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Tombstone/Comstock Engraved, Polished Steel Anvil Bookend Pair [145591]

Currency:USD Category:Collectibles / Mining Start Price:500.00 USD Estimated At:1,000.00 - 2,000.00 USD
Tombstone/Comstock Engraved, Polished Steel Anvil Bookend Pair  [145591]
SOLD
850.00USD+ (212.50) buyer's premium + applicable fees & taxes.
This item SOLD at 2022 Feb 26 @ 08:51UTC-8 : PST/AKDT
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Tombstone/Comstock Engraved, Polished Steel Anvil Bookend Pair.

First side: "John Fulton/ blacksmith/Retired June 1, 1885/ Tombstone, A.T./ GAR veteran/ PA Vols".

Second side:"In recognition of your/ years of service from/ your fellow smiths of/ Co. of Cochise/ Every Miners/ Friend!"

4"tall, 8"long, 1.5"thick anvil, cut in half and hand punch lettered on each side.

John Fulton was born in Scotland in 1817. At some point he moved to Pennsylvania, where he enlisted in Company B, 207 Pennsylvania volunteers on August 30, 1864. He mustered out as a corporal, May 31, 1865. In 1870, he was living in Scranton, PA, listed as a widower and a blacksmith. Records prior to 1870 were not found, difficult to find because of the extreme commonality of his name. About 1881, he reportedly moved to Tombstone, Arizona Territory, according to his obituary. Was he there in time for the Earp gunfight at the OK Corral late in the year? He is not listed in Chaput's Cochise County Stalwarts. He died June 1, 1891 of "old age"in Tombstone. His death certificate is blank for all other information.

The obituary published in the Tombstone Epitaph stated he was "an old timer on the Pacific Coast" who "worked at the Crown Point mine"in Gold Hill. Interestingly, we could not find Fulton listed in any of the Comstock directories, but did find an Ivy Fulton as chief engineer at the Crown Point in 1878 (Bishop's VC Directory, 1878), and listed as a blacksmith living in Gold Hill near the Yellow Jacket claim in the 1863 Nevada Territorial directory. There were two Ivy Fultons in Gold Hill. A father, and his son. The son, born about 1875, Ivy Fulton, also worked at the Crown Point, and named his son John, possibly after his uncle. The senior Ivy, also born in Scotland, may have been the younger brother of John. (Ancestry.com)

The name Fulton Foundry is difficult to trace. It appears to be a long standing name for quality in the foundry business, possibly with origins at least as far back as the 1700s in Scotland and Ireland. On the West Coast, the name Fulton related to a foundry or Iron Works first appears in San Francisco in 1855. None of the Fulton foundries we researched all over America in the nineteenth century was run by a person with a Fulton surname. The name was used world wide all through the nineteenth century.

The Fulton Foundry in Virginia City, unrelated to our man John Fulton, was at one time one of the top producing foundries on the West Coast. It apparently was the second foundry on the Comstock, formed by Edwards and Hughes, in 1861. It changed hands several times over the first few years, according to Myron Angel in History of Nevada (1881) and was apparently a bit inconsequential, as it is not listed in several of the early directories. In 1869 it was taken over by the Bank of California (probably the result of a failed loan), who hired two engineers from the Central Pacific Railroad to run the operation. The business then forever changed course, making important parts for the V & T RR and large equipment for Comstock mines, such as giant fly wheels for hoisting, weighing over 20 tons.

The first successful foundry on the Comstock was started by Placerville iron man John McCone in 1862 and two partners, Mead and Tasker. McCone bought out the pair, moved the operation to the Divide, and grew the business. McCone bought the Fulton Foundry from the Bank in 1872 just before the height of the Crown point bonanza. McCone died in 1876. As business dwindled after rich bonanzas started to run out in 1877, the Foundry found itself with a reduced work crew of about 30, down from over 110 just a few years earlier.

No man named Fulton ever ran the Fulton Foundry in Virginia City, nor most of the Fulton Foundries around the globe. It was a very common name that meant quality, perhaps going back hundreds of years to Scotland-Ireland as its roots.

Date:
Country (if not USA):
State: Arizona
City: Tombstone
Provenance: