old Spanish missions, with a few seaport towns scattered along the
coast. Some pioneers from the East had settled inland after California
had been separated from Mexico, and were ranching and farming. One of
these pioneers, a well-to-do man named John A. Sutter, had staked out
a considerable tract of land near the American River. He built a fort
or stockade as headquarters, and made his plans to cultivate the tract.
He had a number of men working for him, building a sawmill on the south
branch of the American River, about forty miles from his main house.
These workmen were in charge of James Wilson Marshall, who intended to
have a dry channel serve as the tail-race for the mill, and was widening
and deepening it by loosening the earth. At night the water of the
stream was allowed to run through this channel, and wash out the gravel
and sand. One day early in January, as Marshall was walking along the
bank of the race, he noticed some shining yellow flakes in the soil.
He thought these flakes might be gold, and gathering some of the earth
carefully washed and screened it. In this way he obtained what looked
like gold-dust. Early the next morning he went back to the race, and
after some searching found a yellow scale larger than the others. He
showed this, together with those he had obtained the day before, to some
of the workmen, and they helped him to gather about three ounces. Later
in the day Marshall went to his employer Sutter, who was at the fort,
and there the two men tested the flakes as well as they were able, and
reached the conclusion that they were really gold-dust.
It was important to keep the discovery as quiet as possible. Searching
along the dry channel Sutter and Marshall found more of the gold flakes.
In some places the yellow scales were very plentiful, and seemed to
promise that large quantities of the valuable mineral could be found
near at hand. It was impossible, however, to keep the news from the
workmen who had helped in finding the flakes. Before long the news
spread, and in March, 1848, two newspapers of California mentioned the
discovery on the south fork of the American River.
The country was so sparsely settled, and life so primitive, that no
great excitement was caused by this news for some months. But in May a
Mormon, coming from the settlement of Coloma to San Francisco, walked
down the main street waving a bottle filled with gold-dust and shouting
"Gold! Gold! Gold from the American River!"
His words, and the sight of the glittering bottle, caused tremendous
excitement in San Francisco, and in the twinkling of an eye men took
possession of sailboats, sloops, launches, any kind of craft, and
started up the Sacramento River. Those who could not get boats to take
the quicker course hurried off on horses or mules, in wagons or on foot.
It was like a fairy tale. The seaport town of San Francisco, which had
been well filled, was practically deserted overnight. Shopkeepers closed
their stores, families hurried from their houses, and every class of
people pushed toward the American River. The roads that led thither,
which had usually been almost as empty as the prairies, were now filled
with a wildly rushing throng. A man who had crossed the Strait of
Carquines in April was the only passenger on the ferry, but when he
returned two weeks later he found two hundred wagons trying to drive on
board the ferry-boat.
Business on the coast came to a standstill. The newspapers that had
been started stopped publication. The churches closed, and all the town
officers deserted their posts. As soon as a ship touched the coast and
the crew heard of the finding of gold they deserted, and the captain
and mates, seeing themselves without a crew, usually dashed after the
others. Empty vessels lay at the docks. A large ship belonging to the
Hudson's Bay Company, which had put into San Francisco harbor, was in
charge of the captain's wife, every one else having left for the gold
fields. Prices in all the country from San Francisco to Los Angeles
jumped prodigiously. If men were to stay at their work they demanded
and received twice their former wages. Shovels and spades sold for ten
dollars apiece. They, and a few other mining implements, were the only
things still manufactured. The cry of gold had turned men's heads like
the magic wand of some fairy.
Inland California presented a strange sight. The roads that ran from San
Francisco to Sutter's Fort had formerly lain between prosperous farm
lands, but now the crops were going to waste, the houses were empty, and
the cattle free to wander through fields of grain. Along the American
River, on the other hand, hills and valleys were filled with sheltering
tents, and huts built of brush and rocks thrown together in a hurry. Men
could not stop for comfort, but worked all day on the river bank. There
were almost as many ways of searching for the gold as there were men.
