Running Putty on the client. Wondering if there is a way to have virtual consoles on the ssh box, instead of having to open multiple putty sessions to have multiple consoles.

No, AFAIK not at this time you can't. You have to deal with multiple putty windows open.

You can. This functionality has nothing to do with putty, which is merely a way to obtain a login.

You want the program screen. man screen. It's a fullscreen terminal window manager. It can also run even when you aren't logged in. In other words you can ssh into the box and reattach a session and have all of your old terminal windows right there, doing whatever they've been doing.

Basically:
screen (start screen session, opens terminal 0)
CTRL-A C (open another terminal)
CTRL-A " (lists all terminals)
CTRL-A D (detach session; all programs in all terminals continue running)
screen -r (re-attach an old screen session to your current login)

Works like a charm, thank you

Ahh.. yeah, was under the impression only wanted or was asking to do it under putty..