| 8. | Samuel* Comstock, Jr. was born on 16 Apr 1679 in Providence Co, Rhode Island (son of Ensign/Capt Samuel* Comstock and Elizabeth* Arnold); died between 1 Apr 1727 and 13 Apr 1727 in Smithfield, Providence Co, Rhode Island. Other Events and Attributes:
- Religion: Quaker
- Other-Begin: 14 May 1707, Providence, Providence Co, Rhode Island
- Other-Begin: 2 Oct 1708, Providence, Providence Co, Rhode Island
- Residence: 16 Jun 1713, Woonsocket, Providence Co, Rhode Island
- Other-Begin: 14 Feb 1716, Providence, Providence Co, Rhode Island
- Other-Begin: 23 Apr 1716, Providence, Providence Co, Rhode Island
- Other-Begin: 28 Jan 1717, Providence, Providence Co, Rhode Island
- Other-Begin: 27 Jan 1718, Providence, Providence Co, Rhode Island
- Other-Begin: 31 Mar 1718, Providence, Providence Co, Rhode Island
- Other-Begin: 1 Aug 1718, Providence, Providence Co, Rhode Island
- Other-Begin: 15 Sep 1718, Providence, Providence Co, Rhode Island
- Other-Begin: 2 Nov 1723, Providence, Providence Co, Rhode Island
- Other-Begin: 1 Jun 1724, Providence, Providence Co, Rhode Island
- Property: 27 Feb 1727, Woonsocket, Providence Co, Rhode Island
- Will: 1 Apr 1727, Providence, Providence Co, Rhode Island
Notes:
Samuel Comstock was a Quaker and resided in Smithfield, RI.
May 14, 1707 had 14 shillings and chattels taken from him as a fine for not training (Quaker).
Will April 1, 1727, Proved April 13, 1727, bequests to wife, Anne, to his children, Sarah Aldrich, David and Anne Comstock. Inventory 319 pounds, 19s, 3d.
Samuel Comstock mentioned in record of the Greenwich monthly meetings between 1705 and 1717. The 3rd month, 1706, Friends from Providence present their sufferings and Samuel Comstock and Edward Bass are appointed to attend to same.
February 27, 1727 Samuel Comstock deeds to Samuel Jr. Comstock 100 acres 'on both sides of a river that runs out of a cedar swamp known as Wansocutt (Woonsocket) cedar Swamp, besides that on which son Samuel now resides.
1. The History and Genealogy of the Comstock Family in America, 1949, John Adams Comstock
__________________
(Vol. 1 #3207)
The Comstock Lode and Henry Tompkins Paige Comstock--The Comstock Family
In the history of silver mining there is probably no area in the world more celebrated than the Comstock Lode.
This rich vein of combined silver and gold, located in Storey County Nevada, produced three hundred and fory million dollars in silver during the thirty year perion of 1860 to 1890. In its peak year of 1877 alone, it yielded thirty eight mn dollars.
The story of its discovery and development is a fascinating saga of the early west told again in three recently published and widely circulated books. The first, and most important, is a reprint of the classic account published by "Dan De e" in 1875 "History of the Big Bonanza." Dan De Quille was the nom de plume of William Wright, staff writer for the Birginia City "Enterprise," and the one best qualified to record the story. Unfortunately his book had very little sale, and is now a scarce item. The reprint, published by Alfred A. Knopf, and edited by Oscar Lewis and Robert Glass Cleland, is titled "The Big Bonanza," and makes this valuable source material generally available.
As a readily accessible historic account, George D. Lyman's "Saga of the Comstock Lode," issued in 1946 by Charles Scribner's Sons, is the book of next improtance.
The third work is C.B. Glasscock's book, "The Big Bonanza," published by Binfords and Mort in 1931.
All three of these works give in detail accounts of the discovery and early development of the Lode when Henry Tompkins Paige Comstock was there. They all agree concerning his eccentricities and peculiar quirks of character. He is pictus an illiterate prospector given to much boasting, with a vivid imagination that had little regard fro factis. He was said to possess streaks of kindliness and impractical generosity, but these were interspersed with volatile outbursts. An account of Comstock's activities prior to his appearance in the Washoe mining district of Nevada, and of his later experiences after leaving Virginia City is not recorded. In Chapter X of Dan De Quille's book, there is a letter written by H.T.P. Comstock in which he recounts his wanderings and various activities, It was written from Butte City, Montana, when he was nearly fifty years of age, and is so full of obvious errors and bombastic imaginings as to be utterly worthless from the standpoint of history. It does, however, give a few clues as to his earlier and later activities, some of which have been in part confirmed from authentic sources. In this letter he gives his full name as Henry Thomas Paige Comstock. Perhaps he purposely substituted Thomas for Tompkins; but it is likely that he forgot he had been given his mother's family name.
