners on the Comstock.  William was crushed to death by a cage while descending into the Ophir mine in 1876. 

"On the morning of July 5, 1882, Comstock miner William F Grant was riding the cage up the hoisting shaft of the Chollar-Norcross-Savage mine when he became faint, lost his balance and fell.  The startled miners riding with Grant signaled the hoist engineer to lower them to the bottom of the shaft.  There they recovered Grant's mutilated remains.  When Grant fell, he became unmercifully pinned between the cage and the mine shaft's wall plates, where his right hip was horribly crushed and mangled, nearly cutting his body in two before he plummeted to his death...Slightly more than a month later, Thomas Veale, a car man at the 2,400 foot level of the same mine, fell from the cage 280 feet to his death into a pool of scalding water....."

"As gruesome as these deaths were, they were a fairly common occurrence in the Comstock mines.  Between 1863 and 1880, according to Eliot Lord, nearly 300 miners were killed and another 600 injured in various mine-related accidents....besides falling down a mine shaft, miners could be torn to shreds by premature explosions of blasting materials, roasted in underground fires, hit by falling equipment, or crushed by a runaway ore car.....If the miner survived the perils of the heat at the Comstock's lower levels, he still had to worry about his ascent to the surface.  The rapid temperature change a miner experienced while riding a fast moving cage could cause him to feel nauseated and dizzy, lose his balance, and plummet to his death.  But even if he kept his wits, he still had to worry whether or not the cage would stop at the collar of the shaft or shoot right on by, throwing its passengers violently from it. The cage's movements were controlled by a hoist engineer who, by watching a large dial, could determine its exact position at any time. Using a system based on the number of times a bell sounded, the miner could tell the engineer when and where he wanted the cage to stop.  Because a moment's  indecision could be disastrous, the hoist engineer's job was generally given to a competent person." 

  William had come to Virginia City looking for a better place to live for his family, and he most certainly earned a better income than he did working in the coal mines in  Pennsylvania.  But sadly, the dangerous working conditions still existed.  On a more positive note, his family did end up creating successful lives for themselves in the West.