When the residents of Taylor went down town Christmas morning, 1887, they were horrified to learn that murder had been committed a few hours before, in an disreputable home near Chinatown, occupied by a woman named Hazel Rivers. Both bodily force and deadly weapons were used to gain entrance to the house. The lower panel of the door had been kicked in and two bullet holes perforated the door. Powder burns around one of the bullet holes showed evidence of a pistol being put against the door and fired. The second bullet went through the lower panel and did no harm as it was later found on the floor. Another pistol ball, which must have been fired from the inside, was found imbedded in the wall, back of the door casing. In all probability, the woman had fired this shot, as she had powder smoke on her hand. There was nothing to show that the dead man had any arms on him at the time he was killed, though the woman said she gave him her pistol. All indications were that Karnahan, or some one else, tried to force the door in, and that Fox was standing against it to prevent anyone from entering, when the initial shot was fired. A light was burning in the room at the time and the outside party could see through the broken panel the movements of anyone inside, so there can be no doubt that the outside party knew he was shooting with fatal effect.
George Fox had been in Taylor about five weeks and was working in the Argus mines. It was said that he was a quiet, industrious, peaceable man, well liked by all that knew him. Hugh Karnahan, who was charged with the murder, had been in Taylor for some time. He was working in the mine at the time of the murder and had tended bar at the Brewery saloon in Taylor the previous summer. Karnahan had many friends in Taylor and was well thought of. His preliminary examination was held before Justice Carpenter. Karnahan was held over without bond to await the action of the Grand Jury. Sheriff Bassett took Karnahan to Hamilton to await trial.
The afternoon after the inquest, Dr. Campbell held a post mortem examination on the body of Fox, and found that the ball entered the right breast 3 ½ inches below the nipple, passing over to the left side and through the heart, lodging in the back. Dr. Campbell thought death was almost instantaneous.
“In the matter of the inquisition upon the body of George Fox, deceased, before H. Carpenter, Justice of the Peace and Coroner, Taylor Township, White Pine County, Nevada:
Hazel Rivers being sworn deposes and says: Deceased was in the house here with me; I think it was 3:30 o’clock this morning, when some person came to my door; I did not see him, bit I think it was Hugh Karnahan. He asked to come in; I did not open the door. He said that he was coming in anyway. Mr. Fox got up and went to the door; I don’t recollect what if anything was said; I heard two shots from the outside; they were both fired nearly at the same moment; Fox fell between the stove and the door; he said “I am gone”; that was all he said; he groaned a few times and died in a few minutes; I am almost sure it was Hugh Karnahan fired the shots that killed Fox; there was no one in the house at the time of the shooting but Fox and myself.
Lew Carpenter being sworn, deposes and says: I reside in Taylor; was up town last night (Dec. 24, 1886) till about 2 o’clock n the morning; I then went home and to bed in my cabin; my cabin is about twenty feet from the house where Fox was killed; I heard some shooting about 3 or 4 o’clock this morning; I jumped out of bed and went to the door of my cabin; Hugh Karnahan was standing at the door of the house in which Fox was killed; he was the only one I saw; he had a pistol in his hand; I asked who was doing all this shooting; he said they were shooting at me from the inside; he said I have got no gun; then he stepped towards me; I told him to keep away from me. Hazel came to me and said Fox was killed; I went over to Mr. Fitton’s cabin, about 40 feet from Hazel’s (to ask him to go for the officers); I saw Jack Owens standing near the blacksmith shop, about 250 feet from the house in which Fox was killed; he said he knew nothing about the shooting. Jack Owens went for the Sheriff, and I came to Hazel’s house shortly afterwards; Fox was dead when I came in; he was lying between the stove and the door; I did not examine him closely; I did not think he was alive; there were three others with me.”
The coroner jury’s verdict:
“To H. Carpenter, Justice of the Peace, and ex-officio Acting Coroner of Taylor Township, White Pine county, Nevada:
We your jury, summoned to hold an inquest upon the body of George Fox, on this 25th day of December, 1886, after hearing the testimony adduced and examining the body, do find that the deceased was named George Fox, a native of England, aged 27 years, and that he came to his death in the town of Taylor between 3 and 4 o’clock on the morning of December 25th, 1886, from a pistol shot wound, and that said shot was fired by Hugh Karnahan. All of which is hereby duly sworn to.
Signed Wm. Hendrie, Foreman
W. L. Davis
Thos. Johnson
D. D. Jolly
Wm. H. Buris
J. F. Cupid."
Jack Owens was also arrested as an accessory to the murder of Fox that same morning. Initially, it was felt there was no evidence to directly connect Owens with the crime but general opinion was that he had urged on the trouble that ended in murder. He was later arrested as an accomplice and taken to Hamilton to stand trial with Karnahan.
