Virginia City & The MacKay Family by Paty Jager

Loved the craftsmanship of this 

A couple of weekends ago, Hubby and I spent a day in Virginia City, Nevada. If you haven't been there, they have kept the integrity of the old west town. The buildings are historic, many on Historical Registers. It is a town, that at one time had 30,000 residents, and was built from silver and gold.

The streets run along the side of the hill with Main Street in the middle. The stores are an eclectic mix of

Coal box beside the stove.

touristy items, arts, and history. The saloons are dark, with old wood bars and new vinyl and stainless steel tables and chairs. Stories abound about gun fights, robberies, and mining.
There are beautiful two-story houses with carved eves, porches, and window sashes. Many are now being used as Bed and Breakfast businesses. We walked the upper streets admiring the houses, then returned to the car and drove the lower roads. As we drove through a small puff of fog, I saw a sign that said, Tours-Open, and told my hubby to stop. It was the MacKay House. Hubby isn't as big a history buff as I am, so he stayed in the car and I wandered through the house with the tour guide.

Betty, the tour guide, loved the house, the history, and telling people about it all. I had fun and learned new things.

These medallions were on all the ceilings. The gas lights converted to electric that hung under them were gorgeous! 

John MacKay was 9 years-old when his father took the family- John, his sister, and mother to America from Ireland where they were starving. They lived in the Irish slums of New York. His father died when he was 11. John sold newspapers on the most profitable street corner because he could read. He would tell the other newsboys what the headlines said, and they let him sell from the best spot.

At 16 when the California gold rush started, he travels all around the tip of South America by ship to the gold fields. He didn't a lot of gold but sent money home to his mother and sister.

The toilet had brown flowers inside and out.

When word came to California that there was gold in Nevada, he and a friend headed that direction and  there, they found the largest vein of silver in the U.S. The interesting thing about the silver is: Many miners were throwing the gummy black and gray nuggets into a pile. They were looking for gold and that wasn't. The piles of gummy nuggets were used to pave the town's streets. Until some miners came along and asked why they were paving their streets with silver.  They of course dug up the streets and started mining what they had been throwing away. 

MacKay, became one of the richest men. His mining efforts helped fund the Civil War and after his presidency, Ulysses Grant came to Virginia City with his wife and oldest son to thank MacKay for helping the North win the war.

The future Mrs. MacKay, Marie Louise Hungerford, was a California socialite who married a physician.  They had two girls. The doctor moved the family to Virginia City. She hated the town. There was noise 24 hours a day with the mining, the bustle of freight wagons, and miners. There were only a handful of women in the town and two-thirds of those were prostitutes. Her husband was abusive and, Betty didn't say how, but he had an untimely death. MacKay married Marie Louise. While she was married to her first husband one of the girls had fallen down the stairs and became crippled. He took her to the best surgeons in France and she could walk again.

Because Marie Louise disliked Virginia City so much, MacKay bought her a house in France, England and

Mrs. John MacKay

New York. Which is where she lived. He had to go there to visit her. with this long distance, especially in those days, marriage, they had two boys.  Over the course of time, one daughter died from a disease and one boy was killed from falling off his horse during a horse race.

Between her marriages, Marie Louise provided for her girls as a seamstress. She was quite accomplished and made several beautiful items that are in the house. One is a dress for her daughter and another red, white and blue cushions she made for a small settee and ottoman John had made and carved. She upholstered the furniture for Ulysses Grant's visit. These items are in the home.

Another trivia fact I picked up: Their granddaughter, Ellin MacKay  fell in love with a poor Jewish songwriter in New York and had to choose between inheriting or love. She chose love. And after the stock market crash during the depression, she and her husband, Irving Berlin, helped her family out financially.

That is an overview of what I learned and will possibly use in a couple of my Silver Dollar Saloon books.

Wishing my fellow authors on the blog and the readers who come here to glean insights into the western lifestyle and history a Merry Christmas and a fantastic New Year!

Paty Jager is an award-winning author of 35 novels, 8 novellas, and numerous anthologies of murder mystery and western romance. All her work has Western or Native American elements in them along with hints of humor and engaging characters.
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