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Volume 060-3 - July 2006 (6 pages)
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Page: of 6
NCHS Bulletin July 2006
miscellaneous things that came to light were astonishing;
gum boots, old coats, pants, vests, red shirts, blue shirts,
white shirts, old socks, bottles of all shapes and sixes,
bones that the dog had carried there and buried and the odor
was indescribable.” Wheelbarrow-loads were taken and
dumped in Deer Creek, such was the habit of the early residents of the town.
“The house was lined with sailcloth,” she writes (it was
common practice to divide the rooms with cloth walls).
When a gust of wind came it would sail up and down and
she imagined herself on board a ship and felt seasick.
“We had several fires; when the first occurred I was
chopping meat for mince pies. I heard the cry to fire, but
was waiting for the bells to ring when Mr. R. rushed in and
told me to pack up as probably the whole town would burn,
but it was stayed as only a few buildings were burned including the theatre on Main St.”
The theater was an important part of the social life of the
town as the top entertainers of the day would appear in
Nevada as they followed the San Francisco, Sacramento,
Marysville, Grass Valley, Rough and Ready and Nevada
circuit. The fire Emily describes occurred on November 28,
Emily Rolfe, First Matron of Evangeline Chapter #9,
O.E.S., Nevada City, in later life. (Comstock Bonanza photo.)
2
1854, in which nine buildings on Main Street were destroyed with a loss of $6,000. Fires were frequent in the
early Gold Rush towns due to their construction materials,
buildings sharing common walls, and the combination of
wood stoves, oil lamps, candles and businesses such as
blacksmith shops right in the center of town.
The next fire Emily would witness was in 1855, with a
loss of $40,000, followed by the great devastating fire of
1856, when in half an hour the entire business district
would lay in smoldering ruins. Gone were the new coutthouse and all the county records, most of the dwellings, and
all of the business section. Only six of the 28 brick buildings were left standing, all supposed to be fireproof. Loss
for the 1856 fire was $1,500,000. These 1850s dollar losses
for the three fires would be equivalent today to $142,000,
$846,000 and a whopping $32,262,353, respectively.
Emily would see the town destroyed again, when in 1863
another fire burned almost the same area as the 1856 fire.
Luckily, that day there were no winds and the court records
were saved, but, the new courthouse was destroyed again,
along with most all of the business district.
Stephen Johnson Field
The Man Who Created Nevada County
By Steve Cottrell
Part Two
hen Stephen Field’s term as assemblyman ended he 4™
returned full-time to his practice in Marysville.
There, in what was left of Yuba County, he made the acquaintance of another Nevada City pioneer, Charles Snowden Fairfax, the 21-year-old scion of English peerage—the
10th Lord Fairfax, Baron of Cameron. Born and raised in
northeast Virginia in an area that bears the family name—
Fairfax County—he ascended to a lordship at age eight
when his uncle Thomas died.
Fairfax sailed from Virginia on the Glenmore—a sixmonth, 17,000-mile adventure around Cape Horn—and arrived in San Francisco on October 6, 1849, in the company
of his uncle, Richard Snowden, and about 75 other members of what was called “The Virginia Company.” The wellheeled Virginians had purchased the Glenmore and filled it
with merchandise and supplies to sell once in California,
but the scheme fell short of expectations and the cargo, including a large supply of tobacco, was left to rot at the
wharf. The ship, purchased in Virginia for $36,000, was
sold for $12,000, and the company disbanded.
Joining Fairfax and Snowden on an expedition into the
foothills was Richard Keyser, a Baltimore native. The three
arrived at Deer Creek Dry Diggings two weeks after A. B.,
Caldwell had established his Upper Store at the site of
today’s Trinity Episcopal Church on Nevada Street. Fairfax,
Snowden and Keyser erected a log cabin, began sifting
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