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Stamp Taxes in Nevada. I. Silver Fever! Nevada Territory Stock Certificates, 1863–4 This monograph surveys gold and silver mining stock certificates issued in Nevada Territory bearing U.S. Civil War tax stamps, classified according to their regions and towns of issue, with an added chapter on certificates issued during statehood.***Silver Fever!***Rich strikes of silver and gold in 1859 on the Comstock Lode in western Utah Territory led some two years later to the formation of the new Territory of Nevada in April 1861, days before the outbreak of civil war. So rich was the Comstock that “silver fever” gripped much of the West. Prospectors scoured Nevada’s gulches and canyons, and hundreds of camps and towns sprang up, their inhabitants seized by an insatiable desire to strike it rich, not only by the hard work of mining, but more often by speculating in mining stocks. Thousands of mining companies were formed by developers and promoters, who issued and peddled shares of stock in prodigious numbers. A classic “bubble” in these stocks prevailed for about eighteen months, from October 1862 until bursting in March 1864. As Harper’s Magazine expressed it, “speculation ran riot, and the Territory of Nevada was converted into one vast swindling stock exchange.” Much of the population of Northern California, especially in San Francisco, was similarly infected. Surviving certificates are among the most visible and enjoyable reminders of this riotous period. They are rare — a decades-long census herein lists 460 examples — most often quaintly typeset, often printed in color and usually illustrated, charming in their variety of fanciful names.***Beginning in March 1863 they were subject to a 25¢ U.S. Civil War stamp tax, and certainly they are among the most visually appealing items ever to bear stamps. In nearly every case, very small numbers are known for any given certificate, very many being one of a kind; they appear to have survived mostly in the personal effects of scattered individuals. In addition to their visual appeal and philatelic interest, these quaint artifacts are replete with historical connections. Signatures of Comstock movers and shakers John Mackay, William Sharon, William Stewart and Adolph Sutro appear, as well as those of lesser lights like James Kinkead, the intrepid sheriff who tracked the perpetrators of the first robbery of the transcontinental Central Pacific railroad in “the case of the high-heeled boot,” and later extracted unpaid property taxes from the same railway by chaining two locomotives to their tracks; or a young Sam Clemens, trying his hand at mining before being transformed into Mark Twain at the Territorial Enterprise.***The paper record of this explosion of Nevada stocks is rendered intensely poignant by the fact that the very towns where it occurred proved nearly as ephemeral as the short-lived boom in the stocks themselves. Once the hoped-for bonanzas did not materialize, there was little to justify the continued existence of these camps, and the surviving certificates generated there are among the few physical proofs that these places even existed! Fully two-thirds have long since vanished with little or no trace, places like American City, Washoe City, Como, Georgetown and Palmyra in the vicinity of the Comstock; Aurora, the site of Clemens’ first mining adventure; Star City, Santa Clara and Humboldt City in the Humboldt region; and Jacobsville, Clifton, Canyon City, Watertown and Amador in the Reese River region near Austin. ***Over a hundred large illustrations of certificates are included in the body of the text, and another 165 smaller ones are spliced into the aforementioned census. Specialists in this fascinating collecting field will find this work indispensable. Aficionados of Western Americana or of classic U.S. philately will find it an inviting introduction to an enjoyable byway. Libraries, especially in Nevada or elsewhere in the West, will profit from its addition. |
