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Settled along the banks of the
South Fork River between Sutter's Mill and Mormon Island is Coloma,
California -- the first important mining town of the 1848 gold rush
days. It was here, on the South Fork River, that
James Marshall first
found the gold that started the great California Gold Rush. News
spread quickly and by the time it reached
San
Francisco, thousands
began to flood the area.
James Marshall was a construction
foreman for Johann (John) Augustus Sutter, who operated
Sutter's Mill
on the banks of the American River.
Sutter had come to
California
from his native Switzerland in 1834. By 1839, he had settled in the
heart of the
Sacramento
Valley, where he wanted to establish a "great
colony.”
He began to "build” his colony
when he was granted 50,000 acres of prime land by Governor Alvarado,
the Mexican governor of
California. He then purchased a number of
properties that were moved to the area and began raising a herd of
cattle. Calling his new colony "New Helvetica,” he used Indian labor
to build a "fort,” from which he oversaw his new settlement.
However, he was badly in need of
lumber for his buildings. In 1845, he contracted with
James Marshall
to build a sawmill in the Coloma Valley, about 40 miles east of New
Helvetia and Sutter’s Fort. However, it would be two more years
before construction on the sawmill would begin. In January, 1848, when
the mill was nearing completion, Sutter was inspecting the water flow
when he discovered a pea-sized gold nugget. Gold had been discovered
in
California! Ironically, neither
Sutter nor
Marshall ever profited
from the discovery that should have made them independently wealthy.
As word quickly spread,
Sutter's
sawmill was overrun by gold miners, around which, a gold camp born.
Named for the valley in which it was situated, called Cullumah,
meaning "beautiful” to the native Nisenan
Indians, the new "town” was
called Coloma.
By the
summer of 1848, some 80,000 miners had flooded the area, spreading up
and down the length of the
Sacramento Valley, overrunning
Sutter's
domain and trampling his visions of grandeur. Also displaced wee the
native Nisenan
Indians who had called the Cullumah Valley home for
centuries.
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