USA > California > California gold book : first nugget, its discovery and discoverers, and some of the results proceeding therefrom > Part 6
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ish tin miners to emigrate to New South Wales, and there obtain gold from the alluvial soil.
In 1841, Rev. W. B. Clarke was making a geological survey for the colony. He picked up a piece of quartz containing gold, as he afterwards testified, and the weight of one specimen was about a penny-weight; it was what might be termed a fair sample. That bit of quartz was found at the head of the Winburndale val- ley and in the granite westward and of the Vale of Clwyd.
In 1846, a very considerable piece of gold was brought to the notice of the colonial government by a Mr. Smith, who demanded an "adequate reward " for his discovery. Investigation proved that a shepherd had found the lump of gold by accident, and after- wards sold it to a Mr. Troppet, who sold it to Mr. Smith, and none of the parties could indicate whence the gold came with any degree of definiteness.
This was the true state of knowledge about gold in Australia, when news of the discovery of gold in Cali- fornia reached the Australian colonies. At first it was not believed to have any foundation in truth. The news created no unusual excitement until a vessel from California arrived in Sydney having twelve hundred ounces of gold on board. Then every one went wild. The Mr. Hargraves we have named had been in hard luck most of the twenty-two years he had spent in the colony, and the great mass of the inhabitants com- plained of the same kind of experience. Conclusive evidence that there was gold in California, a place of which not one of them had any previous knowledge, except that it was somewhere across the sea, set all the adventurous spirits crazy with excitement. In July,
4
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1849, the British barque Elizabeth Archer sailed with 168 passengers, eight of whom were cabin pas- sengers, and one of the latter was E. H. Hargraves, the keen observer of rocks and soil. At the end of seventy- eight days the Archer cast anchor in San Francisco, and as soon as possible passengers and crew were off to the mines, every one of them deserting the barque tlie night of her arrival. In this chapter we have nothing to do with the vascillating fortunes of the miners. As soon as Hargraves and the eight others who had joined fortunes with him got a location, they tried recovering gold by washiing the gravel in pans. This method was unsatisfactory, and they bought a second-hand rocker which had been introduced by the " Georgia miner," no other than our friend Jennie Wimmer. Even then, without special instruction as to its use, "eight of us worked hard the whole day, and returned to our tent at night, covered with mud from head to foot, with the scanty earnings of twelve shillings, or eighteen pence each." When posted as to how they worked the cradle in Georgia, they were rewarded with an average of six dollars a day to the man.
But the rocks and the soil had a more startling effect on Hargraves than present success or failure. " My attention," he says, " was naturally drawn to the form and geological structure of the surrounding country ; and it soon struck me that I had some eighteen years before traveled through a country very similar to the one I was now in. In New South Wales, I said to my- self, there are the same class of rocks, slates, quartz, granite and soil, and every thing else that appears necessary to constitute a gold field. Hargraves under- took to argue his companions into a belief that there
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might be gold in Australia. He was laughed at, and told that many trained geologists had passed over those fields, and if gold was there some of these men whose business it was to read the rocks and reveal the secrets they contained must inevitably have discovered it. Thus Hargraves secured no sympathizers in his hopes ; nevertheless, nothing disheartened, on March 5, 1850, he wrote to S. Peck, a merchant of Sydney :
"I am very forcibly impressed that I have been in a gold region in New South Wales, within 300 miles of Sydney ; and unless you knew how to find it, you might live for a century in its region and know nothing of its existence."
It will be noticed that he gives Mr. Peck no idea of the direction of the supposed gold region from Sydney nor its distance, only that it was within "300 miles." Till the following November Mr. Hargraves engaged in mining, and did as well as a reasonable man could hope to. "But the greater our success was," he writes, " the more anxious did I become to put my own per- suasion of the existence of gold in New South Wales to the test. In a few days afterward I set sail for Port Jackson in the barque Emma, Captain Devlin, bent on making that discovery which had so long occupied my thoughts, and reached the place early in January, 1851."
