History of California, Volume VI, Part 12

Author: Bancroft, Hubert Howe
Publication date: 1885-1890
Publisher: San Francisco, Calif. : The History Company, publishers
Number of Pages: 816

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109

AUTHORITIES.

17, 1848; Hayes' Coll. Mining Cal., i. 1, 50; Id., Coll. Mining Scraps, v. 2, 3, 17, 175; Id., Coll. Cal. Notes, iii. 7-8; v. 17; Barry's Up and Down, 92 -3; Robinson's Cal. and its Gold Regions, 17-27, 47-8; Id., Life in Cal., 190; Duflot de Mofras, Expl. Or. et Cal., i. 137; Wilkes' Narr. U. S. Ex. Exped., v. 181, 190, 195; Dally's Narr., MS., 53; Osio, Hist. Cal., MS., 506; Bigler's Diary of a Mormon, MS., passim; Vallejo, Docs, MS., i. 140-1, 369-70; xii. 332; Gillespie's Vig. Com., MS., passim; Alvarado, Hist. Cal., MS., i. 77; iv. 161; Sutter's Pers. Rem., MS., passim; Id., Diary, MS., passim; Burnett's Recoll. Past, MS. i .- ii. passim; Amador, Memorias, MS., 177-80; Larkin's Docs, MS., i. 116; iii. 98; iv. 318; v. 25; vi. passim; vii. 28, 80; Id., Off. Corresp., MS., i. 96; ii. 151-41; Carson's Early Recoll., passim; Polynesian, iv. 114, 137; v. passim; Crosby's Events in Cal., MS., 2, 3, 17-19; Hittell's Handbook Mining, passim; Frisbie's Reminiscences, MS., 30-32, 34-36.

CHAPTER VII.

BROADER EFFECTS OF THE GOLD DISCOVERY.

1848-1849.

THE REAL EFFECTS ETERNAL-HOW THE INTELLIGENCE WAS CARRIED OVER THE SIERRA-TO THE HAWAIIAN ISLANDS-BRITISH COLUMBIA-OREGON AND WASHINGTON -- THE TIDINGS IN MEXICO-MASON'S MESSENGER IN WASHINGTON-CALIFORNIA GOLD AT THE WAR OFFICE-AT THE PHIL- ADELPHIA MINT-THE NEWSPAPER PRESS UPON THE SUBJECT-BIBLIOG- RAPHY-GREELEY'S PROPHECIES-INDUSTRIAL STIMULATION-OVERLAND AND OCEANIC ROUTES-GENERAL EFFECT IN THE EASTERN STATES AND EUROPE-INTEREST IN ASIA, SOUTH AMERICA, AND AUSTRALIA.

THE full and permanent effects of the California gold discovery cannot be estimated. All over the world impulse was given to industry, values changed, and commerce, social economy, and finance were rev- olutionized. New enlightenment and new activities succeeded these changes, and yet again followed higher and broader developments. It was the fore- runner of like great discoveries of the precious metals elsewhere, in Australia, in Nevada and Idaho and Montana, in British Columbia and Alaska. There had been nothing like it since the inpouring of gold and silver to Europe, following the discovery of the New World by Columbus. It is not in its fullest, broadest sense, however, that the subject is to be treated in this chapter. The grand results can only be appreciated as we proceed in our history. It is rather the reception of the news in the different parts of the world, and the immediate action taken upon it, that I will now refer to.

By various ways intelligence of the gold discovery

110

111

DISPERSION OF THE NEWS.

travelled abroad. The Mormons carried it over the Sierra, scattered it among the westward-bound emi- grants, and laid it before the people of Salt Lake, whence it passed on to the east. Definite notice was conveyed overland by the courier despatched specially by the people of San Francisco, on the 1st of April, 1848, to carry letters, and to circulate in the states east of the Mississippi the article prepared by Four- geaud on the Prospects of California, and printed in the California Star of several issues, in order to stim- ulate emigration.1

The first foreign excitement was produced in the Hawaiian Islands. With this western ocean rendez- vous San Francisco merchants had long maintained commercial relations, and they now turned thither for supplies incident to the increased demand growing out of the new development. By the intelligence thus conveyed, the hearts and minds of men were kindled into a glow such as Kilauea or Manua Haleakala never had produced.2

1 The recent discovery of Marshall played no part whatever in originating the article and the enterprise. A mere allusion was made to the finding of gold; and nothing more was thought of it than the known presence of a dozen other minerals, nor half so much as of the agricultural and manufacturing possibilities.