Henry Tompkins Paige Comstock was born in Trenton, Ontario, Canada, in the year 1820. His father was Noah Bird Comstock who is listed as the head of Family 723 in this genealogy. His mother was Catherine Tompkins, daughter of Stephen Tom, Jr, of Watertown, NJ.
Contrary to statements usually made, he came of good stock on both sides of the family. His father was in the lumber and hotel business, and had moved in early life to Cooperstown, NY. Later he went to Ontario, Canada, then to Cleveland,, and finally to Blissfield, Michigan.
Henry was the fifth in a family of twelve children. Apparently he had a profound distaste for learning. It was stated by his friend and partner, Emanuel Penrod, that he could not read nor write.
At a very early age he was bound out to the American Fur Company and according to his statement "trapped all over Canada, Michigan, and Indiana." It is claimed that he served in the Black Hawk War, but if so, he must have been about the yot recruit. He was only twelve years of age when Chief Black Hawk surrendered. He served in the Mexican War, and according to his statement, "... all through the Patriot War in Canada."
The drift of the American forty niners into California found him in the gold country, where he probably prospected for a time without success, as the next reference to him is as a herder, driving a large band of sheep into the Carson Valleye Piute Indians got most of his sheep and left him destitute; but the Mormon pioneers of the district took him in, and eventually he became one of the band of rough and ready prospectors who were washing gold in the stream beds of the area. Most of these men knew more about "tarantula juice" (wiskey) and faro than they did about mineralogy.
There were, however, two young easterners, Allen and Hosea Grosch, in the district who were competent mineralogists. They had come from Utica, NY, where their father, A.B. Grosch, was a Univeralist clergyman. In the fall of 1855, they discd an outcropping on the slopes of Mt. Davidson, which yielded a bluish ore testing high in silver. They kept their discovery secret from all but their father, and endeavored to raise capital for the development of their claim. Failing in this, they worked in the gold diggings in the hope of obtaining enough of the yellow metal to start their larger project.
Hosea Grosch injured his foot, and died of tetanus in 1857. In an effort to raise funds, Allen and an associate, Richard Burke, decided to take samples of their ore and maps of their claim to California. Henry T.P. Comstock was left in e of the Gorsch cabin wherein were housed their various effects, including a locked chest full of ore samples, charts, and documents.
Gorsch and Burke began their trek over the Sierran trails but were trapped by the December storms. After incredible hardships and the loss of all their equipment they were finally rescued more dead than alive by miners from Last Chance, r County. Their feet and hands were frozen, and gangrene soon set in. There was no surgeon in camp, and the miners felt that only an amputation would save their lives. The operation was performed by men who were skilled in the use of pick and shovel. Allen Grosch died on December 19, 1857. And so the two brothers who were the real discoverers of the Comstock Lode were gone. Richard Burke lived; and after his recovery returned to his native Canada.
When Henry T.P. Comstock learned of Allen Grosch's death, he decided that it was his right to examine the contents of the locked chest in their cabin. In fact, from that time on, he claimed that the cabin was his personal property. When test was opened and found to contain only samples of ores with to him unintelligible charts and documents, Comstock flew into a rage, and destroyed everything that seemed to have any bearing on the Grosch brothers.
All that he could understand was that the peculiar blue ore had been found by the brothers somewhere on Mt. Davidson, presumably not far from the cabin, and that it was rich in gold. He had no inkling that it was almost pure sulfide of s. Thereafter Comstock spent much time in visiting the various diggings of the local miners and prospectors, in search of that particular blue ore.
On January 28, 1859 four miners working on a sight at Gold Hill uncovered some bluish rock which yielded considerable gold. Comstock heard of the strike, and immediately looked them up. He was convinced that they had found the blue stuff d been seeking, and tried to talk himself into a partnership on the basis of some shady rights that he claimed to have on the area. The miners were nort convinced; but a portion of the site next to the discovery was unclaimed and Comstock filed on what remained.
The four miners who had located on the Gold Hill outcropping were James Fennimore, known as "Old Virginny"; John Bishop, known as "Big French John"; Aleck Henderson, and Jack Yount. They had actually uncovered one end of the Lode, but not ain vein which had previously been found by the Grosch brothers.
In working the Gold Hill deposits, Comstock and the other miners had great difficulty in separating the gold from the "blue stuff," and spent much energy in loudly cursing it as they discarded great quanities of silver salts worth many time value of the gold recovered.
One June evening, Comstock learned that two prospectors named Pete O'Riley and Pat McLaughlin were mining in Spanish ravine near a spring where he had previously staked off a claim for grazing purposes. Full of "sound and fury" he straightid himself over the the diggings. There were Pete and Pat, making their last cleanup for the day, with a mound of gold beside them. There was the real bluish ore.
