by Fred Rosen
Every seaport as far south as San Diego, and every interior town, and nearly every rancho from the base of the mountains in which the gold has been found, to the Mission of San Luis, south, has become suddenly drained of human beings. Americans, Californians, Indians and Sandwich Islanders, men, women and children, indiscriminately.
Should there be that success which has repaid the efforts of those employed for the last month, during the present and next, as many are sanguine in their expectations, and we confess to unhesitatingly believe probably, not only will witness the depopulation of every town, the desertion of every rancho, and the desolation of the once promising crops of the country, but it will also draw largely upon adjacent territories—awake Sonora, and call down upon us, despite her Indian battles, a great many of the good people of Oregon. There are at this time over one thousand souls busied in washing gold, and the yield per diem may be safely estimated at from fifteen to twenty dollars, each individual.—
We have by every launch from the embarcadera of New Helvetia, returns of enthusiastic gold seekers—heads of families, to effect transportation of their households to the scene of their successful labors, or others, merely returned to more fully equip themselves for a protracted, or perhaps permanent stay.
Spades, shovels, picks, wooden bowls, Indian baskets (for washing), etc., find ready purchase, and are very frequently disposed of at extortionate prices.
The gold region, so called, thus far explored, is about one hundred miles in length and twenty in width. These imperfect explorations contribute to establish the certainty of the placer extending much further south, probably three or four hundred miles, as we have before stated, while it is believed to terminate about a league north of the point at which first discovered. The probable amount taken from these mountains since the first of May last, we are informed is $100, 000, and which is at this time principally in the hands of the mechanical, agricultural and laboring classes.
There is an area explored, within which a body of 50,000 men can advantageously labor. Without maliciously interfering with each other, then, there need be no cause for contention and discord, where as yet, we are gratified to know, there is harmony and good feeling existing. We really hope no unpleasant occurrences will grow out of this enthusiasm, and that our apprehensions may be quieted by continued patience and good will among the washers.
California Star
Saturday, July 10, 1848
Four days later, on July 14, the California Star ceased operations. There was no one left to publish the paper because all of its employees had migrated to the gold fields. In San Francisco, people had heard of the discovery and some had already started for the gold fields. Yet most had hung back out of careful reconnaissance; they would wait until people they knew had gone and confirmed before they, too, left their lives for the lure.
Sam Brannan, the San Francisco merchant who was partners with Jed Smith at Sutter’s Fort, decided to rid San Francisco of that indecisiveness. Certain to profit if the rush to the gold fields included the residents of the clapboard and tent town, on May 12, 1848, Brannan did the “pitch” of his life: he arrived in San Francisco with gold samples and ran through the town brandishing them and shouting of the discovery of gold in Coloma.
“Gold, gold on the American River!” Brannan shouted, waving a bottle of the yellow particles.
Brannan claimed to have just come from the gold fields. He had seen unimaginable wealth there accumulated in just days! Anyone could get wealthy, anyone, just by scooping up the ground. What Brannan didn’t know was the scope of the gold discovery. No one did; it could only be suspected. Brannon was only looking to drum up interest for his business. Instead, he ignited a rush to the gold fields. As for San Francisco, the city became a ghost town overnight as everyone, every able bodied man, fled for the gold fields.
Sutter wasn’t a fool. He knew he would be one if he didn’t at least try his hand in the gold fields, when it appeared to be so plentiful and all around him. Maybe the governor wouldn’t give him his sawmill, but he could file a claim like anyone else. He had been unable to stop the gold seekers from pursuing their dreams at the expense of his own. He therefore decided to try his hand at the mines.
In the summer of 1848, he set out from his fort with Indians and other hired labor. He went south of Coloma, following a creek, until he found a likely-looking spot and began panning for gold. Eventually word got out that Captain Sutter of the Swiss Guard was himself mining. Figuring the captain was enriching himself, men flocked around him to do the same.
A town grew up around a muslin tent where the miners gathered on rainy Sundays. Looking for a name, someone proposed using the name of its most famous citizen. That seemed like a good idea, and the town was dubbed “Sutter’s Creek.” Unfortunately, John Sutter wasn’t a miner. He had brought his hired help with him to do the hard work, and that did not stand well with the other prospectors. If a man did the work, he should get the spoils. It wasn’t right for others to profit on another man’s labor.
It made no difference. Sutter’s workers weren’t good miners either. None of them ever hit pay dirt. Sutter returned to his fort, never to mine again. But the town named after him stayed. By 1850, the placer gold had petered out and Sutter’s Creek was in danger of becoming a ghost town. Then in 1851, quartz, another valuable mineral, was found in the vicinity. Quartz mining began and saved the town, though Sutter never set foot there again.
Sutter’s Fort
November 11, 1848
Friend …
Have contrived to borrow a sheet of paper from an officer attached to Colonel Mason’s command. I embrace this opportunity of communicating to you some idea of the excitement at present pervading in this district.
About the discovery of such great quantity of the precious ore gold, when I wrote last to my father’s at home, I was a quiet and painstaking merchant of San Francisco, my stock in trade consisting of everything and anything that I might come across in the way of domestic utensils.
