History of the State of California

"Labor has ever been high in California, but previous to the discovery of the placera gold, the rates ranged from $1 to $3 per day. Since that epoch common labor cannot be obtained, and if to be had, for no less price than fifty cents per hour, and that the most common. Carpenters and other mechanics have been offered $15 a day, but it has been flatly refused. Many of our enterprising citizens were largely engaged in building, and others wish to commence on dwellings, warehouses, and the like, but all have had to suspend for the lack of that all important class of community, the working men."

The following extracts from the published journal of a physician in California, give accounts of the reception of the news of the gold discovery in San Francisco, with its consequent effects.

"May 8th.– Captain Fulsom called at Sweeting's to-day. He had seen a man this morning, who reported that he had just come from a river called the American Fork, about one hundred miles in the interior, where he had been gold washing. Captain Fulsom saw the gold he had with him; it was about twenty-three ounces weight, and in small flakes. The man stated that he was eight days getting it, but Captain Fulsom hardly believed this. He says that he saw some of this gold a few weeks since, and thought it was only 'mica,' but good judges have pronounced it to be genuine metal. He talks, however, of paying a visit to the place where it is reported to come from. After he was gone, Bradley stated that the Sacramento settlements, which Malcolm wished to visit, were in the neighborhood of the American Fork, and that we might go there together; he thought the distance was only one hundred and twenty miles.

"May 10th.– Yesterday and to-day nothing has been talked of but the new gold 'placer,' as people call it. It seems that four other men had accompanied the person Captain Fulsom saw yesterday, and that they had each realized a large quantity of gold. They left the 'diggings' on the American Fork, (which it seems is the Rio de los Americanos, a tributary to the Sacramento) about a week ago, and stopped a day or two at Sutter's Fort, a few miles this side of the diggings, on their way; from there they had travelled by boat to San Francisco. The gold they brought has been examined by the first Alcalde here and by all the merchants in the place. Bradley showed us a lump weighing a quarter of an ounce, which he had bought of one of the men, and for which he gave him three dollars and a half. I have no doubt in my own mind about its being genuine gold. Several parties, we hear, are already made up to visit the diggings; and, according to the newspaper here, a number of people have actually started off with shovels, mattocks, and pans, to dig the gold themselves. It is not likely, however, that this will be allowed, for Captain Fulsom has already written to Colonel Mason about taking possession of the mine on behalf of the government, it being, as he says, on public land.

"May 17th.– This place is now in a perfect furor of excitement; all the work-people have struck. Walking through the town to-day, I observed that laborers were employed only upon about half-a-dozen of the fifty new buildings which were in the course of being run up. The majority of the mechanics at this place are making preparations for moving off to the mines, and several hundred people of all classes – lawyers, store-keepers, merchants, &c., – are bitten with the fever; in fact, there is a regular gold mania springing up. I counted no less than eighteen houses which were closed, the owners having left."

The mania continued to increase, and within a few months all the principal towns were nearly emptied of their population. Gold was the universal object, and splendid and rapid fortune the universal hope. No occupation seemed to offer such a prospect as that of digging gold, and, accordingly, those who were not able to bear the fatigues of such work, or were at the head of any sort of business in the different towns, had to pay enormous prices for the labor of subordinates who performed the meanest services. The prices of all agricultural and manufactured products became treble the previous rates.

Soon came the first waves of the tide of emigration that was to flood the placers of the gold region. The first influx consisted of Mexicans of the province of Sonoma, Chilians, and some few Chinese. These, principally took possession of the southern mines, or those on the San Joaquin and its tributaries. Some few stopped at San Francisco, and secured lots of ground which they knew would become very valuable in a short time, and erected temporary stores and dwellings. This gave the impulse to the progress of the town, and it soon advanced rapidly in size and population. Then came the emigration from the Atlantic States of the Union, and the whole territory felt the progressive and enterprising spirit of the gold-seekers. The Americans generally took possession of the mines upon the northern tributaries of the Sacramento River; but as their numbers increased they pushed towards the southern mines, and frequent collisions with the foreigners were the consequence. Finally, a great number of the latter were compelled to leave the country.

