De Quille, Dan, 1829-1898

American author, whose real name was William Wright.

Author, whose real name was William Wright.

William Wright came to California from Iowa in 1857; three years later abandoned mining to work for the Virginia City Territorial Enterprise, becoming a celebrated writer and humorist under the pen name "Dan de Quille," and continued with the Enterprise most the the time until its demise in 1893. A literary light of the Comstock during its great age, Wright wrote the classic History of the Big Bonanza.

Pioneer western writer, humorist, and friend of Mark Twain.

Dan De Quille was the pen name of William Wright. Born in Ohio, De Quille moved to Iowa in 1847. In 1857 he left his family in Iowa to go to California and join the gold mining trade. In 1859 he moved to Virginia City, Nevada to continue mining in the Comstock Lode. After 3 years of mining he turned to journalism, writing for the Virginia City Territorial Enterprise and freelancing with various newspapers. De Quille had a reputation as a master of the literary hoax, an expert on the mining trade and Nevada culture and history, and a notably honest and accurate journalist. He published widely from the 1860s through the 1890s as a freelance writer. Because of his association with Twain materials relating to De Quille have proved to be of interest to many researchers.

William Wright (1829-1898), better known by the pen name Dan De Quille, was an American author, journalist, and humorist. He was born in Knox County, Ohio, the oldest of nine children. In 1849, he moved west with his family to West Liberty, Iowa, where he married Caroline Coleman (1829-1912) in 1853. They had five children, two of whom died in infancy. Their surviving children wereMell Wright Evans (1855-1906), Lura "Lou" Gertrude Wright (1856-1928), and Paxson George Wright (1858-1929).

In 1857, Wright traveled alone to California and prospected for gold in the foothills of the Sierra Nevada Mountains and in the Mono Lake region. In 1859, he moved to the silver mining town of Virginia City, Nevada, which extracted its mineral wealth from the Comstock Lode, the first major discovery of silver ore in the United States. In 1862, Wright began writing for the Daily Territorial Enterprise newspaper in Virginia City and adopted the pen name Dan De Quille. He remained on the staff of the newspaper for over thirty years and wrote extensively about the people, events, and mining operations in the region. From August 1863 to May 1864, he supervised the work of Samuel Langhorne Clemens (1835-1910), who adopted the pen name Mark Twain while writing for the newspaper.

In 1874, a group of mine operators in Virginia City approached De Quille to write a history of the Comstock Lode. Working in Hartford, Connecticut, under the editorship of Mark Twain, he wrote A History of the Big Bonanza (American Publishing Company, 1876).

Near the end of his life, De Quille returned to West Liberty, Iowa.