Some tried to wash the sand and gravel in pans; some used closely woven
Indian baskets; some used what were called cradles. The cradle was a
basket six or eight feet long, mounted on rockers, and open at one end;
at the other end was a coarse screen sieve. Cleats were nailed across
the bottom of the cradle. One workman would dig the gravel from the
river bank, another carry it to the sieve, a third pour water over it,
and a fourth rock the cradle The screen separated the stones from the
gravel, the water washed away the earth and carried the heavier soil out
of the cradle, thus leaving the black sand filled with the gold. This
was later carried to a pan and dried in the sun. The sand could then be
blown away, and the gold would be left.
Men knew that fortunes were to be found here. On a creek a few miles
below Coloma, seventeen thousand dollars' worth of gold was taken from
a ditch three hundred feet long, four wide, and two deep. Another small
channel had yielded no less than twelve thousand dollars. Many men
already had bags and bottles that held thousands of dollars' worth of
the precious mineral. One man, who had been able to get fifty Indians to
work for him as washers, obtained sixteen thousand dollars from a small
creek in five weeks' time.
All this quickly changed the character of upper California. Every man
wanted to be a miner, and no longer a cattleman or farmer, as before. It
looked as though the towns would shrivel up, because of the tremendously
high wages demanded by the men who were needed there. Cooks in San
Francisco were paid three hundred dollars a month, and all kinds of
mechanics secured wages of fifteen or twenty dollars a day. The forts
found it impossible to keep soldiers on duty. As soon as men were paid
off they rushed to the American River. Sailors deserted as fast as they
could, and the American war-ships that came to anchor off Monterey did
not dare to allow a single man to land. Threats of punishment or offers
of reward had no influence over the sailors. They all felt certain they
could make fortunes in a month at the gold fields.
Soon men began to wonder whether they could not duplicate in other
places the discovery that Marshall had made on Sutter's land. Wherever
there was a river or stream explorers began to dig. They were well
rewarded. Rich placers of gold were found along the course of almost all
the streams that flowed to the Feather and San Joaquin Rivers. Along
the course of the Stanislaus and Toulumne Rivers was another field
for mining. By midsummer of 1848 settlers in southern California were
pouring north in thousands, and by October at least ten thousand men
were washing and screening the soil of river banks.
[Illustration: WHEREVER THERE WAS A STREAM, EXPLORERS BEGAN TO DIG]
The Pacific coast was very far away from the rest of the United States
in that day. News usually traveled by ship, and sailors brought the
report of the discovery of gold to Honolulu, to Oregon City, and to the
ports at Victoria and Vancouver. Letters carried the first tidings to
the people in the East, and by the middle of the summer Washington and
New York had learned what was happening in California, and adventurers
along the Atlantic coast were beginning to turn their faces westward.
The letters often greatly exaggerated the truth. A New York paper
printed reports which stated that men were picking gold out of the earth
as easily as hogs could root up groundnuts in a forest. One man, who
employed sixty Indians, was said to be making a dollar a minute.
Small holes along the banks of streams were stated to yield many pounds
of gold. But even allowing for much exaggeration it was evident that men
were making fortunes in that country.
Colonel Mason, in charge at San Francisco, sent Lieutenant Loeser with
his report to Washington. The lieutenant had to take a roundabout
route. He went from Monterey to Peru, from there to Panama, across the
Isthmus, took boat to Jamaica, and from there he sailed to New Orleans.
When he reached the capital he delivered his message, and showed a
small tea chest which held three thousand dollars' worth of gold in
lumps and flakes. This chest was placed on exhibition, and served to
convince those who saw it that California must possess more gold than
any other country yet discovered. President Taylor announced the news
in an official message. He said that the mineral had been found in such
quantities as could hardly be believed, except on the word of government
officers in the field. During the winter of 1848-49 thousands of men in
the East planned to start for this El Dorado as soon as they could get
their outfits together, and spring should open the roads.