2 As a forerunner announcing the new Inferno, with two pounds of the metal as tangible proof, sailed from S. F. May 31st the Hawaiian schooner Louise, Menzies master, arriving at Honolulu the 17th of June. In a half- column article the editor of the Polynesian, of June 24th, makes known the facts as gathered from the California papers, and congratulates Honolulu merchants on the prospect of the speedy payment of debts due them by Cal- ifornians, 'probably not less than $150,000.' By the store-ship Matilda from New York to Honolulu, touching at Valparaiso, Callao, and Monterey, Mr Colton writes to Mr Damon, who publishes the letter in the Friend of July, with a few editorial comments. Afterward arrived the Spanish brig Flecha, Vasquez master, from Santa Barbara, the Hawaiian brig Euphemia, Vioget master, from S. F., and others. The Hawaiian schooner Mary, Belcham master, though sailing from S. F. before the Louise, did not arrive at Hono- lulu until the 19th. Ib., The Friend, July 1848. In its issue of July 8th, the Polynesian speaks of the rising excitement and the issuing of passports, except to absconding debtors, by the minister of foreign relations to those wishing to depart. 'The fever rages high here,' writes Samuel Varney, the 15th of July, to Larkin, 'and there is much preparation made for emigration.' La.kin's Docs, MS., vi. 145. The file of the Polynesian runs on as fol- lows: July 15th, one crowded vessel departed the 11th, and half a dozen others are making ready; 24 persons give notice of their intention to depart this kingdom; 200 will probably leave within two months if passage can be procured. Aug. 5th, 69 passports have been granted, and as many

112

BROADER EFFECTS OF THE GOLD DISCOVERY.

Before it could scale the northern mountains the news swept round to Oregon by way of Honolulu, and was thence conveyed by the Hudson's Bay people to Victoria and other posts in British Columbia, to forts Nisqually and Vancouver, reaching Oregon City early in August.3 The first doubts were dissipated by increased light upon the subject, and streams of popu- lation set southward, both by land and water, until more than half of Oregon's strength and sinew was emptied into California.4

more have left without passports. Aug. 26th, three vessels sailed within a week; one man set out in a whale-boat. Sept. 23d, excitement increases. A vessel advertises to sail, and immediately every berth is secured. Sept 30th, real estate a drug in the market. Business low; whole country changed. Books at an auction will not sell; shovels fetch high prices. Common saluta- tion, When are you off? Oct. 7th, the Lahaima sails with 40 passengers. Honolulu to sail the 9th, and every berth engaged. Heavy freight $40 per ton; cabin passage $100, steerage $80, deck $40. Oct. 21st, 27 vessels, ag- gregating a tonnage of 3,128, have left Honolulu since the gold discovery, carrying 300 Europeans, besides many natives. The Islands suffer in conse- quence. Oct. 28th, natives returning, some with $500. Five vessels to sail with 15 to 40 passengers each. The Sandwich Island News of Aug. 17th states that upward of 1,000 pickaxes had been exported from Honolulu. The excitement continued in 1849, when, according to Placer Times, June 2, 1849, nine schooners and brigs, and a score of smaller craft, were fitting out for Cal. The Friend, vii. 21, viii. 23, speaks of more than one party of sailors absconding in small craft.

