Fleeing famine, seeking adventure in the "Wild West": Lives of my ancestors

AboutAnything  | Greg McComb

     In May, 1849, a 34-year-old James McComb boarded a ship called the "Emma Searle" at Belfast, Ireland, for an ocean voyage that would dock in New York several weeks later, according to ship logs. Likely an early steam ship propelled by a paddle wheel, it was fueled by coal although these early ocean liners were known to run out from time-to-time and furniture was thrown into the furnace to complete the journey. This was no jetliner. 

     The perils of such a trip must have weighed on James’ mind, although he was comforted by his young wife Charlotte, ten years his junior, who might have been pregnant during the trip. Charlotte gave birth to their first child John that same year, with my great-grandfather Joseph coming six years later.  

     One can only imagine why they left Ireland, and what their vague expectations were of the “New World.” Like thousands of other Irish of the time, James likely left to put the devastation of the Irish potato famine (1845-49) behind and start anew.   I have no pictures of James and no oral history to report; although I did find his gravestone (pictured) in Kincardine Cemetery on the shores of Lake Huron, a few hours west of

 Toronto, Canada -- along with a listing of family members in the 1861 census.  They must have trekked north from the bustling port-city of New York to Kincardine in a horse-drawn carriage although the last part of the journey might have been along the lake shore in a cutter.  I will never know why they chose to settle in Kincardine, Bruce County -- in the British colony of Upper Canada but they did so as pioneers, an austere existence in the woods.  Most likely, my ancestors were part of a larger British plan to populate colonies in a growing world Empire. Not sure if they signed on the dotted line anywhere to obtain title to a plot of land -- probably did. 

     Once they arrived, they cleared forest and broke farmland for crops. A log cabin was likely next on their to-do list. They were probably one of several families who overwintered in the settlement in 1849/50 - known as the “Queen’s Bush” - and made contact with the first pioneers. Historic records tell us it was only a year earlier that Scottish Captain Alexander MacGregor sailed into Kincardine for the first time in a schooner called “The Fly,” at the mouth of the Penetangore River; the site of a modern-day sandy beach and leisure-sailing docks. A year later, one of two founders Allan Cameron built a large-log cabin and ran it as a hotel, while the other William Withers built a dam and sawmill, a good start to civilization.  I wonder if James and Charlotte checked into that log hotel, obviously without a credit card.

     Although information about James is sparse, he obviously led a healthy outdoor life as a farmer, riding a horse plough - as he lived to the ripe-old-age of 93, outlasting his wife Charlotte by twenty years; possibly tired out after giving birth to seven children, a modest family in-a-time when children

Canada West Census, 1861

were the main source of farm labour. James was probably a tall, husky man fit for hard farm work, as his son Joseph (my great-grandfather) was a giant, a trait carried through to my father Keith who was a large-built man, six foot four inches tall.

     And why Kincardine, a Scottish settlement?  Although from Ireland, James’ last name McComb (and mine) is of Scotch-Irish descent, and his religion is identified as Protestant in census logs, which makes sense for someone from Belfast. Wife Charlotte was also listed as Scottish in census logs, so she might have been the one who identified the settlement with the help of family members. Never know. The sparse oral history I have of my McComb grandparents suggest they were a special type of Protestant: Orangemen, a fraternal order of ruffian Protestants from Northern Ireland, famous for causing trouble by marching through Catholic neighborhoods. That allegiance was probably passed down from James, who carried those beliefs across the ocean.  So, along with being a tall-husky man, James probably had strong opinions on most things; a trait passed down to current generations, myself included.

     I cannot know the circumstances, but James’ fifth child Joseph (my great-grandfather) became restless with isolated-farm life in Kincardine and decided to pick-up stock and head south and then west to Austin, Nevada in the United States….several thousand miles away.

     Joseph was growing up at a time of great change in North America. I am not sure what a young-teenage Joseph thought of Canada quietly becoming a country in 1867, (probably not much) but he must have been acutely aware of the carnage of the American civil war (1861-65) that resulted in three-quarters-of-a-million deaths, and the assassination of a popular president, Abraham Lincoln.  Something else was happening south of the border: the mass slaughter of the American bison as a way to starve Native Americans into submission. In the 1870’s, buffalo hunters like William “Buffalo Bill” Cody killed thousands, selling their hides for $3.50-a-piece, a veritable fortune back then. This lucrative trade might have caught Joseph’s attention, and he gave it a try for awhile. However, it was the discoveries of gold and silver mines in Nevada and California on the western frontier that spurred his move out west. Joseph joined a rush of hundreds of thousands of prospectors, miners and others seeking their fortune, most abandoning simple life-on-the-farm for the adventure of what we know today as the “Wild West,” a lawless frontier with gunslingers, gambling and prostitutes.  A book written about the Nevada town he settled-in provides a flavour of life in the early west, with the title: “The Town that Died Laughing: the Story of Austin, Nevada’s Rambunctious Early Day Mining Camp...”