CHAPTER VII

ADVENTURES OF SOME OF THE MINERS, AND INCIDENTS CONNECTED WITH MINING

The adventures of the eager gold-seekers in the region of their hopes, among the washings and the diggings of the placers, cannot but be interesting. The toil to which the men have to submit if they would obtain any thing like a satisfaction to their desires, is of a very irksome character. In the summer season, the heat is intense, and the principal part of the labor of washing and digging must be performed exposed to the full blaze of the sun. In the "dry diggings," the miners suffer greatly from the want of water. Most of the provisions having to be transported from the towns on the Sacramento and San Joaquin, soon grow unwholesome from exposure to the sultry air of the day and the damp air of the night. This diet, conjointly with the exposure of the miners, tends to produce intermittent fever and dysentery. The miners generally reside in huts of a rude construction, or in canvas tents, which afford but poor protection from the changes of the weather.

The most prominent man in the neighborhood of the "diggins," is Captain Sutter, the Daniel Boone of that part of the country. He was formerly an officer in the Swiss guards of Charles X. of France. After the revolution of 1830, in that country, he came to the United States. Emigrating to California, he obtained a grant of land from the Mexican government, and founded the settlement known as Sutter's Fort. Upon his land, the first discovery of the richness of the soil was made, and his house and the settlement around it has been, ever since, the resort of persons going to and from the placers, and a depot for provisions and articles used by the miners. Stores and workshops have been established, and a considerable amount of business is transacted there. Captain Sutter is held in very great respect by the people of the settlement and those stopping at his house on the road to the placers. Several versions of the account of the discovery of the gold mines have been circulated, but the true one, in the Captain's own words, is given in a work recently published.6 The account is here inserted, both on account of the interest connected with the discovery, and in order to correct wrong versions of the matter.

"I was sitting one afternoon," said the Captain, "just after my siesta, engaged, by-the-bye, in writing a letter to a relation of mine at Lucerne, when I was interrupted by Mr. Marshall – a gentleman with whom I had frequent business transactions – bursting hurriedly into the room. From the unusual agitation in his manner, I imagined that something serious had occurred, and, as we involuntarily do in this part of the world, I at once glanced to see if my rifle was in its proper place. You should know that the mere appearance of Mr. Marshall at that moment in the fort was quite enough to surprise me, as he had but two days before left the place to make some alterations in a mill for sawing pine planks, which he had just run up for me, some miles higher up the Americanos. When he had recovered himself a little, he told me that, however great my surprise might be at his unexpected reappearance, it would be much greater when I heard the intelligence he had come to bring me. 'Intelligence,' he added, 'which, if properly profited by, would put both of us in possession of unheard-of wealth – millions and millions of dollars, in fact.' I frankly own, when I heard this, that I thought something had touched Marshall's brain, when suddenly all my misgivings were put an end to by his flinging on the table a handful of scales of pure virgin gold. I was fairly thunderstruck, and asked him to explain what all this meant, when he went on to say, that, according to my instructions, he had thrown the mill-wheel out of gear, to let the whole body of the water in the dam find a passage through the tail-race, which was previously too narrow to allow the water to run off in sufficient quantity, whereby the wheel was prevented from efficiently performing its work. By this alteration the narrow channel was considerably enlarged, and a mass of sand and gravel carried off by the force of the torrent. Early in the morning after this took place, he (Mr. Marshall) was walking along the left bank of the stream, when he perceived something which he at first took for a piece of opal – a clear transparent stone, very common here – glittering on one of the spots laid bare by the sudden crumbling away of the bank. He paid no attention to this; but while he was giving directions to the workmen, having observed several similar glittering fragments, his curiosity was so far excited, that he stooped down and picked one of them up. 'Do you know,' said Mr. Marshall to me, 'I positively debated within myself two or three times whether I should take the trouble to bend my back to pick up one of the pieces, and had decided on not doing so, when, further on, another glittering morsel caught my eye – the largest of the pieces now before you. I condescended to pick it up, and to my astonishment found that it was a thin scale of what appears to be pure gold.' He then gathered some twenty or thirty similar pieces, which on examination convinced him that his suppositions were right. His first impression was, that this gold had been lost or buried there by some early Indian tribe – perhaps some of those mysterious inhabitants of the West, of whom we have no account, but who dwelt on this continent centuries ago, and built those cities and temples, the ruins of which are scattered about these solitary wilds. On proceeding, however, to examine the neighboring soil, he discovered that it was more or less auriferous. This at once decided him. He mounted his horse, and rode down to me as fast as it would carry him, with the news.