3 In the Willamette about that time, loading with flour, was a S. F. vessel, the Honolulu, whose master knew of it, but kept it to himself until his cargo was secured. In searching the files current of the Hawaiian journals, I find among the departures for the north the following: June Sth, the American brig Eveline, Goodwin master, for Oregon, too early for definite information; June 20th, Russian bark Prince Menshikoff, Lindenberg, for Sitka; July 5th, Ameri- can bark Mary, Knox master, for Kamchatka; and July 15th, H. B. M. brig Pandora, destination unknown, and English brig Mary Dare, Scarborough master, for the Columbia River. It was undoubtedly by this ship that the news was brought, and the fact of her clearance for the Columbia River did not prevent her first visiting Nisqually. Mr Burnett is probably mistaken in saying that he heard of it in July; as that, according to his own statement, would allow but a fortnight for the transmission of the news from the Islands to the Willamette River-not impossible, but highly improbable. See Hist. Oregon, vol. i. chap. xxxiv., this series; Crawford's Nar., MS., 166; Victor's River of the West, 483-5; Californian, Sept. 2, 1848.

4 Estimated white population of Oregon, midsummer, 1848, 10,000. 'I think that at least two thirds of the population of Oregon capable of bearing arms left for Cal. in the summer and fall of 1848.' Burnett's Rec., MS., i. 325. A letter from L. W. Boggs to his brother-in-law, Boon, in Oregon, carried weight and determined many. By the end of the year, says the Oregon Spec- tator, 'almost the entire male and a part of the female population of Oregon has gone gold-digging in California." Gov. Abernethy, writing to Col. Ma- son Sept. ISth, said that not less than 3,000 men had left the Willamette Valley for Cal. Arch. Cal., Unbound Docs, MS., 141. Star and Cal., Dec. 9, 1848, assumes that about 2,000 arrived in 1848. One of the first parties to set out-the first, indeed with vehicles, and preceded only by smaller com-

113

THE NEWS IN MEXICO.

Mexico, particularly in her northern part, though crushed by the late war, still shared the distemper. "The mania that pervades the whole country, our camp included," writes an army officer, "is beyond all description or credulity. The whole state of So- nora is on the move, large parties are passing us in gangs daily, and say they have not yet started." Indeed, but for national indolence and intervening deserts, the movement might have far surpassed the 4,000 which left before the spring of 1849.5

panies with pack-animals-consisted of 150 men, with 50 wagons and ox-teams, a supply of provisions for six months, and a fall assortment of tools and im- plements. This expedition was organized at Oregon City, early in Sept., by Peter H. Burnett, afterward gov. of Cal. It followed the Applegate route eastward toward Klamath Lake, thence along Lassen's trail from Pit River, entering the Sac. Valley near the mouth of Feather River, and reaching the mines in Nov. This was the general direction; though as usual on such occa- sions, the party differed in opinion as to the route to be followed, and divided before the end of their journey. Burnett, Recollections, MS., i. 323-70, gives a detailed account of the trip. Gen. Palmer, Wagon Trains, MS., 43, and A. L. Lovejoy, Portland, MS., 27-8, who were also prominent members of the expedition, give briefer narratives. The points of difference are, that according to Burnett the expedition was organized in the beginning of Sept. and struck south at Klamath Lake, while Palmer says that, starting in July, the party reached Goose Lake before a southern course was taken. One family accompanied the train. Tom. Mckay acted as guide. Barnes' Or. and Cal., MS., 11. Another large party left Oregon City in Sept. on board the brig Henry, and reached S. F. the same month, consequently in advance of the land expedition. Taylor's Oregonians, MS., 1-2. Both of these early companies were soon followed by others. 'In 1848 [the month is not given], the mining engineer in the Russian Colony, Doroshin, was sent to Cal. with a number of men to open a gold mine, if possible, in the placer regions. In three months he obtained 12 lbs, but did not continue the work, as he feared that his men would run away.' Golovnin, Voyage, in Materialin, pt ii. Doug- las was on board the Mary Dare, the vessel which brought the information from the Island, but gave it little attention until he saw the people of the north rapidly sinking sonthward, when he began to fear for his men. Some of them did leave, but the Hudson's Bay Company was a difficult association to get away from. Finlayson, Hist. V. I., MS., 30, 44, tells the oft-repeated story of deserted vessels, and other abandonment of duty, which forced him to draw for seamen and laborers more largely on the natives. Anderson, Northwest Coast, MS., 27, 37, first saw an account of the discovery 'in a pri- vate letter to Mr Douglas, who had just returned from a trip to the Sandwich Islands.'

