James
Wilson Marshall is credited with being the first to discover gold in the
American River. Marshall was a carpenter
from New Jersey. Marshall was working
for John Sutter and was building a sawmill to supply lumber for his fort in the
Sacramento Valley. John Sutter was a
Swiss immigrant who came to California in 1839 with ambitious dreams of
creating an empire, the empire he called the New Helvetia in the Sacramento
Valley.
On a bitter cold morning in early 1848 Marshall picked up a few nuggets of gold from the American River. Marshall was not looking for gold that day, he simply was doing his normal daily work duties. Marshall and the crew working with him needed to dig a tailrace during the day in order to let water pour through at night to turn the water-wheel properly which powered the saw correctly and efficiently. Days of digging the tailrace and nights of water scouring the bottom, turned the ditch into a giant sluice box with cracks that exposed bedrock serving as the riffles which caught the gold that washed from loosened gravel off the banks. Marshall saw the glimmers of light bouncing off the gold flake, but was suspicious in believing it was gold, rather thinking it was Biotite, or “fools gold”. He gathered the gold flakes and wrapped them in a handkerchief to show to his boss, John Sutter.
Sutter took out his well-worn encyclopedia and started looking up whatever he could find on the subject of gold. From the encyclopedia he learned that you could test the subject in nitric acid, took some from his medical kit and ran the test on the gold flakes Marshall found. Their experiment proved them wrong, the flakes found were not fool’s gold, but almost pure gold.
Sutter, Marshall and Sutter's employees made a pact and decided to be cautious; promising to try to keep their finding of gold a secret. Sutter had a lot invested in his empire- the New Helvetia, and needed it to be profitable. If word got out about the gold, gold hunters would get in the way of constructing his lumber mill. Barely a month later, word soon got out. Jacob Wittmer took two wagons up to the mill on February 9th and his children told him all about the gold they had seen while playing in the banks of the river. From then on the news traveled like a wildfire. Wittmer showed off his gold to locals at the fort store. The store owner then told his partner Sam Brannan, in San Francisco. By March the first newspaper in California had a small article with the headline of “Gold Mine Found”. Sam Brannan also owned a newspaper, the California Star. He competed by writing his own article about the discovery of gold. Charles Bennett, a worker of Marshall’s was even sent to Monterey to bring the news to the governor, Colonel Mason (Starr,1998).
Brannan not only spread the word about the discovery of gold through his newspaper, but he ran through the streets of San Francisco with a bottle of gold dust shouting about Marshall’s discovery. However, just before Brannan decided to spread the word to everyone nearby, he purchased every pick, axe, pan, and shovel in the region. Brannan got rich by selling tools and supplies to the gold seekers. A metal pan that was available for twenty cents from a general store was sold for fifteen dollars from Brannan. In just nine weeks Brannan made $36,000 from the gold hunters, and soon would become the richest man to benefit from the Gold Rush (Shape, 1998) At first there were very few curiosity seekers, many believed and assumed it was all a hoax. Even with the flood of gold seekers coming to the American River, the mill was still in operation on Sundays and holidays.
On a bitter cold morning in early 1848 Marshall picked up a few nuggets of gold from the American River. Marshall was not looking for gold that day, he simply was doing his normal daily work duties. Marshall and the crew working with him needed to dig a tailrace during the day in order to let water pour through at night to turn the water-wheel properly which powered the saw correctly and efficiently. Days of digging the tailrace and nights of water scouring the bottom, turned the ditch into a giant sluice box with cracks that exposed bedrock serving as the riffles which caught the gold that washed from loosened gravel off the banks. Marshall saw the glimmers of light bouncing off the gold flake, but was suspicious in believing it was gold, rather thinking it was Biotite, or “fools gold”. He gathered the gold flakes and wrapped them in a handkerchief to show to his boss, John Sutter.
Sutter took out his well-worn encyclopedia and started looking up whatever he could find on the subject of gold. From the encyclopedia he learned that you could test the subject in nitric acid, took some from his medical kit and ran the test on the gold flakes Marshall found. Their experiment proved them wrong, the flakes found were not fool’s gold, but almost pure gold.
Sutter, Marshall and Sutter's employees made a pact and decided to be cautious; promising to try to keep their finding of gold a secret. Sutter had a lot invested in his empire- the New Helvetia, and needed it to be profitable. If word got out about the gold, gold hunters would get in the way of constructing his lumber mill. Barely a month later, word soon got out. Jacob Wittmer took two wagons up to the mill on February 9th and his children told him all about the gold they had seen while playing in the banks of the river. From then on the news traveled like a wildfire. Wittmer showed off his gold to locals at the fort store. The store owner then told his partner Sam Brannan, in San Francisco. By March the first newspaper in California had a small article with the headline of “Gold Mine Found”. Sam Brannan also owned a newspaper, the California Star. He competed by writing his own article about the discovery of gold. Charles Bennett, a worker of Marshall’s was even sent to Monterey to bring the news to the governor, Colonel Mason (Starr,1998).
Brannan not only spread the word about the discovery of gold through his newspaper, but he ran through the streets of San Francisco with a bottle of gold dust shouting about Marshall’s discovery. However, just before Brannan decided to spread the word to everyone nearby, he purchased every pick, axe, pan, and shovel in the region. Brannan got rich by selling tools and supplies to the gold seekers. A metal pan that was available for twenty cents from a general store was sold for fifteen dollars from Brannan. In just nine weeks Brannan made $36,000 from the gold hunters, and soon would become the richest man to benefit from the Gold Rush (Shape, 1998) At first there were very few curiosity seekers, many believed and assumed it was all a hoax. Even with the flood of gold seekers coming to the American River, the mill was still in operation on Sundays and holidays.