     I can never know why he chose Austin over other mining towns – but it seemed like a popular place back then. A silver rush blew-up the town’s population from a few hundred to 10,000 folk by the mid-1860’s. Myth has it the rush started when a Pony Express horse kicked over a rock; people saw the silver, and word spread like wildfire. A more accurate story is the mine was discovered by the Union side who were eager to find new sources of precious metals to finance their civil war effort (guns, munitions and uniforms) against the Confederates.  

     Whatever, Joseph showed up in Austin after what was likely a long, arduous journey - probably on horse-drawn carriage or stage coach - and got busy building a business in the 1870’s: a blacksmith shop on Mainstreet, across from the Courthouse. And, he advertised in a local newspaper, the Reece River Reveille, (see screenshot of ad). This advertisement showed just how busy he

was, ordering hardwood and steel to build wagons, so it was constantly on hand. He also hired an experienced wheel-wright from Virginia City, a coveted trade at-a-time when the horse-drawn carriage was the main mode of transport; the model T-Ford decades in the future. Joseph also advertised that he had plenty of horse and mule shoes for the weary traveller, the modern-day equivalent of changing tires on your car. 

     One of the favorite pictures I have is of a young Joseph McComb in his 20’s, (two X’s, on right) in front of his shop with a large blacksmith’s hammer slung over his right shoulder. This picture is such a great depiction of    “Wild West” Americana, it almost looks fake. So much so, I included the writing on the back by my Aunt Marie McComb as evidence of its provenance. The note saying “Grandpa in front of his Blacksmith shop” suggests some familiarity with her grandparent, along with a note about Joseph’s youngest daughter, “Myrtle – favorite aunt.”

     So, what of this picture of Joseph’s blacksmith shop: what can we learn from it? Across from the Courthouse, the shop with its towering wood-slat-storefront and tall-winch - likely for hoisting parts to assemble carriages -- must have been an impressive structure, perhaps a central hub for town folk in this young-mining town.

     Unlike other pictures from this period, the people are not stiff, staid or dressed in Sunday attire. This doesn’t look like a set-up; perhaps it’s an afterthought for the town photographer, who was lugging around his massive box-shaped camera and tripod for another shoot. People were strewn

 about standing on fences or piles of hardwood: a young boy looked proud sitting on a horse (in front), perhaps on loan from his father; another was holding up an early chainless bicycle; while a cowboy (left) was leaning against a carriage, perhaps chewing on tobacco contemplating his losses (or wins) from a poker or faro game the night before. He looks like a classic cowboy, his unwashed appearance the stuff of sweat and dirt absorbed into his skin after riding horseback days on the trail. He is like many others in the picture, sporting a rough-cut beard or mustache that could fit-in with the hipster crowd of today.

     For his part, Joseph (XX) looked like a happy man, informally in charge-of-things with his bibbed wheelwright to his right. With his right-hand on his waist, the wheelwright looks impatient, perhaps taken away from an important order. The only formality in this picture is the group on the far left-back, dressed in black, some with ties and standing straight. Perhaps these were Austin’s early lawmen from the courthouse across the street – the sheriff and constables - with bowl not rough-cowboy hats and pressed suits or vests.  Hard to say, but one of the lawmen seems to have a sheriff badge pinned to his lapel. A few other black-suited people from the courthouse are standing to attention on the right side of the picture.  Perhaps these are clerks working desk jobs at the court, processing whatever sparse paperwork they had back then. Definitely not the alpha males of this crowd.

     One thing is for certain from this picture, Joseph ran a busy and thriving blacksmith shop. The carriage wheels on display are of high-quality – and the leather-covered tops are the work of a top-notch craftsman.  Joseph was no slouch; he did things right, and likely built a reputation in town based on the quality of his workmanship, which was warranted (see ad): if a horse shoe fell off, bring it back for a re-install. 

     This skill of building a business with stature in a community - and doing quality work - was passed down to his son Frank, who opened a high-end men’s clothing shop in downtown Winnipeg, the one I talked about in the introduction. And, eventually to my father who owned a Dairy Queen for thirty-five years. My father Keith would often torment suppliers who sent him poor-quality burger meat, eventually changing processors.   