Mr. Hargraves says : " The Georgia miner taught the people in the first instance how to obtain the gold by washing, but for which in all probability, notwitn- standing what had been found of it, the story of its discovery might have passed away and become an idle tale, like that of the shepherd who found gold near Wellington, in New South Wales, thirteen years
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before; for neither Captain Sutter nor Mr. Marshall knew how to obtain it, except by picking it up with their fingers."
Mr. Hargraves says that it was with an anxious heart that he landed in Sydney, in Jannary, 1851. He felt positive that there were rich placer mines in New South Wales, and he had expressed this earnest belief to every friend and acquaintance since his first experience in the mines of California. From not a single one had he received any encouragement, and from most jeers and indirect insult.
February 5th he set out on horse-back for the point where he intended to make his first explorations. February 10th, he reached Guyong. There he received his first words of encouragement, and they were from a woman. Mrs. Lister was the keeper of the hotel. She was a lady of refinement, and was forced into such an occupation by reverses of fortune. As Mr. Hargraves required a guide, it became necessary to inform Mrs. Lister of the object of his visit. She entered into the scheme with enthusiasm, and sent her young son to show him the most direct route to the points he wished to reach. Fifteen miles from Guyong, February 12, 1851, Mr. Hargraves washed his first pan of dirt, found gold, and in his excitement, said to his young guide : "This is a remarkable day in the history of New South Wales. I shall be a baronet, you shall be knighted, and my old horse will be stuffed, put in a glass case, and sent to the British Museum." On returning to the Inn that night, Mrs. Lister rejoiced with Hargraves on his fortunate discovery.
From Guyong Mr. Hargraves proceeded to the Wel- lington district, where the sheepherder Macgregor,
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had found the gold. There his friend, a Mr. Cruik- shank, had settled. He was a man of prominence and intelligence. Without absolutely discrediting the reports of Hargraves, his friend tried to dissuade him from wasting his time in a hopeless enterprise. Not so Mrs. Cruikshank. She was sanguine that he would succeed. Almost at their very door a pan of dirt was taken, and on washing it, gold was discovered. Again his only encouragement came from a woman, and she declared her intention of continuing to explore the sands until she had procured gold enough to make all the rings required to satisfy her pardonable vanity.
Mr. Hargraves had an idea that the Crown ought to liberally reward the first practical discoverer of gold. To the end that he might obtain such reward, he returned to Sidney. The colonial secretary was a Mr. Deal Thomson. To him Hargraves reported at once, showing him a quantity of fine gold which he had washed from the sands on the Crown lands. Mr. Thomson doubted the truth of the story, remarking " That it was very strange the government geologist had not found it, if it existed in natural deposit." He said further : " If this is a gold country, Mr. Hargraves, it would stop the home government from sending us any more convicts, and prevent emigration to Cal- ifornia ; but it comes on us like a clap of thunder, and weare scarcely prepared to credit it."
The next day, April 3, 1851, Mr. Hargraves made the following proposition to the colonial secretary :
" I have the honor to submit, for the early consider- ation of the government, the following propositions : That if it should please the government to award to me, in the first instance, the sum of £500 as a compensa-
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tion, I would point out the localities to any officer or officers they may appoint, and would undertake to rea- lize to the government my representations, and would leave it to the generosity of the government, after the importance of my discoveries and disclosures have been ascertained, to make me an additional reward commensurate with the benefit likely to accrue to the government and the country."
April 15th the colonial secretary sent Mr. Har- graves the following answer:
" In reply to your letter of the 3rd inst., I am direc- ted by the governor to inform you that his excellency cannot say more at present than that the remuneration for the discovery of gold on Crown land, referred to by you, must depend upon its nature and value when made known, and be left to the liberal consideration which the government will be disposed to give it."
Before leaving the mines to serve notice of discovery upon the colonial government, and try to make terms with it, Mr. Hargraves had shown how to construct and use the cradle introduced into California by Jennie Wimmer. When he got back to the mines some ten thousand pounds of gold had been taken out where he first discovered it by the few who had heard of the discovery, and the news of it was spreading on the wings of the wind. Later Mr. Hargraves was awarded ten thousand pounds sterling by the government, and many valuable presents of plate and jewelry by firms, clubs and individuals. He was also appointed commis- sioner of crown land, at a salary of twenty shillings per diem. In 1854 he published " Australia and its Gold Fields," which had a good sale. He was after- ward knighted and pensioned for life.
