A history of California and an extended history of its southern coast counties, also containing biographies of well-known citizens of the past and present, Volume I, Part 26

Author: Guinn, James Miller, 1834-1918
Publication date: 1907
Publisher: Los Angeles, Cal., Historic record company
Number of Pages: 1184

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mation was sought, with the result of a commu- nication from the secretary of the state of Cali- fornia to the effect 'that the archives of the state of California recorded the date as of Jan- uary 18, 1848. Some years ago this date was changed by the society at San Francisco to that of January 24, and that date has been adopted by other similar societies located upon the Pacific and Atlantic coasts. This society took the matter under advisement, with the result that the new evidence upon which it was pro- posed to change the date was not deemed suffi- cient to justify this society in ignoring its past records, founded on the authority of the state of California: therefore it has never accepted the new date."

Marshall himself was uncertain about the exact date. At various times he gave three different dates-the 18th. 19th and 20th, but never moved it along as far as the 24th. In the past thirty years three different dates-the 18th. 19th and 24th of January-have been celebrated as the anniversary of Marshall's gold dis- covery.

The evidence upon which the date was changed to the 24th is found in an entry in a diary kept by H. W. Bigler, a Mormon, who was working for Marshall on the millrace at the time gold was discovered. The entry reads: "January 24. This day some kind of metal that looks like goold was found in the tailrace." On this authority about ten years ago the California Pioneers adopted the 24th as the correct date of Marshall's discovery.

While written records, especially if made at the time of the occurrence of the event, are more reliable than oral testimony given long after, yet when we take into consideration the conflicting stories of Sutter, Marshall, the Win- ners and others who were immediately con- cerned in some way with the discovery, we must concede that the Territorial Pioneers have good reasons to hesitate abont making a change in the date of their anniversary. in Dr. Trywhitt Brook's "Four Months Among the Gold Find- ers." a book published in London in 1849, and long since out of print. we have Sutter's version of Marshall's discovery given only three months after that discovery was made. Dr. Brooks

visited Sutter's Fort early in May, 1848, and received from Sutter himself the story of the find. Sutter stated that he was sitting in his room at the fort, one afternoon, when Marshall, whom he supposed to be at the mill, forty miles up the American river, suddenly burst in upon him. Marshall was so wildly excited that Sutter, suspecting that he was crazy, looked to sec whether his rifle was in reach. Marshall declared that he had made a discovery that would give them both millions and millions of dollars. Then he drew his sack and poured out a handful of nuggets on the table. Sutter, when he had tested the metal and found that it was gold. became almost as excited as Marshall. He eagerly asked if the workmen at the mill knew of the discovery. Marshall declared that he liad not spoken to a single person about it. They both agreed to keep it secret. Next day Sutter and Marshall arrived at the sawmill. The day after their arrival, they prospected the bars of the river and the channels of some of the dry creeks and found gold in all.

"On our return to the mill," says Sutter, "we were astonished by the work-people coming up to us in a body and showing us some flakes of gold similar to those we had ourselves procured. Marshall tried to laugh the matter off with them, and to persuade them that what they had found was only some shining mineral of trifling value ; but one of the Indians, who had worked at a gold mine in the neighborhood of La Paz, Lower California, cried out: 'Ora! Ora!' (gold! gold!), and the secret was out."

Captain Sutter continues: "I heard afterward that one of them, a sly Kentuckian, had dogged us about and, that, looking on the ground to see if he could discover what we were in search of, he lighted on some of the flakes himself."

If this account is correct, Bigler's entry in his diary was made on the day that the workmen found gold, which was five or six days after Marshall's first find, and consequently the 24th is that much too late for the true date of the discovery. The story of the discovery given in the "Life and Adventures of James W. Mar- shall," by George Frederick Parsons, differs materially from Sutter's account. The date of the discovery given in that book is January 19.

