Virginia City, Nevada

“ Nevada (46) , one of the western States of the American Union, occupying a wide stretch of territory on the Great Plateau or Basin, between the Rocky Mountains on the E. and the Cascades and the Sierra Nevada on the W., has Oregon and Idaho on the N., and California on the S. and W.; elevated, cold, dry, and barren, it offers little inducement to settlers, and is in consequence the least in population of the American States; the great silver discoveries of 1859 brought it first into notice, and mining still remains the chief industry; Virginia City and Carson (capital) are the chief towns ”

“ Unlike many of the other states in the United States, Virginia does not have any village type of government.
[234]
Cities having at least ten thousand persons are eligible to be classified as cities of the first class; cities having less than ten thousand persons are eligible to be classified as the second class. Cities in Virginia have generally followed a three-fold plan or pattern of development: first, an area is established, then incorporated as a town and finally elevated to city status as an independent municipality. ”

“ Grub and booze could be had for the asking in Virginia City when we were broke, but handouts were more plentiful than work. Not many strangers wander to Virginia City these days, for the town is off the main line and no bums visit it. It is on the decay order. Its streets are in ruins, ditto the sidewalks and houses, and over the whole place there is a musty odor. It is away high up in the air about eight thousand feet above sea level and the [Pg 5] wealth that once was brought up from several thousand feet below the surface amounted to billions, not millions of dollars. ”

“ Not only through the popular ditty have the Blue Ridge Mountains of Virginia become famous: their own natural beauty is sufficient to render them beloved by all those who have had the opportunity to see them or live amongst them. But it is also under the blue shadows of those Virginia peaks that many a good man was born and it is therefore a great tribute to Nevada, I think, that Judge Sanders has permanently made his home under the purple and gray shadows of the Sagebrush slopes. ”

“ There are thirty-two independent cities: Alexandria, Bristol, Buena Vista, Charlottesville, Clifton Forge, Colonial Heights, Covington, Danville, Falls Church, Fredericksburg, Galax, Hampton (formerly, a second class city; now combined with the town of Phoebus and Elizabeth City County into a first class city since 1952) , Harrisonburg, Hopewell, Lynchburg, Martinsville, Newport News, Norfolk, Norton, Petersburg, Portsmouth, Radford, Richmond, Roanoke, South Boston, South Norfolk, Staunton, Suffolk, Virginia Beach, Waynesboro, Williamsburg and Winchester. ”

“ At least by 1623, it was the desire of the Virginia Company of London to build towns in Virginia which would possess a convenient and suitable number of houses, constructed together of brick and encircled by a battlemented brick wall. Exactly in the same way Cecilius Calvert, Lord Baltimore, commanded the first Maryland settlers to lay out row houses in their first settlement.
And also, Jamestown excavations have borne out the fact that the typical city building was usually a row affair. The few rural homes within the city limits may not be classified as "town" houses. ”

“ Virginia was a busy city of streets and houses above ground. Under it was another busy city, down in the bowels of the earth, where a great population of men thronged in and out among an intricate maze of tunnels and drifts, flitting hither and thither under a winking sparkle of lights, and over their heads towered a vast web of interlocking timbers that held the walls of the gutted Comstock apart. These timbers were as large as a man's body, and the framework stretched upward so far that no eye could pierce to its top through the closing gloom. ”

“ Virginia City—a mud-hole; climate, hurricanes and snow; water, a dilution of arsenic, plumbago, and copperas; wood, none at all except sage-brush; no title to property, and no property worth having.
Carson City—a mere accident; occupation of the inhabitants, waylaying strangers bound for Virginia; business, selling whisky, and so dull at that, men fall asleep in the middle of the street going from one groggery to another; productions, grass and weeds on the Plaza. ”

“ It is apparent, then, that, as regards easy access to the West, the natural advantages of Virginia surpass New York, and with greater facilities for artificial works. How many decades would be required, after emancipation, to bring the superior natural advantages of Virginia into practical operation, is not the question; nor do I believe that the city of New York will ever cease to be the centre of our own trade, and ultimately of the commerce of the world. ”

“ Though tempted to pass the night in Grass Valley, impelled by curiosity, we pushed on four miles farther, to Nevada City. It is useless to attempt to convey in words the fascination of Nevada City. My friend, who is familiar with the country, said it reminded him of Italy. Houses rise one above the other on the hillside; while down below, the winding streets with their quaint old-time stores and balconied windows, are equally attractive. The horrors of the previous night at Colfax made the quiet peacefulness of Nevada City the more refreshing. ”

“ When Newport News and Warwick became the city of Newport News on July 1, 1958, this was the first city to be consolidated in the Commonwealth since Richmond and Manchester combined in 1910.
There are three types or forms of City Government in existence in Virginia: Mayor-Council form, Commission form and City Manager form. The city charter bears a similar relation to the city that the Virginia Constitution bears to the state. The citizens within the city area may decide for themselves the type of city government they prefer when they apply for their city charter. ”

“ The spirit of rivalry between Grass Valley and Nevada City has been accentuated, of late, by the efforts of the former town to secure the honor of being the county seat, on the claim that it possesses nearly double the population of Nevada City. Politics serve to intensify the feeling; Grass Valley, which contains many people of Southern birth, being largely Democratic in its affiliations, whilst Nevada City is as strongly, and, one may add, as conservatively, Republican. ”

“ Williamsburg and Norfolk. By 1800, only six additional towns were incorporated: Alexandria, Winchester, Fredericksburg, Richmond, Petersburg and York (Yorktown) . Yorktown is the only town incorporated before 1800 which has not become a city.
A unique characteristic about cities in Virginia is the fact that an incorporated city is politically separate from the county in which it is geographically located. ”

