40 The Indian population was ten times as large: Hurtado, Indian Survival, p. 100.
41 the number who made the overland trip: Unruh, Plains Across, tables I and II, p. 119.
42 “as lonely as men left swimming”: Stewart, California Trail, p. 217.
43 “There seemed to be an unending stream”: Johnston, Experiences, p. 79.
44 A group of gold-seekers from France: Gay, Marshall, p. 224.
45 A Rochester, New York, man: Bieber, “Mania.”
46 “California Gold Grease”: An advertisement for the magical ointment ran in the Richmond, Indiana, Palladium on Feb. 7, 1849. See also the Feb. 8, 2008, lecture by Gary Kurutz, one of the best-known gold rush historians, online at http://tinyurl.com/nd3ox5w.
47 “The rich for many years”: McNeil, Travels, p. 5. LC.
48 “not a rich country”: Lewis, Sea Routes, p. 7.
49 Barclay set out: Johnston, Experiences, p. 13.
50 “What makes you think”: “The Gold Hunter’s Farewell to his Wife,” quoted in Browning, ed., Golden Shore, p. 147.
51 “wholesome restraints of New England”: E. L. Cleaveland, “Hasting to Be Rich,” 1849.
52 “You know that I am in the prime”: White, ed., Buck, p. 26. LC.
53 “We are rather poor”: Roberts, American Alchemy, p. 85. See also Bonfield and Morison, Roxana’s Children, pp. 64–77.
54 “One June morning [in 1848]”: Mulford, Life, p. 5. LC.
55 Take every American in 1850: Haines, Michael R., and Richard H. Steckel. A Population History of North America, (New York: Cambridge University Press, 2000), table A-4, pp. 702–4.
56 “What would you do”: Author interview with Gary Kurutz, Mar. 5, 2012. Kurutz, for many years director of the Special Collections Branch of the California State Library, is the author of an immense and indispensable work called The California Gold Rush, which consists of commentary on every gold rush journal and diary.
Chapter Two: “I Believe I Have Found a Gold Mine!”
1 seventeen tons of gold: Meldahl, Rough-hewn Land, p. 38. Meldahl cites the figures for several years running: 17 tons in 1849, 68 tons in 1850, 126 tons in 1851, and 135 tons in 1852. He also provides a graph (p. 39) of California’s gold production from 1848 until today.
2 a trove of gold: Holliday, “Failure Be Damned: The Origin of California’s Risk-taking Culture.” This was a lecture delivered May 3, 2000, at the Milken Institute Forum.
3 “Neither moth nor rust”: Bernstein, The Power of Gold, p. 3.
4 Warren Buffett proclaimed: quoted on NPR, Marketplace, Dec. 8, 2010.
5 a lump the size of a sugar cube: Bernstein, Power, p. 3.
6 A golden stack five hundred leaves high: “Make Everything Golden,” Popular Science, June, 2005.
7 Gather up a billion atoms: Meldahl, Hard Road West, p. 265.
8 Gold for one wedding ring: Meldahl, Rough-hewn Land, p. 21. (Herrington explores the same analogy and comes up with a figure of 2,000 tons, but my own rough calculation tallies with Meldahl’s. See Richard Herrington, Gold, p. 8.)
9 “until through ill treatment they die”: Jackson J. Spielvogel, Western Civilization: To 1715 (Boston: Wadsworth, 2006), p. 102.
10 “on a plate of Japanese porcelain”: William Morrell, The Gold Rushes (New York: Macmillan, 1941), p. 54.
11 Bigler scrawled an entry: Paul, Discovery, pp. 32–35. Bigler’s account differs from Marshall’s in some important details, notably the date and whether the discovery was made in two stages (Bigler’s version) or in one (as Marshall had it).
12 “gold badly on the brain”: Owens, Saints, p. 114.
13 “I am no ordinary gentleman”: Lienhard, Pioneer, p. 155.
14 “all the Indians I could employ”: Owens, ed., John Sutter, p. 61.
15 “The harvest of weeks”: The startled eyewitness was California pioneer John Bidwell, who told his story in “Life in California Before the Gold Discovery,” Century Magazine, Dec., 1890.
16 “Gold Mine Found”: Californian, Mar. 15, 1848. The newspaper can be found online at http://tinyurl.com/mtzvpmh.
17 “we must use two v’s”: Bruce, Gaudy Century, p. 5.
18 “ruralize among the rustics”: California Star, Apr. 15, 1848. This edition of the Star is available at the California Newspaper Digital Collection. See http://tinyurl.com/q5l79kc.
19 Kemble concluded grumpily: California Star, May 20, 1848, which is online, as noted above.
20 “Men seemed to have gone insane”: Bieber, “Mania.”
