Coming of the Argonauts by Zoeth Skinner Eldredge

CALIFORNIA LEGENDS

Coming of the Argonauts

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By Zoeth Skinner Eldredge in 1912

Years before the discovery of gold on the American River gold placers had been worked in California with varying degrees of success. But little attention was paid to this industry and it was not considered of much importance by either the Californians or the foreigners residing in their midst. The priests discouraged mining, the rancheros were indifferent to it, and neither class wished to see the country filled with a mining population. On March 2, 1844, the deputy for California to the Mexican congress, Don Manuel Castañares, reported to his government the discovery of gold in the vicinity of Los Angeles the previous year. These mines had produced from about the middle of the year to December 1843 two thousand ounces, the most of which had been sent to the United States.

California Gold Miners.

He said the placers extended a distance of nearly thirty leagues (seventy-eight miles). William H. Thomes, writing from San Pedro where the ship Admittance was taking cargo June 30, 1843, says: "Here we also received ten iron flasks of gold dust, although where the latter came from no one knew, but it was reported that the merchants of the Pueblo Los Angeles traded for it with the Indians and the latter would not reveal the source whence it came. When Alfred Robinson went to the United States in 1843, he carried to the mint in Philadelphia a package of gold dust from Abel Stearns of Los Angeles, the assay of which showed it to be .906 fine.

The placers from which this gold came were on the San Francisco rancho, near the mission of San Fernando. The rancho had formerly belonged to the mission, but at this time was in possession of the Del Valle family. The discovery was made in March 1842 and in the following May, Ignacio Del Valle was appointed encargo de justicias to preserve order in the mining district. William H. Davis says that from eighty to one hundred thousand dollars of gold was taken from these places in two years. Colonel Mason in his report of August 17, 1848, on the gold fields of California says: "The gold placer near the mission of San Fernando has long been known but has been but little wrought for want of water."

But the event that was to set the world ablaze and create an empire on the shores of the Pacific was the discovery by James W. Marshall of gold on the American River January 24, 1848. It may seem strange that in a community where the somewhat extensive placers of the San Fernando valley received so little attention a discovery of gold placers in the Sacramento valley should have created such intense excitement. It may be that the reason for this was that the discovery on the American River was so quickly followed by reports of the great extent of the gold region and the astonishing richness of the placers. The gold deposits were on or near the surface, no capital was required to work them, and a laboring man with nothing but his pick, shovel, and pan could obtain from one to two or more ounces per day, with the possibility, always, of acquiring a fortune in a few weeks.

In the foothills of the sierras about forty-five miles northeast of the Embarcadero of the Sacramento, on the south fork of the American River, Captain Sutter was building a sawmill in the fall and winter of 1847, and employed James W. Marshall to superintend the work. In digging a tail race for the mill, Marshall was in the habit of turning the water into the ditch at night to wash out the dirt loosened by the workmen during the day.

James Marshall at Sutter's Sawmill, Coloma, California, 1851

On the morning of January 24, 1848, Marshall saw and picked up in the mill race a glittering piece of gold weighing about half an ounce. The men picked up other particles and, satisfied of the importance of the find, Marshall went to Sutter with it. Sutter was anxious to complete his mill and also a grist mill he was erecting on the American River, and he and Marshall agreed to keep the discovery quiet.

The attempt was useless; the men soon quit work and went to digging gold. Sutter, who was sub-Indian agent for the Sacramento Valley, obtained from the Indians of the Yalesumi tribe a lease of twelve square miles on the American fork and sent it to Governor Mason for confirmation. This Mason refused, saying that the United States did not recognize the right of Indians to sell or lease to private individuals land on which they resided.

The news of the discovery spread like magic. Remarkable success attended the labors of the first explorers and in a few weeks hundreds were engaged in the placers. By August 1st it was estimated that four thousand men were working in the gold district, of whom more than one-half were Indians, and that from thirty to fifty thousand dollars worth of gold was daily obtained. Colonel Mason reports that no thefts or robberies had been committed in the gold region, and it was a matter of surprise to him that so peaceful and quiet a state of things should continue to exist.

The discovery changed the whole character of California. Its people, before engaged in agriculture and in cattle raising, had gone to the mines or were on their way thither. Laborers left their workbenches and tradesmen their shops; sailors deserted their ships as fast as they arrived on the coast. Mason reports that seventy-six soldiers had deserted from the posts of Sonoma, San Francisco, and Monterey, and for a few days he feared that garrisons would desert in a body. As a laborer, a soldier could earn in one day at the mines double a soldier's pay and allowances for a month; while a carpenter or mechanic would not listen to an offer of less than fifteen or twenty dollars a day. "Could any combination of affairs try a man's fidelity more than this?" writes the governor, "I really think some extraordinary mark of favor should be given to those soldiers who remain faithful to their flag throughout this tempting crisis." In July 1848 Colonel Mason made a tour of the mining region. "Many private letters have gone to the United States," he says, "giving accounts of the vast quantity of gold recently discovered, and it may be a matter of surprise why I have made no report on this subject at an earlier date. The reason is that I could not bring myself to believe the reports that I heard of the wealth of the gold district until I visited it myself. 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." In November he writes: "Gold continues to be found in increased quantities and over an increased extent of country. I stated to you in my letter, No. 37, that there was more gold in the country drained by the Sacramento and San Joaquin Rivers than would pay all the cost of the war with Mexico one hundred times over; if I had said five hundred times over, I should have been nearer the mark. Any reports that may reach you of the vast quantities of gold in California can scarcely be too exaggerated for belief."

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