Abner Levi Blackburn Family to Visit Old Town Dayton Oct. 16

The Historical Society of Dayton Valley recently received astonishing news when a member of the Abner Levi Blackburn family, Kevin Howley, emailed me, noting the family members are having a reunion and plan to visit this end of Nevada, including Dayton, on Oct. 16 this year! He has kept me posted and emailed a copy of a newsletter titled, “Blackburn Beginnings: Newsletter of the Blackburn Family Association, June 2025.”

For those who do not know, Abner Blackburn discovered Nevada’s first gold here in July 1849, thereby documenting the site of Nevada’s first settlement. This put Dayton on the map while changing Nevada history forever!

Last summer, Howley visited the Dayton Museum to learn more about Abner’s local history. By coincidence, I was there and it was exciting to show him the first display visitors see when they enter the museum that features Abner Blackburn’s gold discovery in what is now Gold Canyon. Abner’s original handwritten biography, later rewritten and published by well-known Mormon historian Will Bagley as "Frontiersman: Abner Blackburn’s Narrative" (1992). The narrative describes Abner when he was a pioneer in Gold Canyon and beyond, highlighting his connection to Dayton’s history and the gold discovery that eventually led to the Comstock Lode discovery, where Virginia City became a world famous mining site.

Bagley noted that Abner described a conversation with the other men in his pack train while they were camped at the site in 1849, waiting for the snow to melt in the high Sierra. In his journal, Abner notes that he asked the men in his group, who were playing cards, “Why is there no gold on this side of the mountain?” They replied, noting, “no one had looked for it.” 

So, having nothing else to do, Abner grabbed a butcher knife, bread pan, and walked to the creek bed and panned out gold nuggets. The word spread and in no time, gold prospectors from the California sites, were heading to Gold Canyon. Since the price paid for gold in California was the same as that of Gold Canyon, the miners here at Gold Canyon could not see any reason to cross the snow-covered mountains so they wintered here. (In the olden days, Dayton was often called the BANANA BELT since the winters here are often milder than those in surrounding towns.)

Today, the Blackburn family is a large and closely-knit group that has preserved its history by forming the Blackburn Family Association. They decided to hold their 2026 reunion in Reno since their ancestors were associated historically with Nevada’s earliest history, including Dayton and Genoa (Mormon Station).

“Abner Levi Blackburn, a man of myth and legend,” notes the current newsletter. "He had a wandering spirit from the start and he documented his adventures later in life, those writings being the basis for a memoir written by Will Bagley entitled 'Frontiersman, Abner Blackburn’s Narrative' (1992)."

In later years, Abner referred to his memoir as “an account of his misdeeds.” Yet, Bagley notes it as being a crucial account of early Mormon history and his interactions with an assortment of western indigenous tribes.  The book is now out of print but can be bought online and is filled with a variety of early day American history.

October Visit 

Travelling by bus, the Blackburn Family Association Reno Reunion schedule begins Wednesday, Oct. 14 at Donner Pass, goes to South Lake Tahoe, Virginia City, Carson City, Mormon Station (Genoa), and onto Dayton on Friday, Oct. 16, where the HSDV members will meet the group at the Dayton Community Center and divide the 165 to 200 expected visitors to learn more about their ancestors in this end of Nevada, once known as the lower Carson Valley.

Mark your calendar: the Historical Society of Dayton Valley plans to honor the Blackburn family when they arrive on the afternoon of Oct. 16. Join us so we can provide a friendly visit to Abner Levi Blackburn’s Ancestors!

Abner Levi Blackburn

Abner Levi Blackburn was born on Dec. 23, 1827, in St. Clair Township, Bedford County, Pennsylvania, into a vibrant Quaker community. His father, Anthony Blackburn, married Hester A. Rose, a local woman, around 1820 and was removed from Quaker meetings for marrying outside the faith. By Oct. 16, 1822, he had apologized and was reinstated. Over the years, Abner traveled with the Mormons, found occasional work, and joined the Mormon Battalion. After making several trips between Salt Lake and California, he became familiar with the western territory and the California gold mines. In the spring of 1849, he headed to California and staked several claims.

In his memoirs and spelling, Abner indicates, on the 1849 trip, there had been a new route to California since he had last been there. He wrote:

“It goes by way of the Carson River. Took the new road and crost the Forty Mile Desert of Sand. Went up the Carson for two days and stopped recruiting our animals. This camp was in the vicinity of present-day Dayton, Nevada.”

Abner recounted his experience at this encampment:

“Some of our company had been to the mines before and I asked them why there was no gold on this side of the mountain. They said no one had looked for it. The next day, while they were playing cards, I took a bread pan and a butcher knife and went out to the reveine to prospect and found gold in small quantities in three places. Went to a larger reveine and whear the watter run down over the bed rock a little on the side of the gulch. Dug down in the slate and found a fair prospect and kept panning for an hour or more. Went to camp and all hands grabbed up pans, knives and kettles and started out. We scratched, scaped and panned until  nearly sundown and took out nine or ten dollars’ worth of gold…”

Abner moved on, helped settle Genoa, and, through his memoirs of pioneer life, became one of Nevada’s earliest historians. He married and raised a family in later years.