5 Coutts' Diary, MS., 113. And the captain goes on to say, in a strain ob- viously exaggerated: 'Naked and shirt-tailed Indians and Mexicans, or Cal- ifornians, go and return in 15 or 20 days with over a pound of pure gold each per day, and say they had bad luck and left.' Velasco, Son., 289-91, writes, 'Sin temor de equivocacion,' 5,000 or 6,000 persons left Sonora between Oct. 1848 and March 1849. Yet he reduces this to 4,000, whereof one third re- mained in Cal. In Sonorense, Mar. 2, 23, 28, 30, Apr. 18, May 11, the exodus for Jan. to Feb. 1849 is placed at 1,000, and 700 were expected to pass through from other states. During the spring of 1830, 5,893 left, taking 14,000 animals. Id., Apr. 26, 1850. Up to Nov. 1849 over 4,000 left. Pinart, HIST. CAL., VOL. VI. 8

114

BROADER EFFECTS OF THE GOLD DISCOVERY.

The news wafted across the continent upon the tongues of devout Mormons, and by the Fourgeaud messenger, was quickly followed by confirmatory ver- sions in letters, and by travellers and government couriers." The first official notice of the discovery was sent by Larkin on June Ist, and received at Washington in the middle of September.7 At the same time further despatches, dated a month later, were brought in by Lieutenant Beale via Mexico.8

Some of these appeared in the New York Herald and other journals, together with other less author- itative statements; but the first to create general attention was an article in the Baltimore Sun of Sep- tember 20th; after which all the editors vied with each other in distributing the news, exaggerated and garnished according to their respective fancies and love of the marvellous.9 Such cumulative accounts,

Coll., MS., iv. 174, no. 1035; U. S. Gov. Docs, 31st cong. 2d sess., H. Ex. Doc. i., pt ii. 77. Diary of two parties, in Soc. Mex. Geog., Bol., xi. 126-34; Hayes' Diary, MS., 1-7, 82-100. Gov. Gandara sought in vain to check the exodus by warning the people that Mexicans were maletreated in Cal., etc. Sonorense, Feb. 2, 21, Oct. 26, 1849. A letter from San Jose, Lower Cal., tells of closed houses and families consisting only of women and children. The first caravan left in Oct. Many went by sea.

6 There was a Mr Gray from Virginia at Sutter's Fort, the 16th of April, 1848, who had purchased for himself and associates a silver mine in the San José Valley. Sutter presented to him specimens of the gold, with which he started eastward across the mountains. So Sutter enters in his diary. Rogers begins a letter to Larkin Sept. 14th, 'Since I wrote you by the gov- ernment messenger, and in duplicate by the Isthmus'-which shows how letters were then sent. Larkin's Docs, MS., vi. 177. No mention is herein made of the receipt of the intelligence of the gold discovery. Sherman, Mem., i. 47, gives no date when he says of Kit Carson, who had carried occasional mails, 'He remained at Los Angeles some months, and was then sent back to the U. S. with despatches.'

" Larkin's Docs, MS., vi. 185. This letter of Larkin, Childs, through whom his correspondence passed, answered the 27th of Sept., sending his reply by Mr Parrott, by way of Vera Cruz and Mazatlan.

8 He had left Monterey about July Ist for La Paz in the flag-ship Ohio, carrying letters from Larkin of June 28th and July Ist to Buchanan and Com. Jones, the latter sending his on to the sec. of the navy with a note of July 28th. All these letters were printed by government, and accompanied the president's message of Dec. 5th. I have referred elsewhere to the over- land express which was despatched by way of Salt Lake in April 1848, chiefly for carrying a newspaper edition on the resources of California. G. M. Evans' erroneous account of this mail in the Oregon Bulletin has been widely copied. Instance the Mendocino Democrat, Feb. 1, 1872, and the Lake County Bee, March 8, 1873. Crosby's Events in Cal., MS., 2-3.

