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Modern readers are quick to associate Mark Twain, Bret Harte
and Dan DeQuille with the stories they wrote about the
California
and
Nevada
mining camps in
the mid to late 1800’s. However, few are familiar with James W. E.
Townsend, more affectionately known as “Lying Jim”. James W. E.
Townsend was so popular, even the editors published stories about him.
To enlighten you to this man’s lifetime and career, we turn
the clock back to
May 27, 1882
, in
Virginia City,
Nevada.
Readers throughout the
Comstock Lode
were amazed to read this story of Townsend’s life
and career: 
“James W. E. Townsend the gentleman who is making the local
department of the Reno Gazette
sparkle these days has led a remarkable life.
From information imparted by him to his friends while he lived
on the Comstock, we learn that he was born in
Patagonia,
his mother, a
noble English lady, having been cast ashore after the wreck of her
husband’s yacht, in which they were making a pleasure trip around
the globe. She was the only person saved.
After the birth of her son, and September having arrived (there
being an “r”) in that month) she was killed and eaten. Jim was
saved out as a small stake and was played until his twelfth year
against the best grub at the command of the savage tribe for fattening
purposes. Then he escaped
on a log, which he paddled through the Straits of Magellan with his
hands, and was picketd (sic) up by a whaler and taken to New
Bedford.”
“At the age of 18 he entered the Methodist ministry and
preached with glorious results for ten years, when he went to the
Sandwich Islands
as a missionary to
Kanaka heathen, and remained for twenty years.
Then he reformed and returned to
New York
and opened a
saloon, which he ran successfully and made a large fortune.
In an evil hour for himself, but to the world’s advantage, he
tried his hand at journalism. Fifteen
years of this reduced him once more to poverty and preaching.
For thirty years longer Mr. Townsend occupied the pulpit, when
he went back to the saloon business, after eighteen years of
industrious drinking on the part of the public he brought his wealth
to the
Pacific
Coast.
This was in 1849.”
“For several years Mr. Townsend ran simultaneously eight
saloons, five newspapers and an immense cattle ranch in various parts
of the
Golden
State.
In 1859 the enterprising gentleman was suddenly afflicted with
a disease which for many months compelled him to lie on his back in
one position. This
misfortune was, with the cruel levity of those rough days, turned to
his account by his acquaintances, who dubbed him,
‘Lying Jim Townsend’, and ever since the sobriquet has
stuck to him. For the last
decade he has devoted himself to journalism and is of course, once
more poor. Some of his
friends who are of a mathematical turn have ascertained from data
furnished them by Mr. Townsend in various conversations the remarkable
fact that he is 384 years old. Notwithstanding
his great age, however, the gentleman still writes with the vigor of
youth, and his shrewd humor is making for the Gazette, more than a
local reputation.”
A Career Is Born
In reality, we first hear of James W. E. Townsend in
Virginia City
itself in 1862. He worked at the Territorial Enterprise,
often sharing drinks and tall tales with Mark Twain. Townsend was
apparently such a good friend of Twain’s that some
believe he was the inspiration for “The Celebrated Jumping
Frog of Calveras County.”. He
also worked alongside Bret
Harte for a paper known as the Golden Era, and supposedly was the
model for Harte’s “Truthful James”, story. We may never know
whether Townsend, did indeed inspire the more famous writers, but he
apparently did a good job of writing his own stories, which were
written in his head, not on paper, and set directly to type.
He often worried that he could not set the type as fast as he
could think up his stories.
From the Territorial Enterprise, Townsend, who was busy earning
his reputation as “Lying Jim”, went to the Daily Union,
also of
Virginia City
, and worked there until 1865. He then
traveled to the western side of the Sierras
to edit a
Grass
Valley
paper during a
political campaign. He moved around for 18 years working at various
newspapers, setting type, writing stories, and occasionally serving as
the editor. He wound up at
the Gazette in
Reno
Nevada
, writing locals,
then moved on after only a few months to spend his winters in
Washoe
County,
and his summers in the Sierras.
Off and on he continued to write for the Gazette.
In 1886, he wound up back at the Territorial Enterprise of
Virginia City, Nevada as reporter and editor.
November of that same year, he bought the Nevada
Daily Index of Carson City, Nevada, and turned around and sold it
three months later.