"At the conclusion of Mr. Marshall's account," continued Captain Sutter, "and when I had convinced myself, from the specimens he had brought with him, that it was not exaggerated, I felt as much excited as himself. I eagerly inquired if he had shown the gold to the work people at the mill, and was glad to hear that he had not spoken to a single person about it. We agreed," said the Captain, smiling, "not to mention the circumstance to any one, and arranged to set off early the next day for the mill. On our arrival, just before sundown, we poked the sand about in various places, and before long succeeded in collecting between us, more than an ounce of gold, mixed up with a good deal of sand. I stayed at Mr. Marshall's that night, and the next day we proceeded some little distance up the South Fork, and found that gold existed along the whole course, not only in the bed of the main stream, where the water had subsided, but in every little dried-up creek and ravine. Indeed, I think it is more plentiful in these latter places, for I myself, with nothing more than a small knife, picked out from a dry gorge, a little way up the mountain, a solid lump of gold which weighed nearly an ounce and a half.

"On our return to the mill, we were astonished by the work-people coming up to us in a body, and showing us small flakes of gold similar to those we had ourselves procured. Marshall tried to laugh the matter off with them, and to persuade them that what they had found was only some shining mineral of trifling value; but one of the Indians, who had worked at the gold mine in the neighborhood of La Paz, in Lower California, cried out, 'Oro! oro!' We were disappointed enough at this discovery, and supposed that the work-people had been watching our movements, although we thought we had taken every precaution against being observed by them. I heard, afterwards, that one of them, a sly Kentuckian, had dogged us about, and that, looking on the ground to see if he could discover what we were in search of, he had lighted on some flakes of gold himself.

"The next day I rode back to the Fort, organized a laboring party, set the carpenters to work on a few necessary matters, and the next day, accompanied them to a point of the Fork, where they encamped for the night. By the following morning I had a party of fifty Indians fairly at work. The way we first managed was to shovel the soil into small buckets, or into some of our famous Indian baskets; then wash all the light earth out, and pick away the stones; after this, we dried the sand on pieces of canvas, and with long reeds blew away all but the gold. I have now some rude machines in use, and upwards of one hundred men employed, chiefly Indians, who are well fed, and who are allowed whisky three times a day.

"The report soon spread. Some of the gold was sent to San Francisco, and crowds of people flocked to the diggings. Added to this, a large emigrant party of Mormons entered California across the Rocky Mountains, just as the affair was first made known. They halted at once, and set to work on a spot some thirty miles from here, where a few of them still remain. When I was last up to the diggings, there were full eight hundred men at work, at one place and another, with perhaps something like three hundred more passing backwards and forwards between here and the mines. I at first imagined that the gold would soon be exhausted by such crowds of seekers, but subsequent observations have convinced me that it will take many years to bring about such a result, even with ten times the present number of people employed.

"What surprises me," continued the Captain, "is, that this country should have been visited by so many scientific men, and that not one of them should have ever stumbled upon the treasures; that scores of keen eyed trappers should have crossed this valley in every direction, and tribes of Indians have dwelt in it for centuries, and yet that this gold should have never been discovered. I myself have passed the very spot above a hundred times during the last ten years, but was just as blind as the rest of them, so I must not wonder at the discovery not having been made earlier."