“ Virginia can never be a pretty city, but in many respects it is a model one. The earlier log-houses are now giving way to substantial stores of granite; and the number of gambling and tippling shops is steadily decreasing, the buildings being taken up by the wholesale traders. An organized city government preserves strict police regulations. Two thriving churches have grown up, and very recently the principal merchants have agreed to close their houses on the Sabbath. The old residents are bringing in their wives and children, and society constantly gains in tone. ”

“ Cities and towns make up the next political level of government organization in Virginia as described in Article VIII of the constitution. A city is defined in the constitution as an incorporated community which has within defined boundaries a population of five thousand or more; a town is an incorporated community which has within defined boundaries a population of less than five thousand. In determining such population, the last census of the United States or an enumeration made by authority of the General Assembly must be used as the basis. ”

“ When Yeardley arrived in Virginia in 1619, not only was Jamestown in a state of great decay, but Henrico also and the adjacent settlements. There were at Henrico a few houses, all of which had gone to ruin. The church was in the last stage of dilapidation. The condition of the dwellings at Coxendale and Arrahattock resembled that of the houses at Henrico and Jamestown. There were also six houses at Charles City in ruin. ”

“ Better Homes
As commodities began to reach Virginia in quantities, tools and building supplies became available, and skilled workers arrived. Thus, homes could be more sturdily built. By 1620, Reverend Richard Buck, who had reached Virginia, 1610, had purchased from William Fairfax the latter's dwelling house located on twelve acres of land in James City. In 1623, William Claiborne was sent to the colony and laid out an area on Jamestown Island known as New Town, where a number of dwellings were erected. ”

“ In 1625 a total of 27 areas or communities were reported. In this surge of expansion the center of population now passed again from Jamestown and rested in the lower areas of the James. In 1624 and 1625 Elizabeth City was indeed Virginia's most populous community. In fact, early in 1625 the Elizabeth City group (Kecoughtan, Buckroe, Newport News, etc.) had a greater population than did all of the plantations above Jamestown. At this point "James Citty" and the Island stood second with a population of 175 while Elizabeth City alone had about 350. ”

“ Maddeson who are imployed only in planting and curing tobacco, with the profitt thereof to cloth themselves, and all those who labor about the generall busynes." As such it was one of 6 settlements in Virginia, fourth in point of population.
It continued to develop as a rather important community. Even though not listed as sending representatives to Jamestown in 1619, it probably shared the services of the Burgesses entered from Charles City. It was listed as an established settlement when Argall left the Colony in April, 1619. ”

“ It has been estimated that they lived in about two hundred settlements, called "towns," and in some four thousand dwelling-houses.
Their architecture, as has been mentioned, was for the most part a perishable one. At this time, three hundred and fifty years after 1607, not one American Indian wooden structure has remained above Virginia ground. By such complete destruction we and our descendants are forever deprived of the physical background which would continuously remind us of the Indian past, in the way that the city of Rome reminds Italians of their Roman past. ”

“ Arrived at Nevada City, with its steep streets, compactly built up at the centre of the town, church and county court-house on the hillside, the traveler finds himself fairly out of the mountains, the luring fatal mountains, whose very soil has now the color of gold and now the color of blood. ”

“ In this connection, the oldest "road" in Virginia, called by the English "the Greate Road," which ran from James City to Middle Plantation, now Williamsburg, was at first—at least in the Jamestown-Pasbyhayes section of it—an Indian pathway. In the beginning the English called it a "bridle" path.
The open-air ceremonial centers, to which the English gave the name of "Dancing Grounds," played an important part in Indian life. To the native the art of dancing was essential to his religion. ”

“ The wind came in ribald gusts, tremendous, filled with jeering howls.
About Virginia City there have been many disputes, but nobody who lived there in the ’sixties ever denied that it was the windiest spot on earth. The town slanted like a steep roof, each street a terrace. During the zephyrs all sorts of possessions came rolling downhill like tumbleweeds. They ranged in size from a spool of thread to the roof of a house.
Scot McClintock, working his way along B Street, took refuge in a hurdy-gurdy [7] near Union. The noise of a piano, of fiddles, of stamping feet, filled the hall. ”

“ Virginia City, the wild young metropolis of the new Silver State. Fortunes are made there in a day. There are instances on record of young men going to this place without a shilling—poor and friendless—yet by energy, intelligence, and a careful disregard to business, they have been enabled to leave there, owing hundreds of pounds. ”

“ By 1618, the Virginia Company had set aside 3000 acres of land in each of the four corporations, Elizabeth City, James City, Henrico and Charles City, where they settled these young men known as the Company's tenants. Half of the profit from their labors went to the Company to defray costs of Colonial government. However, Governor Sir George Yeardley realized that far too few of these substantial workers, inured to the climate and the wilderness, were satisfied to remain in the Colony. ”

“ In the city itself there are shrines to famous folks of an earlier period. The home of Mary Washington, mother of the first President, is open to the public. "Kenmore," former home of Betty Washington Lewis and Colonel Fielding Lewis is well cared for by an association. Both these homes have good examples of eighteenth century furnishings. The Rising Sun Tavern was the scene years ago of the Victory Ball after the surrender at Yorktown; it was host to most of the famous men of Virginia and neighboring States for years. ”

“ Virginia, with its stately warehouses and gay shops; its splendid streets, paved with silver ore; its banking houses and faro-banks; its attractive coffee-houses and elegant theatre, its music halls and its three daily newspapers.
Virginia is very wild, but I believe it is now pretty generally believed that a mining city must go through with a certain amount of unadulterated cussedness before it can settle down and behave itself in a conservative and seemly manner. Virginia has grown up in the heart of the richest silver regions in the world, the El Dorado of the hour ”