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1848. On the morning of that day Marshall, after shutting off the water, walked down the tailrace to see what sand and gravel had been removed during the night. (The water was turned into the tailrace during the night to cut it deeper.) While examining a mass of debris, "his eye caught the glitter of something that lay lodged in a crevice on a riffle of soft granite some six inches under water." Picking up the nugget and examining it, he became satisfied that it must be one of three substances-mica, sulphurets of copper, or gold. Its weight satis- fied him that it was not mica. Knowing that gold was malleable, he placed the specimen on a flat rock and struck it with another; it bent, but did not crack or break. He was satisfied that it was gold. He showed the nugget to his men. In the course of a few days he had col- lected several ounces of precious metal. "Some four days after the discovery it became necessary for him to go below, for Sutter had failed to send a supply of provisions to the mill, and the men were on short commons. While on his way down he discovered gold in a ravine at a place afterwards known as Mormon island. Arrived at the fort, he interviewed Sutter in his private office and showed him about three ounces of gold nuggets. Sutter did not believe it to be gold, but after weighing it in scales against $3.25 worth of silver, all the coin they could raise at the fort, and testing it with nitric acid obtained from the gun shop, Sutter became convinced and returned to the mill with Marshall. So little did the workmen at the mill value the discovery that they continued to work for Sutter until the mill was completed, March 11, six weeks after the nuggets were found in the tailrace.

The news of the discovery spread slowly. It was two months in reaching San Francisco, although the distance is not over one hundred and twenty- five miles. The' great rush to the mines from San Francisco did not begin until the middle of May, nearly four months after the discovery. On the Ioth of May, Dr. Brooks, who was in San Francisco, writes: "A number of people have ac- tually started off with shovels, mattocks and pans to dig the gold themselves. It is not likely, however, that this will be allowed, for Captain Folsom has already written to Colonel Mason

about taking possession of the mine on behalf of the government, it being, he says, on public land."

As the people began to realize the richness and extent of the discovery, the excitement in- creased rapidly. May 17, Dr. Brooks writes: "This place (San Francisco) is now in a perfect furore of excitement; all the workpeople have struck. Walking through the town to-day, I observed that laborers were employed only upon about half a dozen of the fifty new buildings which were in course of being run up. The majority of the mechanics at this place are mak- ing preparations for moving off to the mines, and several people of all classes-lawyers, store- keepers, merchants, etc., are smitten with the fever; in fact, there is a regular gold mania springing up. I counted no less than eighteen houses which were closed, the owners having left. If Colonel Mason is moving a force to the American Fork, as is reported here, their journey will be in vain."

Colonel Mason's soldiers moved without orders-they nearly all deserted, and ran off to the mines.

The first newspaper announcement of the discovery appeared in The Californian of March 15, 1848, nearly two months after the discovery. But little attention was paid to it. In the issue of April 19, another discovery is reported. The item reads: "New gold mine. It is stated that a new gold mine has been discovered on the American Fork of the Sacramento, supposed to be on the land of W. A. Leidesdorff, of this place. A specimen of the gold has been ex- hibited, and is represented to be very pure." On the 29th of May, The Californian had sus- pended publication. "Othello's occupation is gone," wails the editor. "The majority of our subscribers and many of our advertising patrons have closed their doors and places of business and left town, and we have received one order after another conveying the pleasant request that the printer will please stop my paper or my ad, as I am about leaving for Sacramento."

The editor of the other paper, The California Star, made a pilgrimage to the mines in the lat- ter part of April, but gave them no extended write-up. "Great country, fine climate," he wrote on his return. "Full flowing streams, mighty

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timber, large crops, luxuriant clover, fragrant flowers, gold and silver," were his comments on what he saw. The policy of both papers seems to have been to ignore as much as possible the gold discovery. To give it publicity was for a time, at least, to lose their occupation.

In The Star of May 20, 1848, its eccentric editor, E. C. Kemble, under the caption "El Dorado Anew," discourses in a dubious manner upon the effects of the discovery and the extent of the gold fields: "A terrible visitant we have had of late. A fever which has well-nigh de- populated a town, a town hard pressing upon a thousand souls, and but for the gracious inter- position of the elements, perhaps not a goose would have been spared to furnish a quill to pen the melancholy fate of the remainder. It has preyed upon defenseless old age, subdued the elasticity of careless youth and attacked indis- criminately sex and class, from town councilman to tow-frocked cartman, from tailor to tippler, of which, thank its pestilential powers, it has beneficially drained (of tipplers, we mean) every villainous pulperia in the place.