The
Great Inventor
Time spent in the Sierras was in and around the mining towns of
Bodie and Lundy. In early
of October 1880 a prominent citizen of
Bodie, mentioned
visiting mining camps in
Mill Creek and Lundy where he saw one five stamp mill and three
arastras. One of the
arastras probably belonged to Townsend,
who had come to try his hand at mining.
He was noted for his inventive genius, and was eventually
written up in one of his own papers for the scientific methods that he
used that illustrated his aptitude for mechanics, “ that were only
exceeded by his unlimited capacity for whiskey.”
In fact several years before Orville and Wilber Wright made the
first flight, Jim worked on his own flying machine, which was one of
the “grandest inventions of the time, surpassing anything in the
line of perpetual motion ever talked of.”
Although he left his job at the Homer
Mining Index of Lundy, to invent this magnificent flying machine,
he made sure before he left, that 3 weeks of
local news was reported and printed ahead of time.
After the flying machine was invented, it apparently took the
six hours before starting it, to stop it.
The
Homer Mining Index
James W. E. Townsend came to Lundy, prospected, built an
arastra, apparently built that flying machine, and bought the Homer
Mining Index in the early 1880’s.
According to author W. A. Chalfant,
an English company owning the mines in and around Lundy
developed the Homer Mining Index
in hopes that it would fortify mining stock sales.
A plant was provided for the paper, and J. W. E. Townsend was
hired as editor. When he took over the newspaper in the beginning of
1881 he announced, “We have taken hold of the Index for the purpose of making a living.
We are not here for our health…”
By April 30 of 1881, he was complaining: “An Indian makes ten
times more money catching fish than we do by publishing a
newspaper.” He also bragged that same April: “There is more
whiskey consumed in Mill Creek than in any other camp its size on the
coast.” Townsend
probably was the one responsible for consuming the Mill Creek whiskey,
as he enjoyed his
fair share in the
tradition of many newspaper men of the day. In August 1880, the
newspaper had reported that “Jim Townsend went to
Aurora
a few days ago.
In consequence the saloon keepers of that burg have ordered
fresh stocks of liquors.”
In November of 1882, Townsend sold the Homer Mining Index and delivered a lecture on “man’s capacity
for holding rotgut’. He
spoke to the wicked and just from the roof of a dry goods box on
Main Street
.
His audience was reportedly large, intelligent, and sober.
Interestingly enough, it was reported that Hugh R. Hughes, of
the Grand Lodge of Good Templars gave two intemperance lectures that
same week and collected $14 from Lundy citizens for the Good Templar
Home for Orphans.
The Homer
Mining Index with the help of
Jim Townsend, played
up the town of
Lundy
for
British investors. Although
the town only had a few minor businesses, the Index
carried advertisements for three big grocery stores, a wholesale
house, two banks, many saloons, millinery stores, undertaking
establishments, and so on. A
railroad timetable showed arrival and departure of nonexistent trains.
Nonexistent presentations of the great Thespians of the day
took place in non-existent theaters. Townsend wrote a lavish report of
the first night of the theater event listing notable people in the
boxes, and describing their fine costume.
The actual story was taken from a society report of a
San Francisco
paper, with the
names changed as he saw fit.
The
Truth or Not
Townsend told the truth or not, as he was so inclined. An
elaborate Fourth of July celebration written by Jim, was actually a
few gunshots from a miner’s six-shooter and an occasional remark to
thirsty bartenders that it was time for another drink. He often
adapted articles to his surroundings.
A leap-year ball report went as follows:
“Joe Thompson was attired in a light buff silk handkerchief,
to conceal the absence of a collar.
Marion Budd’s shape was advantageously displayed by a close
fitting jumper and long auburn chin whiskers to match.
Jim Mc Callum was dressed-also.
George Sherman appeared under a high forehead and behind an
insulating kind of nose. Charley
Traver appeared as a gray eagle, or a bald eagle, we forget which.”
An opposing political candidate was described as not knowing
enough to drive nine ducks. Stories
were told of a ragged beggar with a different name and inscription
beneath it each week. One
week the story read: “John
Jones, Stand Up! You
continued to take the paper from the post office without even paying
the postage on it. Are you
dead, dead broke or a dead beat?”
The Index also reported other interesting stories:
“The public school is doing well, and has an enrollment of
six children.”
