History of California

by Helen Elliott Bandini

The newly arrived emigrants suffered no doubt from hunger; maybe the children cried for bread; but most of the men, as soon as they had rested a little and knew what was going on, got together money enough to buy the simple implements of knife, pan, pick, and cradle, which were all the tools necessary for the easy placer mining of those days, and joined the endless procession of those who were pushing up toward the streams and canyons round Sutter’s famous sawmill.

As summer came on, the excitement became intense. Not only from the region around San Francisco Bay, but from San Diego and Los Angeles, people came flocking to the mines. Reports were current of men finding hundreds of dollars’ worth of gold a day, gaining a fortune in a few weeks. It was almost impossible to hire laborers either in San Francisco or on the ranches. Even the soldiers caught the gold fever and deserted.

In the summer, Governor Mason and Lieutenant Sherman visited the mines. Upon their return to Monterey, having seen for themselves that many even of the wildest rumors were true, they made arrangements to send on to Washington official announcement of the discovery.

How this was accomplished is interesting. A lieutenant of the army was appointed by the governor for the important office, and a can of sample gold was purchased.

The only vessel on the coast ready for departure was a boat bound for Peru. On this ship the lieutenant with his pot of gold and the governor’s report embarked at Monterey. He reached the Peruvian port just in time to catch the British steamer back to Panama. Crossing the Isthmus on horseback, he took a steamer for Kingston, Jamaica. There he found a vessel just leaving for New Orleans. Reaching that city he at once telegraphed the news to Washington, trusting it would be in time to form part of the President’s message.

On December 5, 1848, the President, in his message to Congress, after speaking of the discovery of gold in California, said, “The accounts of the abundance of gold in that territory are of such extraordinary character as would scarcely command belief but for the authentic reports of officers in the public service who have visited the mineral districts and drew the facts which they detail from personal observation.”

The certainty that the wonderful reports of the gold country were true, electrified not only the whole country but the whole civilized world. Large numbers of people began immediate preparation for making the overland journey as soon as the weather should permit; while others, too impatient to wait, left for California by the way of the Isthmus.

In February, 1849, there arrived at Monterey the Panama, the first steamboat to visit the coast. The whole population turned out to see and welcome it. The Californians as they compared it with the stately frigates and ships they had been accustomed to see, exclaimed, “How ugly!” Although it was not a beautiful vessel, its arrival was an event of great importance, for it was the first of a line of steamers which were under contract to ply monthly between San Francisco and Panama, and with its coming began such an immigration as the world has seldom known.

In 1849 nearly twenty-five thousand people came by land and almost as many more by sea, from the States alone. There were between thirty and forty thousand from other parts of the world.

San Francisco at the time of the discovery had about seven hundred inhabitants, and shortly after only the population of a hamlet, because so many had gone to the gold fields. Now it suddenly found itself called upon to give shelter to thousands of people bound for the mines, and many also returning, some successful, others penniless and eager to get work at the very high wages offered, sometimes as much as thirty dollars a day.