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14 Lithographic Views
of the California Gold Rush 1850-1857
in PowerPoint (900 Kb)
"Discovery
of Gold in California," by Gen. John Sutter
Capt. Sutter tells of the Gold Discovery
An
Eyewitness to the Gold Discovery
A
Rush to the Gold Washings — From the “California Star”
Military
Governor Mason’s Report on the Discovery of Gold
William T. Sherman
and the Gold Rush
Dramatic Impact of the
Gold Discovery, by Theo. H. Hittell
The Discovery —
as Viewed in New York and London
Gold Rush and Anti-Chinese
Race Hatred
Other Museum
Gold Rush Items
California Gold Rush
Chronology 1846 - 1849
California Gold Rush
Chronology 1850 - 1851
California Gold Rush
Chronology 1852 - 1854
California Gold Rush
Chronology 1855 - 1856
California Gold Rush
Chronology 1857 - 1861
California Gold Rush
Chronology 1862 - 1865
Steamer Day in the 1850s
Sam Brannan Opens New
Bank - 1857
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OFFICIAL
REPORT ON THE GOLD MINES.
 This
is the official account of a visit paid to the gold region in July 1848
by Colonel Richard Barnes Mason, who had been appointed to the military
command in California, and wrote his report for the adjutant-general
at Washington. It is dated from headquarters at Monterey, August 17, 1848.
Sir,—I have the honour to inform you that,
accompanied by Lieut. W. T. Sherman,
3rd Artillery, A.A.A. General, I started on the 12th of June last to make
a tour through the northern part of California. We reached San Francisco
on the 20th, and found that all, or nearly all, its male inhabitants had
gone to the mines. The town, which a few months before was so busy and
thriving, was then almost deserted. On the evening of the 24th the horses
of the escort were crossed to Saucelito in a launch, and on the following
day we resumed the journey, by way of Bodega and Sonoma, to Sutter’s Fort,
where we arrived on the morning of July 2. Along the whole route mills
were lying idle, fields of wheat were open to cattle and horses, houses
vacant, and farms going to waste. At Sutter’s there was more life and business.
Launches were discharging their cargoes at the river and carts were hauling
goods to the fort, where already were established several stores, a hotel,
etc. Captain Sutter had only two mechanics in the employe—wagon-maker
and a blacksmith, whom he was then paying $10 per day. Merchants pay him
a monthly rent of $100 per room, and while I was there a two-story house
in the fort was rented as a hotel for $500 a month.
On the 5th
we arrived in the neighbourhood of the mines, and proceeded twenty-five
miles up the American Fork, to a point on it now known as the Lower Mines,
or Mormon Diggings. The hill sides were thickly strewn with canvas tents
and bush-harbours; a store was erected, and several boarding shanties
in operation. The day was intensely hot, yet about 200 men were at work
in the full glare of the sun, washing for gold—some with tin pans,
some with close woven Indian baskets, but the greater part had a rude machine
known as the cradle. This is on rockers, six or eight feet long, open at
the foot, and its head had a coarse grate, or sieve; the bottom is rounded,
with small cleets nailed across. Four men are required to work this machine;
one digs the ground in the bank close by the stream; another carries it
to the cradle, and empties it on the grate; a third gives a violent rocking
motion to the machine, whilst a fourth dashes on water from the stream
itself. The sieve keeps the coarse stones from entering the cradle, the
current of water washes off the earthy matter, and the gravel is gradually
carried out at the foot of the machine, leaving the gold mixed with a heavy
fine black sand above the first cleets. The sand and gold mixed together
are then drawn off through auger holes into a pan below, are dried in the
sun, and afterwards separated by blowing off the sand. A party of four
men, thus employed at the Lower Mines, average 100 dollars
a-day.
The Indians, and those who have nothing but pans or willow baskets, gradually
wash out the earth, and separate the gravel by hand, leaving nothing but
the gold mixed with sand, which is separated in the manner before described.
The gold in the Lower Mines is in fine bright scales, of which I send several
specimens.
As we ascended
the south branch of the American fork, the country became more broken and
mountainous, and twenty-five miles below the lower washings the hills
rise to about 1000 feet above the level of the Sacramento Plain. Here a
species of pine occurs, which led to the discovery of the gold. Captain
Sutter, feeling the great want of lumber, contracted in September last
with a Mr. Marshall to build a saw-mill at that place. It was erected
in the course of the past winter and spring—a dam and race constructed;
but when the water was let on the wheel, the tail race was found to be
too narrow to permit the water to escape with sufficient rapidity. Mr.