“There is an Indian child in the camp which has ten toes on
each foot. Each extra
equipment of toes is on the rear of the foot, normal in shape.
The ankles are centrally situated, to give the toes a chance to
sprout naturally. The
great disadvantage is that the mother cannot tell by looking at the
feet whether the child is going or coming.”
“Jeff McClellan is going to
South Africa
as a mine foreman,
not superintendent. This
makes it safer for the company.”
“We have to pay our taxes March fourth, and would like to
have our delinquent subscribers march forth and settle up.”
“Our devil says he don’t mind carrying the paper around on
snowshoes, but thinks he had his eyesight injured by smoke while
calling down stovepipes and chimneys to look after their paper as he
dropped it down.”
“The Bodie papers are changing to tri-weekly.
The
Bridgeport
paper still
continues weakly as before.”
To
The Rescue
Not only did Townsend report about the Bodie papers and their
changing schedules, he helped to rescue one of them.
As the town dwindled from a bulging population of 8,000 to a
meager 500 by the year of 1889, the Evening Miner was fading as well.
Sunday January 6, of that same year, J.W. E.
Townsend sent the following letter to H. Z. Osborne who was selling
was left of the Free Press:
“Friend O. – What will you take for the remnants of the
‘Free Press’ outfit? The
type is all gone and nothing but two or three stands and the press
remain. The roof over the
press leaks and the machine is badly damaged by rust.
It’s a d—d shame. The
last time I was in Bodie I went to the office to cover it up, simply
because I dislike to see good material wrecked through the
carelessness of a drunken sot, but they would not let me have the key.
And so it remains, subject to the moisture of God and the whims
of a beast, who is drunk-drunk-drunk, and has not issued a paper for a
month. Frost is her
with me, as fat as a balloon and apparently happy with a good grub and
a fair allowance of grog.
In your own good time I would like to hear from you.
I am perfectly contented in Mill Creek, though we have to wear
snowshoes to bed and every thermometer has a cold in the head.
But things are lovely anywhere if you steer a true course.
Respects to
Cleveland
.”
The wreck of the Free Press was Townsend’s for $100.
Several years later, he was in Bodie producing the Bodie Mining Index., probably using that very equipment he had
acquired from the Free Press.
Ode
To An Editor
After years of moving from one mining town to another, James W.
E. Townsend died, rheumatic, nearly deaf, and not surprisingly,
suffering from liver problems from all of the frontier whiskey he had
consumed over the years. In
his book An Editor on the
Comstock Lode, Wells Drury summed up “Lying Jim Townsend’s”
career as an editor:
“To read his paper you would think that it was published in a
city of ten thousand inhabitants.
He had a mayor and a city council, whose proceedings he
reported once a week, although they never existed, and enlivened his
columns with killings, law suits murder trials and railroad accidents,
and a thousand incidents of daily life in a humming growing
town-everyone of which he coined out of his own active brain.
“Among the most exciting things with which he kept churning
up his readers were a shooting scrape and divorce proceedings arising
from a scandal in which the mayor’s wife and a member of the city
council figured. It
dragged along through his columns for nearly six months.
It was very interesting to read and implicitly believed-except
by persons who knew there was no mayor and no council at any time in
the town where Jim’s paper was published.
He was called “Lying Jim” Townsend to the day of his death
and could he have had his way it would have been graven on his
tombstone.”
James W. E. Townsend
rests in peace in a cemetery somewhere without the “nom de plume”
he would have preferred but his tradition continues on at Explore
Historic California each month in our Legends and Lore, and by the
many others who know how to provide a good belly laugh, even when
there isn’t a real reason for one.
Here’s to "Lying Jim!"
BIBLIOGRAPHY
Bodie
Bonanza
Warren
Loose
Exposition
Press
New York
Bodie
“The Mines Are Looking Well…”
Michael
H. Piatt
North Bay
Books
Ghost
Mines of
Yosemite
Douglas
Hubbard
The
Awani Press
Gold
Guns & Ghosttowns
W.
A. Chalfant
Chalfant
Press, Inc.
Bishop,
CA
Lundy
Alan
Patera
Western
Places
Red
Blood & Black Ink:
Journalism
in the Old West
David
Dary
University
Press of
Kansas
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