of Johntown on a plateau. In 1857, the Johntown miners found gold in Six-Mile Canyon, which is about five miles (8 km) north of Gold Canyon. The heads of both these canyons form the north and south ends of what is now known as the Comstock Lode, defined by the Ophir Discovery and the Gold Hill Discovery. The early placer miners never worked out the location of the placer gold, since the Lode surface structure was "largely worn away and covered with debris from the mountain sides above." Grosh brothers Credit for the discovery of the Comstock Lode is disputed. It is said to have been discovered, in 1857, by Ethan Allen Grosh and Hosea Ballou Grosh, sons of a Pennsylvania clergyman, trained mineralogists and veterans of the California gold fields. Hosea injured his foot and died of sepsis in 1857. In an effort to raise funds, Allen, accompanied by an associate, Richard Maurice Bucke, set out on a trek to California with samples and maps of his claim. Henry Comstock was left in their stead to care for the Grosh cabin and a locked chest containing silver and gold ore samples and documents of the discovery. Grosh and Bucke never made it to California. They suffered from frostbite while crossing the Sierra Nevada, and lost limbs by amputation in a last-ditch effort to save their lives. Allen Grosh died on December 19, 1857. R.M. Bucke lived, but upon his recovery returned to his home in Canada. When Henry T. P. Comstock learned of the death of the Grosh brothers, he claimed the cabin and the lands as his own. He also examined the contents of the trunk but thought nothing of the documents as he was not an educated man. What he did know is that the gold and the silver ore samples were from the same vein. He continued to seek out diggings of local miners working in the area, as he knew the Grosh brothers' find was still unclaimed. Upon learning of a strike on Gold Hill which uncovered some bluish rock (silver ore), Comstock immediately filed for an unclaimed tract directly adjacent to this area. Gold Hill Discovery Four miners discovered the Gold Hill outcropping, at the head of Gold Canyon, making placer claims after finding traces of gold on January 28, 1859. They were James Finney ("Old Virginny"; a contemporary rumor was that he changed