SAN FRANCISCO AND THE DISCOVERY OF GOLD
San Francisco--Her Hills--Her Landscapes--Population of Different
Decades--The Flag on the Plaza in 1846--Yerba Buena its Earliest
Name--First Englishman and First American to Build Here--The Palace
Hotel--The Story of the Discovery of. Gold in 1848--Sutter and
Marshall--The News Spread Abroad--Multitudes Flock to the Gold
Mines--San Francisco in 1849.
As we stand on the deck of the bay steamer and are fast approaching
the San Francisco ferry-house which looms up before us in dignity, we
look out on a great city with a population of 350,000 souls, and we
observe that it is seated on hills as well as on lowlands. Rome loved
her hills, Corinth had her Acropolis, and Athens, rising out of the
Plain of Attica, was not content until she had crowned Mars' Hill with
altars and her Acropolis with her Parthenon. Here in this golden
city of the Pacific the houses are climbing the hills, nay they have
climbed them already and they vie in stateliness with palaces and
citadels in the old historic places which give picturesqueness to the
coast lands of the Mediterranean. There is indeed in the aspect of San
Francisco, in her waters and her skies, and all her surroundings, that
which recalls to my mind landscapes and scenery of Italy and Greece
and old Syria. Yonder to the northeast of the city is Telegraph Hill,
294 feet high, a spot which in the olden days, that is, as far back
only as 1849, was wooded. Now it is teeming with life, and it looks
down with seeming satisfaction on miles and miles of streets and
warehouses and dwellings of rich and poor. But there are not many poor
people in this Queen City. In all my wanderings about the city for a
month, I was never accosted by a professional beggar. Everybody could
find work to do, and all seemed prosperous and happy. Off to the
west, serving as a sentinel, is Russian Hill, 360 feet high. It is
a striking feature in the ever-expanding city, and it is a notable
landmark for the San Franciscan. In the southeastern part of the city
is Rincon Hill, 120 feet in height, attracting to itself the interest
of that part of the population whose homes are in its shadow. There
are other hills of lesser importance as to altitude, but over their
tops extend long streets and broad avenues lined with the dwellings of
a contented and thrifty people. The business blocks and hotels, the
printing houses and railway and steamship offices, the stores and art
galleries, the places of amusement and lecture halls, the stores and
shops, the homes and the churches, fill all the spaces between those
hills in a compact manner and run around them and stretch beyond them,
and at your feet, as you stand on an eminence, is a panorama of life
which at once arrests your attention and enchains your mind. It was
all so different fifty or sixty years ago. According to the census
returns the population of San Francisco in 1850 was 34,000. In 1860
there was a gain of 22,802. In 1870 there were in the city 149,473
souls; while in 1880 there was a population of 233,959 including
30,000 Chinese. The census of 1890 gives an increase of 64,038 during
the decade, and the last enumeration shows that there has been a gain
of 44,785 in the ten years. If the towns across the bay and northward,
as well as San Mateo on the south, which are as much a part of San
Francisco as Brooklyn and Staten Island are of New York, there would
be a population of more than 450,000. The growth, as will be seen, is
steady, and San Francisco offers to such as seek a home within her
borders, all the refinements and comforts of life, all that ministers
to the intellect and the spiritual side of our nature as well as our
social tastes and desires.
There can be no greater contrast imaginable than that between the San
Francisco of 1846, when Commodore Montgomery, of the United States
sloop of war _Portsmouth_, raised the American flag over it, and the
noble city of to-day. And no one then in the band of marines who stood
on the Plaza as the flag was unfurled to the breeze by the waters of
the Pacific, in sight of the great bay, could have dreamed of the
golden future which was awaiting California--of the splendour which
would rest on little Yerba Buena in the lapse of time. Yerba Buena was
the early name of the settlement. This was applied also, as we have
learned, to Goat Island. The pueblo was then insignificant and
apparently with no prospect of expansion or grandeur. There were only
a few houses there, chiefly of adobe construction, clustering about
the Plaza. The Presidio, west of the stray hamlet, and the Mission
Dolores, to the southwest, were all that relieved a dreary landscape
beyond. There were the hills covered with chaparral and the shifting
sands all around, and far to the south, where now are wide streets and
great blocks of buildings. The ground sloped towards the bay on the
east, and a cove, long since filled in, which bore the name of Yerba
Buena, extended up to Montgomery street. The population of the town
was less than a hundred; there was hardly this number in the Presidio,
and not more than two hundred people were connected with the Mission
Dolores. In 1835 Captain William A. Richardson, an Englishman, the
first foreigner to enter the embryo town, erected a tent for his
residence; and on July 4th, 1836, the second house was built at the
corner of Clay and Dupont streets. The story runs that the first
American to build a house in San Francisco proper was Daniel Culwer,
who also founded Santa Barbara. This pioneer was born in Maryland in
1793, and died in California in 1857. He lived long enough to see the
greatness of the city assured. But on that day when he finished his
modest house on the corner of New Montgomery and Market streets, he
little thought that in after years there would spring up, as if
by magic, under the skillful hands of the Lelands, famous in San
Francisco as in Saratoga in the olden days, the magnificent Palace
Hotel, with its royal court, its great dining halls, and its seven
hundred and fifty-five rooms for guests, rivalling in its grandeur and
its luxurious appointments the palaces of kings.