21 California struck Young as too enticing: Owens recounted the clash between Brannan and Young, based on eyewitness accounts: “We have no business in San Francisco; the Gentiles will be there soon,” Young insisted. Brannan responded with complaints about Utah’s desolation. Young thumped the ground with his cane. “No sir, I am going to stop right here. I am going to build a city here. I am going to build a temple here, and I am going to build a country here.” See Saints, pp. 51–52.
22 “one of the poorest businessmen”: Hurtado, Sutter, p. xiii.
23 “That is money”: ibid., pp. 220–21.
24 “Gold, gold, gold, boys”: ibid, p. 220.
25 Brannan waved his hat: Bancroft, Works, v. 23, p. 56.
26 “a fleet of launches”: Kemble, California Star, May 20, 1848.
27 Carts with solid, wooden, Flintstone-style wheels: Bidwell, “Life in California,” Century Magazine, Dec., 1890.
28 “Still the public incredulity remained”: Colton, Three Years, p. 247.
29 “Three seamen ran”: ibid., p. 248.
30 “No hope of reward”: Thomas ap Catesby Jones, in a letter to the secretary of the navy on Nov. 2, 1848, reprinted in The American Quarterly Registry and Magazine 2 (Mar., 1849), p. 293.
31 “the struggle between right”: Bieber, “Mania.”
32 Fn A sailor’s life: Read and Gaines, eds., Gold Rush, p. 688.
33 In San Jose, the constable: Boessenecker, Gold Dust, p. 3.
34 “A hint to the wise”: Bieber, “Mania.”
Chapter Three: Headlong into History
1 “both Iliad and Odyssey”: Starr, Dream, p. 52.
2 Within six months of reaching California: Roth, “Public Health.”
3 “I took the fever”: Wing, Journal, p. 3.
4 “What seems to you mere fiction”: Browning, ed., Golden Shore, p. 34, quoting Walter Colton.
5 That meant two things: McWilliams, California, the Great Exception, p. 27. This is a paraphrase of an observation by McWilliams.
6 a hoe and spade: Buffum, Six Months in the Gold Mines, p. 79.
7 “nearly crazy with the riches”: Wyman, ed., Letters, p. 26.
8 Men told tales of barbers: This story is from a lecture by Gary Kurutz, an eminent gold rush historian, given on Feb. 8, 2008. Online at http://tinyurl.com/nd3ox5w.
9 “It was easier to dig”: Carson, Bright Gem, p. 9.
10 “By me soul”: Taylor, Eldorado, v. 2, p. 9. LC.
11 “gold all along the banks”: Downie, Hunting, p. 49.
12 for eleven stunning days in a row: Federal Writers’ Project, California, p. 477. Online at http://tinyurl.com/mz7d9p6.
13 One of Downie’s companions: Downie, Hunting, p. 48.
14 “The gold excitement spread”: Henry, ed., My Checkered Life, p. 11.
15 “the damndest scoundrel”: Ken Burns, The Civil War (New York: Random House, 1994), p. 74.
16 “embrace the earliest opportunity”: Read and Gaines, eds., Gold Rush, p. 684 fn. The biographical facts come from the fine introduction to this exemplary volume.
17 “We go as a body”: ibid., p. xxxiii.
18 “A jolly good fellow”: McKee, ed., Alonzo Delano’s California Correspondence, p. xxv.
19 a man who had reached the age of 250: Billington, “Words That Won the West 1830–1850.” This was a lecture delivered on Nov. 18, 1963, by Billington, a historian at the Huntington Library.
20 “I was suddenly
seized with the fever”: Delano, Journey, p. 14.
21 “a nomad denizen”: ibid., p. 13.
22 “no love for the good town of Turner”: Kaufman, ed., Apron Full of Gold, p. xiv.
23 “labored in Winthrop twelve years”: ibid., p. xvi.
24 a woman’s bonnet blowing in the breeze: Letts, California Illustrated, p. 89, introduces his story as “an anecdote almost universally told,” but Gary Kurutz, an authority on gold rush history, presents the story as bizarre but factual. See Kurutz, “Popular Culture on the Golden Shore,” in Starr and Orsi, eds., Barbarous Soil, p. 296.
25 “Asses, asses all”: Liles, ed., Journey, p. 124.
26 “They’ve left me here to starve and die”: ibid., p. 120.
27 “A Christian man who went to California”: ibid., p. 387.
28 “the mountainous billows”: McNeil, Travels, p. 9.
29 “There is sometimes in the American metaphors”: Marryat, Diary, p. 151.
30 “He can’t see through a ladder”: Martineau, Society in America, v. 1, p. 250.
31 “Oh, if we could kiss”: Roberts, American Alchemy, p. 194.