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Considering the vast amounts of treasure recovered from the rocks and valleys of the Australian colonies, and the fact that it was directly due to the discoveries made by E. H. Hargraves, his reward would seem insignificant, though much superior to anything ten- dered the discoverers of gold in California, to which all the gold discovered since 1848 is almost directly attributable. Yet Mr. Hargraves bears testimony to the encouragement he received from Mrs. Lister and Mrs. Cruikshank, and gives only the proper credit to the " Georgia miner," who was none other than Mrs. Jennie Wimmer. Thus, ridicule it as man may, to the "woman whom Thou gavest " is Christianity, civiliza- tion and commerce indebted for the wonderful impetus given them by the discovery of gold in California, and not less that which took place with the discovery of gold in the Australasian colonies.
CHAPTER XII.
GOLD.
"The love of money is the root of all evil." "Gold is the mother of all good." This apparent paradox takes nothing from the absolute truth of each state- ment. Love of money, and the wise expenditure of wealth, have nothing in common. Tracing the animal man back through the ages, his grandest achievements and his highest development are found in close prox- imity to a gold mine. Rarely has a nation been prom- inent in art and science, and the results of civilization, which has not had stores of the yellow metal to draw upon, and in those rare exceptions the people had
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invaded the strongholds of other nations, and carried off the gold accumulated by them during centuries. The Temple at Jerusalem would never have been rebuilt, had not Solomon been able to draw upon the mines of Ophir. The golden sands from the blackness in "darkest Africa " have shed a blessed light over the people of the earth, and there can be no renewal of the sad scenes comprised in the centuries of " Dark Ages," unless again gold becomes almost unknown among men. In all the past, when civilization and progress seemed subsiding into the gloomy unknown, it is a fact that the known veins of precious metal had given out, and no new ones were being discovered. New gold fields would light afresh the fires of Christian zeal and philanthropy, and thereupon the sun would shine with new brilliancy in the firmament over human advance- ment. God will never close His ears and eyes utterly to the wants of men. When progress is threatened with complete stoppage, then the beneficent finger points out the means for its revival, and humanity moves on to the higher and happier plane.
Gold was not abundant in 1848. The world needed a new supply. The census returns of the living nations indicated a far more rapid increase in population than in the gold that would be needed to meet expanding requirements. The discovery came exactly at the right time, and the flow was so abundant that for a time gold was the cheapest known commodity in California, and later, in the gold producing localities of the Aus- tralasian colonies. In some places lumber was sold by the pound, and fifty cents per pound at that; flour at three dollars per pound, and other things in proportion. The times were financially unhealthy, and always are
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when life's necessities cost anything approaching their weight in gold. Equally at outs are the times when only labor is cheap.