"And this is the gold fever, the only form of that popular southerner, yellow jack, with which we can be alarmingly threatened. The insatiate maw of the monster, not appeased by the easy conquest of the rough-fisted yeomanry of the north, must needs ravage a healthy, prosperous place beyond his dominion and turn the town topsy-turvy in a twinkling.

"A fleet of launches left this place on Sunday and Monday last bound up the Sacramento river, close stowed with human beings, led by love of filthy lucre to the perennial yielding gold mines of the north. When any man can find two ounces a day and two thousand men can find their hands full, of work, was there ever anything so superlatively silly !

"Honestly, though, we are inclined to believe the reputed wealth of that section of country, thirty miles in extent, all sham, a superb take-in as was ever got up to guzzle the gullible. But it is not improbable that this mine, or, properly, placer of gold can be traced as far south as the city of Los Angeles, where the precious metal has been found for a number of years in the bed of a stream issuing from its mountains, said

to be a continuation of this gold chain which courses southward from the base of the snowy mountains. But our best information respecting the metal and the quantity in which it is gath- ered varies much from many reports current, yet it is beyond a question that no richer mines of gold liave ever been discovered upon this con- tinent.

"Should there be no paper forthcoming on Saturday next, our readers may assure them- selves it will not be the fault of us individually. To make the matter public, already our devil has rebelled, our pressman (poor fellow) last seen was in search of a pickaxe, and we feel like Mr. Hamlet, we shall never again look upon the likes of him. Then, too, our compositors have, in defiance, sworn terrible oathis against type- sticking as vulgar and unfashionable. Hope has not yet fled us, but really, in the phraseology of the day, 'things is getting curious.'"

And things kept getting more and more curi- otis. The rush increased. The next issue of The Star (May 27) announces that the Sacra- mento, a first-class craft, left here Thursday last thronged with passengers for the gold mines, a motley assemblage, composed of lawyers, mer- chants, grocers, carpenters, cartmen and cooks, all possessed with the desire of becoming rich. The latest accounts from the gold country are highly flattering. Over three hundred men are engaged in washing gold, and numbers are con- tinually arriving from every part of the country. Then the editor closes with a wail: "Persons recently arrived from the country speak of ranches deserted and crops neglected and suf- fered to waste. The unhappy consequence of this state of affairs is easily foreseen. One more twinkle, and The Star disappeared in the gloom. On June 14 appeared a single sheet, the size of foolscap. The editor announced: "In fewer words than are usually employed in the an- nouncement of similar events, we appear before the remnant of a reading community on this occasion with the material or immaterial in- formation that we have stopped the paper, that its publication ceased with the last regular issue (June 7). On the approach of autumn, we shali again appear to announce The Star's redivus. We have done. Let our parting word be hasto

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luego." (Star and Californian reappeared No- vember 14, 1848. The Star had absorbed The Californian. E. C. Kemble was its editor and proprietor.)

Although there was no paper in existence on the coast to spread the news from the gold fields, it found its way out of California, and the rush from abroad began. It did not acquire great foree in 1848, but in 1849 the immigration to California exceeded all previous migrations in the history of the race.

Among the first foreigners to rush to the mines were the Mexicans of Sonora. Many of these had had some experience in placer mining in their native country, and the report of rich placers in California, where gold could be had for the picking up, aroused them from their lazy self-content and stimulated them to go in search of it. Traveling in squads of from fifty to one hundred, they came by the old Auza trail across the Colorado desert, through the San Gorgonio Pass, then up the coast and on to the mines. They were a job lot of immigrants, poor in purse and poor in brain. They were despised by the native Californians and maltreated by the Amer- ieans. Their knowledge of mining came in play, and the more provident among them soon man- aged to pick up a few thousand dollars, and then returned to their homes, plutocrats. The im- provident gambled away their earnings and re- mained in the country to add to its eriminal ele- ment. The Oregonians came in force, and all the towns in California were almost depopulated of their male population. By the close of 1848, there were ten thousand men at work in the mines.

The first official report of the discovery was sent to Washington by Thomas O. Larkin, June I, and reached its destination about the middle of September. Lieutenant Beale, by way of Mexico, brought dispatches dated a month later, which arrived about the same time as Larkin's report. These accounts were published in the eastern papers, and the excitement began.

