Funerals on the Comstock Lode

Earlier I wrote about my presiding over the funeral of Emily Giggs in the play, “Our Town.” You can find that story by clicking here. In this article, I discuss the two funerals I conducted as a student pastor in Virginia City along with some historical funerals.

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During the year I was in Virginia City, I had the unfortunate opportunity to officiate at funerals.  These, however, were not on a stage, at least not the one in the old high school. Both were for women who died of cancer.  We held the first funeral in the church, and it featured the best musical talent Virginia City had to offer. Rudi, a former opera singer who had done studio work for Pink Floyd, lifted our spirits with a stirring solo. At the end of the service, Red, an eighty-five-year-old banjo picker, who hung out at the Bucket of Blood, warmed our hearts with “Amazing Grace.”  

In The Protestant Clergy in the Great Plains and Mountain West, Ferenc Morton Szasz suggests funerals were one occasion in which 19^th century when Westerners sought out tradition. At the time of death, they sought the services of clergy. This kept ministers in the mining camps busy. David Henry Palmer officiated at five funerals in his first ten days in Nevada. Shortly after arriving in the territory, Palmer wrote his parents, saying he conducted three funerals in the past two days. “The first an awful drunkard, the second one of the greatest gamblers and the profanest man in the territory and the third was murdered.”

Palmer and William Mulford Martin, the first two Presbyterian ministers in Virginia City, officiated over several funerals for prominent residents who have become part of the city’s folklore. Ironic, but the deceased became legends while the ministers faded into oblivion. Palmer conducted the farewell service for John Jenkins, better known as Sugar-foot Jack.. Tom Peasley shot Jenkins. Peasley was well-known and a jury acquitted him of any wrongdoing without leaving their seats for deliberation. 

Two years later, Martin officiated over Peasley’s funeral. His death occurred after a gunfight in the Corner Bar in Carson City’s Ormsby House. Newspapers lamented Peasley’s demise. His funeral, held in front of the Fire Department, became one of the largest held on the Comstock. Mark Twain immortalized Tom Peasley by casting him as Buck Fanshaw in Roughing It.  According to Twain:

 He was a representative citizen. He had “killed his man”—not in his own quarrel, it is true, but in defense of a stranger unfairly beset by numbers. He had kept a sumptuous saloon. He had been the proprietor of a dashing helpmate whom he could have discarded without the formality of divorce. He had held a high position in the fire department and had been a very Warwick in politics. When he died there was a great lamentation throughout the town, but especially in the vast bottom-stratum of society.

Mark Twain, who never wanted truth to get in the way of a good story, took some liberties with Peasley’s life and demise. Peasley did “kill his man” but, according to all accounts, it was not in the defense of others. Peasley was, however, involved in politics, owned a saloon and an opera house, and had served as a fire chief. Also, Peasley’s helpmate was Julia Bulette, a local prostitute. He certainly would not have needed a divorce to rid himself of her.

Twain continues Peasley’s story with the selection of Scotty Briggs to “fetch a parson” to “waltz” Buck Fanshaw into heaven. The encounter with between Scotty and the young bookish pastor “fresh from an eastern theological seminary” doesn’t sound like Martin, who officiated over Tom Peasley’s funeral. Martin was in his 50s and was a well-seasoned pastor before coming to Virginia City. However, Twain could have replace Martin with David Henry Palmer, who had graduated from Auburn Theological Seminary three months before arriving on the. Comstock. 

A year after Peasley’s funeral, Julia Bulette was murdered in her D Street crib. Having been made an honorary member of the Fire Department by her deceased lover, they also held her funeral was held at the fire department. Again, Martin officiated. It is hard for a minister to know what to say at such an occasion, but according to Alf Doten, the editor of the Gold Hill News who attended the funeral, Martin’s words were “comforting and appropriate. He must not have been too condemning or Doten, who frequently visited prostitutes, would have felt the heat.   

Twain left Virginia City shortly after Tom Peasley’s funeral. He first stayed in California, then made his way to the Sandwich Islands (Hawaii). On his way back east, Twain, who by this time well known for his humorous writings, stopped in Virginia City. His first morning back coincided with execution of John Millian,. Millian had been convicted of Julia Bulette’s murder. The hanging occurred north of town and witnessed by a large crowd including Twain,. who found the spectacle troubling.   

