arrival of members of the mormon battalion at sutter's fort opens the way for the discovery of gold in california—james w. marshall out early on january 24, 1848—"he is going to find a gold mine"—regarded as a "notional" man—"boys, i have got her now!"—testing the scales of metal—"gold, boys, gold!"—first proclamation of the great gold discovery—second and third tests—all excitement—three or four ounces of gold gathered—agree to keep the discovery secret—find the precious metal farther down the stream—how the secret leased out—more discoveries—first publication of the news made in a mormon paper—washing out the metal—first gold rocker—gathering gold—part taken by mr. marshall, the mormons and captain sutter in the discovery—misfortunes of sutter and marshall—account of the gold discovery certified to by several eye witnesses.
it is my understanding that when captain sutter and mr. marshall were contemplating the erection of the two mills, an apparently insurmountable obstacle confronted them in the inability to get and pay for the skilled labor necessary for portions of the work. this obstacle was removed by the proposition our committee had made to captain sutter at the first interview; and in the two or three days' time asked in august, 1847, by the captain, a decision was reached to go ahead. therefore, if it had not been for the opportune appearance of the mustered-out members of the mormon battalion, the sawmill would not have been built that winter, nor would the discovery of gold have been made at that time. but for the action of those mormons in connection with the enterprise proposed by captain sutter and mr. marshall, in offering the desired class of labor upon the terms they did, the state of california might have waited indefinitely to have been developed and to be christened the golden state, and the entrance to the bay of san francisco might never have received the title of the golden gate.
resuming the narrative of my association with mr. marshall on the afternoon of january 23rd, i will state further that each of us went our way for the night, and did not meet again till next morning. i thought little of what marshall had said of finding gold, as he was looked on as rather a "notional" kind of man; i do not think i even mentioned his conversation to my associates. at an unusually early hour in the morning, however, those of us who occupied the cabin heard a hammering at the mill. "who is that pounding so early?" was asked, and one of our party looked out and said it was marshall shutting the gates of the forebay down. this recalled to my mind what mr. marshall had said to me the evening before, and i remarked, "oh, he is going to find a gold mine this morning."
a smile of derision stole over the faces of the parties present. we ate our breakfast and went to work. james berger and myself went to the whipsaw, and the rest of the men some eight or ten rods away from the mill. i was close to the mill and sawpit, and was also close to the tail race, where i could direct the indians who were there.
this was the 24th day of january, 1848. when we had got partly to work, mr. marshall came, with his old wool hat in his hand. he stopped within six or eight yards of the sawpit, and exclaimed, "boys, i have got her now!" being the nearest to him, and having more curiosity than the rest of the men, i jumped from the pit and stepped to him. on looking into his hat i discovered ten or twelve pieces or small scales of what proved to be gold. i picked up the largest piece, worth about fifty cents, and tested it with my teeth; as it did not give, i held it aloft and exclaimed, "gold, boys, gold!" at that, all dropped their tools and gathered around mr. marshall. having made the first proclamation of the very important fact that the metal was gold, i stepped to the work bench and put it to the second test with the hammer. as i was doing this it occurred to me that while en route to california with the mormon battalion, we came to some timber called manzanita. our guides and interpreters said the wood was what the mexicans smelted their gold and silver ores with. it is a hard wood and makes a very hot fire, and also burns a long time. remembering that we had left a very hot bed of these coals in the fireplace of the cabin, i hurried there and made the third test by placing the metal upon the point of an old shovel blade, and then inserted it in among the coals. i blew the coals until i was blind for the moment, in trying to burn or melt the particles; and although these were plated almost as thin as a sheet of note paper, the heat did not change their appearance in the least. i remembered hearing that gold could not be burned up, so i arose from this third test, confident that what had been found was gold. running out to the party still grouped together, i made the second proclamation, saying, "gold, gold!"
at this juncture all was excitement. we repaired to the lower end of the tail race, where we found from three to six inches of water flowing over the bed of rock, in which there were crevices and little pockets, over which the water rippled in the glare of the sunlight as that shone over the mountain peaks. james berger was the first man to espy a scale of the metal. he stooped to pick it up, and found some difficulty in getting hold of it, as his fingers would blur the water, but he finally succeeded. the next man to find a piece was h. w. bigler; he used his jack-knife, getting the scale on the point of the blade, then, with his forefinger over it placed it in his left hand.