Marshall, to save labour, let the water directly into the race with a strong
current, so as to wash it wider and deeper. He effected his purpose, and
a large bed of mud and gravel was carried to the foot of the race. One
day Mr. Marshall, as he was walking down the race to this deposit of mud,
observed some glittering particles at its upper edge; he gathered a few,
examined them, and became satisfied of their value. He then went to the
fort, told Captain Sutter of his discovery, and they agreed to keep it
secret until a certain grist-mill of Sutter’s was finished. It, however,
got out and spread like magic. Remarkable success attended the labours
of the first explorers, and, in a few weeks, hundreds of men were drawn
thither. At the time of my visit, but little more than three months after
its first discovery, it was estimated that upwards of four thousand people
were employed. At the mill there is a fine deposit or bank of gravel, which
the people respect as the property of Captain Sutter, though he pretends
to no right to it, and would be perfectly satisfied with the simple promise
of a pre-emption on account of the mill which he has built there at
a considerable cost. Mr. Marshall was living near the mill, and informed
me that many persons were employed above and below him; that they used
the same machines as at the lower washings, and that their success was
about the same—ranging from one to three ounces of gold per man
daily. This gold, too, is in scales a little coarser than those of the
lower mines. From the mill Mr. Marshall guided me up the mountain on the
opposite or north bank of the south fork, where in the bed of small streams
or ravines, now dry, a great deal of coarse gold has been found. I there
saw several parties at work, all of whom were doing very well; a great
many specimens were shown me, some as heavy as four or five ounces in weight;
and I send three pieces, labeled No. 5, presented by a Mr. Spence. You
will perceive that some of the specimens accompanying this report hold
mechanically pieces of quartz—that the surface is rough, and evidently
moulded in the crevice of a rock. This gold cannot have been carried far
by water, but must have remained near where it was first deposited from
the rock that once bound it. I inquired of many if they had encountered
the metal in its matrix, but in every instance they said they had not;
but that the gold was invariably mixed with wash-gravel, or lodged
in the crevices of other rocks. All bore testimony that they had found
gold in greater or less quantities in the numerous small gullies or ravines
that occur in that mountainous region.
On the 7th
of July I left the mill and crossed to a small stream emptying into the
American fork, three or four miles below the saw-mill. I struck the
stream (now known as Weber’s Creek) at the washings of Sunol and Company.
They had about thirty Indians employed, whom they pay in merchandise. They
were getting gold of a character similar to that found in the main fork,
and doubtless in sufficient quantities to satisfy them. I send you a small
specimen, presented by this Company, of their gold. From this point we
proceeded up the stream about eight miles, where we found a great many
people and Indians, some engaged in the bed of the stream, and others in
the small side valleys that put into it. These latter are exceedingly rich,
two ounces being considered an ordinary yield for a day’s work. A small
gutter, not more than 100 yards long by four feet wide, and two or three
deep, was pointed out to me as the one where two men (W. Daly and Percy
M’Coon) had a short time before obtained. 17,000 dollars’ worth of gold.
Captain Weber informed me, that he knew that these two men had employed
four white men and about 100 Indians, and that, at the end of one week’s
work, they paid off their party, and had left 10,000 dollars’ worth of
this gold. Another small ravine was shown me, from which had been taken
upwards of 12,000 dollars’ worth of gold. Hundreds of similar ravines,
to all appearances, are as yet untouched. I could not have credited these
reports had I not seen, in the abundance of the precious metal, evidence
of their truth. Mr. Neligh, an agent of Commodore Stockton, had been at
work about three weeks in the neighbourhood, and showed me, in bags and
bottles, 2000 dollars’ worth of gold; and Mr. Lyman, a gentleman of education,
and worthy of every credit, said he had been engaged with four others,
with a machine, on the American fork, just below Sutter’s Mill, that they
worked eight days, and that his share was at the rate of fifty dollars
a-day, but hearing that others were doing better at Weber’s Place,
they had removed there, and were then on the point of resuming operations.