No sooner, however, had the news reached us of the discoveries at Marshall’s that I was instantly deserted by my clerks and even my French Canadian cook, who boasts of having made all imaginable dishes to suit the dainty palate of one or the other of the Iturbide family of Mexico, cut, stick and run, leaving me “alone in my glory.”
What in this emergency was I to do? Nobody would serve me, in my brief hour of need. I therefore followed the example of my neighbors and there I am, up to my “flanks” in mud, water and c. with a curiously shaped trowel in one hand and a “cradle” in the other, scraping and hawling [sic] up lumps of gold at each endeavor.
I have, so far, got together 2500 dollars worth of gold and have only been at work a month. My “partners,” however, Hackett and Carr, have made a still better thing of it, having struck a richer spot than that yon whoever I am at work. I assure you, I often think of the pleasant hours were have passed at that restaurant on NY and wish that I could find an opportunity of spending some of my hold there, as “once upon a time” I did.
There are a number of U.S. deserters staying about and I should not be at all surprised if the entire regiment followed soot [sic]. As for apprehending all deserters, that would be a difficult matter. In fact, it is a dangerous matter to send out other soldiers to apprehend them, as they also would desert, and Col. Mason would have no effective body left to enforce obedience to his orders.
As there will doubtless be many among you who will be impregnated to visit this fortune-favored region, as soon as the news of the late discovery shall have reached you, I have judged it not malapropos to furnish you with some information respecting the climate, produces of the country, etc. etc. for there will I dare say be many who will locate permanently in the country. You would be astonished to see how rapidly town and villages (of rough material, it is true) are beginning to spring up around the concentrating points on the gold district.
During the summer and greater part of the fall, the winds on the coast a
bout San Francisco blow from the west and never from the ocean. The mornings are pleasant and clear, the temperature of the atmosphere during the major part of the data is about then same. There is little really cold weather during the winter here; in fact you would be astonished and delighted, should you come out there yourself at the change between the climate at gore and that here.
Grapes are raised here in an abundance of a flavor unequalled by those of any country in the face of the globe they are a favorite of diet with everybody, high and low. The soil is in most places fertile beyond description and what water we lack during the dry months is supposed by irrigation. The season for sowing wheat commences early in November and continues until early sprung.
When I have made my fortune, I will perhaps revisit you.
Unknown
6.
TRAVELING TO THE GOLD FIELDS
By the end of 1848, the discovery of gold had brought thousands to the gold fields. They camped up and down the American and Feather Rivers, in every hollow and valley, using the most primitive of equipment to try to extract gold from earth and water and dust. Most of those prospectors were Californios, Mormons, and other “miners,” such as the Jack Tars from Australia, who were ex-convicts. The started to arrive on ships in San Francisco Harbor, as did Chinese and Mexicans.
Back east, the stories of gold had been well publicized in all the major newspapers. The New York Times and the New York Herald carried accounts. But whether the public believed them is a different manner. It was just too good to be true. A man born into poverty could, just like that, overnight strike it rich and enter the upper class by discovering gold in California?
It couldn’t be. Yet … if the stories were true, the country was not physically ready for the population movement that would occur as people struck for the gold fields. There were few roads west of St. Louis, and none were safe from the perils of the western frontier. The eastern publishing industry saw that.
Book and pamphlet publishers were always on the lookout for something to make money. To date, they had survived, but the industry was not firmly established. Books had to be able to give the reader something they couldn’t get anywhere else, such as in newspapers and pamphlets. And no story to date had been able to do that—until Marshall’s discovery.
By the end of 1848, New York’s publishers were vying to put out books and pamphlets on the California gold fields and their infinite possibilities. Pamphlets also were published that brought together letters of Thomas Larkin and John Frémont describing the California landscape and the gold fields.
Suddenly, California guidebooks began to appear in stores. Sometimes they came from firsthand reporting—the first consistent example of travel writing in U.S. history. They promoted travel to California and the state’s beauty and possibilities.
In 1848, Henry Simpson published his best seller The Emigrant’s Guide to the Gold Mines. On page 27 Simpson offers advice to emigrants on how to get to the California gold fields. There are five routes to choose from:
1. The Isthmus route, across the Isthmus of Panama from the Atlantic to the Pacific.
2. The Cape Horn route, around the tip of South America and up the Pacific Coast.
3. The Rocky Mountains route—that is, climbing the Rocky Mountains after crossing the Great Plains and eventually arriving in the gold fields of California.
4. The Nicaraguan route, around the Isthmus of Nicaragua and once again up the Pacific coast.
5. The Mazatlán route, which required crossing northern Mexico to the Mexican coast city and then taking a ship north, to San Francisco.
“Only two [are] feasible,” Simpson writes, “with any degree of comfort or economy and we may add safety.” Simpson preferred the southern routes. “The Chagres steamer leaves New York monthly as also the British West Indian Mail Steamers and they reach Chagres on the Atlantic side in two days, where they will get a steamer or sailing vessel for San Francisco. The distance by this conveyance from New York to San Francisco is about 17,000 miles and will occupy 150 days or five months. Passengers should provide themselves with the means to guard against contingencies as they may arise from the no arrival of the steamers at Panama.”
