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The hanging of Sam Mills
Twenty-eight year old Sam Mills wasn’t exactly pretty to look at. He had only one eye, one usable eye, anyway. A bar-room fight in the silver and lead mining town of Eureka in the mid-to-late seventies had seen to that. He was “a very bad character,” says retired Elko historian Howard Hickson. But his death was 138 years ago. And Mills was a minority in a time when Christian sentiments about race didn’t count for much — some say they don’t count for much nowadays either. My guess is, when an angry man threatens you in a lead-town bar, saying, “You black son of a bitch. I’ll teach you to think you’re as good as a white man” — words preserved by another Elko County historian, now long gone — you’re going to defend yourself. You may even end up in a Carson City prison, which of course, Sam Mills did. I mention Mills because he was the first African-American to be hanged in Nevada, and the first man of any color or distinction to be legally executed in Elko County. I was so fascinated by the tale when I first heard it that I made his story a big part of my story, in my book True Believer. The fourth in a series of Nevada-based Westerns, True Believer relates the early history of Elko, Lamoille and Wells while spinning an imaginary tale of murder, mayhem and unrequited love in the eastern shadow of the Ruby Mountains. Read it and you’ll meet real-life Elko resident Jim Clark, who owned the Depot Hotel on Commercial Street, in 1881. You’ll also visit Wells’ first permanent building and bar, the Bulls Head Saloon, made only of railroad ties. Read any of the W. W. Ronin Westerns — there are four in print, a fifth to be published by summer 2015 — and you’ll see Nevada in in a way you never thought you would or could. When Mills was executed in 1877, at the end of an Elko County rope, he was 24 years old. But he wasn’t put to death for his barroom brawl in Eureka. He was hung for accidently killing his best friend. Here’s the rest of the story. Sam Mills was making the best of his life, working as a cook at a hotel in Halleck Station, just outside of Elko. Read more…
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Lake Tahoe’s Water Babies
“What’s purple and lives at the bottom of the ocean?” “You tell me,” I said, from behind the wheel of a 15-passenger van filled with elementary school children, from our martial arts business in Hillsboro. “Moby Grape,” he replied, laughing in the way only a pre-teen youngster can. The sorry excuse for a joke—kids say the darnedest things, don’t they?—comes to mind whenever I think of “Water Babies,” the mythical creatures talked about by an earlier generation of Washoe Indians. Best that anyone can say, Washoe Water Babies tales predate the crazy corps of white Americans who crowded into northern Nevada when silver was first discovered in 1859. The story is a familiar one, if you’re at all acquainted with Nevada history. As the Comstock began to explode, the Washoe’s claim to the area began to implode. By 1863, most people say the tribe(s) were driven from their land, the forests from Virginia City and its environs all the way to Lake Tahoe were clear-cut, and traditional migration patterns—simply pictured, to Lake Tahoe in the summer for fishing, to the Pine Nut Mountains east of there for the fall harvest of nuts, and the valleys in-between so as to winter warmly into the spring—were made difficult, at best. The impact on the Washoe culture was terminal, so much so that by 1866, Indian agents in Reno believed the tribe faced imminent destruction and no government provision was made for the tribe’s future. Fast forward 150-some years. The Washoe have persevered. And despite significant challenges, which are beyond the scope of this simple blog entry—the Washoe people have formed tribal governments, regained control of (some) tribal lands and are busy, even to this day, actively building and teaching about their culture. In some small way, I hope my novels—set in northern Nevada, in the 1880s and forward—contribute to our understanding of this important community which, by some estimates, dates to more than 9,000 years ago. But I want to talk about Water Babies, because you’ll see them pop up, as it were, in some of my books. At the beginning of Lady of the Lake, for instance. “Did you see them?” the voice asked. Ronin looked left and right, but not before he placed his right hand on the black buffalo-horn handled Colt sitting cross-draw at his waist. “Jesus Christ,” he murmured. Read more…
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The Honorable Howard Hickson
He’d probably blush, hearing that such a distinguished title had been tossed his direction. But as an historical fiction writer currently focused on Nevada in the 1880s, I want to give this distinguished Nevada historian a “full salute,” as some say. Howard Hickson’s work has benefited me each time I’ve researched a novel. He’s deepened my understanding of Nevada’s people and places. Director Emeritus of the Northeastern Nevada Museum in Elko, he’s been long retired. In a brief e-mail exchange this evening–thank you, Howard, you were kind to respond–he told me he was no longer involved in research. All the more reason for the rest of us to get busy I suppose. I’m currently most fond of Mint Mark: CC – A History of the U.S. Mint in Carson City. I just received a copy of the 1972 paperback in Oregon this morning. I finished it before breakfast and later found myself bragging to friends about things I’d been hoping to find out for a long time. Some of what I learned from Howard’s life-long involvement in Nevada history will no doubt be included in my seventh narrative in the W. W. Ronin series of Westerns, Bathhouse Row. For example, his 2002 book, Elko, One of the Last Frontiers of the Old West, was an extraordinary boost to my research for books three and four, The Pinkerton Years and True Believer. A resident of an assisted care facility in Elko, Nevada, you can find some of what Howard has written here. Savor it. I’ve bumped into a few of Nevada’s best over the years. In the late 80s and early 90s, the late Vic Goodwin and I used to have lunch together at the Ormsby House Rotary meeting. Also gone, Willa Oldham and I sat more than a few times in her living room discussing books and writing. Both of these dear saints were members of the First Presbyterian Church in Carson City, where I was pastor. Hell, even Ron James sold me a trumpet once. Now there’s a saint for sure, and he keeps on giving. Howard, and the rest of you for that matter, I don’t use this language often–my character, the former reverend W. W. Ronin even less so. But you and your writing have blessed me. A profound thank you. Read more…
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