Comstock stormed and threatened, and finally talked himself and his partner, "Manny" Penrod into an interest in the claim. He also wrangled an additional hundred feet for himself on the basis of his water rights.
The claims thus staked out developed later into the famous Ophir and Mexican Mines which yielded millions of dollars in silver. To the ignorant men who found them, men interested only in gold and cursing the "blue stuff" that clogged theirers, they brought only a pittance. Pat McLaughlin sold his interest for three thousand, five hundred dollars. Emanual Penrod let his go for eight thousand, five hundred dollars. Pete O'Riley held on longer than the others, and finally sold out for forty thousand dollars, and eventually died an insane pauper. Comstock traded an old blind horse and abottle of whiskey for a one tenth share owned by "Old Virginny," (James F. Cooper) but later sold all of his holdings to Judge James Walsh of Grass Valley for eleven thousand dollars and lost it all trying to run a store in Carson City. All of the original locators of the Lode died in poverty.
O'Riley and McLaughlin are generally credited with the discovery, on June 12, 1859, of the famous Lode. Actually theirs was a redicovery of the Grosh brothers' lost claim. "Old Virginny" and his associates would with equal right, be crediith the prior discovery on January 28, 1859, since their claims were located at one end of the vein.
Comstock's daydreaming of his wealth, and loud boasting of his exploits kept him so busy that he had no time to bake sour dough bread as did most of the miners. He therefore made pancakes, and became so adept at tossing them that he camee known in the diggings as "Old Pancake."
He talked so loud and long of "his mine" that the people of the district began calling it the Comstock Lode.
In 1862, after his failure as a merchant, Comstock left Nevada and followed the life of a prospector and road builder in eastern Oregon, Idaho, and Montana. His hope was always for the discovery of another Big Bonanza. He did make severalkes of minor importance. Bancroft states that he and Lytle opened the first quartz vein in which free gold was visible on the Powder River; and that he surveyed a road from there which was shorter and better than the old one. On August 11,1862, he discovered a vein from which he took four hundred and fifty dollars in gold, according to the San Francisco Bulletin of Augst 27, 1862. He was apparently active as a miner in various sections of Idaho and Montana. He accompanied the Big Horn Expedition which planned to explore and prospect the Yellowstone Country.
In 1870 he was called to Nevada as a witness for the Ophir Company, and was well paid for his testimony. He was said to have had considerable money on his person when he returned to Bozeman, Montana. Accounts differ as to the cause of hish there on September 29, 1870. On his grave marker in Bozeman Cemetery it is recorded that he "committed suicide by shooting himself through the head."
Many who knew him believe that he was murdered for the money he carried. Such an opinion is expressed in a letter written by his old friend and partner, Emanuel Penrod, to Samuel Willett Comstock. The original of this letter is here repro. It gives an interesting, though-biased appraisal of the character of H.T.P. Comstock by one of the original owners of the "Comstock Mine." Penrod's reference to Comstock's "wife living in style in Cal." is pure fiction. The true story of Comstock's purchase of a wife from a Mormon immigrant, and of her running away twice with other men, is told in Chapter IX of dan De Quille's "Big Bonanza."
In the Bozeman, Montana, Cemetery "Old Pancake" rests in peace, while the silver tinkle of his name is heard around the world wherever the Comstock Lode is metioned. Generous, boastful, kindly, illiterate, the restless spirit of the "Magnit Liar of Washoe" lives on in the ghost town and crumblin mine shafts of the old west. Gone is the man who gave away more gold than most people have ever seen - through whose fingers slipped a veritable flood of silver. But his record will carry down the years as one of the most colorful chapters in the story of the Big Bonanza.
A reproduction of the letter written to Samuel Willett Comstock by Emanuel Penrod on July 25, 1909, appears in The Comstock family on p. 509.
It tells of the mine discovery, Comstock's honesty, his wife and the money he spent on her jewelry, her leaving him and living in Calif., how he took care of the poor people, took up with strangers, how he was swindled at every turn, his failure as a merchant, and his murder for the money he carried.