The growth of San Francisco was very rapid after the discovery of
gold. The population immediately leaped into the thousands. California
was the goal of the gold-seeker, the El Dorado of his quest. Men in
search of fortune came from all parts of the world to the Golden West.
It was on the 19th of January, 1848, that gold was discovered. The
story reads like a romance. Captain John Augustus Sutter, who was born
in Baden, Germany, February 15th, 1803, after many adventures in New
York, Missouri, New Mexico, the Sandwich Islands, and Sitka, at last
found himself in San Francisco. From this spot he crossed the bay and
went up the Sacramento River, where he built a stockade, known as
Sutter's Fort, and erected a saw mill at a cost of $10,000, and a
flour mill at an outlay of $25,000. Here in 1847 he was joined by
James Wilson Marshall, born in New Jersey in 1812. Marshall was sent
up to the North Fork of the American River, where at Coloma he built a
saw mill. This was near the center of El Dorado county, and in a line
northeast from San Francisco. The mill, in the midst of a lumber
region, was finished on January 15th, 1848, and everything was in
readiness for the sawing of timber, which was in great demand in all
the coast towns and brought a high price. The mill-race, when the
water was let into it, was found too shallow, and in order to deepen
it Marshall opened the flood gates and allowed a strong, steady
volume of water to flow through it all night. Nature, aided by human
sagacity, having done her work well, the flood gates were closed, and
there in the gravel beneath the shallow stream lay several yellow
objects like pebbles. They aroused curiosity. The miller took one and
hammered it on a stone. He found it was gold. He then gave one of
the "yellow pebbles" to a Mrs. Wimmer, of his camp, to be boiled in
saleratus water. She threw it into a kettle of boiling soap, and after
several hours it came out bright and shining. It is yellow gold,
California gold, there can be no mistake! Next, we see Marshall, all
excitement, hastening to Sutter's Fort, and informing his employer, in
a mysterious way, that he has found gold. Sutter goes to the mill the
next day, and Marshall is impatiently waiting for him. More water
is turned on, and the race is ploughed deeper, and more nuggets are
brought to light. It is a day of supreme joy. The excitement is great.
Even the waters of the American River seem to "clap their hands" and
the trees of the wood wave their tops in homage and rejoice. At the
foot of the Sierras is the hidden treasure, which will thrill the
civilised world when it hears the tidings with a new joy, which will
bring delight beyond measure to thousands of adventurers, which will
enrich some beyond their wildest dreams, and which will prove the ruin
of many an one, wrecking, alas! both soul and body. Sutler's plan was
to keep the wonderful discovery a secret, but this was impossible.