Gold was discovered at Coloma, January 19, 1848. So doubtful was Marshall of the value of his discovery that he made no effort to provethat it was gold he had found for several days after. It was forty miles to Sutter Fort, and a test could not be made nearer. As he had not been at the Fort for some time, he made a trip required by other matters, and in no degree influ- enced by the specimens of metal carried in his pocket. This fact is important as showing that only Jennie Wimmer had confidence in the value of the metal. There are other facts which appear peculiar at this distance from the discovery. Not later than the first week in February, Captain Sutter and Marshall were back at the mill, and the discovery of gold was made known to all the men. The "Georgia miner" had superintended the construction and operating of rockers. Gold was being secured in quantity. Considerable was soon after sent to San Francisco, and went as low as $4 per ounce in exchange for supplies. Early in May the editor of the California Star went to the mines, presumably to gather facts of interest to his readers. He announced in his paper on May 6th, that he had re- turned, and on May 20th noticed the departure of a fleet of launches, " laden with superlatively silly people" on their way to the mines. Prospects, four months after the discovery, were of small moment, or facts were being withheld from the public for some inconceiv- able reason by Marshall and Captain Sutter, but the news was spread abroad with astounding celerity, and it was accepted at its full value by men of a class having no
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superiors. In every city in the north and south of America, companies were organized, and in many cases incorporated, for the development of mines in the far West. By the spring of 1849, more than thirty thou- sand brave and ambitious men had rendezvoused at Independence, Mo., Leavenworth, Kansas, St. Joseph, · Mo., and Council Bluffs, Ia., ready to attack the mys- teries of the plains as soon as vegetation began to send forth green shoots. Ninety-nine in every hundred of these would-be gold hunters had enjoyed the privi- leges of enlightened Christian homes. The great majority of them were not "crossing the Rubicon ;" were not going away to stay, and had no call to " burn their bridges behind them," as do desperate men who have declared war against morals and society, and are traveling under a banner inscribed "The world owes me a living." In a word, there never was a more patriotic and order-loving set of men engaged in any enterprise since the world began than the Argonauts of 1849, who had temporarily severed home ties, and from whose numbers come the members of the California pioneer class, be they scattered where they may to-day. It is not to the acts of men gathered from cultivated homes in the United States, or else- where, that the necessity for vigilance committees or the services of Judge Lynch originated. At first Cali- fornia had to receive all that came from the ends of the earth, no matter how desperate or depraved. A year or so later it could divide these undesirable characters with Victoria and New South Wales, and rejoice in the relief from the presence of numbers of the desperately bad, as well as the golden prosperity of the Australa- sian colonies.
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It is not our purpose to attempt a detail of the production of any camp in the State of California or on the Pacific coast. There is no day that we are not told substantially, " that the discoveries of 1848 were not specially important. If Marshall and his associates had not discovered gold, others would soon have done so." This is rather an unmanly way of shirking the ' responsibility which must ever attach to those who shared the blessings resulting from the discovery of gold, and yet ignored the claims of James W. Marshall and Jennie Wimmer until their cares and troubles were buried in the grave. The English government re- warded Hargraves generously immediately after his experience in California mines enabled him to point out the unsuspected wealth hidden in the sands of New South Wales, and the other Australasian colonies. Later, when his investments had proven his want of business judgment, and he was threatened with want, that government gave him a pension for his lifetime, and those who became prosperous through his discover- ies were exceedingly generous in their treatment of him. That is in marked contrast with the treatment accorded by the government and the great army of private beneficiaries to Marshall and Jennie Wimmer. No care was taken to provide for the old age and necessities of either, and the small sums given them were tendered as charity, and not as benefits they had earned a thousand times over. It was in consequence of such neglect, and the actual want of Mrs. Wimmer, and her equally infirm husband, that the first nugget of gold discovered passed into the hands of W. W. Allen in 1877, and was used by him with the National and State governments, and prominent pioneers, in vain
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efforts to obtain help for them. The genuineness of the nugget and the justness of the claims were acknowledged, but assistance was studiously withheld.
Surely these apologists for unparalleled neglect have never attempted to form an estimate of what the dis- covery of gold in California, and in Australia, which really hinged upon that, has accomplished for human- ity. Ten years after the mines of California and Australia had begun to pour the golden current into the channels of trade the world over, the life of the American Nation was attempted by the most for- midable and well organized force of brave and deter- mined men who ever rebelled against a parent gov- ernment. But for the prosperity and strength born of the addition of California and Australian gold to the wealth of the world, the United States would have been dismembered, and the ability of man for self-govern- ment would have become a matter of grave doubt among patriots. A little later war occurred between France and Germany, and the awful destruction of life and property, consequent upon active war, was cut short because one of the contesting parties could pay a war indemnity of one thousand millions of dollars in gold, a feat which would have been impossible for the combined nations of the globe prior to January 19, 1848.