In the early part of December, Lieutenant Loeser arrived at Washington with Governor Mason's report of his observations in the mines made in August. But the most positive evidence was a tea caddy of gold dust containing about

two hundred and thirty ounces that Governor Mason had caused to be purchased in the mines with money from the civil service fund. This the lieutenant had brought with him. It was placed on exhibition at the war office. Here was tan- gible evidence of the existence of gold in Cali- fornia, the doubters were silenced and the ex- citement was on and the rush began.

By the Ist of January, 1849, vessels were fit- ting out in every seaport on the Atlantic coast and the Gulf of Mexico. Sixty ships were an- nounced to sail from New York in February and seventy from Philadelphia and Boston. All kinds of erafts were pressed into the service, some to go by way of Cape Horn, others to land their passengers at Vera Cruz. Greytown and Chagres, the voyagers to take their chances on the Pa- eifie side for a passage on some unknown ves- sel.

With opening of spring, the overland travel began. Forty thousand men gathered at differ- ent points on the Missouri river, but principally at St. Joseph and Independence. Horses, mules, oxen and cows were used for the propelling power of the various forms of vehicles that were to convey the provisions and other impedimenta of the army of gold seekers. By the Ist of May the grass was grown enough on the plains to furnish feed for the stock, and the vanguard of the grand army of gold hunters started. For two months, company after company left the rendezvous and joined the procession until for one thousand miles there was an almost un- broken line of wagons and pack trains. The first half of the journey was made with little inconvenience, but on the last part there was great suffering and loss of life. The cholera broke out among them, and it is estimated that five thousand died on the plains. The alkali desert of the Humboldt was the place where the immigrants suffered most. Exhausted by the long journey and weakened by lack of food, many succumbed under the hardship of the des- ert journey and died. The erossing of the Sierras was attended with great hardships. From the loss of their horses and oxen, many were com- pelled to eross the mountains on foot. Their provisions exhausted, they would have perished but for relief sent out from California. The

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greatest sufferers were the woman and children, who in considerable numbers made the perilous journey.

The overland immigration of 1850 exceeded that of 1849. According to record kept at Fort Laramie, there passed that station during the season thirty-nine thousand men, two thousand five hundred women and six hundred children, making a total of forty-two thousand one hun- dired persons. These immigrants had with them when passing Fort Laramie twenty-three thou- sand horses, eight thousand mules, three thou- sand six hundred oxen, seven thousand cows and nine thousand wagons.

Besides those coming by the northern route, that is by the South Pass and the Humboldt river, at least ten thousand found their way to the land of gold by the old Spanish trail, by the Gila route and by Texas, Coahuila and Chihua- hua into Arizona, and thence across the Colo- rado desert to Los Angeles, and from there by the coast route or the San Joaquin valley to the mines.

The Pacific Mail Steamship Company had been organized before the discovery of gold in California. March 3, 1847, an act of Congress was passed authorizing the secretary of the navy to advertise for bids to carry the United States mails by one line of steamers between New York and Chagres, and by another line between Panama and Astoria, Ore. On the Atlantic side the contract called for five ships of one thousand five hundred tons burden, on the Pacific side two of one thousand tons each, and one of six hun- dred tons. These were deemed sufficient for the trade and travel between the Atlantic and Pacific coasts of the United States. The Pacific Mail Steamship Company was incorporated April 12, 1848, with a capital stock of $500,000. October 6, 1848, the California, the first steamer for the Pacific, sailed from New York, and was followed in the two succeeding months by the Oregon and the Panama. The California sailed before the news of the gold discovery had reached New York, and she had taken no passengers. When she arrived at Panama, January 30, 1849, she encountered a rush of fifteen hundred gold hunt- ers, clamorous for a passage. These had reached Chagres on sailing vessels, and ascended the

Chagres river in bongos or dugouts to Gor- gona, and from thence by land to Panama. The California had accommodations for only one hundred, but four hundred managed to find some place to stow themselves away. The price of tickets rose to a fabulous sum, as high as $1,000 having been paid for a steerage passage. The California entered the bay of San Francisco February 28, 1849, and was greeted by the boon of cannon and the cheers of thousands of people lining the shores of the bay. The other two steamers arrived on time, and the Pacific Mail Steamship Company became the predominant factor in California travel for twenty years, or up to the completion of the first transcontinental railroad in 1869. The charges for fare on these steamers in the early 'sos were prohibitory to men of small means. From New York to Chagres in the saloon the fare was $150, in the cabin $120. From Panama to San Francisco in the saloon, $250; cabin, $200. Add to these the expense of crossing the isthmus, and the argo- naut was out a goodly sum when he reached the land of the golden fleece, indeed, he was often fleeced of his last dollar before he entered the Golden Gate.