9 The N. Y. Journal of Commerce some time after published a communi- cation dated Monterey 29th of August, characteristic of the reports which

115

AT WASHINGTON CITY.

reëchoed throughout the country, could not fail in their effect; and when in the midst of the growing excitement, in November or December, one more special messenger arrived, in the person of Lieuten- ant Loeser, with official confirmation from Governor Mason, embodied in the president's message of De- cember 5th to congress, and with tangible evidence in the shape of a box filled with gold-dust, placed on exhibition at the war office, delirium seized upon the community.10

now began to circulate. 'At present,' the writer remarks, speaking of gold- finding in California, 'the people are running over the country and picking it out of the earth here and there, just as 1,000 hogs, let loose in a forest, would root up ground-nuts. Some get eight or ten ounces a day, and the least active one or two. They make the inost who employ the wild Indians to hunt it for them. There is one man who has sixty Indians in his employ; his profits are a dollar a minute. The wild Indians know nothing of its value, and wonder what the pale-faces want to do with it; they will give an ounce of it for the same weight of coined silver, or a thimbleful of glass beads, or a glass of grog. And white men themselves often give an ounce of it, which is worth at our mint $18 or more, for a bottle of brandy, a bottle of soda powders, or a plug of tobacco. As to the quantity which the diggers get, take a few facts as evidence. I know seven men who worked seven weeks and two days, Sundays excepted, on Feather River; they employed on an average fifty Indians, and got out in these seven weeks and two days 275 pounds of pure gold. I know the men, and have seen the gold; so stick a pin there. ] know ten other men who worked ten days in company, employed no Indians, and averaged in these ten days $1,500 each; so stick another pin there. I know another man who got out of a basin in a rock, not larger than a wash- bowl, 22 pounds of gold in fifteen minutes; so stick another pin there! No one of these statements would I believe, did I not know the men personally, and know them to be plain, matter-of-fact men-men who open a vein of gold just as coolly as you would a potato-hill.' 'Your letter and those of others,' writes Childs from Washington, Sept. 27th, to Larkin, 'have been running through the papers all over the country, creating wonder and amazement in every mind.' Larkin's Docs, MS., vi. 185.

10 L. Loeser, lieutenant third artillery, was chosen to carry the report of Mason's own observations, conveyed in a letter dated Ang. 17th, together with specimens of gold-dust purchased at $10 an ounce by the quartermaster under sanction of the acting governor, with money from the civil fund. Sherman, Mem., i. 58, says 'an oyster-can full;' Mason, Revere's Tour, 242, 'a tea-caddy containing 230 oz., 15 dwts, 9 gr. of gold.' 'Sinall chest called a caddy, containing about $3,000 worth of gold in lumps and scales,' says the Washington Union, after inspection. Niles' Reg., Ixxiv. 336. To Payta, Peru, the messenger proceeded in the ship Lambayecana, chartered for the purpose from its master and owner, Henry D. Cooke, since governor of the district of Columbia and sailing from Monterey the 30th of Aug. At Payta, Loeser took the English steamer to Panamá, crossed the Isthmus in Oct., proceeded to Kingston, Jamaica, and thence by sailing vessel to New Orleans, where he tele- graphed his arrival to the war department. On the 24th of November, about which time he reached N. O., the Commercial Times of that city semi-offi- cially confirmed the rumors, claiming to have done so on the authority of Loeser. S. H. Willey, Personal Memoranda, MS., 20-1, a passenger by the Falcon, thinks it was on Friday, Dec. 14th, that he first heard the news, and

116

BROADER EFFECTS OF THE GOLD DISCOVERY.

The report of Colonel Mason, as indorsed by the president, was published, either at length or in sub- stance, in the principal newspapers throughout the world.11 From this time the interest in California and her gold became all-absorbing, creating a rest- lessness which finally poured a human tide into San Francisco Bay, and sent hundreds of caravans over the plains and mountains.

