Presentation Ingots of J. W. Grier (Wells, Fargo & Co. Agent) to Nora H. Grier with IRS stamp on reverse; and Small Presentation Ingot of Nora Grier (1869)
Silver City, Nevada. The tax stamp dates the larger ingot to 1863-1867. These two ingots are an important representation of early Comstock mining, made for a long-term Wells Fargo agent in Silver City, Nevada and his daughter, dating to the Civil War period, probably made by one of the well-known gold rush and Comstock assayers, Harvey Harris.
John Wilson Grier was born in Guernsey County, Ohio in 1817. Grier came west before 1851, and was active in Nevada from the beginning, having arrived just after gold and silver were discovered in 1859. He was elected as one of the first County Commissioners of newly established Carson County in 1861, while Nevada was still part of Utah Territory, although locals had already begun to organize Nevada Territory. He was credited with co-founding and naming Washoe City in 1861, an important early Comstock ore milling site that housed 2,000 people by 1865 at its peak. Grier was elected to the Territorial Legislative Assembly in 1862, and that year was a partner in the Dayton and Desert Creek Toll Road.
Known as “Uncle Johnny” to local Nevadans, Grier moved to Silver City in 1861 or early 1862 and was the first Wells Fargo agent for that portion of the Comstock, and remained so until 1885 when he died there. His wife, Sarah C. Grier, took over as Wells Fargo agent from 1890-1895, one of the few women Wells Fargo agents of the 19th century west.
During Grier’s tenure as a Wells Fargo agent in Silver City, he also served as a Commissioner of Deeds and a notary public. In 1864, Harvey Harris opened an assay office in Gold Hill, just up the road from Silver City, though within a year he moved the office down to Silver City, where he stayed for at least another four years. More than four quartz mills were in operation at Silver City in 1864. Harris would have known Grier, who would have been the man who shipped out the bullion from his assay office to the San Francisco Mint via Wells, Fargo & Co.’s Express. S.S. Central America collectors know of Harris through his early partnership of Harris, Marchand, with offices in San Francisco and Marysville.
This ingot was probably made by Harris for Grier, who appears to have given it to his daughter, Nora, who was born in Ohio in 1849. Nora married Peter Hornick in 1872 in California, but he died in 1880 in Silver City when he was 39 years old. The pair had a daughter in 1873. The second silver ingot, dated August 30, 1869, may commemorate Nora’s twentieth birthday. These two ingots have long been privately held. They were acquired from B. Max Mehl’s safe in the 1940s, according to family sources. No information has been known about these ingots until now.
From The Kagin Reference Collection of Frontier Ingots.
[08/2006] https://coins.ha.com/itm/ingots/presentation-ingots-of-j-w-grier-wells-fargo-and-co-agent-to-nora-h-grier-with-irs-stamp-on-reverse-and-small-presentati/a/414-2575.s ($20,700)