Silver Land Nabobs

Mark Twain

Buffalo Express/January 8, 1870

Letter Number 6.

[These letters are written jointly by Professor D. R. Ford and Mark Twain. The former does the actual traveling, and such facts as escape his notice are supplied by the latter, who remains at home.]

Early Days In Nevada.

Silver Land Nabobs.

One of the curious features of Pacific Coast life is the startling uncertainty that marks a man’s career in the mines. He may spring from poverty to wealth so suddenly as to turn his hair white and then after a while he may become poor again so suddenly as to make all that white hair fall off and leave his head as clean as a billiard ball. The great Nevada silver excitement of ’58–’59 was prolific in this sort of vicissitude. Two brothers, teamsters, did some hauling for a man in Virginia City and had to take a small segregated portion of a silver mine in lieu of $300 cash. They gave an outsider a third to open the mine, and they went on teaming. But not long. Ten months afterward the mine was out of debt and paying each owner $8,000 to $10,000 a month—say $100,000 a year. They had that handsome income for just about two years, and they dressed in the loudest kind of costumes and wore mighty diamonds, and played poker for amusement, these men who had seldom had $20 at one time in all their lives before. One of them is tending bar for wages now, and the other is serving his country as Commander-in-Chief of a street car in San Francisco at $75 a month. He is very glad to get that employment, too.

One of the earliest nabobs that Nevada was delivered of wore $6,000 worth diamonds in his bosom, and swore he was unhappy because he couldn’t spend his money as fast as he made it. But let us learn from him that persistent effort is bound to achieve success at last. Within a year’s time, his happiness was secure; for he hadn’t a cent to spend.

Another Nevada nabob boasted an income that often reached $16,000 a month; and he used to love to tell how he had worked in the very mine that yielded it, for $5 a day when he first came to the country. Three years afterward, he attained to the far more exceeding grandeur of working in it again, at four dollars a day.

The silver and sage-brush State has knowledge of another of these pets of fortune—lifted from actual poverty to affluence almost in a single night—who was able to offer $100,000 for a position of high official distinction, shortly afterward, and did offer it—and a little over a year ago a friend saw him shoveling snow on the Pacific Railroad for a living, away up on the summit of the Sierras, some 7,000 feet above the level of comfort and the sea. The friend remarked that it must be pretty hard work, though, as the snow was twenty-five feet deep, it promised to be a steady job, at least. “Yes,” he said, “he didn’t mind it now, though a month or so ago when it was sixty-two feet deep and still a snowing, he wasn’t so much attached to it.” Such is life.

Then there was John Smith. That wasn’t his name, but we will call him that. He was a good, honest, kind-hearted fellow, born and reared in the lower ranks of life, and miraculously ignorant. He drove a team, and the team belonged to another man. By and by he married an excellent woman who owned a small ranch—a ranch that paid them a comfortable living, for although it yielded but little hay, what little it did yield was worth from $250 to $500 in gold per ton in the market. Presently, Smith traded a few acres of the ranch for a small undeveloped silver mine in Gold Hill. He opened the mine and built a little unpretending ten-stamp mill. Eighteen months afterward, he quit raising hay, for his mining income had reached a most comfortable figure. Some people said it was $30,000 a month, and others said it was $60,000. Smith was very rich anyhow. He built a house out in the desert—right in the most forbidding and otherwise howling desert—and it was currently reported that that house cost him a quarter of a million. Possibly that was exaggerated somewhat, though it certainly was a fine home and a costly one. The bedsteads cost $400 or $500 apiece.

And then the Smiths went to Europe and traveled. And when they came back, Smith was never tired of telling about the fine horses he had seen in England, and the gorgeous sheep he had seen in Spain, and the fine cattle he had noticed in the vicinity of Rome. He was full of the wonder of the old world and advised everybody to travel. He said a man never imagined what surprising things there were in the world till he had traveled.

One day, on board ship, the passengers made up a pool of $500, which was to be the property of the man who should come nearest to guessing the run of the vessel for the next twenty-four hours. Next day, toward noon, the figures were all in the purser’s hands in sealed envelopes. Smith was serene and happy, for he had been bribing the engineer. But another party won the prize! Smith said, 

“Here, that won’t do! He guessed two miles wider of the mark than I did.” 

The purser said, “Mr. Smith, you missed it further than any man on board. We traveled two hundred and eight miles yesterday.” 

“Well sir,” said Smith, “that’s just where I’ve got you, for I guessed two hundred and nine. If you’ll look at my insert again, you’ll find a 2 and two naughts, which stands for 200, don’t it? and after ’em you’ll find a 9 (2009), which stands for two hundred and nine. I reckon I’ll take that money, if you please.”

Well, Smith is dead. And when he died, he wasn’t worth a cent. The lesson of all this is, that one must learn how to do everything he does—one must have experience in being rich before he can remain rich. The history of California will prove this to your entire satisfaction. Sudden wealth is an awful misfortune to the average run of men. It is wasting breath to instruct the reader after this fashion, though, for no man was ever convinced of it yet till he had tried it himself—and I am around now hunting for a man who is afraid to try it. I haven’t had any luck, so far. 

All the early pioneers of California acquired more or less wealth, but the enormous majority of them have not got any now. Those that have, got it slowly and by patient toil.