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Show WASHOE'S ROMANCE. A Stormy Episode in Nevada Mining Camp. vt-i,-Fpokane Sposnian-Review.) while in a reminiscent mood vester- j day, Van B. De Lashmut narrated a remarkable tale of passionate love, a Husband's renunciation, a sudden divorce, di-vorce, a quicker .wedding. the uprising of arr indignant mining camp, the flight of the erring couple and a romantic sequel. se-quel. The story deals with early days in W ashoe camp, and Mr. De Lashmutt vouches for all the details. Some of the leading actors have since achieved widespread reputation, notably Charles Goodwin the veteran ex-editor of the Salt Lake Tribune, the judge who granted the divorce and pronounced the wedding ceremony. Here is the story: "lnnrailnln.1- :i . ... . lil " ,L Probablv seem, the incidents related actually occurred, oc-curred, and owing to the ptominece of the participants, created a great sensation sen-sation at the time. As some of them are yet alive, however, I refrain from giving names, and more than one old-timer old-timer now in Spokane who participated In the great Comstock mining excitement excite-ment in the early '60s will remember the incidents and recollect the persons to whom I refer, and will, no doubt confirm the major portion of this story' 'It was in the summer of 1865, in the little town of Washoe. Nev., that it occurred. Washoe contained at that time a population of about 1,500 people. peo-ple. The principal industry was the treatment of the very rich ores from the Comstock mines, some fourteen miles distant, which occupied the time night and day, of seven large mills If you should pass that way at the present pres-ent time no vestige of the old town' would be visible, since the county seat with its brick courthouse and the various va-rious other substantial structures which then existed, have been removed to Reno, on tho fontrol r ' - . " ' a dv.iiiu rail road, some thirty miles distant. "The Comstock, discovered in 1861 had already produced many millions of dollars, and made millionaires of men who had drifted there with nothing but their pluck and their luck, the most conspicuous of whom was Sandv Bowers, who piloted an ox team In there m 1861, and although he could not read or write, in less than two I jears he had an income of several I "lred -housan3s dollars per month. The whole country was running under un-der high pressure-the people had no time or temper to deal with commonplace common-place matters in a common sense way They craved the sensational-their sion"ewh Strlns t0 the hiShest tension ten-sion when awake, and when asleep they dozed and dreamed alternately between fabulous riches and -financial ruin; for the rapid fluctuations of daily occurrence frequently brought one or the other to more than one man prominent prom-inent in the affairs of the country. "Jerry was a matter-of-fact sort of man never speculated on great wealth or built castles in the air in fact, there was nothing sensational in his makeup and he had no taste for frills or feathers, save and except his com-; com-; piete adoration of his young and handsome hand-some wife, to whom he had been recently re-cently married. He was very well to do financially, and she was indulged without stint or hindrance to her every wish so far as money could supply it. J "He was a fine specimen of manhood, ; and could easily have taken a prominent promi-nent part in society, such as it was. as well as public events: but he had no desire to do so, and seldom appeared in j public. In other words, he 'sorter run j in a crowd to himself,' studiously avoid- , ed the sensational, and as for romance, t of that he had a holy horror. Speak- ! ing from a strictly literary point of ; view, if a rfrnva nf several hundred ! novelists had chanced that way, with guns, hunting for heroes to adorn their tales, it is a 10 to 1 shot that not a man of them would have 'snapped a cap' at Jerry. "I was engaged in the publication of the Washoe Times, which was the political po-litical oracle of that portion of the country, and located in the town of Washoe. I had a partner, and for the purposes of this story we will call him Charley, whose uncle, Judge S., was prosecuting attorney of that judicial district, and both of us being quite young, the old judge wrote our heavy leaders. In those days no newspaper, no matter Yinw Inclc-nifimnt would venture to go to press without an editorial edi-torial full of historical lore, two or three columns in length, and our young and tender shoulders were too weak to support the literary materia necessary neces-sary to compose them. "Mrs. Jerry was a tall and handsome hand-some brunette and many years her husband's hus-band's junior. With the finest home in the town and ample means to entertain, enter-tain, she was the leader in society in our own and the near-by 'towns of Virginia Vir-ginia City and Carson, the capital of the state. Owing to her husband's disinclination dis-inclination to go with her, it frequently became necessary for her to accept the escort of other men, and it too fre- iiuenny nappened that tnis otner man was Charley. He was a dapper little fellow, and in the ball room was the envy of the men and the idol of the ladies. "Washoe was overshadowed by Virginia Vir-ginia City, which was then in the zenith ze-nith of its glory. Of al lthe wide open town its doors were the widest ajar before or since, and the chroniclers who related