Posts Tagged ‘Vernon Nevada’
Great Grand Uncle Ed – silver miner
My great-grandmother Ella’s brother was Edwin W. Hawk. He was born in 1864, the sixth of eight children.
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‘Uncle Ed’ was an adventurer and went west when he was only 16, to live in southern Wyoming. The US Census of 1880 lists Ed as a laborer at Crow Creek, Wyoming (not far from Laramie, Wyoming). By 1886, my great-grandmother Ella was living in Laramie. No doubt she had come west to live near her younger brother.
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By 1910, Ed was living in Humbolt, Nevada. In 1920, he is listed as a lodger at Broadway Ave. in Lovelock, Nevada. He is 56 years old, single, and a miner in a quartz mine. Nevada is known as the ‘Silver State’ because of its silver mines.
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Ed continued to work as a miner. At the time of his death in Lovelock in 1940, probate documents show he had a cabin in Vernon, Nevada and six mining claims in the Seven Troughs Mining District. He had an estate of $3200, a watch and chain, and $80 in cash.
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Vernon was established in 1905 as a base for those working in the Seven Troughs Mining District. The landscape around Vernon is hilly, dominated by yellow sand, dotted with sagebrush. The town dwindled in population as the silver depleted and was abandoned by 1918. Today, it is a ghost town.
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Ed Hawk, Ella’s brother
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I notice that the same photographer (J. Collier in Denver) took both Ed’s photo and a photo of my grandfather Leo as a baby (Ella’s son). Ella lived in Denver until 1910 and perhaps Ed visited her there, and had his picture taken on a visit to see her baby. For more information on Leo, see https://nichepoetryandprose.wordpress.com/2012/07/20/chicory-cichorium-intybus-l/
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Leo Norman as a baby (son of Ella and Frank Norman), my grandfather and Ed’s nephew
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Copyright 2014 Jane Tims
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