Flood, James Clair

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James Clair Flood, 1826–89, American silver magnate, b. New York City. Having been apprenticed to a carriage maker, he left to join the California gold rush in 1849. The following year he returned to New York, then bought a farm in Illinois, but in 1851 he was back in California. In partnership with William Shoney O'Brien he operated a saloon and lunchroom in San Francisco until 1865, when the two men formed a successful mining partnership with J. W. Mackay and J. G. Fair to exploit the Comstock Lode.

See O. Lewis, The Silver Kings (1947).