The country
on either side of Weber’s Creek is much broken up by hills, and is intersected
in every direction by small streams or ravines which contain more or less
gold. Those that have been worked are barely scratched, and, although thousands
of ounces have been carried away, I do not consider that a serious impression
has been made upon the whole. Every day was developing new and richer deposits;
and the only impression seemed to be, that the metal would be found in
such abundance as seriously to depreciate in value.
On the 8th
July I returned to the lower mines, and eventually to Monterey, where I
arrived on the 17th of July. Before leaving Sutter’s, I satisfied myself
that gold existed in the bed of the Feather River, in the Yuba and Bear,
and in many of the small streams that lie between the latter and the American
fork; also, that it had been found in the Consumnes, to the south of the
American fork. In each of these streams the gold is found in small scales,
whereas in the intervening mountains it occurs in coarser lumps.
Mr. Sinclair,
whose rancho is three miles above Sutter’s on the north side of the American,
employs about fifty Indians on the north fork, not far from its junction
with the main stream. He had been engaged about five weeks when I saw him,
and up to that time his Indians had used simply closely-woven willow
baskets. His net proceeds (which I saw) were about 16,000 dollars’ worth
of gold. He showed me the proceeds of his last week’s work—14
lbs. avoirdupois of clean-washed gold.
The principal
store at Sutter’s fort, that of Brannan and Co., had received in payment
for goods 36,000 dollars’ worth of this gold from the 1st of May to the
10th of July. Other merchants had also made extensive sales. Large quantities
of goods were daily sent forward to the mines, as the Indians, heretofore
so poor and degraded, have suddenly become consumers of the luxuries of
life. I before mentioned that the greater part of the farmers and rancheros
had abandoned their fields to go to the mines. This is not the case with
Captain Sutter, who was carefully gathering his wheat, estimated at 40,000
bushels. Flour is already worth, at Sutter’s, 36 dollars
a-barrel,
and will soon be 50. Unless large quantities of breadstuffs reach the country
much suffering will occur; but as each man is now able to pay a large price,
it is believed the merchants will bring from Chili and the Oregon a plentiful
supply for the coming winter.
The most
moderate estimate I could obtain from men acquainted with the subject was,
that upwards of 4,000 men were working in the gold district, of whom more
than one-half were Indians, and that from 30,000 to 50,000 dollars’
worth of gold, if not more, were daily obtained. The entire gold district,
with very few exceptions of grants made some years ago by the Mexican authorities,
is on land belonging to the United States. It was a matter of serious reflection
to me, how I could secure to the Government certain rents or fees for the
privilege of securing this gold; but upon considering the large extent
of country, the character of the people engaged, and the small scattered
force at my command, I resolved not to interfere, but permit all to work
freely, unless broils and crimes should call for interference.
The discovery
of these vast deposits of gold has entirely changed the character of Upper
California. Its people, before engaged in cultivating their small patches
of ground, and guarding their herds of cattle and horses, have all gone
to the mines, or are on their way thither. Labourers of every trade have
left their work-benches, and tradesmen their shops; sailors desert
their ships as fast as they arrive on the coast; and several vessels have
gone to sea with hardly enough hands to spread a sail. Two or three are
now at anchor in San Francisco, with no crew on board. Many desertions,
too, have taken place from the garrisons within the influence of these
mines; twenty-six soldiers have deserted from the post of Sonoma,
twenty-four from that of San Francisco, and twenty-four from
Monterey. I have no hesitation now in saying, that there is more gold in
the country drained by the Sacramento and San Joaquin Rivers than will
pay the cost of the present war with Mexico a hundred times over. No capital
is required to obtain this gold, as the labouring man wants nothing but
his pick and shovel and tin pan, with which to dig and wash the gravel,
and many frequently pick gold out of the crevices of rocks with their knives,
in pieces of from one to six ounces.
Gold is
also believed to exist on the eastern slope of the Sierra Nevada; and,
when at the mines, I was informed by an intelligent Mormon that it had
been found near the Great Salt Lake by some of his fraternity. Nearly all
the Mormons are leaving California to go to the Salt Lake; and this they
surely would not do unless they were sure of finding gold there, in the
same abundance as they now do on the Sacramento.
I have the
honour to be,
Your most
obedient Servant,
R. B. MASON,
Colonel 1st Dragoons, commanding.
[To:] Brigadier-General
R. Jones, Adjutant-General, U.S.A., Washington, D.C.
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