While her murderer has been all but forgotten, Virginia City has immortalized Julia Bulette. Today, a bar on C Street that bears her name. Locals can point out what some say is her grave to tourist. Someone occasionally paints the wooden fence around the faux grave white, making it easily visible from town. Even though Julia died over a century and a half ago, it seems her heart and status keeps growing. Today, most any resident in town will tell you stories about her concern for the poor and the sick and how she could demand a thousand dollars a night for her services. Today, you can find many books portraying her in a saintly fashion. One must wonder if they are talking about a prostitute or Florence Nightingale.  

Folklore often twists history. A frequently told tale about Julia is that her funeral was held at the fire department and burial on Flowery Mountain because the Father Manogue, the Catholic priest, wouldn’t conduct the services for a prostitute. It’s not true. As we have already seen, a Presbyterian minister officiated at her funeral. Furthermore, Father Manogue officiated at funerals of others whose lives were a bit shady.

Her burial at the cemetery on Flowery Mountain raises questions about her wealth. Although she probably would not have not been allowed burial in the Catholic portion of the regular cemetery, she certainly could have been buried in another section. Even the fire department had a section reserved for their members. Burial at the Flowery Cemetery was reserved for those who were unable to afford a plot in the cemetery on the north end of town. Furthermore, the customer who killed her was a common miner and certainly would not have been able to pay more than a couple dollars for her service.

The story of Julia Bulette’s burial is an example of how the church and clergy responded to the needs of those outside their religious community. I, too, found myself called on for such a task during my last month in town.

A well-known Comstock resident who was not a member of a church died. I was contacted early the morning of her death and asked to call upon the husband of the deceased . While I was given a phone number, I was also informed I would most likely find him at the Ponderosa Bar at the corner of C Street and Taylor. When the man didn’t answer the phone, I headed down C Street in search of him.  It was about 10 in the morning. Sure enough, he was sitting on a stool at one end of the bar, nursing a beer. I sat down beside him and ordered a cup of coffee.

He requested a simple graveside service. At ten o’clock, a couple mornings later, we all gathered on Boot Hill. I read a few Psalms and said prayers. After saying the words of committal, the husband stepped up the grave site with an urn containing his wife’s ashes. Bending over on loose dirt, he slipped into the hole. I tried to catch him and nearly slid into the hole beside him. I am sure the whole event provided for humor for the throngs of tourists who had gathered on the hill overlooking the graveyard and, for a moment, I felt as if I was on stage. Thankfully, a sheriff deputy held the crowds back until the service was over. Otherwise, those watching from a distance would probably have thought the service was staged like the shoot-outs which are occasionally staged on C Street.

The service ended with him pulling a pint out of his pocket. He took a swig and dropped the bottle in with his wife’s ashes. Then he a few other men filled in the grave with the dirt piled up beside the grave.

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For more insight into the Twain’s story on Buck Fanshaw along with source notes, see Charles Jeffrey Garrison, “Of Humor, Death, and Minsters: The Comstock of Mark Twain, Nevada Historical Society Quarterly ,#38,3 (Fall 1005), 189-212.    

For information on how Julia Bulette became a popular hero, see Andria Daley Taylor, “Girls of the Golden West,” in Comstock Women: The Making of a Mining Community, Ronald M. James & C. Elizabeth Raymond, editors, (Reno, NV: University of Nevada Press, 1998), especially pages 274-278. 

More stories about my time on the Comstock:

Arriving in Virginia City 

David Henry Palmer arrives in Virginia City, 1863

Virginia City’s Muckers presents Thorton Wilder’s “Our Town”

Doug and Elvira

Matt and Virginia City

Driving West in ’88

Sunday afternoon drive to Gerlach 

Riding in the cab of a locomotive on the V&T

Christmas Eve

Easter Sunrise Services (a part of this article recalls Easter Sunrise Service in Virginia City in 1989)

The Revivals of A. B. Earle (an academic paper published inAmerican Baptist Historical Society Quarterly, part of his revivals were in Virginia City in 1867)