The overland route to the West was long and very difficult. At that
time, though the voyage by sea was longer, it was easier for men who
lived on the Atlantic coast. They might sail around Cape Horn, or to the
Isthmus of Panama, or to Vera Cruz, and in the two latter cases cross
land, and hope to find some ship in the western ocean that would take
them to San Francisco. Business men in the East seized the opportunity
to advertise tents, beds, blankets, and all manner of camp equipment,
as well as pans, rockers, and every kind of implement for washing gold
from the gravel. The owners of ships of every description, many of them
unseaworthy, fitted up their craft, and advertised them as ready to sail
for San Francisco. The ports of Boston, Salem, Newburyport, New York,
Baltimore, and New Orleans were crowded with brigs and schooners loading
for the Pacific. A newspaper in New York stated that ten thousand people
would leave for the gold country within a month.
All sorts of schemes were tried. Companies were formed, each member
of which paid one hundred dollars or more to charter a ship to take
them around the Horn. Almost every town in the East had its California
Association, made up of adventurers who wanted to make their fortunes
rapidly. By the end of January, 1849, eighty vessels had sailed by way
of Cape Horn, and many others were heading for Vera Cruz, and for ports
on the Isthmus of Panama. The newspapers went on printing fabulous
stories of the discoveries. One had a letter stating that lumps of gold
weighing a pound had been found in several places. Another printed
a letter from a man who said he would return in a few months with a
fortune of half a million dollars in gold. A miner was said to have
arrived in Pittsburgh with eighty thousand dollars in gold-dust that he
had gathered in a few weeks. Whenever men met they discussed eagerly the
one absorbing topic of the fortunes waiting on the coast.
The adventurers who sailed around Cape Horn had in most cases the
easiest voyages. There were plenty of veteran sea-captains ready to
command the ships. A Boston merchant organized "The Mining and Trading
Company," bought a full-rigged vessel, sold places in it to one hundred
and fifty men, and sailed from Boston early in January, 1849. The
first place at which she touched was Tierra del Fuego, and she reached
Valparaiso late in April. There she found two ships from Baltimore, and
in two days four more arrived from New York, and one from Boston. July
6th she entered the Golden Gate of San Francisco, and found it crowded
with vessels from every port. The ships were all deserted, and within an
hour all this ship's crew were on shore. The town itself was filled with
bustle and noise. Gambling was practically the only business carried on,
and the stores were jammed with men paying any price for outfits for the
gold country. This company chose a place on the Mokelumne River, and
hastened there, but they found it difficult to work on a company basis.
The men soon scattered and drifted to other camps; some of them found
gold, others in time made their way east poorer than when they came.
Those who went by the Isthmus had many adventures. Two hundred young
men sailed to Vera Cruz, and landed at that quaint old Mexican city.
There they were told that bands of robbers were prowling all through the
country, that their horses would die of starvation in the mountains,
and that they would probably be killed, or lose themselves on the wild
trail. Fifty of them decided not to go farther, and sailed back in a
homeward-bound ship to New York. Those who went on were attacked by a
mob at the town of Jalapa, and had to fight their way through at the
point of revolvers. In several wild passes bandits tried to hold them
up, but the Easterners put them to flight and pushed on their way. All
through the country they found relics and wreckage of the recent days
when General Scott had marched an army into Mexico.
There was more trouble at Mexico City. A religious procession was
passing along the plaza, and the Americans did not fall upon their
knees. The crowd set upon them, and they had to form a square for their
protection, and hold the mob at bay until Mexican officers came to their
rescue. Only after fighting a path through other towns and a long march
did they reach the seaport of San Blas. One hundred and twenty of them
took ship from there to San Francisco. Thirty, however, had left the
others at Mexico City, thinking they could reach the sea-coast more
quickly by another route. The ship they caught could get no farther
than San Diego. From there they had to march on foot across a blazing
desert country. Their food gave out, and they lived on lizards, birds,
rattlesnakes, and even buzzards, anything they could find. Worn and
almost starving they reached San Francisco, ten months after they had
left New York. Such adventures were common to the American Argonauts of
1849.
