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Mammoth Lakes, CA
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Wednesday, November 19, 2008
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The printer's devil, part 2 |
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Friday, 21 March 2008 |
Along the Trail
By David McNeill
It was well known by all who worked with Mark Twain that he loved to pull a prank on someone, but he didn't like a prank being pulled on him. Kenyon Davis was to witness an incident that happened one night on the Divide between Virginia City and Gold Hill, when the boys got even with Twain once and for all. Twain was coming back from a lecture in Gold Hill that Kenyon had attended and later wrote, "The Divide was high, unoccupied ground, between the towns, the scene of 20 midnight murders and 100 robberies."
As Kenyon was trying to catch up with Twain and his friend, he saw men approaching them and heard someone shout, "Your watch! Your money!" Suddenly, three masked men had their pistols in Twain's face. As Twain reached into his pockets, one of the robbers said, "Put up your hands! Do you want your head blown off? Higher!" The footpads played this game with Twain, until he finally said, "Gentlemen, you see that I've got to hold up my hands; and so I can't take out my money, but if you'll be so kind as to take it out for me, I will do as much for you some..." He was rudely interrupted as the three highwaymen, who called themselves Beauregard, Stonewall and Jeff Davis, removed everything from their victims' pockets, pushed them around a little and disappeared into the night.
Twain would learn a week later, as he was about to leave the Comstock on the stage, who the robbers really were. At about 9 p.m., Chief of Police Birdsall and a half dozen Enterprise printers stepped up and handed Mark an open package containing his $500 watch, the stolen money, knife, corkscrew and toothpick, and said, "Mr. Mark Twain, my name is Jeff Davis and these are my friends Beauregard, Stonewall Jackson, and..." Twain stopped them and replied, "You may think it a great joke, but I can't and I don't thank you for it. Go on, driver!" With that Twain left the Comstock, refusing to shake hands or bid them goodbye.
The Comstock reporters were heavy-drinking, hard-partying individuals who started out their evenings at Piper's Opera House, followed by dining at one of Virginia City's finest restaurants, of which there were many. Then the drinking would continue on through the night, with a side trip to the red light district or a visit to the opium dens in Chinatown. By the time Kenyon saw these people the next morning at the newspaper office, they were thoroughly "demoralized." They usually made it into the office continuing to write, but it was a sad sight. As time went on, reporters like Dan de Quille had a hard time even making it to work at all. Kenyon learned to walk on eggshells in the morning when the reporters were hung over. He got them pastries and made the coffee extra strong, and the reporters silently appreciated him for it.
As the years went by, Kenyon was allowed to advance from printer's devil to journalist. His reporting skills would be tested when a fire broke out at Crazy Kate's rowdy boarding house on A Street at 5:30 a.m. and quickly got beyond the control of the fire department.
Kenyon heard the commotion and ran out of the newspaper office to witness the start of a fire that would burn out most of the heart of the city. The wind was driving the fire in all different directions, leaping from building to building, as people were running in confusion with what little possessions they could carry. The fire spread through the brick buildings as easily as it did the wooden ones, and Kenyon overheard a fireman say, "Nothing can be done. The fire must burn itself out!" The fire accelerated and was roaring with flames spewing thick black smoke hundreds of feet into the air, while roofs and walls collapsed amid the violent explosions. As a cat darted out with its tail on fire, one of the walls from a building collapsed on three men, near where Kenyon was standing. He helped pull out two of them from the rubble, but the third man was crushed to death.
All the miners had been hoisted to the surface and were working frantically to save the hoisting works at the shaft entrances. They knew if they couldn't stop the fire there, a whole forest of timbers from Lake Tahoe would burn forever under the ground. Even the Catholic church, St Mary's in the Mountains, burned to the ground.
By the time Kenyon left Virginia City in the 1890s, Mark Twain was back east writing some of the most beloved stories in history. Dan de Quille was shipped back to West Liberty, Iowa, dying of rheumatism from all his heavy carousing. Alf Doten was reduced to being a "husband on a salary," a has been in the journalism scene, and died on a cold, windy winter's day in Carson City, Nev.
The old Pacific Coast pioneers lived fast and died hard, but Kenyon was just getting started. Like many old Comstockers, he moved off the hill to San Francisco to become editor of the Chronicle. He enjoyed playing with his grandchildren and telling them stories about his younger days in the wild mining town called Virginia City, Nev. Kenyon made a lot of friends in his life on both sides of the mountains, and when he died in 1938, there was a huge funeral procession in downtown San Francisco. The old printer's devil from the Comstock finally met his last deadline.
David McNeill has lived in Bishop since 1974, working for the Water District and the Forest Service for most of that time. At home in the wilderness, he does a lot of hiking with Windy, his Springer spaniel. With a taste for writing he explored during stints at Mammoth's Channel 5 and the Mono Herald, he has a drawer full of stories.
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Last Updated ( Friday, 28 March 2008 )
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Copyright © 2008 The Mammoth Times All Rights Reserved
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