Henry Comstock
Canadian-American
1820 – 1870
Henry 'Old Pancake' Comstock was a Canadian-born prospector who talked his way into a share of the 1859 silver discovery in Nevada's Six-Mile Canyon. The Comstock Lode, the richest silver deposit in American history, bears his name, though he died poor.
Biography
Henry Tompkins Paige Comstock was born around 1820 in Trenton, Upper Canada (now Ontario), and drifted west as a trapper and prospector, reaching the Washoe country of western Utah Territory in the 1850s. Miners there nicknamed him 'Old Pancake,' supposedly because he was too busy prospecting to bake proper bread.
In June 1859, when Peter O'Riley and Patrick McLaughlin uncovered rich diggings at the head of Six-Mile Canyon, Comstock appeared on the scene and claimed the ground was already his, asserting rights through an earlier claim. Accounts differ on how honest the assertion was, but the partners cut him in rather than fight, and his relentless self-promotion attached his name to the deposit. The 'blue stuff' that clogged the miners' rockers proved to be fabulously rich silver sulfide ore, and the Comstock Lode became the richest silver strike in American history, building Virginia City and helping bring Nevada into the Union in 1864.
Like most of the original locators, Comstock sold out early and cheaply, reportedly receiving around $11,000 for interests that produced millions. He tried storekeeping in Carson City, failed, and spent his last years prospecting across Idaho and Montana. He died near Bozeman, Montana, on September 27, 1870, of a gunshot wound generally reported as self-inflicted, a poor man whose name is fixed to one of the greatest bonanzas ever found.