the, incidents in that period found eager readers throughout the whole world. In killing it apparently had exhausted the realm of tragedy; the cold facts, of frequent occurrence, put fiction to blush ;and in nearly every feature where extravagant demeanor could figure, it seemingly had exhausted exhaust-ed the ingenuity of man for the sensational. sensa-tional. "One fine summer's day I was hastily summoned home by Charley and found him imprisoned in a little cottage in the rear of the -printing office, with Jerrv actinsr as sentinel PViarlov hl-qc smooth shaven and dressed as if for a ball. "A hasty consultation disclosed the fact that Mrs. Jerry had that morning told her husband (among other things, as the gossips shrewdly suspected) that she no longer lov'ed him, and that her I affections had been transferred to Charley. I tried to get Charley to flee through the hack door and make his j i escape on hors-?ack, and tried to get . Jerry to consent "to Charley's going j away for a few months or altogether, ; or until the thing should blow over, hut to no purpose; he' would not di- i vulge his plans, and Charley was kept t in suspense as to Whether it was to be I a wedding or a funeral. . j "The two or three hours intervening h before 9 o'clockoin the evening passed slowly enough, with the whole town fj agog as to what'yas going to happen to 1 Charley. jj "Jerry has eaten nothing since the 7 evening before, and was not accus- h tomed to miss three meals at one in- ning, and something must be done very N quickly to relieve the strain. K "The judge of our judicial district H was a man who has since made his H name famous as one of the brightest U ruer3 who ever accepted the position of editor of a leading western paper and whose strongest weakness is known to be his love for his fellowmen; who has a heart big enough for a dozen do-zen men and whose honesty and integrity in-tegrity have- never been impugned. That morning Jerry had laid his case before the judge and had told him he ; would stand guard over Charley until a divorce could be granted; and the judge had just granted it. "The same judge who had just granted grant-ed the divorce, together with Judge S.. Charley and myself, repaired to Jerry's Jer-ry's residence, where we found his wife dressed for the occasion. The decree of divorce was then read to her, and the same judge who had granted it that day told her and Charley to stand up, and performed the marriage ceremony cere-mony over them. Jerry then laid aside his weapon, hastily nacked a few clothes in a valise, bade his m'other-in-law an affectionate adieu, and after wishing the newly-married couple a long and prosperous life and presenting to them the house and furniture, was off for a new Eldorado in something less than half an hour. "The news spread that something unusual un-usual was happening, or had happened or was about to happen. The seven great quartz mills, whose stamps never t eased to pound and j;ir. except on the ' ourth of July, were closed down. The saloons of the town were unable to hold the crowds: bonfires were lighted in front of the court house; anvils were substituted for cannon, and belched forth at intervals their cannonlike re- i ports, amid great risk to the partici-pants, partici-pants, and the Fourth of July its-Mf was in danger of being made a back 1 number I " J.ir. and Mrs. C. had retired in the' same room occupied the night before by Jerry and her. Judge S. had long i roomed in Jerry's house, and had also 1 retired for the night. About 2 o'clock a. m. the mob, using every device in their power to make night hideous, went to Jerrys house, bade the newlv-married newlv-married couple dress for a journey placed them in a hack, and instructed them to go over the state line into California Cal-ifornia and never return. "Judge S., taking fright at the mob, jumped out of the. second-story window ol the house and walked fourteen miles In his slippers to Carson City. After' a few days he returned, and placing! himself under the protection of the I sheriff, under a guard of several men ! he closed up the business as prosecut-' Ing attorney within a couple of weeks, I and then left the state forever ! 'After a few days Charley and hiJ wife settled in Portland, Ore. JudVs ' was also there, a member of a law : firm composed of two other men. both : of whom afterward served more than one term in the TTniw ef 1 7 1 m .... fLOLca ocnate Two children were born to Charley and his wife-bcth girls-but their married lire was not very agreeable, and after a few years they ceased to live to- i gether. "Some ten or a dozen years subse-' quent to their separation. Jerry was in attendance upon the legislature of California Cali-fornia at Sacramento, as announced bv the dispatches, when I gave Mrs. C. the money and caused her to go to Sacramento Sacra-mento with directions to stop at the ! same hotel with Jerry, well knowing i that the sight of his former wife in i her helpless condition, as well as that i of the children, the older one of whom f resembled him very much, could not " tail to soften his heart: and it did -They met promised to forgive, if not 'i forget the past he assisted her to ob-tain ob-tain a divorce from Charley, and theyi wpi-a remarried y ' "In the meantime he had served two or three terms as state treasurer of Nevata. They located at Carson, where he continued to hold the position of state treasurer until his death, which occurred a few years later." |