![]() In 1884, with James Gordon Bennett, Jr., Mackay formed the Commercial Cable Company, largely to fight Jay Gould and the Western Union Telegraph Company, laid two transatlantic cables, and forced the toll-rate for transatlantic messages down to twenty-five cents a word. 18 years after John's death, Louise returned to the United States in 1920, dying at age 85 in 1928. As his telegraph business expanded, in 1884 the family was moved to London for the boys' schooling and easier communications through his owned cables. The building is today occupied by the Belgium Embassy near the Arc de Triomphe. He purchased a large mansion for her in Paris where his wealth enabled her to become a noted society hostess for two decades, entertaining royalty and throwing lavish parties. Snubbed by New York society prior to moving to Virginia City in 1867, and no longer interested in San Francisco by 1874, Louise was moved to Paris with Mackay's blessing after a brief re-attempt at New York life. In 1866, he married Marie Louise Hungerford, a native New Yorker. With the proceeds, together they established the Bank of Nevada of San Francisco to compete with the Bank of California. ![]() The four-way partnership was more commonly known as the "Bonanza firm". The bonanza was in a location previously overlooked and outside where other strikes had been found. The strike would pay out US$181 billion in current dollars, with Mackay's portion being about $50 billion. In 1873, the Con Virginia made the greatest ore body discovery ever found in North America, known as the "Big Bonanza". In 1871, using proceeds from the Hale & Norcross they bought out a number of smaller mine claims under the name of the Consolidated Virginia Mining Company, and later added the nearby California mine. The four dealt in mining stocks and operated silver mines, and had a success in the Hale & Norcross mine. O'Brien, later known as the Bonanza Kings. He formed a business partnership with fellow Irishmen James Graham Fair, James C. He then began investing in other mines, sometimes risking everything he had. In 1865 he used his savings to buy into the Kentucky mine and hit big, he was suddenly worth US$1.6 million, more than enough to retire for life. He bought small claims or "feet" and used the proceeds of his labor and finds to buy more feet. In 1859, he went to Virginia City, Nevada, site of the recently discovered Comstock Lode, and there began work at $4 a day laboring in a mine by day and working his own small claims in his spare time. In 1851, he sailed by clipper around the Horn to California and worked eight years in placer gold fields in Sierra County without much success. Webb Shipyard to support his mother and sister. As a boy Mackay hawked newspapers such as the New York Herald, and later apprenticed at William H. In 1840, the family emigrated to the notorious Five Points slum in lower Manhattan his father died soon after. They had a dirt floor hovel shared with a pig. John William Mackay was born in Dublin to a working-class family. He also headed a telegraph business that laid transatlantic cables and he helped finance the New York, Texas and Mexican Railway Company. Mackay was one of the four Bonanza Kings, a partnership which capitalised on the wealth generated by the silver mines at the Comstock Lode. John William Mackay (Novem– July 20, 1902) was an Irish-American industrialist. John William Mackay Jr, Clarence Hungerford Mackay Shipbuilder, prospector, partner in Comstock Lode mines
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