The first effect of the gold discovery on San Francisco, as we have seen, was to depopulate it, and of necessity suspend all building opera- tions. In less than three months the reaction began, and the city experienced one of the most magical booms in history. Real estate doubled in some instances in twenty-four hours. The Californian of September 3, 1848, says: "The vacant lot on the corner of Montgomery and Washington streets was offered the day previous for $5,000 and next day sold readily for $10,000." Lumber went up in value until it was sold at a dollar per square foot. Wages kept pace with the general advance. Sixteen dollars a day was mechanic's wages, and the labor market was not overstocked even at these high rates. With the approach of winter, the gold seekers came flock- ing back to the city to find shelter and to spend their suddenly acquired wealth. The latter was easily accomplished, but the former was more difficult. Any kind of a shelter that would keep out the rain was utilized for a dwelling. Rows of tents that circled around the business por-

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tion, shanties patched together from pieces of packing boxes and sheds thatched with brush from the chaparral-covered hills constituted the principal dwellings at that time of the future metropolis of California. The yield of the mines for 1848 has been estimated at ten million dollars. This was the result of only a few months' labor of not to exceed at any time ten thousand men. The rush of miners did not reach the mines until July, and mining opera- tions were mainly suspended by the middle of October.

New discoveries had followed in quick suc- cession Marshall's find at Coloma until by the close of 1848 gold placers had been located on all the principal tributaries of the Sacramento and San Joaquin rivers. Some of the richest yields were obtained from what was known as "Dry Diggins." These were dry ravines from which pay dirt had to be packed to water for washing or the gold separated by dry washing, tossing the earth into the air until it was blown away by the wind, the gold, on account of its weight, remaining in the pan.

A correspondent of the Californian, writing August 15, 1848, from what he designates as "Dry Diggins," gives this account of the rich- ness of that gold field: "At the lower mines (Mormon Island) the miners count the success of the day in dollars; at the upper mines near the mill (Coloma), in ounces, and here in pounds. The only instrument used at first was a butcher knife, and the demand for that ar- ticle was so great that $40 has been refused for one.

"The earth is taken out of the ravines which make out of the mountains and is carried in wagons or packed on horses from one to three miles to water and washed. Four hundred dol- lars is the average to the cart load. In one in- stance five loads yielded $16,000. Instances are known here where men have carried the earth on their backs and collected from $800 to $1,500 a day."

The rapidity with which the country was ex- plored by prospectors was truly remarkable. The editor of the Californian, who had sus- pended the publication of his paper on May 29 to visit the mines, returned and resumed it on July 15 (1848). In an editorial in that issue he gives his observations: "The country from the Ajuba (Yuba) to the San Joaquin rivers, a dis- tance of one hundred and twenty miles, and from the base toward the summit of the moun- tains as far as Snow Hill, about seventy miles, has been explored, and gold found in every part. There are probably three thousand men, including Indians, engaged in collecting gold. The amount collected by each man who works ranges from $10 to $350 per day. The publisher of this paper, while on a tour alone to the min- ing district, collected, with the aid of a shovel, pick and pan, from $44 to $128 a day, averag- ing about $100. The largest piece of gold known to be found weighed four pounds." Among other remarkable yields the Californian reports these: "One man dug $12,000 in six days, and three others obtained thirty-six pounds of pure metal in one day."

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A history of California and an extended history of its southern coast counties, also containing biographies of well-known citizens of the past and present, Volume I, Part 26

Author: Guinn, James Miller, 1834-1918 Publication date: 1907 Publisher: Los Angeles, Cal., Historic record company Number of Pages: 1184

Author: Guinn, James Miller, 1834-1918
Publication date: 1907
Publisher: Los Angeles, Cal., Historic record company
Number of Pages: 1184