After the initial details about the crime were reported, further reports were sketchy. The next report was in the White Pine News May 14, 1887 concerning the case of the State vs. Hugh Karnahan. The News said that many of the juror's from the distant points of the county failed to appear for the scheduled trial. Some juror’s were excused and others paid the fine for not appearing. The trial was scheduled during the ongoing argument concerning the removal of the county seat from Hamilton and the question was brought up if this was part of the reason for the failure of juror’s to appear. The Constable in Taylor Township was considered derelict in the enforcement of the law; he had not arrested the parties involved in the case when it was requested due to their drunken behavior.
Hazel Rivers, the woman involved in the dispute between Karnahan and Fox, became ill while in Hamilton where she was to appear as a witness. An overdose of morphine given her came near to ending her life. The people of Hamilton raised some $80 and sent to Eureka for a doctor to administer to her.
White Pine County Commissioners authorized District Attorney Love to employ C. M. Thackston to assist in the prosecution of H. Karnahan. In November the decision was made to transfer the both cases, Karnahan and Owens, to Elko county. Deputy Sheriff’s Morris Lyons and J. B. Simson took Hugh Karnahan and Jack Owens to Elko for trial. The trial was set for January 1888 - a rough time of the year for witnesses and jurymen to attend the trial. White Pine County ordered that a sum of three hundred dollars be allowed as additional compensation to the District Attorney. This was additional compensation for services and expenses in prosecuting the case of the State of Nevada vs. Hugh Karnahan and the State of Nevada vs. J. W. Owens in Elko County.
After being out for sixty-two hours, the jury returned a verdict of manslaughter against Hugh Karnahan. Although this verdict was not entirely satisfactory, it was felt that it was the best that could be had under the circumstances. On the first ballot two jurors voted for acquittal. The White Pine News, located in Taylor, felt the verdict should have been at least murder in the second degree, but manslaughter was better than to put the expense of another trial on Elko County. It was felt that this was an opinion shared by the jurors who at first voted for the higher verdict and then dropped down to the lesser. The defendant waived time for sentence, received ten years in the State Prison - the highest penalty under our laws - and was taken to Carson City. July1890, the Board of Pardons released Karnahan from prison - less than four years after the crime was committed and two years after the sentencing! Owens, who was taken to Elko with Karnahan, as being implicated in the case, was discharged from custody immediately after the trial.
White Pine County District Attorney Love did not make any high marks with the Elko Independent. In an article headlined “Sublime Cheek”, the Elko Independent stated that the district attorney had put in a claim against Elko county for services rendered in prosecuting Karnahan, whose case was transferred from White Pine to Elko. The Independent failed to see how Elko County was under any obligation to pay a bonus to the District Attorney of White Pine County for prosecuting White Pine’s criminals. Elko County was already out several hundred dollars on White Pine’s criminal cases and it was felt that when Love asked Elko to pay $50 for his service in the Karnahan case “the display of adamantine cheek was admirable only for its boldness.” The District Attorney was entitled to a $50 fee for every conviction of felony in the District Court. Since Karnahan was convicted in Elko County, the fee may have been just because it was a part of the costs in the case, the same as witness and jury fees. Of course, in the end White Pine county footed the whole bill.
January 1887, the White Pine News reported that there was talk of a number of businessmen locating to the new county seat of Ely the next summer. The paper felt there would only be room for one good business house in Ely for the near future.
Taylor was supported largely by the Monitor and Argus silver mines. Ore at the Monitor was of a higher grade, but the Argus was in reality a much more valuable property. The tonnage mined from the Argus was many times that of the Monitor. Hixon mine also operated for a short time, but never reached the stage of a producer; the high-grade ore there soon pinched out. Ores in the Taylor district were thought to be of a free-milling silver variety, with a negligible amount of gold. It was discovered later that while the ore was largely silver, gold was a valuable by-product.
Davis continued the White Pine News at Taylor until September 8, 1888 when he suspended it and moved the plant to Ely where it was revived again. The Post Office remained until September 9, 1893. It appears the White Pine News saw the hand writing on the wall sooner that the U.S. Postal Service did.
