The “dry diggings” of Weaver’s Creek being a fair specimen of dry diggings in all parts of the mining region, a description of them will give the reader a general idea of the various diggings of the same kind in California. They are called “dry” in contradistinction to the “wet” diggings, or those lying directly on the banks of streams, and where all the gold is procured by washing. As I before said, the stream coursed between lofty tree-clad hills, broken on both sides of the river into little ravines or gorges. In these ravines most of the gold was found. The loose stones and top earth being thrown off, the gravelly clay that followed it was usually laid aside for washing, and the digging continued until the bottom rock of the ravine was reached, commonly at a depth of from one to six feet. The surface of this rock was carefully cleared off, and usually found to contain little crevices and holes, the hitter in miner’s parlance called “pockets,” and in which the gold was found concealed, sparkling like the treasures in the cave of Monte Cristo. A careful examination of the rock being made, and every little crevice and pocket being searched with a sharp pointed-knife, gold in greater or less quantities invariably made its appearance. I shall never forget the delight with which I first struck and worked out a crevice. It was the second day after our installation in our little log hut; the first having been employed in what is called “prospecting,” or searching for the most favourable place at which to commence operations. I had slung pick, shovel, and bar upon my shoulder, and trudged merrily away to a ravine about a mile from our house. Pick, shovel, and bar did their duty, and I soon had a large rock in view. Getting down into the excavation I had made, and seating myself upon the rock, I commenced a careful search for a crevice, and at last found one extending longitudinally along the rock. It appeared to be filled with a hard, bluish clay and gravel, which I took out with my knife, and there at the bottom, strewn along the whole length of the rock, was bright, yellow gold, in little pieces about the size and shape of a grain of barley. Eureka! Oh how my heart beat! I sat still and looked at it some minutes before I touched it, greedily drinking in the pleasure of gazing upon gold that was in my very grasp, and feeling a sort of independent bravado in allowing it to remain there. When my eyes were sufficiently feasted, I scooped it out with the point of my knife and an iron spoon, and placing it in my pan, ran home with it very much delighted. I weighed it, and found that my first day’s labour in the mines had made me thirty-one dollars richer than I was in the morning.
The gold, which, by some great volcanic eruption, has been scattered upon the soil over an extensive territory, by the continual rains of the winter season has been sunk into the hills, until it has reached either a hard clay which it cannot penetrate, or a rock on which it rests. The gold in the hills, by the continual rains, has been washing lower and lower, until it has reached the ravines. It has washed down the ravines until it has there reached the rock, and thence, it has washed along the bed of the ravines until it has found some little crevice in which it rests, where the water can carry it no farther. Here it gathers, and thus are formed the “pockets” and “nests” of gold, one of which presents such a glowing golden sight to the eye of the miner, and such a field for his imagination to revel in. How often, when I have struck one of these, have I fondly wished that it might reach to the centre of the earth, and be filled as it was at its mouth with pure, bright, yellow gold.
Our party’s first day’s labour produced one hundred and fifty dollars, I having been the most successful of all. But we were satisfied, although our experience had not fulfilled the golden stories we had heard previous to our reaching the placers. Finding the average amount of gold dug on Weaver’s Creek at that time to be about an ounce per day to a man, we were content so long as we could keep pace with our neighbours. There is a spirit of emulation among miners which prevents them from being ever satisfied with success whilst others around them are more successful. We continued our labours for a week, and found, at the end of that time, our whole party had dug out more than a thousand dollars; and after paying for our house, and settling between ourselves our little private expenses, we were again on a clear track, unencumbered by debt, and in the heart of a region where treasures of unknown wealth were lying hidden in the earth on which we daily trod.