Those gold-seekers who went by the Isthmus of Panama had to stop at the
little settlement of Chagres, where one hundred huts of bamboo stood on
the ruins of the old Spanish fort of San Lorenzo. The natives, lazy and
half-clad, gazed in astonishment at the scores of men from the eastern
United States, who suddenly began to hurry through their town. Here the
gold-hunters bargained for river boats, which were usually rude dugouts,
with roofs made of palmetto branches and leaves, and rowed by natives.
It was impossible with such rowers to make much speed against the strong
current of the Chagres River. Three days were required to make the
journey to Gorgona, where the travelers usually landed. At this place
they had to bargain afresh for pack-mules to carry them the twenty-four
miles that lay between Gorgona and Panama. Many men, who could not find
any mules left in the town, deserted their baggage and started for the
Pacific coast on foot. The chances were that no ship would be waiting
for them there, and they would have to warm their heels in idleness for
days.
General Persifor F. Smith, who had been ordered to take command of the
United States troops at San Francisco, was one of those who had to
wait for a ship at Panama. Here he heard reports that a good deal of
the new-found gold was being sent to foreign countries. Some said that
the British Consul had forwarded fifteen thousand ounces of California
gold to England, and that more than nine million francs' worth of the
mineral had been received in the South American ports of Lima and
Valparaiso. As a result hundreds of men from those ports were taking
ship to California. General Smith did not like the idea of foreigners
profiting by the discovery of gold in California, and issued an order
that only citizens of the United States should be allowed to enter the
public lands where the diggings were located. When the _California_,
a steamship from New York, reached Panama in January, 1849, with
seventy-five Peruvians on board, General Smith warned them that they
would not be allowed to go to the mines, and sent word of this order
to consuls along the Pacific coast of South America. In spite of his
efforts, however, foreigners would go to Upper California, and the
American prospectors were too busy with their own searches to prevent
the strangers from taking what gold they could find.
When the _California_ arrived at Panama she was already well filled
with passengers, but there were so many men waiting for her that the
captain had to give in to their demands, and crowd his vessel with
several hundred more gold-seekers. Loaded with impatient voyagers, the
steamship sailed up the coast, and reached San Francisco about the end
of February. Immediately every one on board, except the captain, the
mate, and the purser, deserted the ship, and dashed for the gold fields.
The next steamer to reach Panama, the _Oregon_, found an even larger
crowd waiting at that port. She took more passengers on board than she
was intended to carry, but fortune favored the gold-seekers, and the
_Oregon_, like the _California_, discharged her adventurous cargo in
safety at San Francisco. Hundreds of others who could not board either
of these steamers ventured on the Pacific in small sailing vessels, or
any manner of ship that would put out from Panama bound north.
It is interesting to know the story of some of these pilgrimages. One of
the Argonauts has told how he organized, in a little New England town,
a company of twenty men. Each man subscribed a certain sum of money in
return for a share in any profits, and in this way ten thousand dollars
was raised. The men who were to go on the expedition signed a paper
agreeing to work at least two years in the gold fields for the company.
The band went from the New England town to New York, where they found
the harbor filled with ships that were advertised to sail for Nicaragua,
Vera Cruz, or Chagres. The leader of the company chose a little brig
bound for the latter port, and in this the party, with some twenty-five
other passengers, set sail in March. They ran into a heavy storm, but
in three weeks reached the port on the Isthmus. There they had to wait
some days, as all the river boats had gone up to Gorgona. When the boats
were ready, thirty natives poled ten dugouts up the river. When the men
landed they were told that there was no ship at Panama; that half the
gold-seekers in that town were ill, and that there was no use in pushing
on. So the party built tents on the bank of the river, and stayed there
until the rainy season drove them to the coast. There they camped again,
and waited for a ship to arrive. There was one vessel anchored in the
harbor, but the owner was under a bond to keep it there as a coal-ship.