as soon as we learned how to look for it, since it glittered under the water in the rays of the sun, we were all rewarded with a few scales. each put his mite into a small phial that was provided by marshall, and we made him the custodian. we repeated our visits to the tail race for three or four mornings, each time collecting some of the precious metal until we had gathered somewhere between three and four ounces.
the next move was to step and stake off two quarter sections, beginning at the mill, one running down the river and the other up. then we cut and hauled logs and laid the foundation of a cabin on each of them; one was for sutter, the other for marshall. this matter being finished, mr. marshall was prepared to dictate terms to us, for every tool and all the provisions in that part of the country belonged to sutter and marshall. they had full control, and we were depending on the completion of the mill for our pay. marshall said that if we would stay by him until the mill was completed and well stocked with logs, he would supply us with provisions and tools, and would grant us the first right to work on their gold claims. we all assented to his proposition, and also agreed that we would not disclose the secret of the gold discovery until we learned more about it and had made good our claims. not having the remotest idea of the extent of the gold deposits, we pushed the mill as rapidly as possible; for as yet we had not received one dollar's pay for our four months' labor.
soon there came a rainy day, when it was too wet to work. h. w. bigler thought it a good day to hunt ducks, so he put on an old coat, and was gone all day. when he returned, we said, "where are your ducks?"
he said, "wait a while, i will show you; i have got them all right."
finally he drew an old cotton handkerchief from his pocket; in the corner of it he had at least half an ounce of gold tied up. for a while all were excited, and he was asked a great many questions like the following: "did you find it on sutter's claim along the river?" "how far is it from here?" "all in one place?" "is there any more?" "how did you get it, you had no pick or shovel?" "can you find the place again?"
he replied that he had found it down below sutter's claim, along the river where the bedrock cropped out along the bank, and in little rills that came down the hills to the river, indeed, everywhere that he found the bedrock cropping out.
"then you found it in more than one place?"
"yes, more than a dozen."
it was now proposed that we keep this discovery a secret, as the discovery in the race had been kept. so the mill work was pushed with vigor to completion. but in the meantime marshall had felt it his duty to inform his partner of the discovery. accordingly, he wrote a letter stating the facts, and sent me out to find a strange indian who would take it to captain sutter, fearing that if he sent it by someone who was acquainted with the circumstances the secret might leak out. about this time wm. johnston found that he had some urgent business below and must go there, and did so; he went to the gristmill and along the camps on that mill race. then somehow or other the bag came untied and our old cat and all the kittens ran out, and to the camps they went, until everybody heard of the gold discovery. but, like all great truths, people were slow to believe the story.
in a short time, however, sidney s. s. willis and wilford hudson, whose curiosity had been aroused, began to feel that they would like a little venison; and with that for an excuse they took their guns and set out on foot, having been assured that by following up the river they would come to the sawmill, which they succeeded in doing the first day. i think it was only a thirty-five miles journey. i believe they stayed one day and two nights with us; then, after a thorough examination of the bedrock, sand and gravel, and the surroundings, they gathered a few specimens, among which was one nugget worth about five dollars—the largest by long odds that had been discovered up to that time.
as willis and hudson passed back on their way home, they discovered a small ravine or creek in which there was some of the same kind of bedrock which they had seen at the mill race, and by picking around in the sand and gravel they discovered quite a rich prospect. that was just above what was afterwards called mormon island, about twelve or fifteen miles above the gristmill, and about the same distance below the sawmill. then they returned to the mill, told their story, and showed the specimens to the boys. some of these went to sutter's fort, to a little grocery store kept by a mormon named smith, who came around cape horn to california by the ship brooklyn. the story of the find was told, and specimens exhibited to smith, who wrote to samuel brannan. the latter was publishing a paper in san francisco at the time; and from that press the news went forth to the world. brannan was a mormon elder, and the press was owned by a company of mormons who had sailed from new york around cape horn, and were presided over by samuel brannan.
