#Spring fever is something that hits Nevada Natives really hard, you head out for the first camping trip of the year and watch out. Well, watch if you want.
Seems that Matt had a good birthday, Mike caught a fish or two, Glen showed more prowess of his ability to be a super model, Sabrina yelled at me, I hurt my head from dehydration (was in the desert) and my kid shut the fire jumping fun down. I would say it was a good weekend but I am not posting more stuff like this so enjoy it while you got it.
) #Since I posted something about my fathers Basque side of the family (The Gastanaga’s), I thought it only fitting to post something about my mothers side of the family. This is the Manx (The Patrick and The Gracey’s) side of my family and obliviously I did not write it. Thank you to Mimi Patrick for sharing and Ronald M. James for caring about such a small fragment of Nevada’s rich history.
The tiny Isle of Man has had a peculiar past with its own unusual manifestation in Nevada history. Rising from the Irish Sea between Ireland and Wales, the island was colonized by Gaelic speakers in the last half of the first millennium, making its inhabitants close linguistic relatives of the Irish and the Highland Scots and more distantly of the Brythonic-speaking Celts, the Welsh, Cornish, and the Bretons of France. Viking warlords controlled Man in the ninth century, instituting a unique brand of democracy that survives to this day. The island was known for lead, zinc, and silver mines, but its economy depended mostly on agriculture and fishing. Although the island owes allegiance to the English crown, it stands apart from the United Kingdom.1 Man’s tailless Manx cats are well known, but a limited human population of roughly 60,000 in the nineteenth century made immigrants from the island rare. Unemployment drove people to seek opportunities off the island. Nevertheless, love for “The Dear Little Isle of Man,” “Ellan Mannin Veg Veen” as it is said in Manx Gaelic, made departing a painful thing for many.1
A search of the Nevada Online Census Database at www.nevadaculture.org reveals eighty hits for people between 1860 and 1920 with the island as a place of birth.1 Five of these people appeared more than once for a total population of seventy-five. With children, the Manx and their first generation descendants can be counted as ninety-eight. This is not an overwhelming number. Chileans, Russians, Croatians, Finns, and any number of other groups with modest representation at the time were more numerous. In fact, of the six Celtic nations, Man ranks fifth – after Ireland, Cornwall, Scotland, and Wales – for the number of immigrants to Nevada. Among the Celts in the state, the Manx only outnumbered the Bretons.1 In spite of their scarcity, natives of the Isle of Man had a significant effect on Nevada. In addition, the immigrants serve to demonstrate how a handful of people could work together to carve out a political and economic niche while providing a conduit for further migration.
The vast majority of Manx in Nevada arrived after 1860 and before the turn of the century. The census hints at chain migration, the process of immigrants attracting fellow countrymen and women to opportunities and places. Not surprisingly, most Manx who came to Nevada were miners. As Ann Orlov points out in the Harvard Encyclopedia of American Ethnic Groups, miners from Man, “except for those attracted by the California gold rush, came … a few decades later as Manx mines began to give out.”1 In other words, the Manx began coming to North American beginning in the 1870s, settling among other places in Mineral Point, Wisconsin, which was known for its rich mines. Both the 1870 and 1880 manuscript censuses document an uneven distribution of the Manx in Nevada, and these clusters suggest that immigrants were identifying specific locations as gathering points.
During the 1870s and 80s, Virginia City and Storey County was a natural place for people of any origin to gather, but other smaller communities attracted more than their fair share of Manx. In 1870, there were eighteen Manx in Nevada, and most were evenly distributed between Storey and White Pine County. At the time, excitement centered on the new silver strikes around White Pine’s Hamilton and Treasure Hill, which had attracted attention throughout the eastern part of the state. It is no surprise that Manx immigrants settled in that area.1 Unfortunately the scarcity of these people prohibits meaningful statistical analysis. All that can be said reliably of the group is that most were men and miners.
