Docents Newsletter
Historical Society of Dayton Valley
http://daytonnvhistory.org
September 2014
Anyone who didn’t go to the annual picnic missed a good time. The weather was perfect, the setting was
lovely, and the food was good and plentiful. Thank you Laura and Stony for allowing us to use your lovely
place for the annual picnic.
DVD Lending Library
By Carol McKim
For a newer member like me, the DVD Lending Library is a great resource to learn more about past events of
the HSDV and more about the history of our area. I encourage others to take advantage of this library. It’s
FREE, so what could be better than that!
Docent Doings
By Pat Neylan
THE NUMBERS GAME: DAYTON STYLE
I spent most of my working life in retail auto parts and was constantly bombarded by the “numbers”. I had
reports, goals, payroll, sales per customer, sales by the hour, sales of the item of the month, customers per hour, and a
hundred more categories that I cannot even remember to account for!!
After eight years of retirement from retail I am now slowly losing some of my paranoia about numbers in
general but gaining respect for some very special “new” numbers!! The numbers that now get my attention come
from the HSDV!! These numbers stress how many members come out for work parties, special events, meetings,
committees and the like. Closer to my heart are the “number” of members that participate in our docent program,
regularly man our museum, step up for special tours and events, come to the meetings, participate in the accessioning
program, take care of museum supplies, the docent newsletter, the museum grounds, and countless “miscellaneous”
items!! As many of you know we determined at the last docent meeting that our museum had welcomed well over
1600 visitors in the last fiscal year.
Funny I guess…..no matter how I add them up… these numbers always just total: NUMBER ONE!!!....THE
HISTORICAL SOCIETY OF DAYTON!!!! Thank you all for your dedication and help! The Society keeps alive the Past…. But
you keep alive our future!!!
Docent Letters
By Ruby McFarland
Be still, sad heart, and cease repining; Behind the clouds the sun is shining; Thy fate is the common fate of all, Into each
life some rain must fall.
Henry Wadsworth Longfellow (1807-1882)
What did the folks in Dayton eat in the early days of Pause & Ponder. Well, it was what they brought with
them. Didn’t matter what your social status was, you ate what was available. The dried foods kept, such as
beans and corn. Salt pork was available so you could make beans and salt pork, corn bread and corn meal
mush. If you were lucky enough to have some flour, you made hardtack or crackers. Leavening powders were
not always available. If someone had a sour dough start and was willing to share with you, then bread was a
possibility. One of the things that was made with crackers was mock apple pie. Said to taste like apple pie.
After people settled around Dayton some crops began to show up. Cabbage and almost all root vegetables
began to become available to the area and the surplus was taken to Virginia City to be sold. Potatoes, carrots,
turnips, onions were kept in root cellars. Ice was cut in the winter and put in the cellars to preserve the crops
through the winter and the summer heat.
There was a drought in 1857-58 so severe that the miners and Indians were starving. The Indians found a
few of the camels that were let loose and they ate them. Was said they found them very tasty. Drought is not
a stranger to this area.
As Virginia City became richer and more sophisticated, they brought in things like oysters and game of all
kinds. Cows were part of the food chain brought by the early settlers. That allowed people to have fresh milk,
butter, and simple cheeses. Butter was heavily salted to keep it from spoiling. The butter that came by ships
was usually rancid but expensive.
After the Carson & Colorado Railroad was built a whole new bunch of produce was brought to the area
from the Owens Valley in California. The Owens Valley had big orchards, vineyards and gardens. A cornucopia
of vegetables, grains, and fruits were shipped to the Comstock via the C & C Railroad. However, that was not
to last because the Los Angeles area needed water and bought all the water rights in the Owens Valley. All the
orchard and garden dried up without water for irrigation.
The C & C Railroad also had its problems and stopped running to the area. As transportation became easier
to this area, the area turned to railing cattle. The Italians owned all the larger ranches in the Dayton area.
Mason Valley, near Yerington, became the garden area. After the Lahantan Dam was built the Fallon area
also raised a lot of crops.
