Gold Rush of 1849

I

Introduction

Gold Rush of 1849, the massive movement of people to California following the discovery of gold there in 1848.

II

Discovery at Sutter’s Mill

In January 1848 James W. Marshall, a carpenter building a sawmill in partnership with John A. Sutter in California’s Sacramento Valley, discovered gold. Sutter made his workers promise to keep the discovery a secret. However, the news leaked out. Within a few months, a shrewd merchant, hoping to increase his business, set off the gold rush in earnest. Samuel Brannan, one of the early Mormon settlers in San Francisco, owned a store near Sutter’s fort. In early May, he returned to San Francisco from a visit to the diggings and spread the word of gold. Within a few days, boats filled with townspeople were heading up the Sacramento River to look for gold. Brannan, of course, had stocked his store with mining supplies and was doing a thriving business. San Francisco soon was a ghost town, as almost everyone was off to the gold sites.

During the summer of 1848, the news spread up and down the West Coast, across the border to Mexico, and even to the Sandwich Islands (now Hawaii). Word also reached the Mississippi Valley and the Eastern states. Newspapers were filled with the accounts of men who claimed to have become rich overnight by picking gold out of California’s wondrous earth. Then, in a message to the Congress of the United States in December, President James K. Polk confirmed the presence of gold in California. That winter, people from all walks of life set out for California. Many pawned their possessions to get there. The gold seekers, also known as Forty-Niners or Argonauts, joined the rush from as far off as Europe and Australia. Many Chinese also flocked to San Francisco to join in the gold rush.

III

Routes to California

There were three routes to the goldfields. A Forty-Niner could go by boat to Panama, cross to the city of Panama, and then catch a boat to San Francisco. An alternative was to make the longer sea voyage around Cape Horn, the southernmost point of South America. The demand for passage was so great that old and undersized ships were pressed into service. A number of them sank in the treacherous waters off Cape Horn.

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The cheapest route was using the various overland trails to California. By far the greatest number of Forty-Niners walked or rode across the American continent. Some used the Oregon and Mormon trails over the Great Plains. Others took the Santa Fe, Sonora, and other southern trails. The spring rains made some of the trails almost impassable. The rains were followed by an epidemic of cholera, which killed thousands of the travelers. Nevertheless, by 1852 more than 200,000 gold seekers had managed to reach California.

IV

Mining the Gold

In the earliest days of the rush, claims yielding as much as $300 to $400 in a day were not uncommon. In 1849 about $10 million worth of gold was mined. As competition increased, fewer and fewer claims were to yield such profits; the people who found practically nothing far outnumbered those who struck it rich.

The source of the gold, the Mother Lode, a belt of gold-bearing quartz, ran in a wide swath stretching 160 km (100 mi) through the mountains of the Sierra Nevada range. Its northern boundary was La Porte on the Feather River. In the south the lode extended to Mariposa. Placer gold, consisting of nuggets and gold particles, was found in streams and rivers in the foothills of the Sierras.

In 1848 placer gold was plentiful. The miners could pick it up or scratch it out of ravines, dry streambeds, and gulches. By the end of the year, however, dry digging gave way to wet digging, or panning. Miners put gold-bearing dirt or gravel, which they called pay dirt, into a shallow washing pan. They then held it underwater for a few minutes. The current would wash away the dirt and gravel, leaving the heavier gold on the bottom of the pan.

By the end of 1849 there were so many miners that individual operations were replaced by larger ventures. Miners formed groups to dry up riverbeds by diverting the waters with dams. Even more rewarding was coyoteing. This method called for digging a shaft 6 to 13 m (20 to 40 ft) deep into the bedrock along the shore of a stream. Then tunnels were dug in all directions to get at the richest veins of pay dirt.

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