Because of the failure of mines on the Isle of Man, the 1870s proved to be the most dynamic period for Manx immigration to Nevada. At the end of the decade, the federal census recorded fifty-one of the immigrants, only ten of whom were living in heavily-populated Storey County. Twelve men, all but one a miner, worked in Candelaria in Esmeralda County. In Eureka County, most of the twenty Manx, again all but one a miner, were clustered in Fish Creek Valley and Prospect Mountain to the south of Eureka. A handful of others were scattered throughout the county. (see Table 1)
| Place | Population | Percentage of Manx |
| Statewide | 62,256 | |
| Manx | 51 | .08% |
| Esmeralda County | 3,218 | |
| Manx | 13 | .4% |
| Eureka County | 7,073 | |
| Manx | 20 | .3% |
| Storey County | 16,014 | |
| Manx | 10 | .06% |
| Other counties | 35,951 | |
| Manx | 8 | .02% |
Table 1 shows the uneven distribution of Manx immigrants in 1880. Although the Manx were still too few for reliable statistical analysis, there is nevertheless evidence of clustering. This is underscored by the fact that the 1880 census recorded 753 people living in Candelaria of whom twelve, or nearly two percent in the community, were Manx. The small mining camp sprung into existence only four years before the census and peaked shortly after it, but for some reason lost to history, it became a magnet for a disproportionate number of Manx in 1880.1 The statistical profile in Eureka County is even more remarkable. Only 179 people lived on Prospect Mountain and in nearby Fish Creek Valley. Thirteen, or more than seven percent of them, were Manx. Clusters like these apparently resulted from group decisions to migrate to specific places. By moving to less populated areas, a few Manx could become an important part of the community, where in a larger place they would have been lost in the mix of diverse immigrants and North Americans.
Perhaps also as a group decision, the Manx left as quickly as they arrived. The 1900 census records only two immigrants from the Isle of Man. Those documented in 1880, mostly single miners, had apparently left the state looking for other opportunities. These were the restless strangers Nevada historian Wilbur Shepperson described, immigrants who came to the state looking for the chance to make money then left when the failing mines and harsh landscape proved too unforgiving.1
The issue of gender also deserves mention in regard to Manx immigrants. Ethnic groups arrived in Nevada with varying ratios of men to women. Reflecting an international trend, Irish men and women came to Nevada in nearly equal numbers. The same can generally be said of Germans. Not surprisingly given prejudicial laws, Chinese men far outnumbered Chinese women in the West. Of the Celtic groups, the Scots and Welsh tended to immigrate to Nevada with something of a gender balance, but Cornish men – usually miners – far outnumbered Cornish women. The Manx followed the Cornish pattern, sending far more men, who were, again, often employed in mining.1
Although the Comstock did not attract the largest number of Manx immigration, that mining district was the location of one of the more permanent and important expression of Manx ethnicity in Nevada. The island’s immigration to the area was first documented in the 1860 federal census of western Utah. Four Manx appear in that record. Two are clearly brothers and the other two may have also been brothers, but they resided in different communities. Three of these young men lived in Carson Valley where they worked at a mill. Because of the location and early date, this likely processed lumber rather than ore. The fourth Manx immigrant was a miner living in Silver City.
That same year, Thomas and Robert Gracey arrived, coming from Downieville, California, to serve as volunteers during the Pyramid Lake War. The Gracey brothers, twenty-one and eighteen years old, answered the call in response to news of the first battle of the war, which proved a total defeat of the attacking force from Virginia City. The second battle, which resulted in the Northern Paiutes retreating into the desert north of Pyramid Lake, ended the conflict. In a 1911 recollection of the events, Robert Gracey noted that he knew many of the people who came from Downieville to Virginia City including Dr. E. C. Bryant, the first husband of Marie Louise Hungerford, who later married Bonanza king, John Mackay. Coincidentally, he also noted that he knew Mackay in Downieville as well as Major Daniel R. Hungerford, the father of Marie Louise.1
The Gracey brothers stayed in Virginia City to help build the community into an internationally famous capital of mining. Perhaps because they were moving between Nevada and California, the census did not record their presence in 1860. Beginning in the territorial period, 1861-1864, Thomas Gracey held public offices including Storey County Assessor and Virginia City Constable. In 1875, he was in charge of the Storey County’s 1875 state census. In the 1860s and 70s, the brothers owned several prestigious saloons, placing them at the core of business and society in Virginia City.1 Understanding the Comstock’s opportunities, they encouraged friends and relatives to immigrate. Eventually, their mother, their Manx wives, and their sister and her Manx husband called Virginia City home. The way the Gracey family settled and grew reveals a great deal about the immigrant experience.1
Thomas Gracey was born in the Manx port of Peel in approximately 1839. His brother Robert was three years younger. They were in California at least by 1859 when they were twenty and seventeen respectively. Naturalization papers indicate that Robert had become a citizen by 1866. Other documents indicate that Thomas was a Freemason. The family attended the Anglican Church in Man, and so they generally attended the Episcopal Church in Virginia City.1
On June 22, 1870, the census enumerator recorded a household, which included Thomas and Robert Gracey living with Emma, their younger sister (age 21), and fellow Manx immigrant Edward Corris (age 23). Three months later an enumerator recorded Robert again living apart from the others. It is, nevertheless, significant that the three siblings had been living together with a man named Corris, a last name shared by Thomas Gracey’s future wife.
