The rumor of the discovery did not spread rapidly. In the middle of March the owner of a large ranche at the head of the Sacramento valley visited Sutter’s fort, heard of the mining at Coloma, and went to see it. He said that if similarity of formation could be taken as proof, there must be gold on his ranche. So, after ascertaining the mode of washing, he posted off, and in a few weeks was at work on the bars of Clear Creek, nearly two hundred miles from Coloma. A few days later, another man visited the mill, and the result was, that in less than a month, he had a party of Indians washing gold on Feather River, twenty-five miles from Coloma. Thus the gold mines were opened almost simultaneously at distant points.
The first printed notice of the discovery of gold was given in a newspaper published in San Francisco, on the 15th of March. On the 29th of May, the same paper announced that its publication would be suspended, and said,—
THE RUSH FOR THE MINES.
“The whole country, from San Francisco to Los Angeles, and from the sea-shore to the base of the Sierra Nevada, resounds with the sordid cry of, Gold! gold! gold!—while the field is left half planted, the house half built, and everything neglected but the manufacture of picks, and shovels, and the means of transportation to the spot where a man obtained one hundred and twenty dollars’ worth of the real stuff in one day’s washing, and the average for all concerned was twenty dollars per diem.”
The towns and villages were deserted. Farmers left their fields, and the crews of ships at anchor in San Francisco Bay deserted; soldiers left their posts; herdsmen abandoned their charges, and everybody made the quickest possible speed to the mines. Merchants of San Francisco found their clerks leaving their counters, and in many instances, after struggling against fate, finding themselves alone, without assistance and unable to obtain any, they closed their shops, and followed the example of their subordinates.
EMIGRANT TRAIN OF GOLD HUNTERS IN 1849.