Henry Tompkins Paige Comstock's picture appears on p. 180 of The Comstock Family
There is reference to H.T.P. Comstock on p. 530 etc. in "The West in American History" by Ban Elbert Clark
The Comstock family book is in the possession of either:
Bruce Pester
30172 Via Rivera
Palas Verdes Peninsula
California 90274
Clark Pester
7533 Juler Ave
Mederia, Ohio 45243
Other-Begin:
14 May 1707 - Fined for not training, he being a Quaker
Other-Begin:
The Early Records of the Town of Providence
Vol XX Deed Book 2, p.284-287 2 Oct 1708, Reign of Queen Anne. Indenture between Eliezer Arnold of one part and Thomas Smith, Joseph Smith Junr, Samuell Wilkinson junr, Samuell Comstock junr, Thomas Arnold, junr, Eliezer Arnold junr, and Joseph Arnold all of Providence in the collony of Rhode Island, Husbandmen, of the other part. Sold all that tract of land near his now dwellinghouse on the West side of the highway from Mendon to Providence, containing halfe an acre on which stands a Certaine Meatinghouse of the People called Quakers. There shall be No devision or Partition made of ye granted primises, or any part thereof, but that ye Same Shall be held & Used in common. Signed by all 8 gentlement in the presence of Walter Phettiplace and Benjamin Smith. Aknowledge before Joseph Jenckes, Assistant on 7 Mar 1709. Recorded 17 Mar 1709, Thos. Olney, Clerk.
Residence:
History of Woonsocket
p.52 Tax Payers, June 16, 1713, include: Daniel Comstock, Hazadiah Comstock, Sam. Comstock, Capt., Samuel Comstock, Jr., Thomas Comstock (Samuel and his 4 oldest sons)
Other-Begin:
Vol XIII, Town Meeting No. 2, p.2-3 14 Feb 1716 Samuel Comstock Junr John Arnold Junr & Henry Mawry Chosen to Lay out a highway from the highway formerly Layed out by the Town to Westquotomset: to Wansocut so far as they shall think meete: and make Returne of there proceedings to the towne for the Towns allowance and Confirmation of sd work
Other-Begin:
Vol. IX, p.29-30 23rd of Aprill 1716. Laying out of a highway through Wesquetomscutt and Wansocott [Woonsocket] Lands and so over the River Called the branch ...."Crassing the said path sevorall times with bounds plainely marked by Hazadiah Comestockes and a Long by Samuell Comestockes and Richard Spreagues to the Branch of the River" Signed by John Arnold, Henry Mawrey, Samuell Comestock Junr.
Other-Begin:
Vol XIII, Town Meeting No. 2, p.11. 28 Jan 1717. Capt Richard Waterman Chosen Moderator. Mr Jonathan Spreague Chosen Grand juriman to serve att the next Genrl Court of Tryals to be holden att Newport the Last tusday in March Next. And Samuel Comestock Junr, Leiut Roger Burlinggame, Leiut William Harris, Ebenezer Spreague to serve pette Jurimen att sd Court
Other-Begin:
Vol XIII, Town Meeting No. 2, p.6-7 27 Jan 1718. Upon a bill presented by severall persons Liveing in the northern part of the Towne ship: that they may have a pound build in that parte of the Towne: the which by voate is Granted: and also a Comittee of three men Chosen to appoynt where sd Pound shall be sett.
Ensigne James Whipple, John Arnold Junr and Saml Comstock Junr are the three men Chosen
Other-Begin:
Vol.XVI, p.50-52. Samuel Comstock, Jr. and John Mowre appraised the estate of Jathaniel Mawrey who died 24 Mar 1718. Date of appraisal was 31 Mar 1718. Nathaniel's son Joseph was Executor.
Other-Begin:
p.85-88 Accounts of the estate of Nathaniel Mowrey reveals a payment of 6 shillings to Samuell Comestock on 1 Aug 1718.
Other-Begin:
p.83-85. Samuel Comstock, Junr, Joseph Smith and Daniell Mathewson witnessed the Last Will and Testament of John Malavery dated 15 Sep 1718.
Other-Begin:
p.274-275. Agreement among heirs of Anne (Inman) Comstocks two deceased sisters, Tabitha and Joannah, signed by Samuel Barlet, John Inman, Valentine Inman, Deborah Inman, Daniel Mathewson, John Belaue, Samuel Comstock, Junr. 2 Nov 1723.
Other-Begin:
Vol XIII, Town Meeting No. 2, p.30. 1 Jun 1724 Samuel Comestock Junr Chosen seacond Constable. Marked with an X to indicate he was Engaged.
Property:
27 Feb 1727, his father Samuel Comstock deeded to Samuel, Jr. 100 acres "on both sides of a river that runs out of a cedar swamp known as Wansocut (Woonsocket) cedar swamp, being that on which son Samuel now resides"
Will:
Will dated 1 Apr 1727, proved 13 Apr 1727. Bequests to wife Anne and children Sarah Aldrich, David, and Anne, who is under 18. Wit: Richard Sprague, Hazadiah Comstock, Joseph Arnold.
Samuel* married Anne* Inman about 1704 in Rhode Island. Anne* (daughter of John* Inman and Mary* Wightman) was born about 1679 in Providence Co, Rhode Island; died in 1727 in Smithfield, Providence Co, Rhode Island. [Group Sheet] [Family Chart]
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1767 - Aft 1790 (24 years)