Buried Treasure Nearby?

by Bill Oudegeest

Henry Comstock didn't discover the Comstock Lode in Virginia City. Nor was silver the reason prospectors first came there. Gold was the allure, ironically, and the miners were frustrated by the heavy blue-gray dirt that they had to extract from their gold mines on the way to the gold.

While everyone else was digging for gold two brothers, Hosea and Ethan Allen Grosch, knew better. They were geologists and thought the dirt people were even paving the streets with was high grade silver ore.

They didn't have the money to process it in 1857, though. They prospected for gold in order to eat and to save up enough to begin processing. Meanwhile, they kept the silver a secret. In August Hosea died of blood poisoning. Until November Ethan continued to mine to pay for the funeral .

Since most miners weren't doing too well and processing capital wasn't yet available in Nevada, he figured he'd have to go to California for assaying and financing. He knew trying to cross the Sierra in November was hard, but the money was a big lure. He took his maps, charts and samples, and a friend, Richard Bucke, and left his cabin in the care of Henry Comstock. They loaded everything on a burro and took off hoping to make the crossing before the first big snows.

They left Virginia City and headed for California going past Lake Tahoe, and followed the Truckee River to Squaw Valley. This was a well traveled route that went through Squaw Valley over Squaw Peak and down into the American River. In Squaw Valley, though, the weather first turned bad. The snow continued for days and their food gave out. They ended up roasting their burro and carried as much meat as they could.

On crude snow shoes they headed up over Squaw Peak through waist deep snow. They slid and fell down the other side, found the trail, lost it, and then found footprints in the snow - their own.

Near a fallen tree they deposited the maps, charts and samples into a hollow log covering it over with moss and twigs. Ethan carved a cross into the tree's bark. Then they rolled a boulder in front of the butt of the hollow tree. During the next days more snow fell and by November 3, they were just crawling along on their hands and knees. Eventually they reached the Middle Fork of the American River. On December 5 they dug themselves into the snow. They hadn't eaten in 4 days. Still they crawled on. Eventually they saw smoke and heard a dog barking. Miners found them both and took them home on sleds. Both men's legs were frozen and they couldn't eat or sleep. Gangrene was creeping up Bucke's leg, so the miners amputated it with a knife. Ethan wouldn't let them amputate both of his legs and he died leaving the secret of the blue-gray dirt for someone else.

Richard Bucke never returned to the Sierra. He went home to Canada to become a famous nerve specialist. Two years later an even richer silver vein was discovered, the Comstock Lode. Ironically Henry Comstock never became rich off of his namesake, but that's another story. Meanwhile, somewhere in the American River Canyon behind Serene Lakes behind a boulder, in a hollow, are the maps, charts, and assay samples. Look…