from one hundred to one hundred and fifty mormons flocked to mormon island; then people from every part of the united states followed, and the search for gold commenced in earnest. with jack, butcher, and table knives, the search was made in the crevices, after stripping the soil from the bedrock with pick and shovel. next, we conceived the idea of washing the sand and fine gravel in tin pans, but these were scarce and hard to get hold of. alexander stephens dug out a trough, leaving the bottom round like a log. he would fill that with sand and gravel that we scraped off the bedrock, and would shake it, having arranged it so as to to pour or run water on the gravel; finally he commenced to rock the trough, which led to the idea of a rocker. his process caused the gold to settle at the bottom; then he arranged the apparatus on an incline so that the gold would work down and also to the lower end of the trough. at short intervals he would turn what was collected into a tub of water, and at night it would be cleaned and weighed on a pair of wooden scales that stephens made also, using silver coins for weights, counting the silver dollar equal to one ounce of gold. this rocker led to the renowned gold rocker; i am under the impression that stephens made the first rocker ever used in california.
the next and last process that we used in gathering gold was to spread a sheet on the sandy beach of the river, placing some big rocks on the corners and sides to keep it well stretched. we then would fill in the rich dirt on the upper edge, and throw on water to wash the dirt down into the river, leaving the gold on the sheet. occasionally we took up the sheet and dipped it into a tub of water, washing the gold off the sheet into the tub. at night we would clean up our day's work, averaging from twelve to fifteen dollars each. our best paying dirt was carried on our shoulders from dry gulch, fifteen to sixty rods to where we could find water to wash it. we made buckskin pouches or wallets to carry the gold in; it was not dust, nor yet nuggets, but small scales.
sutter's capital and enterprise and marshall's shrewd sagacity have been given the credit of the great gold discovery in california. the facts are, that james w. marshall discovered the first color; in less than an hour six mormons found color as well, and within six weeks mormons had discovered it in hundreds of places that mr. marshall had never seen, the most notable of which was mormon island, to where the first rush was made, and from where the news was spread to the world. as to sutter's enterprise and capital, he furnished the graham flour and mutton, wheat and peas, black coffee and brown sugar, teams and tools, while we, the members of the mormon battalion, did the hard labor that discovered the metal. it is also true that we were in sutter's employ at that date, and that we did not get paid for our labor. i worked one hundred days for the firm, and never received a farthing for it. i heard a number of other men say they never got their pay. it was our labor that developed the find, and not marshall's and sutter's, and we were never paid for it; when we went for a settlement we were told by captain sutter that he could not settle with us, for his bookkeeper had gone to the mines, and his books were not posted. he cursed marshall and the mines, and declared that he was a ruined man; that the discovery was his ruin, for it had drawn off his laborers and left everything to go to rack, and that he was being robbed.
i do not wish it to be understood that i charge sutter and marshall with being dishonorable, for i do not. i think they were honorable men in a business way. the fact is, they were completely overrun with all classes of people, and were confused, so that the people took advantage of them, their business was undermined, and there was a general collapse of their affairs and of every industry and business. the cry was, "gold! gold! more gold! away to the gold fields!" every other enterprise was sacrificed in the rush for gold.
with due respect to captain john a. sutter and james w. marshall, to whom the world has given the credit for the great gold find, i believe that if they had been taken out and shot to death the day of the discovery, they would have suffered less, and would have met their maker just as pure, if not more honored in this world, than to have lived and endured what they did. as far as i am concerned, i say peace to their remains, for on this earth they have been greatly wronged, if i have read their history correctly. like a lynching scrape where there is an outburst of the people, it is very difficult to find those who are responsible for the crime. regarding the wrongs did these men, it seemed as if the whole population of that locality picked on them.
i will add here, that my account of the gold discovery in california was submitted in 1893 to the following members of the party who were at the place in january, 1848, and who were the only survivors within my reach at the time: orrin hatch and william s. muir, woods cross, davis county; george w. boyd, and h. d. merrill, salt lake city; and israel evans, lehi, utah county, utah. they united in giving me a certificate that they knew this account to be a true and correct statement of the discovery of gold in california, at sutter's mill race.