Robert Gracey was married in St. Nicolas Church, Liverpool to Manx immigrant Theresa Keig in 1872 during one of his many trips home. The marriage certificate identified him as a thirty-year-old ship’s steward, the occupation, no doubt, which paid his way across the Atlantic. At age twenty-two, Theresa was listed as a spinster. Catherine Gracey, Robert’s mother, and Robert Keig, also of the Isle of Man, were witnesses. At some point, Catherine, the family matriarch, also immigrated to Virginia City. When she died in 1899 at the age of eighty-six, however, she had returned to her dear little isle.
Thomas married Elizabeth Corris in 1873. He was thirty-four and she was twenty-three. They had at least two children. Her last name recalls the name of the man who was living with the Graceys during the 1870 census, and perhaps they were brother and sister.
By 1871, Emma Gracey had married Thomas Keig from the Isle of Man, with whom she would have at least five children. It is likely that he was related to, if not a sibling of, Theresa Keig, the wife of Robert Gracey, and of Robert Keig, the witness of the wedding in Liverpool. Thomas was four years older than Emma and worked in Virginia City as a miner. The 1880 census records Emma and her family living next door to her brother Robert and his family on South A Street.
In celebration of the New Year in 1876 and in recognition of importance as the nation’s centennial year, several Manx families gathered in Virginia City for a group baptism of six children. Reverend T. H. McGrath of Ireland presided. He was initially a Methodist, but he left that church in 1873 to become a Unitarian. The children included those of Emma Gracey Keig and her Manx husband Thomas Keig, Mr. and Mrs. John Davis and Mr. and Mrs. Waterson. It appears, therefore, that Kate Gracey Waterson, the fourth Gracey sibling, was either visiting Virginia City or settled there for a time. The group sang traditional Manx songs and those of their new home.1
Sometime after 1880, Thomas Gracey gave up on the failing Comstock economy and moved to Butte, Montana where the mining industry was on the rise. Like others, he traveled to places with people he knew, not following an industry but rather flowing with the tide. He died in Butte on August 17, 1910 at age seventy-one. His obituary appeared in Nevada newspapers, a testament to his importance in his former Comstock home.1
What emerges from this tangle of Gracey’s, Corrises, and Keigs is evidence of tightly bound neighbors who intermarried and immigrated as a group. It is also clear that travel between Virginia City and Man was relatively common despite the expense and time it took. The Gracey family returned several times to visit relatives and to marry fellow Manx.
The pattern exhibited by the Comstock Manx is distinct from those elsewhere in Nevada. While nearly all the immigrants from the Isle of Man in White Pine and Eureka Counties and in Candelaria were miners, most in Virginia City were not. Wherever they were in the state, single Manx miners followed the pattern exhibited by their Cornish counterparts: when the mines failed, they moved on and frequently left the state. Similarly, the non mining Manx, particularly when they married and lingered, again made choices comparable to those made by people from Cornwall, but as with the Cornish, married Manx who remained in Nevada were a minority. Although the Manx came from a Gaelic-speaking nation, their choices involving occupation, marriage, and transience followed the non-Gaelic Cornish pattern much more than its Irish counterpart.1
After the turn of the century, most Manx left Nevada with the failure of the state’s mining industry in the 1880s. They never resumed their numbers or the influence they enjoyed in the nineteenth century. Still, descendants folded into the makeup of the state in ways that may never be fully understood. At least in the case of the Gracey family, it is possible to know that descendents of Robert Gracey did, in fact, remain and continued to reside in northern Nevada.
Endnotes:
1 Mimi Patrick of Gold Hill, Nevada is a fourth generation descendant of Manx immigrants. She made voluminous records available to the author and has donated images for use in this article. Digital copies of her collection of historical photographs are available at the Nevada Historical Society. The author thanks Ms. Patrick for her assistance and for her longtime commitment to the promotion of Nevada history and its resources. Part of this article is an adaptation of an entry by the author for the Online Nevada Encyclopedia at www.onlinenevada.org.
2R. H. Kinvig, The Isle of Man (Liverpool: Liverpool University Press, 1975).