If you chose the Isthmus of Panama route and your steamer to California didn’t show up on time, you’d better have enough cash to get by on until the steamer finally docked. The shipping schedules were erratic and not to be relied on. Going the isthmus route was rough going from one side of the North American continent to the other. To go through the isthmus took ten days.
“Canoes are here employed and passengers carried thirty miles up, when they are transferred to the backs of mules, and in this way reach Panama in two days where they will take another steamer or sailing vessel for San Francisco.”
“The safest route,” Simpson asserts, “is doubtless via Cape Horn. 25 to 30 days to get there. The price of passage first class is $400.”
If the choice was the Rocky Mountains route, the prospector would find himself going “across the Rockies, and the Great Desert, a route which by no means we can recommend.” The jumping-off point for such a trek was Independence, Missouri, from which wagon trains bound west, usually on the Oregon Trail, were every day plowing a highway across the country. “[Across the Rockies] the distance is very great; there are deserts to be crossed, mountains to be scaled and hostile Indians to be encountered.”
The overland route was the most dangerous. Even armed settlers were at a disadvantage with firearms. Many contemporary revolvers were no more accurate than a thrown knife. They were accurate only at very close range, and even then, misfires occurred frequently. Rifles were good for firing over longer distances, but again, they were none too accurate.
Even as firearms advances came along, west of the Mississippi you couldn’t count on buying anything new unless it had been imported. Everything had to be carried with you during that long, lonely trek across the mountains.
The least known, the “Nicaraguan route, is one which offers to travellers … as many inducements as now known. This we allude to is the Isthmus of Nicaragua, about 150 miles from the Atlantic to the Pacific. The greatest advice we see in the Nicaragua route is the ease with which it may be traveled and the certainty of proceeding with comfort and safety. The terrain is passable in all seasons.”
There was also a little-known route, the Acapulco route, which involved going from Acapulco, “which the American Mails steamers sailed. The passage is $1225 and the distance about 2000 miles. The cost total is $280 and takes about 40 days.”
There was one event that year that threatened to eclipse the gold discovery: the presidential election of 1848.
That summer, as the campaign got into full swing, slavery came back into the news as a campaign issue. The Mexican-American War had obscured the country’s split on the issue of slavery, which threatened the very ties of the Union. There was concern by antislavery opponents that California and the new Western territories might align themselves with the South; this possibility needed to be avoided at all costs.
Massachusetts senator Daniel Webster, the man Stephen Vincent Benét would later claim argued a case in hell as a defense lawyer in his novel “The Devil and Daniel Webster,” excoriated Polk for the useless, arid land he had acquired for Yankee dollars in the Treaty of Guadalupe-Hidalgo. The war itself had taken longer than Polk had anticipated, so long that he had lost the support of his party. The Democrats instead nominated Lewis Cass, who fashioned a self-serving slavery compromise platform.
Breakaway, rebellious Democrats supported former president Martin Van Buren under the Free Soil third-party banner. Once again, the Democrats had shot themselves in the foot, failing to unite early behind one candidate. The Whigs, who had been out of power for twenty years, saw their chance. They no longer had to beat an incumbent.
The Whigs nominated the one candidate guaranteed not to lose. In the tradition of Washington and Jackson, the Whigs put forth the most celebrated military leader of his time, no
ne other than old Rough and Ready himself, Zachary Taylor. Taylor had gotten the nickname because he was a slob and always showed up looking half dressed, with crumbs all over himself. But he was a popular general and an honest man, if a trifle eccentric in his appearance.
By September, all evidence indicated that Taylor’s popularity was so high he was going to be elected by a vast majority. Then, on September 15, the New York Herald carried this item:
INTERESTING FROM CALIFORNIA—We have received some late and interesting intelligence from California. It is to the 1st of July. Owing to the crowded state of our columns, we are obliged to omit our correspondence. It relates to the important discovery of a very valuable gold mine. We have received a specimen of the gold.
Two days later, September 17, the Herald gave the larger part of an inside column to a dispatch from its California correspondent, who called himself “Paisano.” Dated July 1, in the dispatch Paisano told Herald publisher James Gordon Bennett, “[You] had better fill his paper with, at least, probable tales and stories and not such outrageous fictions as rivers, flowing with gold.”
Everyone in California had gone to the mines, Paisano reported. Many came home quickly with many hundreds of dollars in gold dust and nuggets in their pockets. Prices for mining equipment had soared. Spades and shovels were $10 apiece. Blacksmiths made $240 a week. Comparing California to El Dorado and the Arabian Nights, the Herald correspondent said that “the famous El Dorado was but a sand bank, the Arabian Nights were tales of simplicity.”
On September 18, the paper carried another dispatch from Paisano, on page 3, the prize inside page that the eye goes to immediately upon turning the first or headline page. That day, page 3 also contained stories on France’s election and a cholera outbreak in London. Two days later, the paper reprinted an article from the Washington Union in which the gold discovery was confirmed by official letters, including one signed by American counsel Thomas Larkin.
