Chinatown dig reveals much about Comstock's past

Last summer's archaeological dig near Chinatown in Virginia City was completed in five weeks, but the real work has just begun.

Lead archaeologist Julie Schablitsky, a Ph. D. candidate at Portland State in Oregon, expects to spend a year cleaning and analyzing two-thirds of the collection. The faunal (bone) analysis is being conducted by Lisa Rizzoli, a master's student at the University of Nevada, Reno.

For this dig, Schablitsky used a community-based rather than site-specific approach, representing a dramatic new method that should reveal much about life during the Comstock era.

History books readily recall the lives of Comstock moguls like John Mackay, but the middle and lower classes during that period went unrecorded. Census records, newspapers, and historical archaeology provide some information, but many questions will never be answered.

"There is so much that hasn't been studied, including the immigrant mix here," Schablitsky said.

Based on her research and archaeological findings, Schablitsky draws a picture of a primarily middle- and lower-class, ethnically-mixed neighborhood. Bordered by Virginia City's Union, Sutton, F and H streets, it stands quietly now, a few blocks east of C (Main) Street.

It was packed with residents from the 1860s to the 1890s. Families and widows lived in single family homes that stood next to boarding houses for miners. Small enclaves of Chinese lived next to Germans, Italians, Swiss, Canadians and African Americans.

Preliminary findings suggest the Chinese lived closer to Virginia City's central business district than previously thought: Japanese and Chinese bowl fragments, a sake cup shard and a bear paw used in Chinese medicine mingled with children's toys.

The Con Virginia Mining and Hoisting Works skirted two sides of the neighborhood, made even more congested by the mine tailings that encroached from the upper block. The noise would be considered intolerable by today's standards.

Stamp mills and trains ran 24 hours a day, and the smells of Chinese stir-fry mingled with those of coal smoke and corned beef.

Unexpected artifacts include glass syringes and hypodermic needles found at the site of a seamstress shop owned by Mrs. M. A. Andrews.

Used primarily for morphine administration during the Civil War, the drug was uncontrolled in the 1870s. Syringes and needles were also used to inject medicine into the urethra to cure syphilis.

The population was transient. Most residents spent a year or two at best and Andrews was no exception. She owned the shop from 1873 to 1874, and the house was subsequently occupied by a single man. Little is known about him.

A layer of European artifacts is sandwiched between Chinese artifacts, suggesting a migration of the Chinese over time. Schablitsky found Chinese coins throughout the area, but they were often used in the gambling parlors and as lucky pieces and don't necessarily indicate Chinese habitation.

Chinese pharmaceuticals, like the bear paw bones found in certain areas of the neighborhood, are more significant.

"The Chinese were always fringe dwellers," Schablitsky said, noting that they lived closer to C (Main) Street when the town was new in the 1860s. As the town grew they were pushed down the hill. But when boom turned to bust and the mines played out, Virginia City's population dropped and they moved back up the hill into abandoned homes.

"Ethnicities weren't viewed negatively unless their numbers were high," Schablitsky said.

Such was the fate of the Chinese here. They worked for less money, so the European-American workers banded together with the unions to keep minorities like the Chinese out of the more lucrative mining jobs.

Laboring primarily in the service industry, they worked as wood choppers, waiters, cooks and launderers.

Schablitsky plans to start work on her doctorate dissertation next year and ultimately hopes to publish a book on the subject.

"I don't want to write a dissertation that ends up on a shelf and no one ever reads," Schablitsky said, noting that she wants this information to be easily accessible to everyone.

In addition to artifact analysis, Schablitsky is conducting an exhaustive archival research and is appealing to anyone with any information or pictures of the area. She is also interested in historical data on Charles Baker, the founder of the Union Brewery, Dr. E. Thiele, who lived there during the 1870s and a dress shop keeper named M. A. Andrews, who was married to a Fred Andrews.

Those with information can contact Bert Bedeau at the Comstock Historic District Commission at 847-0281, or mail information to the Commission at P.O. Box 128, Virginia City, Nev. 89440.