3George Broderick, “Manx Traditional Songs and Song-Fragments: II,” Béaloideas: Iris an Chumainn le Béaloideas Éireann (1982: vol. 50) 26.
4The Nevada Online Database has over 310,000 files for the census years 1860 through 1920. The 1890 census is not included because a warehouse fire destroyed most of those records for the entire nation. The total of Manx presented here does not consider those who gave “England” as a place of birth. This certainly occurred, but it was probably rare.
5Bretons come from the French province of Brittany. Only some Celtic groups recognize the so-called seventh Celtic nation of Galicia in northern Spain. Identifying immigrants from Brittany and Galicia is problematic, although one individual in the census did in fact claim Brittany as a place of birth. For Cornish in Nevada see Ronald M. James, “Defining the Group: Nineteenth-Century Cornish on the North American Mining Frontier,” Cornish Studies Two, Philip Payton, ed. (Exeter: University of Exeter Press, 1994). For the other Celtic groups see Wilbur S. Shepperson, Restless Strangers: Nevada’s Immigrants and Their Interpreters (Reno: University of Nevada Press, 1970); and see Ronald M. James, The Roar and the Silence: A History of Virginia City and the Comstock Lode (Reno: University of Nevada Press, 1998) 143-166.
6Ann Orlov, “Manx,” Stephan Thernstrom, editor, Harvard Encyclopedia of American Ethnic Groups (Cambridge, Massachusetts: Harvard University Press, 1980) 696.
7See Russell R. Ellliott, The Early History of White Pine County, Nevada: 1865-1887 (M.A. thesis: University of Washington, 1938) and W. Turrentine Jackson, Treasure Hill (Reno: University of Arizona Press, 1963).
8Hugh A. Shamberger, Candelaria and its Neighbors (Carson City: Nevada Historical Press, 1978).
9This is Shepperson’s principal thesis in his book, Restless Strangers, op. cit. Many if not most nineteenth-century immigrants to Nevada did not follow the pattern he described.
10For the analysis of gender and immigration see various articles in Ronald M. James and C. Elizabeth Raymond, Comstock Women: the Making of a Mining Community (Reno: University of Nevada, 1998). Analyses of specific groups can also be found in James, The Roar and the Silence and James “Defining the Group.”
11 “Recollections of Virginia City from May, 1860” by Robert Gracey presented at the 20th Century Club on February 10, 1911. A copy, donated by Mimi Patrick of Gold Hill, is on file at the State Historic Preservation Office, which furnished a copy to the Nevada Historical Society. For the Pyramid Lake War see Myron Angel, , Reproduction of Thompson and West’s History of Nevada, 1881, with illustrations and biographical sketches of its prominent men and pioneers. With introduction by David F. Myrick (Berkeley, Calif., Howell-North, 1958) 149-163; Ferol Egan, Sand in a Whirlwind, The Paiute Indian War of 1860 (Reno: University of Nevada Press, 1985); and Sally Zanjani, Devils will Reign: How Nevada Began. (Reno: University of Nevada Press, 2006).
12Perhaps the Manx saloon mentioned by Wilbur Shepperson in Restless Strangers, 134, is a reference to the Sazarac operated by the Gracey brothers. This was not, however, an exclusively Manx establishment as Shepperson characterized it. Instead it served a diverse clientele. No other Manx saloon appears to fit Shepperson’s description. See the Territorial Enterprise (Virginia City, Nevada), September 16, 1868, 2:6 and January 12, 1869, 2:6.
13Another sister, Kate Gracey Waterson settled in Benton, California on the border with Nevada. It appears that she and her husband were also in Virginia City, but it is unclear whether it was to visit or live. See the Territorial Enterprise, January 2, 1876, 3:1. Material on the Gracey family comes from the private papers of Mimi Patrick with additional information provided by the Nevada Online Census Database at www.nevadaculture.org.
14This and the following information is derived from the papers made available to the author by Mimi Patrick of Gold Hill, a descendant of Robert Gracey.
15Territorial Enterprise, January 2, 1876, 3:1; and see Myron Angel, History of Nevada, (Thompson and West, 1881; reprinted).
16Newspaper clippings of unclear specific provenience in Mimi Patrick’s collection clearly indicate a Nevada origin.
17Ronald M. James, “Erin’s Daughters on the Comstock: Building Community” from James and Raymond, Comstock Women, and see James, “Defining the Group.”
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Man, I thought the family was pretty clever but I guess the secret is out…
