Thing-a-Day Jan 23 #7 - Sash {Part 1: The Candlestick}

Sash

Part 1: The Candlestick

February 8th, 1847. It was a bleak, grey winter's morning in Virginia City, Nevada.

Antique Miner's Candlestick
made from forged wrought iron.

Clancy Noyes laid awake all night. He was giddy with excitement over the opportunity to work with one of the few men he looked up to, Mr. Harold Crimson -- one of the most renowned prospectors to ever set a claim in the Comstock! He was so excited, in fact, that he spent the last of his wages from the previous month on a new candlestick!

What struck Clancy as odd about the candlestick is that the blacksmith who forged this item said that only the cobalt blue Sash Candles would be able to light the way. With a little extra jingle in his pockets, he purchased seventeen Sash Candles at eleven cents a piece, a steep price, but for a candlestick that cost about four dollars, might as well, right?

See, Clancy's wages had been higher since the previous claim he worked was producing higher quantities of gold than neighboring claims. He even had a little fame from the local paper bragging about his "innate and God-given knack of finding loaded quartz!" Of course, fame in Virginia City meant other miners would buy your drinks for you, and that meant a little extra money. That also means you gain the attention of higher-paying prospectors.

Five nights prior, Clancy was drinking at the Delta Saloon and playing poker with some of his peers when a well-dressed man strolled up to the table and sat with a rich forty-dollar buy in! The man introduced himself as Jerome Hieronymus Parrish, PhD, and explained that he was interested about investing in silver and lead mining. After some gambling, drinks, music, and conversation, Jerome confided in Clancy that he had recruited nine other miners to break ground on a claim laid in an untouched hill not two miles west, and that the miners would be working under Harold Crimson. Clancy's response was immediate, "Yes, sir! Absolutely! In all my nineteen years of life, there is no other man I'd like to work alongside more than Mr. Crimson!"

Back to this morning. Snow was falling quite heavily from the heavy clouds above. Clancy rolled off his bed and immediately began gathering his supplies, including the Sash candlestick and accompanying blue candles. He stopped by the Delta for a hearty breakfast before trudging the two miles west along the canyon wall. One by one, the other nine miners caught up with him on the path to the this freshly-laid claim. There, in the distance, he could see the grey silhouette of his hero, Mr. Harold Crimson, walking with two other men.