Water will always be a problem in Nevada. We depend on the snow packs in the Sierra to charge the
aquifer we get our water from each year. Be glad we don’t have to raise our food for Dayton in this day and
age. We have gone beyond the beans and corn bread of old; they are still good and good for us. It’s nice to
know we have a choice now.
Laura Tennant’s granddaughter Taryn, 8, loves the
Museum dollhouse. She recently insisted on going to the
Museum so she could find her favorite doll.
Like grandfather, like grandson: Seth Wheeler, 7, loves doing whatever his grandpa Stony does. He thought
blowing bits of coal dust out in the air from the forge was lots of fun. His sister, Taryn, is proud of him,
sometimes!
P.S. This is a reminder that Andy and Stony will be blacksmithing the old way at the Museum grounds during
Dayton Valley Days Sept 20 & 21.
Discovering My Family’s History in Dayton
By Stephen Thackston Landuyt
My great-great-grandparents, Burris Kincaid Davis and Mary Amelia Haight, were married in Dayton, Nevada,
just over 150 years ago. The handwritten entry in the Lyon County record book for their 1863 marriage reads:
Territory of Nevada
County of Lyon
This is to certify that the undersigned Probate Judge of Said County did on the 9th day of July 1863 at Dayton
in said County Join in lawful wedlock Burris Kinkead Davis and Mary Amelia Haight both residents of said town
of Dayton with their mutual consent in the presence of Mary M. McDowell, V. D. Pleuf [may be Flint or?], W.
H. Howe & John Lathrop In witness whereof I have hereunto set my hand this 10 th day of July 1863.
Wm Haydon
Probate Judge of
Lyon County N.T.
Recorded July 11th 1863 at 10 A.M. – A. W. Russell recorder of Lyon County N.T.”
That brief entry marks an important waypoint in my ancestors’ move west. It also mentions well-known
figures in Lyon County history Mary McDowell, builder of the Union Hotel, her son John Lathrop (Lothrop),
attorney, Lyon County District Attorney, Recorder, and Judge William Haydon, first Judge of Lyon County. Here
is what I know about my great-great-grandparents’ lives before their marriage in Dayton.
Mary Amelia Haight was born in New York in about 1846. She moved to San Francisco sometime prior to
1860. Her trip took place a decade or more before the transcontinental railroad had been completed so she
travelled either by ship or by wagon. According to the 1860 San Francisco census Mary Amelia was 14 years
old and was the only person named “Haight” living in the household of Frederick and Mary Adams and their
two young children. Frederick and Mary Adams had been living in California since 1855 or earlier. Frederick
Adams apparently died in San Francisco in early 1862. Later that year Mary Adams and her two young
children relocated from San Francisco to Dayton. The 1862 Nevada Territorial census lists them as living in
Dayton. (Thank you Linda Clements for help in making that discovery!) Although Mary Amelia Haight is not
listed in that census, she also moved from San Francisco to Dayton at or near that time because she married
BK Davis in Dayton the following year.
Burris Kincaid Davis was born in Virginia in 1826. During his childhood his family moved to Missouri. BK
was living in California by 1855 and in that year he ran for the California Assembly out of Placer County where
he made a good showing at the polls but lost the election. BK was a Southern Democrat and the currents of
political history in California during the Civil War were clearly running against him. In 1861 he again ran for
the California Assembly, this time out of Mono County, and was unsuccessful in his second run for office. BK
left California and by mid-1863 he was living in Dayton where he married Mary Amelia.
Regrettably, aside from the marriage entry in the Lyon County record I do not know anything about the
lives of BK and Mary Amelia while they lived in Dayton and have many questions. Where did they meet?
Where and for how long did they live in Dayton? Who were their friends and associates? Did BK work in
Dayton? Was he politically active?
Their first child, Sarah Aurelia Davis, was born in 1864 in Carson City, which may mean they had moved
from Dayton by then. While I assume that BK and Mary Amelia continued to live in western Nevada and
perhaps in the Dayton area until about 1868, that is only conjecture. Where they were living between 1864
and 1868 is unknown.