The leader of the company, however, persuaded the owner to forfeit this
bond, and four hundred waiting passengers paid two hundred dollars
apiece to be conveyed to California. The ship was hardly seaworthy,
and took seven weeks of sailing and floating to reach the harbor of
Acapulco. There the vessel was greeted by a band of twenty Americans,
ragged and penniless, who had come on foot from the City of Mexico. They
had waited so long for a ship that twenty of the passengers agreed to
give them their tickets, and take their places to wait until the next
vessel should arrive. It was almost seven months after that New England
party had left New York before they arrived at the Golden Gate of San
Francisco.
There was very little choice between the Panama and the Nicaragua routes
to the West. Among those who tried the latter road were a number of
young men who had just graduated from Yale College. They boarded a
ship in New York that was advertised to sail during the first week in
February, and expected to land in San Francisco in sixty days. It was
March, however, before the ship, crowded with voyagers, set sail south
from Sandy Hook. Three weeks brought her to the mouth of the San Juan
River. The ship's company was landed at the little tropical town of San
Juan de Nicaragua. A small steamboat had been brought along to take them
up the river, but when the machinery was put together the boat was found
to be worthless. Like the voyagers by Panama, these men then had to
trust to native dugouts, and in this way they finally got up the river
to San Carlos. Had it not been for their eagerness to reach California
such a trip would have been a delight to men who had never seen the
tropics before. The San Juan River flowed through forests of strange
and beautiful trees. Tamarind and dyewood trees, tall palms, and giant
cacti, festooned with bright-colored vines, made a background for the
brilliant birds that flew through the woods. Fruit was to be had for the
taking, and the weather at that time of the year was delightful. But the
thought of the fortunes waiting to be picked up in California filled the
minds of most of the travelers.
After leaving the boats this party traveled by mule to Leon. Nicaragua
was in the midst of a revolution, and the Americans acted as a guard
to the President on the road to Leon. Near the end of July the company
separated. Some finally sailed from the port of Realejo, and after many
dangers and a voyage of almost five months succeeded in reaching San
Francisco. Others reached Panama, set sail in a small boat, and were
never heard from again; while yet a third party boarded a vessel at a
Nicaraguan port, and managed to reach California after almost perishing
from hunger and thirst.
Such were the adventures of some of those who tried to reach the gold
fields of the West by sea. Hundreds of men made the trip by one of these
routes, and as soon as spring arrived thousands set out overland. It was
understood that large parties would leave from western Missouri early
in March, and as a result many men, some alone, some in bands of twenty
or thirty, gathered there from all parts of the East. Sometimes they
formed military companies, wore uniforms, and carried rifles. The main
place of gathering was the town of Independence, which grew to the size
of a large city in a few weeks. Men came on foot and on horseback; some
with canvas-covered wagons, prairie schooners, and pack-mules; some with
herds of cattle; some bringing with them all their household goods. All
the Middle West seemed to be in motion. In a single week in March, 1849,
hundreds of wagons drove through Burlington, Iowa. Two hundred from
Memphis went along the Arkansas River, and hundreds more from Michigan,
Wisconsin, Illinois, and Pennsylvania crossed the border of Iowa.
The spring was late, and as the overland trip could not be taken until
the grass was high enough to feed the cattle, the great company had to
wait along the frontiers from Independence to Council Bluffs. As men
gathered at these towns they would form into companies, and then move
on to a more distant point, in order to make room for later arrivals.
Twenty thousand gathered along these frontiers before the signal was
given to start westward. The march began about May 1st, and from then
on, day and night, scores of wagons crossed the Missouri River, and the
country looked like a field of tents.
From Independence most of the emigrants crossed rolling prairies for
fifteen days to the Platte River at Grand Island. The route then wound
up the valley of the Platte to the South Fork, and from there to the
North Fork, where a rude post-office had been built, at which letters
might be left to be carried back east by any travelers who were going
in that direction. From here the emigrants journeyed to the mountain
passes. They usually stopped at Laramie, which was the farthest western
fort of the United States. By this time the long journey would be
telling on many of the companies, and the road be strewn with all sorts
of household goods, thrown away in order to lighten the burden on the
horses.