After a 17-year period of inactivity, the Monitor and Argus Extensions were reopened and a small production was reported in 1909 and 1911. The Wyoming Mining & Milling Company erected the 100-ton cyanide mill on the Argus property in 1919 to treat 20,000 tons of old dump material. Antimony ore was discovered in 1914 about a mile south of Taylor. An oxide plant was built in 1939 at the Enterprise mine. In 1959, the plant was rebuilt to treat ore from the Merrimac open pit. Production records through 1968 show production reports the following years: 1875-1882; 1883-1892; 1909-1911; 1917; 1920-1921; 1924; 1926; 1934-1942; 1946-1954; 1958-1961.
The small cemetery remains as a mute reminder of Taylor’s heyday. In 1887, the White Pine News was protesting the high incidence of deaths and the large amount of burials in the Taylor cemetery. Forty-six deaths had been reported before 1887 - many of them women and children. It was noted that teetotalers were the ones stricken. As with many mining towns, sanitation was not the top priority. The population was made up largely of men and women in the prime of life so the newspaper felt an investigation as to the cause, and action be taken to correct it, was in order. There were two schools of thought on the problems with the many deaths. One was the quality of the water, the other the filthy condition of the town. The News strongly inclined to the latter. They felt nothing could be done about the quality of the water they drank, but the filth could be removed. A walk through main-street revealed that the garbage of restaurants, stables and other business mingled their odors with those of “filthy vaults, which it would be a misnomer to call water closets.” Conditions at the miner’s cabins were even worse - the outhouses were built on almost solid rock.
The News would be happy with the sanitary conditions today. The mill and mine are quiet. Only foundations, a few rock walls, a headframe that was modified in later years and the cemetery remain. Sagebrush and rabbitbrush cover those bustling streets; there is no evidence of unsanitary conditions.
James Opie, a 43-year old butcher in Taylor who committed suicide, was reported as the first to start a graveyard in Taylor. James Opie was a native of the parish of Redruth, County of Cornwall England. Friends became concerned when the door to the butcher shop was locked during business hours. Upon breaking in, they found the door between the shop and the room where he lived unlocked and Opie lying dead from a gunshot wound to the head. The White Pine Reflex reported that Opie was not financially embarrassed, but had been depressed because the people of Taylor had been sending to Ward for beef. Those who knew him best and knew his worth attended James Opie’s funeral officiated by Robert Briggs. The Reflex report of the funeral service ended with “May he sleep on, sleep well, nor head life’s pelting storm.”
Mother Nature has erased hundreds of inscriptions in White Pine County and Taylor is no exception. Bill Wilson and Rab Bustos of the Alta Gold Company furnished a list of deceased Taylor residents the company had in their files. A summary shows: 1882 - 5; 1887 – 18; 1892 -1; 1883 - 1; 1888 - 10; 1893 - 2; 1884 - 2; 1889 - 4; 1898 - 1; 1885 - 14;
1890 - 1; 1901 - 1; 1886 - 27; 1891 - 4; 1905 - 2
Although many gravesites at Taylor are still visible, only one inscription on a nice headstone now remains legible. The stone is in such great condition, the author determined to know more of the man who rests there. The inscription on the stone reads:
Lewis A. Gifford
Born February 29, 1840
Died
June 12, 1887
Aged 47 years, 3 months, 12 days
Our Beloved Friend
Lewis A. Gifford, commonly known as “Giff,” was born in Wisconsin, the only son of a family of eight. He had lived in White Pine County since 1869, sharing in the fate of almost every camp in the county - Hamilton, Ward, Cherry Creek and Taylor. For a time, he was a foreman of the Star mine in Cherry Creek. For five years before his death, Gifford had suffered from asthma and bronchial disorders and cause of death the night of June 11 or morning of June 12 was from natural causes. At the time of his death, Lewis A. Gifford was driving Sol Hilp’s store delivery team and was sleeping in apartment over the store. The esteem the community felt for Lewis A. Gifford was shown by the long funeral procession that followed his remains to the grave. His was the largest funeral ever seen in Taylor. The Argus Mine shut down to give employees the opportunity to attend his funeral and the Monitor Mine suspended work for half a day. The obituary ended with the following requiem:
Poor Giff -
Thy brief dark life is over.
Thou hast found
That sweet, deep rest,
which through such lonesome days
And nights when sleep forsook thee,
Thou did’st praise with envious longing.
In death’s silence drowned,
No clamoring bells with their intrusive sound,
No noise of traffic in the towns maize,
Or hurrying footsteps through its stormy ways.
Will try the slumber in which thou art bound.
Tired head, tired heart, tired spirit, all at rest -
Since for the weary rest is Death’s first boon -
Rest - and then, after rest, the waking joy,
The sudden rapture, by new life posseset,
The swift, sure glory of the Heaven’s high noon,
The long lost mother’s welcome to her boy!