     So, my great-grandfather Joseph McComb led a long life as a high-end blacksmith. I know this from a detailed search of records, newspapers as well as pictures and notes provided by family members. This career did have an exciting interlude more in-sync with the times of the “Wild West.” At the age of twenty-seven, he took a ten-year sojourn from business life to serve as a lawman, first as a constable for six years, then as the Sheriff of Lander County for two years, from 1889 to 1891. That’s right, Sheriff -- at a time when gunslingers roamed the streets, faro games were settled with bloodshed, and bordellos were commonplace, the Nevada-of-old. All in a wild-mining town, with thousands of settlers flooding in from all around North America.

      Not sure why Joseph chose this path, perhaps it was a personal relationship he developed with lawmen from across the street, as shown in the picture. Or maybe it was his law-and-order upbringing in early Canada that spurred him to help create some order where non existed. One thing is for sure, Joseph was a popular man-about-town because a Sheriff back then was the modern-day equivalent of a Mayor: he won the post by election, and headed the town’s administration which by today’s standards didn’t do very much, (see screenshot of county seat). Roads weren’t paved, nor were there any street

lights or traffic cops to ticket horses galloping through town. Owner-built wells and outhouses were the city-built water and sewer projects of today, so no need to collect much in the way of taxes.  No, his administration was involved with only a couple of things. First-and-foremost was the maintenance of law-and-order so he managed a courthouse, jail, had a staff of constables to patrol streets for unruliness, and a district attorney to argue the case for any arrest, in what was a pretty-sketchy process back then. Starting from scratch, the other big task was to survey plots of land for housing, issue titles and to assess property taxes of a few dollars a year. Those tasks were delegated to the county surveyor and assessor in his administration.  So, based on my research, the job of Sheriff in the old west wasn’t all glamour: the bulk of time was spent on the mundane – only on occasion did the terror of a gunfight interrupt his work.

     I have a picture of Joseph wearing a suit-and-tie in the early 1900’s, (see picture) chauffeured around in an early Model-T Ford, years later. That situation was something he probably became used to over time, a double-life of sorts:  one half, the formal man who ran for public office while the other half wore overalls, a bib and carried a blacksmith hammer, an outfit he probably felt more comfortable in.

      This may seem unreal, but I tracked down Sheriff McComb’s badge. While doing research for this book I came across an “American Peace Officers’ Museum” based in Virginia, Nevada, and it had a short blurb about my great-

grandfather on its website, and two pictures: one of Joseph (on the last page) and another of a sheriff badge, with the markings “Sheriff of Lander County, Nev.” A Doug from the museum explained a distant relative of mine contacted him a few years back about a badge they found in a “bucket of old bolts and nails in his garage.” At first Doug was sceptical, but after physically examining the badge he found my great-grandfather’s initials on the back, (J.M.) and verified with my relative that he had an ancestor who was a “sheriff so the badge was his.” Another thing that convinced Doug was a hole burned in the upper-left corner, a common practise in the 1800’s. The watch-chain hole was created as a safety measure, apparently to guard against it flying off during a tussle with a bad hombre. Finally, a close examination of the badge convinced Doug it was the unique handiwork of a blacksmith like Joseph: the badge had a bit of a ragged appearance and it was made of a base metal, definitely not something faked or pumped out of a factory.

     I wish I had more local-verifiable history of Sheriff McComb that documents gun fights or hangings – unfortunately, I have nothing to report. Perhaps one of my descendants can do a more meticulous scouring of primary sources and find something. My only contribution is a recollection of oral history passed down from my father Keith. A closely-guarded secret, he shared with me that his grandfather had killed someone once, and this weighed on his conscience. Perhaps this distaste was one of the reasons Joseph quit as a lawman after his tenure as Sheriff, and headed north to the quiet town of Langdon, North Dakota, where he established another blacksmith shop. A March, 1903, advertisement in a Langdon newspaper, the Courier Democrat, (pictured) once again stresses Joseph’s “first class” work.

(Although I don’t have an exact date for his move north, this ad suggests he had been there for awhile, hoping to retain the patronage of old customers). The other reason for his move north was related to the boom-and-bust cycle of the mining town of Austin, Nevada.  The nearby silver mine that attracted thousands in the 1870’s and 80’s, quickly ran dry and went bust, resulting in an equally rapid exodus out-of-town. With no work, Joseph had no other option but to pick-up-stakes and head somewhere else. The decision to choose northward is a mystery, as is his decision to quit as a lawman and pursue blacksmithing once again.

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