The plan of operations adopted by most of the miners who were not Indians or Californians, was to form bands of three, five or ten, under the command of one of the number, whose name the party took, and by which it was afterwards known. Some larger companies were formed in the United States, and repaired to California, and their operations were of course, on a more extensive scale; they having all the necessary equipments of gold-washers and miners. Written rules were generally drawn up for the government of the parties, varying in particulars according to the peculiar views of the framers. These rules provided for the modus operandi of procuring the gold, supplying the party with necessaries, attending to the sick, and the division of the fruits of their labor.

One of the most frequented placers of California is called the Stanislaus mine, situated near the Stanislaus River. It was one of the first places worked to any extent by the gold-seekers, but not satisfying the expectations of some of the most greedy, it has since been partially abandoned. A description of this mine, and of the living and operations of its workers in the winter of 1848-49, will give a good general idea of the toils and privations endured by the early gold-seekers in that region, and, also, of their mode of procuring the precious metal at most of the mines. We extract from a recently published work, distinguished for minuteness of detail and accuracy of description.7

"The mine was a deep ravine, embosomed amidst lofty hills, surmounted by, and covered with pine, and having, in the bottom itself, abundance of rock, mud, and sand. Halliday and I encamped at the very lowest part of the ravine, at a little distance from Don Emanuel's party; a steep rock which towered above our heads affording us shelter, and a huge, flat stone beneath our feet promising a fair substitute for a dry bed. Here then we stretched our macheers and blankets, and arranged our saddles and bags, so as to make ourselves as comfortable and warm as possible, although, in spite of our precautions and contrivances, and of a tolerably good fire, our encampment was bitterly cold, and we lay exposed to a heavy dew. We had given up our horses into the charge of the Indians, and I saw to their being safely placed in the cavallard, whilst Halliday went to chop wood; a task I was too weak to perform. I cannot say we slept; we might more correctly be said to have had a long and most uncomfortable doze, and when morning broke, we were shivering with cold, and shook the dew in a shower from our clothes. I consulted with my companion, and urged upon him the prudence of our setting to work to construct ourselves a sort of log cabin; otherwise I felt certain, from the experience of the past night, our sojourn at the mines would be likely to prove fatal to one or both of us. He was, however, far too eager to try his fortune at digging to listen to my proposal, at which he even smiled, probably at the bare idea of weather, privation, or toil, being able to affect his powerful frame. I saw him presently depart up the ravine, shouldering a pick, and glancing now and then at his knife, whilst I proceeded in search of materials for constructing a temporary place of shelter.

"As my strength was unequal to the task of felling timber, I endeavored to procure four poles, intending to sink them into the ground, and to stretch on the top of them a bed-tick I had reserved for the purpose. The contrivance was a sorry one at the best, but shelter was indispensable; and great was my disappointment – though I procured the timber after a painful search – to find that the rocks presented an insuperable obstacle to my employing it as I intended. My efforts to sink the poles proved utterly futile, and I was at last compelled to renounce the attempt in despair. I then packed up our goods into as close a compass as possible; and, having requested one of the Spaniards in Don Emanuel's party to keep watch over them, departed to explore the ravine.

"Within a few paces of our encampment there was a large area of ground, probably half a mile square, the surface of which consisted of dark soil and slate, and was indented with innumerable holes of every possible dimension, from six inches to as many feet or more, wide and deep. In all of these lay abundance of water, of which large quantities are to be found a little beneath the surface, the ravine being supplied with it in great abundance by the rains that pour down from the hills during the wet season. To the extreme right of our camp, the ground assumed a more rocky character; and, from the vast deposit of stagnant water, did not seem to offer many attractions to the miners. Yet there was scarcely a spot in any of these places where the crow-bar, the pick, or the jack-knife, had not been busy: evidence that the whole locality must have been extremely rich in the precious metal, or it would not have been so thoroughly worked.

"In crossing the ravine, I was obliged to leap from one mound of earth to another, to avoid plunging ancle-deep in mud and water. It was wholly deserted in this part, though formerly so much frequented; and, with the exception of a few traders, who, having taken up their station here when times were good, had not yet made arrangements for removing to a more productive place, not a soul was to be seen.

