GOLD

THIS N THAT AND THE OTHER

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Page one

Desperado

In the early 1700s Indians were California's first people, and before the Spanish began colonizing the area in 1769, there were more then 300,000 Indian people living in what is known today as California. There were more then 100 tribes. Gold has always been in California and to the Indians it had no value in their culture on the other hand Dentalium shells were of great value, as a sign of wealth and also the hard rock obsidian used in making knifes and arrowheads were highly prized. The Indians collected seeds and acorns, hunted deer and elk and roots from certain trees and caught salmon. The Indian people were at peace with their land and only took from the land what they needed and could use without waste. Gold had been in their lives but was too heavy as a trinket, bone was much better and lighter and a hole could be bored thru it, so gold was not used and meant nothing

Tens of thousands of years of erosions loosened gold from solid rock. Large and small pieces of placer gold were washed down hill by mountain streams and forming small lakes and more streams were formed by these lakes overflowing the banks there by scattering gold all over the land below. Some of this gold will never be found and some of it lay on the ground in plain sight.

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The immigrants that had begun to settle in early 1800s in northern California found gold and kept their mouth shut as to where. Gold at that time wasn't bringing a high price but it got them bacon and beans when they reached a settlement.

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On the morning of January 24th 1848 a man in charge of a sawmill on the south fork of the American river saw something shiny in the edge of the water and picked up a pea size nugget and changed the path of history forever. The other men all said that it was not gold but shiny rock.Only Jenny Wimmer the camps only female was the one that tried to tell the men for two years that the shiny specks in the river was gold, The men only said, what would a women know of such things?Jenny being the only one that had ever seen a gold nugget as a child in Georgia. Marshall sent the little nugget to Jenny and she told them she would put it in her lye kettle and wait till the morning, the next morning the pea size nugget was the same. The men at the mill were not convinced it was gold. Marshall would take the pea to Sutter's Fort 54 miles away and have it assayed. Locked in a room Marshall and sutter hammered the pea flat, bit it with their teeth and even put acid on it, it was GOLD. Sutter and Marshall returned to the sawmill to further survey the lode, sutter owned the sawmill and had everyone pledge absolute secrecy and he would make everyone an equal partner. It was broken a promise, within days prospectors showed up with picks and shovels. Sutter owned the mill and the land but no one could stop their digging. Word shot out to three towns, Monterey, San Jose and Sonoma and when it hit San Francisco the fever was underway

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When word reached the eastern United Sates it spread like oil on water there was no stopping it. Bankers that never even got their hands dirty sold everything they owned to get ready for the trip to the gold fields in California. People of all fields of work was going, overland wagons owners sold all of their wagons except one and others formed wagon trains for the six to nine month journey. A journey that long and dangerous. To some it meant parting from the family with a boast of returning rich. Whole families also packed up and left what they couldn't get in the wagon. Prices were inflated for goods that was needed for the trip such as dried beans were 2 cents a pound and went for 80 or 90 cents. Some or even most never had a clue what lay before them and some would never make the trip. It is believed that at least 32000 walked overland in 1849 and another 44000 in 1850.

Snow filled moutain pass

These gold hunters had just one thing on their mind and that was gold , they never though about the winters in the mountains and how the pass over the mountain would be blocked by several feet of snow and ice. To turn back would not do any good for they had come too far. Many families would all die trying to survive the harsh winter

Gold fever quickly diminished by the harsh realities of the trip. Equipment and cherished personal items were throned aside in a depurate struggle to survive. Somehow cholera spread thru the land and if starvation didn't kill them shear exhaustion would. These immigrants not only came from the U S but also Canada and Mexico The one's traveling over land that is. Word had spread to all parts of the world that in California you could pick nuggets off the ground by the wagon load. Now people are flocking to California by sea, from the countries ofChile,Peru, Mexico.France,Germany, China.