The political condition gave impulse to the move- ment, for men's minds were unsettled everywhere: in

that Loeser was there at the time. 'I saw Lieut Loeser,' he says, 'and the gold nuggets in his hand.' This is the time the Falcon was at N. O. And yet the president's message accompanied by Mason's report is dated Dec. 5th. Obviously Willey is mistaken in supposing Loeser to have arrived at N. O. after the Falcon's arrival; and to reconcile his statement at all, we must hold the messenger at N. O. exhibiting his gold nuggets on the streets for three weeks after his arrival, and for ten days after the information brought by him is sent by the president to congress. The report of Mason accompanying the president's message is given in U. S. Gov. Docs, 30th cong. 2d sess., H. Ex. Doc. 1, no. 37, 56-64. The president says: 'It was known that mines of the precious metals existed to a considerable extent in Cal. at the time of its acquisition. Recent discoveries render it probable that these mines are more extensive and valuable than was anticipated. The accounts of the abundance of gold in that territory are of such an extraordinary character as would scarcely command belief were they not corroborated by the authentic reports of officers in the public service, who have visited the mineral district, and derived the facts which they detail from personal observation.' Sherman, Mem., i. 58, consequently errs in assuming that the report did not arrive in time for the message.

11 . We readily admit,' says the Washington Union the day after Loeser's arrival, ' that the account so nearly approached the miraculous that we were relieved by the evidence of our own senses on the subject. The specimens have all the appearance of the native gold we had seen from the mines of North Carolina and Virginia; and we are informed that the secretary will send the small chest of gold to the mint, to be melted into coin and bars, and most of it to be subsequently fashioned into medals commemorative of the heroism and valor of our officers. Several of the other specimens he will re- tain for the present in the war office as found in Cal., in the form of lumps, scales, and sand; the last named being of different hues, from bright yellow to black, without much appearance of gold. However sceptical any nian may have been, we defy him to doubt that if the quantity of such specimens as these be as great as has been represented, the value of the gold in Cal. must be greater than has been hitherto discovered in the old or new continent; and great as may be the emigration to this new El Dorado, the frugal and industrious will be amply repaid for their enterprise and toil.' On the Sth of Dec., David Garter, from S. F., took to the Phil. mint the first deposit of gold, on which Director Patterson reported that it was worth some cents over $IS an ounce. Assays of specimens sent to private persons gave similar results. Sherwood's Cal .; Pioneer Arch., 161-7; Brooks' His. Mex. War, 535. Garter's deposit in the Phil. mint was made the Sth of Dec., and that of the sec. of war on the 9th. The former consisted of 1, 804.59 ounces. and the latter of 228 ounces. It averaged .894 fine. Letter of Patterson to Walker, Dec. 11, 1848.

117

INFORMATION WANTED.

Europe by wars and revolutions, which disturbed all the regions from the Sicilies in the south to Ireland and Denmark in the north; in the United States, by the late war with Mexico, and the consequent acquisition of im- mense vacant and inviting territories. This especially had given zest to the spirit of adventure so long fos- tered in the States by the constant westward advance of settlements; and the news from the Pacific served really to intensify the feeling and give it a definite and common direction. The country was moreover in a highly prosperous condition, with an abundance of money, which had attracted a large immigration, and disbanded armies from Mexico had cast adrift a host of men without fixed aim, to whom a far less potent incentive than the present would have been all-suffi- cient. And so from Maine to Texas the noise of preparation for travel was heard in every town. The name of California was in every mouth; it was the current theme for conversation and song, for plays and sermons. Every scrap of information concerning the country was eagerly devoured. Old works that touched upon it, or even upon the regions adjoining, were dragged from dusty hiding-places, and eager purchase made of guide-books from the busy pen of cabinet travellers.12 Old, staid, conservative men and

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History of California, Volume VI, Part 12

Author: Bancroft, Hubert Howe Publication date: 1885-1890 Publisher: San Francisco, Calif. : The History Company, publishers Number of Pages: 816

Author: Bancroft, Hubert Howe
Publication date: 1885-1890
Publisher: San Francisco, Calif. : The History Company, publishers
Number of Pages: 816