32 Fn This was a prudish age: Bonfield and Morison, Roxana’s Children, p. 66.
33 “At 4 this morning”: Merrill and Kirk, eds., From Ohio to California, p. 302.
34 “plain American which cats and dogs can read!”: The line is from Marianne Moore’s poem “England.” Edward Hirsch discusses Moore and the “plain American” voice in How to Read a Poem (New York: Harcourt Brace, 1999), p. 11.
35 “the trials I have endured”: Kaufman, ed., Apron, p. xix.
36 “a rather unmated couple”: Read and Gaines, eds., Gold Rush, p. xx.
37 Attributed to “Isaac Lord”: Liles, ed., Journey, p. xi.
38 “Our servants have run”: Colton, Three Years, p. 248.
39 “Interesting Narrative of the Voyage”: reprinted in Browning, ed., Golden Shore, p. 10.
40 “You reckon by acres”: ibid, p. 27.
41 “a reptile marking his path”: Stashower, Beautiful Cigar Girl, p. 111.
42 “a decrepit, licentious, stupid”: Mindich, Just the Facts, p. 47.
43 The New York Sun reported: Goodman, The Sun and the Moon, pp. 217–32. The articles themselves can be found at http://tinyurl.com/m6j9s3d.
44 The first-ever crossing of the Atlantic: Goodman, Sun and the Moon, pp. 233–44.
45 “industrious fleas, educated dogs”: Minnigerode, Fabulous Forties, p. 225.
46 “a smaller than life man”: Merry, Polk, p. 13.
47 “any goose who could talk”: Jackson, Gold Dust, p. 64.
48 The Mint’s one-word telegram: Roberts, American Alchemy, p. 20.
49 “The El Dorado of the old Spaniards”: Browning, ed., Golden Shore, p. 45.
50 “moved the whole nation”: Langworthy, Scenery, p. iii.
51 “Hurrah for California”: Browning, ed., Golden Shore, p. 164.
PART II: JOURNEY
Chapter Four: Swarming from All Over
1 “at 9 A.M. sharp, by order”: Read and Gaines, eds., Gold Rush, p. xlii.
2 “When we talked it all over”: Henry, ed., My Checkered Life, p. 11.
3 “I’m going where there is plenty more”: White, ed., Franklin Buck. Buck described the scene in a letter of Jan. 17, 1849. LC.
4 half-hour-long snowball fight: McCollum, California, p. 46.
5 On the island of Nantucket: Bieber, “Mania.”
6 In New York a young lawyer: This was George Templeton Strong, quoted in Roberts, American Alchemy, p. 6.
7 “From Maine to Texas”: The historian was Hittell, San Francisco, p. 130.
8 “I saw a colored man”: Lapp, Blacks in Gold Rush California, p. 21.
9 He could bear any hardship: David DeWolf, quoted in Elisha Perkins, Gold Rush Diary, p. 152. For more on DeWolf, see Lorenz, “Scurvy,” p. 488, and “Captain David DeWolf,” History and Reminiscences from the Records of Old Settlers Union of Princeville and Vicinity,” p. 109, online at http://tinyurl.com/keubruk.
10 “the trader [who] closed”: Bancroft, Works, v. 23, p 118.
11 Fn One gold-seeker composed a song: James Pierpont wrote “The Returned Californian” (quoted here) in 1852 and “Jingle Bells” in 1857.
12 Ralph Waldo Emerson focused: Emerson, The Conduct of Life, p. 224.
13 They gleefully recited a poem: The poem, by Daniel March, is called Yankee Land and the Yankee. It is book length and online at http://tinyurl.com/nj8emkq.
14 “Any man’s son may become the equal”: Trollope, Manners, p. 171. Six decades later, English visitors were still complaining about American presumption. Rudyard Kipling found hotel clerks particularly irritating. “When that resplendent individual stoops to attend to your wants,” Kipling wrote, “he does so whistling or humming or picking his teeth, or pauses to converse with someone he knows. These performances, I gather, are to impress upon you that he is a free man and your equal.” See Kipling, From Sea to Sea, p. 439.
15 “There was scarcely one”: Taylor, Eldorado, p. 1.
16 “What an innocent, unsophisticated”: Mulford, Life, p. 9.
17 “Few could conquer with Pizarro”: McWilliams, California, p. 27.
18 “no useless trumpery”: Palmer, Journey, p. 126.
19 Alonzo Delano packed: Delano, Correspondence, p. 84. LC.
20 “on bacon and flour”: Henry, ed., My Checkered Life, p. 11.
21 one-fifth of the soldiers: Lorenz, “Scurvy,” p. 475.
22 “noise and din”: Fairchild, Letters, p. 6. LC.
23 “one funeral after another”: Cooperman, “Cholera.”