"I walked on until I reached the trading-post of Mr. Anderson, formerly our interpreter in the Lower Country, whom I felt delighted to meet with again. His shed was situated in one of the dampest parts of the mine, and consisted of a few upright poles, traversed by cross-pieces, and covered in with raw hides and leaves, but yet much exposed at the sides to the wind and the weather. He had a few barrels of flour and biscuit, which he retailed at two dollars a pound; for he made no difference between the price of the raw and the prepared material. The flour would go further, it was true; but then the biscuit required no cooking on the part of the miner, whose time was literally money, and whose interest therefore it was to economize it in every possible manner. He also sold unprepared coffee and sugar at six Yankee shillings a pound; dried beef at one dollar and a half; and pork, which was regarded as a great delicacy here, at two dollars for the same weight. The various articles of which his stock-in-trade consisted he had brought all the way from Monterey at considerable labor and expense; but, by the exercise of extraordinary tact, perseverance, and industry, he had succeeded in establishing a flourishing business.

"I discovered, however, that he possessed another resource – by which his gains were marvellously increased – in the services of seven or eight Indians, whom he kept constantly at work, in the rear of his shed, digging gold, and whose labor he remunerated with provisions, and occasional presents of articles of trifling value to him, but highly esteemed by the Indians. They were watched by an American overseer, who was employed by him, to assist in the general business, particularly in slaughtering; for, as beef was scarce, he used to send his man in quest of cows and oxen; which he killed, cut up, salted and dried, in his shed, and watching the most favorable moment for the operation – namely, when meat could not be procured at the 'diggins' – never failed to realize his own price for it.

"Proceeding higher up the ravine, I observed a large tent erected on the slope of a hill, within a few yards of the bottom, where the gold is usually found. It was surrounded by a trench, the clay from which, as it was dug up, had apparently been thrown out against the canvas, forming a kind of embankment, rendering it at once water and weather-proof. I ventured into it, encountering on my way an immense piece of raw beef, suspended from the ridge-pole. Upon some stones in front, inclosing a small fire, stood a frying-pan, filled with rich looking beef collops, that set my mouth watering, and severely tested my honesty; for, although acorns are all very well in their way, and serve to stay the cravings of the stomach for awhile, I did not find my appetite any the less sharp, notwithstanding the quantity I had eaten. But I resisted the temptation, and penetrated further into the tent. At one side of it lay a crow-bar, and an old saddle that had seen rough service; yet not a soul appeared, and my eyes were again ogling the collops, whilst an inward voice whispered how imprudent it was to leave them frizzling there, when, all at once, a little man, in a 'hickory shirt,' with his face all bedaubed with pot-black and grease, darted out of some dark corner, flourishing in one hand a long bowie knife, and in the other three by no means delicate slices of fat pork, which he at once dropped into the frying-pan, stooping down on one knee, and becoming immediately absorbed in watching the interesting culinary process then going on in it.

"I came up next with a group of three Sonomeans, or inhabitants of Sonoma, busily engaged on a small sandy flat – the only one I had observed – at the bottom of the ravine. There was no water near, although I noticed several holes which had evidently been sunk in quest of it. These men were actively pursuing a process that is termed 'dry-washing.' One was shovelling up the sand into a large cloth, stretched out upon the ground, and which, when it was tolerably well covered, he took up by the corners, and shook until the pebbles and larger particles of stone and dirt came to the surface. These he brushed away carefully with his hand, repeating the process of shaking and clearing until the residue was sufficiently fine for the next operation. This was performed by the other men, who, depositing the sand in large bowls hewn out of a solid block of wood, which they held in their hands, dexterously cast the contents up before them, about four feet into the air, catching the sand again very cleverly, and blowing at it as it descended. This process being repeated, the sand gradually disappeared, and from two to three ounces of pure gold remained at the bottom of the bowl. Easy as the operation appeared to me to be, I learned, upon inquiry, that to perform it successfully required the nicest management, the greatest perseverance, and especially robust lungs. The men I saw had lighted upon a productive sand; but very often, indeed, those who adopt this mode of gold washing toil long at barren soil before they discover the uselessness of laboring thus arduously.