Lecture Series – History Got It Wrong: Reclaiming the Grosh Brother’s Legacy

Description:

History has a way of enhancing or eroding reality, which is then promulgated by media and fiction becomes fact. For the Grosh Brothers, it deprived them, and their descendants, of their rightful place in America’s history. Hosea Ballou Grosh and his brother, Ethan Allen Grosh, discovered the Comstock Lode in the Virginia Range in Nevada, but sadly, they wouldn’t lay claim to the fame.  The lode was discovered in 1857, but both brothers died before they could lay claim to it. Ethan Allen Grosh entrusted their belongings to Henry Comstock, a fellow miner, while he went off to California to raise funds to file the claim. Ethan Allen Grosh died, in of all places, a town called Last Chance in Placer County, California, deep in the Sierra Nevada Mountains in December 1857. He never made it to Sacramento to file his claim. Henry Comstock took their claim and went down in history as the famous finder of the first major vein of silver in the United States.

History Expedition’s mission is to discover American West tales and trails which have been lost to time and honor inspiring heroes of history. This is one of those stories.

Speakers: Bob Crowley, Hal Hall, Jennifer Hemmen, Elke Reimer, Tim Twietmeyer (bios can be found here).