24 “miserable, dull, unbuilt, unpainted”: Liles, ed., Journey, p. 19.
25 “not very well done”: ibid., p. 17.
26 “a biped five feet four inches tall”: ibid., p. 18.
27 One Philadelphia woman noted: Drinker, Journal, pp. 263, 288. Online at http://tinyurl.com/kyd3dhy.
28 “neither shaves nor shears”: Helper, The Land of Gold, p. 180.
29 “As far as we could see”: Read and Gaines, eds., Gold Rush, p. 7.
30 One favorite tale related: Billington, “Words.”
31 Did you hear about the diamond: Both newspaper stories were reprinted in Browning, ed., Golden Shore, pp. 75, 151.
32 “a capital weapon to kill a bear”: Reid, Overland, p. 26.
33 “many a man whose legs”: Kip, California Sketches, p. 16. LC.
34 “The markets are filled”: Ingalls, Journal, p. 11.
35 “West of that stream”: Frink, Journal, p. 57.
36 “the place where civilization ended”: Cooke, America, p. 177.
37 “Our ignorance of the route was complete”: This was John Bidwell, who told his story in “The First Emigrant Train to California,” The Century Magazine, Nov., 1890.
38 “We are now on the Platte”: Tamsen Donner’s letter is online at http://tinyurl.com/n5cswck.
39 Bronco Charlie Miller: “Pony Express Arrives,” New York Times, May 15, 1932.
40 An emigrant named Ezra Meeker: Meeker, who was born in 1830, lived to age ninety-eight. He drove a car (with the cover of his ox wagon fastened to the roof) along the route of the Oregon Trail in 1915, at age eighty, and he flew the route in a Fokker T-2 airplane in 1924, at age ninety-four. See http://tinyurl.com/mfcw3mq.
Chapter Five: A Day at the Circus
1 “The crowd at the ferry”: Read and Gaines, eds., Gold Rush, p. 3.
2 “Our first campfire was lighted”: Henry, ed., My Checkered Life, p. 12.
3 “I had read and heard”: ibid., p. 12.
4 “Gracious God! What a scene”: Pearce, “Captivity,” p. 16.
5 “I felt my children the most precious”: Henry, ed., My Checkered Life, p. 12.
6 “They sent back word”: ibid.
7 “friendly, of course”: ibid.
8 By the tally of the historian John Unruh: Unruh, Plains Across, p. 185.
9 “Th
e timber continued”: Delano, Journey, p. 21.
10 “we feel like mere specks”: Frink, Journal, p. 28.
11 “loves his wife more than gold”: Joseph Banks quoted in Scarnehorn, ed., Buckeye Rovers, p. 17.
12 “Every mode of travel”: Wyman, ed., Letters, p. 95.
13 “Some drive mules”: Liles, ed., Journey, p. 18.
14 Wheelbarrow man: Wyman, ed., Letters, p. 108, and Unruh, Plains Across, p. 107.
15 “Happiness for Voltaire”: Simon Schama, “A Whiff of Dread in the Land of Hope,” New York Times, Sept. 15, 2002.
16 “our own innocent ignorance”: Webster, Gold-Seekers, p. 33. LC.
17 “It is fun to see them”: Fairchild, Letters, p. 14.
18 “Hell, west & crooked: Vincent Geiger, quoted in Potter, ed., Overland Journal, p. 77.
19 “wild as the deer on the prairie”: Webster, Gold-seekers, p. 35.
20 “Owing chiefly to some difficulty”: Dundass, Journal, p. 8.
21 The mules “had not given their consent”: Reid, Overland, p. 33.
22 “who have never dug a rood”: Roberts, American Alchemy, p. 6.
23 “the servile trade of quill-driving”: Luskey, Clerks, p. 69. William Perkins used the same phrase in describing one of his own, pre-California jobs. See Three Years in California: William Perkins’ Journal, p. 162.
24 “showing rags to the ladies”: Fairchild, Letters, p. 42.
25 In Mark Twain’s Hannibal: The passage is from “The Boys’ Ambition,” chapter 4 of Life on the Mississippi.
26 “As we wended our way”: Thompson, Reminiscences, p. 6.
27 “Once in line”: Mattes, Platte River Road, p. 55.
28 “we either had to stay poking behind them”: ibid.
29 “Our train consisted only of six wagons”: Henry, ed., My Checkered Life, p. 12.
30 “like fine hail”: Mattes, Platte River Road, p. 94, quoting Ezra Meeker.
31 The novelist Willa Cather: Cather’s observation was from a newspaper interview in 1913. See http://tinyurl.com/kpz4ncu.
32 Fn “the butter gathers in lumps”: Liles, ed., Journey, p. 21.
33 “the swamps, stagnant waters, reptiles”: Lewis, Sea Routes, frontispiece.
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