Even the very birds of the air would carry the news afar to the coast
in their songs; the waters of mountain streams running down to the
Sacramento River and on to San Francisco Bay and out to the Pacific
Ocean through the Golden Gate would bear the report north and south to
all the cities and towns, to Central and South America, to China and
Japan, to Europe and more distant lands; and the wings of the wind
would serve as couriers to waft the story across the Sierras and the
Rocky Mountains and the plains, till the whole world would be startled
and gladdened with the cry, Gold is found, gold in California! One of
the women of Sutler's household told the secret, which was too big to
be kept in hiding, to a teamster, and he, overjoyed, in turn told it
to Merchant Smith and Merchant Brannan of the Fort. The "secret" was
out in brief space, and like an eagle with outspread wings, it flew
away into all quarters of the globe. Poor Sutter, strange to say,
it ruined him. The gold seekers came from the ends of the earth and
"squatted" on his lands, and he spent all the fortune he had amassed
in trying to dispossess them. But his efforts were unavailing. The
laws, loosely administered then, seemed to be against him, and fate,
relentless fate, spared him not. Almost all that was left to him in
the end was the ring which he had made out of the lumps of the first
gold found, and on which was inscribed this legend: "The first gold
found in California, January, 1848." It tells a melancholy as well as
a joyous tale, in it are bound up histories and tragedies, in it the
happiness of multitudes, and even the fate of immortal souls! The
California legislature at length took pity on Sutter, and granted him
a pension of $250 per month, on which he lived until he was summoned,
at Washington, D.C., on June 17th, 1880, by the Angel of Death, to a
land whose gold mocks us not, and where everyone's "claim" is good,
if he be found worthy to pass through the Golden Gate. Marshall, too,
died a poor man, August 8th, 1885, having lived on a pension from the
State of California, which also has seen fit to honour his memory, as
the discoverer of gold, by erecting a monument to him at Coloma, the
scene of the most exciting events in his life. The names of these two
men, however, will endure in the thrilling histories of 1848 and 1849,
as long as time lasts--for all unconsciously they set the civilised
world in motion, gave new impulse to armies of men, spread sails on
the ocean, filled coffers with yellow gold, and added new chapters to
the graphic history of San Francisco and many another city. When the
tidings of the discovery of gold reached the outside world thousands
on thousands set their faces towards the El Dorado of the Pacific
slopes. There were many new Jasons. The Golden Fleece of the sunny
West was beckoning them on. New Argos were fitted out for the new
Colchis. The Argonauts of 1849 were willing to brave all dangers. It
is Joaquin Miller who sings--
"Full were they
Of great endeavour. Brave and true
As stern Crusader clad in steel,
They died afield as it was fit--
Made strong with hope, they dared to do
Achievement that a host to-day
Would stagger at, stand back and reel,
Defeated at the thought of it."
There were three ways of reaching the gold fields. Men could travel
across the plains in the traditional emigrant wagon. It was a weary,
lonely journey, life was endangered among hostile Indians, and happy
were those who at last were strong enough to toil in the mines. Alas,
too many fell by the way and left their bones to bleach in arid
regions. It is the experience of life. We have our object of desire.
We often come short of it. Ere we reach the goal we perish and the
coveted prize is forever lost. Not so is it to him who seeks the Gold
of New Jerusalem. The Gold of that land is good, and all who will can
find it and enjoy it.
Another way was by the Isthmus of Panama, and then up the coast in
such a ship as one could find. It was the least toilsome journey and
the shortest, but still attended with hardships. Many fell a prey to
wasting fevers which burn out one's life, and so never reached the
destined port of San Francisco, through which they would pass to the
gold fields.
The longest way was around Cape Horn. Still there were those who took
it, even if months, five or six, it might be, were consumed in the
journey. The gold they sought would compensate them at last. These too
had to encounter storms, face probable shipwreck or contend with grim
death. Many who sold all to equip themselves, who turned away from
home and kindred, for a time they thought, to enrich themselves, who
would surely return to their loved ones with untold treasure, never
fulfilled their desire. Some perished in the voyage, others died
in San Francisco, and were laid to rest till the final day in her
cemeteries by the heaving ocean. Such as reached the mines did
not always gain the gold they coveted. There were those who were
fortunate, who made a success of life, who realised their day dreams;
and some of these returned to the old home, to the waiting parents,
to the longing wife and children. Some with their gold settled in San
Francisco and sent for their kindred. And what happy meetings were
those in the years of gold mining, when ships coming from many lands,
from American and foreign ports, brought to the city through the
Golden Gate the beloved ones whose dear faces had ever been an
inspiration to the toilers in darkest hours! Methinks the meetings
of loved ones parted here, on the shores of the crystal sea, will
compensate for all life's labours and trials. Yes, if we only have the
true treasures, the true gold of the Golden City.
In those days of 1848 and 1849 and during 1850 and 1851, San
Francisco--on which we are now looking, the stately, comely city of
to-day, was a city of tents in a large measure. Ships were pouring out
their passengers at the Long Wharf. They would tent for a time on the
shore, then hurry off to the mines. In those days you could meet in
the streets men of various nationalities. Here were gold seekers from
New England and old England, from our own Southland and the sunny land
of France and Italy, from Germany and Sweden and Norway, from Canada
and other British possessions, from China and Japan. And it was gold
which brought them all here, the statesman and the soldier, the
labouring man and the child of fortune, sons of adversity and sons
of prosperity, rich and poor, lawyers, doctors, merchants, sailors,
scholars, unlettered,--all are here for gold. Such is the San
Francisco of those early days. It is a romance of reality, of the
Golden West!