About this time, the most extravagant reports reached us from the Middle Fork, distant in a northerly direction about thirty miles from Weaver’s Creek. Parties who had been there described the river as being lined with gold of the finest quality. One and two hundred dollars was not considered a great day’s labour, and now was the time to take advantage of it, while in its pristine richness. The news was too blooming for me to withstand. I threw down my pickaxe, and leaving a half-wrought crevice for some other digger to work out, I packed up and held myself in readiness to proceed by the earliest opportunity, and with the first party ready to go for the Middle Fork. An opportunity soon offered itself, as a party of three who had already been there and returned, were about proceeding thither again. We considered it a great act of generosity on their part to allow us to accompany them on their second trip, as during their first exploration on the river they had found a place where no white man had ever before trod, and where gold was said to exist in large pockets and huge bulky masses. One of my companions and myself determined to go, and if successful inform our whole party, who were then to follow.
It was now near the middle of December, and the dreaded rainy season we knew must soon commence. Occasional black clouds dimming the clearness of that mountain sky gave us warning of it; but strong in health, and stronger still in hope and determination, we heeded no warning; put our instruments of labour on the backs of two sorry-looking mules, and shouldering our rifles started away from Weaver’s Creek on a fine afternoon, the clear sunshine and cooling autumn breeze playing through the lofty oak and cypress trees, giving us new vigour and new hope.
Our road for the first three miles lay across a lofty hill, which formed the dividing line (although that hill was anything but an “imaginary point extended”) between our little community at Weaver’s Creek and the “Dry Diggings” par excellence of that vicinity. On descending the hill, we found the dry diggings in a pretty little valley surrounded by hills, and forming a town of about fifty log houses. Very little was doing there, however, at that time, as the gold was so intermixed with a clayey soil, that water was necessary to separate it, and the miners were patiently waiting for the rainy season to set in. Many had thrown up huge mountain-like piles of earth, and making thereby a large excavation intended, when the rain came, to catch the water in which the golden earth was to be washed. I will give a history of the discovery and progress of these “diggings” in another part of the volume.
Passing to the northward of the Dry Diggings, we encamped at dusk in a little oak grove about three miles from Sutter’s Mill, killed a deer, ate a hearty supper, spread our blankets on the ground, and slept quietly and peacefully beneath a star-studded and cloudless heaven. Next morning we went into Culoma, the Indian name for the territory around Sutter’s Mill, and here we were to purchase our provisions previous to going to the river. Three stores only, at that time, disputed the trade at what is now the great centre of the northern mining region; and where now are busy streets, and long rows of tents and houses, was a beautiful hollow, which, in our romantic version, we named as we were entering it, “The Devil’s Punch-Bowl.” Surrounded on all sides by lofty mountains, its ingress and egress guarded by an ascent and descent through narrow passes, it seemed like a huge bowl which some lofty spirit might seize, and placing it to his lips, quaff the waters of the golden stream that circled through it. Here it was that gold was first discovered in California; this was the locality where was commenced a new era, and where a new page was opened in the history of mankind; and it is proper that I should turn out my mules to browse on the sunny hill-side shrubbery, while I stop to tell how, from this remote corner of the globe, a secret was revealed to the eyes of a wondering world.
CHAPTER V.
Sutter’s Mill—Discovery of the Placers—Marshall and Bennett—Great Excitement—Desertion of the Pueblos, and general Rush for the Mines—Gold Mine Prices—Descent into a Cañon—Banks of the Middle Fork—Pan Washing—Good Luck—Our Camp—Terrific Rain Storm—Sudden Rise of the River.
During the month of January, 1848, two men, named Marshall and Bennett, were engaged in the erection of a saw-mill located by John A. Sutter on the South Fork of the American River, at a point, where oak, pine, cypress, and cedar trees covered the surrounding hills, and where Indian labour was to be procured at a mere nominal price. These were the motives that prompted Sutter to establish a mill and trading post in this, then unknown, region. Little did he imagine or foresee that, in the hands of an overruling Providence, he was to be the instrument to disclose to mankind riches of which the most sanguine day-dreamer never dreamt, and open caves in which the wonderful lamp of Aladdin would have been dimmed by the surrounding brightness.