By 1868, BK, Mary, and Sarah were living in Hamilton, White Pine County where BK served as the Justice of
the Peace, practiced law, and became District Attorney, an office that he held at the time of his death in 1880.
BK is buried in Hamilton. Although the Hamilton cemetery has outlived the town, the wooden grave markers
have long since vanished so I was unable to find BK’s grave when I visited last year.
Mary, Sarah and her siblings continued to live in Hamilton following BK’s death. Mary remarried in 1883,
this time to a miner who still had the “White Pine Excitement.” Finally, in 1888, Mary and her family except
for Sarah, left Hamilton and moved to San Francisco. Sarah had married and remained in Hamilton with her
husband, Charles Thackston, and their children. Charles and Sarah (Davis) Thackston are my greatgrandparents.
I hope to learn more about the time that Mary Amelia Haight and Burris Kincaid Davis lived in Dayton and
would appreciate receiving any information, ideas or suggestions that you might have to offer. Thank you for
allowing me to share what is known so far.
“Rebuttal” to The Train Whistle’s Echo
By Linda Clements, with lots of help from Stephen Drew,
retired Curator of History from the California State Railroad Museum
In the August Docents Newsletter Carol reprinted a section on “Silver Ore Special” covering the
Virginia &Truckee and Carson & Colorado Railroads from a little book called The Train Whistle's Echo: Story
of the Western Railroad Era by Phyllis Zauner. This pamphlet was published in September 1980 so it is not
surprising that our understanding of these two railroads has changed since then. But in the spirit of education for
our members, I’m going to embark on a critique of this section. I have to freely admit that I have been greatly
aided in this critique by Stephen Drew, retired Curator of History from the California State Railroad Museum.
Stephen is a real educator, always willing to answer questions—dumb or not—and clarify misunderstandings.
He continues to educate me about the V&T and straighten out my areas of confusion on the C&C!
I’m going to repeat the text Carol published with our corrections and comments in bold type.
Silver Ore Special
( from “The Train Whistle’s Echo”)
One of the most famous of all short lines, the Virginia & Truckee, was built to cut the high cost of wagonfreighting silver and gold ore out of the mountains by linking Virginia City with mills at Dayton and on the Carson
River Carson City and with the Central Pacific at Reno. [LLC note: While the Comstock Silver Lode was
amazingly rich, it was still true that “it takes a gold mine to make a silver mine.” The value of the gold taken
out was typically about twice that of the silver and the presence of both—with lots and lots of silver—are what
made the Comstock Silver Lode so fabulous. Note also that there were no mills in Carson City—they were
either on the Comstock itself, in Dayton, or on the Carson River near Dayton. There also was very little
mining/milling freight traffic to the Central Pacific.] Its construction was a triumph of engineering skill. For
although the actual distance to Carson City was only 21 miles, it encompassed a dizzying descent of 1600 feet in 13
miles. To accomplish this, the train had to make 17 20 complete circles and cross a trestle that in itself was an
engineering wonder. To say the V & T was a busy little line is a gross understatement. Freight traffic to and from
the mines set records. The waybills made at Reno totaled more than all the other offices on the Central Pacific line
put together. [LLC note: I will quote Stephen on this one, “This is a gross exaggeration, unsubstantiated by
any facts!”]
But beyond its practical value, the V & T was a railroad endowed with romance that made it a legend in its own
time. It was the pet, the darling of the Comstock. Its canary colored fancifully painted coaches developed a
charisma far beyond the wood and iron they were made of. [LLC note: Stephen indicates that the V&T did not
adopt canary yellow with brown trim until January 1883. Prior to that the cars were annually painted in
fanciful colors by the Carson paint shops. This included baby blue, fawn, light green, light brown, and claret
with bright yellow trucks.] Presidents and nabobs arrived at “the richest city on earth” in private cars hitched to
the V & T. Some were uncommonly luxurious, even for the exaggerated elegance of the time, like the private car of
Baron Rothschild. [LLC note: A myth of the V&T. Stephen says that he has never found any documentation
that Baron Rothschild ever rode in a private car over the V&T.]