In 1848 there were not more than two men in the United States reputedly worth as much as $1,000,000 each. To-day there are more than one hundred men and women in the single city of San Francisco who are individually worth more than that, and from seven to ten thousand in the United States; and it is not a rarity for single benevolent individuals to give from a quarter of a million up to found a college or
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university, or spend that much in some other direction for the improvement of mankind. In the same ratio has been the advances in science, manufactures, culti- vation of soil, production of lands, culture of minds prosperity of communities, conveniences of travel, intercourse of peoples, and ease and comfort in which men and women live. These advantages are not all confined to the limits of the United States, though far more evenly distributed among her citizens than elsewhere.
The early miners of California depended entirely upon placer mining, or gold found in the sand and gravel along streams and gulches, or where the surface had been washed down from the mountains and deposi- ted on the flats for ages. For the first few years after the discovery there was no quartz mining. Even in 1850 it was estimated that only $40,000 was invested in quartz mining machinery in the whole State. The following is a list of the nuggets found, so far as known, which produced gold up into the thousands in value:
California has yielded many large and beautiful "nuggets" of gold, but for the size of her chunks of gold, Australia leads the world, at least in modern times, and there is no record of the big finds of the miners of ancient times in the nugget line. Though California has not produced very many nuggets of the great size of a few of the largest found in Australia, she has yielded an immense number of very large " chunks" of gold and of pieces of curious and beautiful shapes, treasured by miners as "specimens", and of larger sizes than the pieces called "chispas." Indeed, California ranks as a coarse gold region, coarse gold
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being found in almost every camp in the state, whereas in many countries, even in most all other places in the United States, nearly all the gold found is in the shape of fine dust or very small grains.
The first big lumps of gold found in California crea- ted great excitement among the miners. They at once began picturing in imagination masses of gold larger than could be lifted by a dozen men. It was a common camp-fire amusement. There were afloat stories of men sitting down to starve by huge golden boulders rather than risk leaving their finds to go in search of transportation facilities.
The first nugget of sufficient size to create more than a mere local sensation was found by a young man who was a soldier in Stevenson's regiment. It is related that he found it in the Mokelumne river while in the act of taking a drink from the stream. The nugget weighed nearly twenty-five pounds. The finder at once hasten. ed to San Francisco with his prize, where he placed it in the hands of Colonel Mason for safe keeping. The big lump was sent to New York, and placed on exhi- bition. It created a furor and was probably the cause of many a man striking out for California.
The largest mass of gold ever found in California was that dug out at Carson Hill, Calaveras county, in 1854. It weighed 195 pounds. Other lumps weigh- ing several pounds were found at the same place.
August 18, 1860, W. A. Farish and Harry Warner took from the Monumental quartz mine, Sierra county, a mass of gold and quartz weighing 133 pounds. It was sold to R. B. Woodward, of San Francisco, for $21, 635.52. It was exhibited at Woodward's gardens for some time, then was melted down. It yielded gold to the value of $17,654.94.
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August 4, 1853, Ira A. Willard found on the West branch of Feather river a nugget weighing fifty-four pounds avoirdupois before, and 49} pounds after melting.
A nugget dug at Kelsey, El Dorado county, was sold for $4,700. In 1864 a nugget was found in the Middle fork of the American river two miles from Michigan Bluff, that weighed eighteen pounds, ten ounces, and was sold for $4,204 by the finder.
In 1850 at Corona, Tuolumne county, was found a gold quartz nugget which weighed 151 pounds 6 ounces. Half a mile east of Columbia, Tuolumne county, near the Knapp ranch, a Mr. Strain found a nugget which weighed 50 pounds avoirdupois. It yielded $8,500 when melted. In 1849 was found in Sullivan's creek, Tuolumne county, a gold brick that weighed twenty- eight pounds avoirdupois.
In 1871 a nugget was found in Kanaka creek, Sierra county, that weighed ninety-eight pounds. At Rattle- snake creek, the same year, a nugget weighing 106 pounds 2 ounces, was found. A quartz boulder found in French gulch, Sierra county, in 1851, yielded $8,000 in gold.
In 1867 a boulder of gold quartz was found at Pilot Hill, El Dorado county, that yielded $8,000 when worked up. It was found in what was known as the " Boulder" claim, from which many smaller gold quartz nuggets have been taken at various times.
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