The Westward Movement

by Unknown

In the spring of 1848 San Francisco, a village of about seven hundred inhabitants, had two newspapers, the Californian and the Californian Star, both weeklies. The first printed mention of the gold discovery was a short paragraph in the former, under date of the 15th of March, stating that a gold mine had been found at Sutter's Mill, and that a package of the metal worth thirty dollars had been received at New Helvetia. Five weeks later the Star announced that its editor, E. C. Kemble, was about to take a trip into the country, and on his return would report his observations. He went to Coloma and either saw nothing or understood nothing of what he saw, for he preserved absolute silence in his paper about his trip. On the 20th of May, after a number of men had left San Francisco for the mines, he came out with the opinion that the mines were a "sham," and that the people who had gone to them were "superlatively silly." The increasing production of the mines soon overwhelmed the doubters; and before the middle of June the whole territory resounded with the cry of "gold! GOLD!! GOLD!!!" as it was printed in one of the local newspapers. Nearly all the men hurried off to the mines. Workshops, stores, dwellings, wives and even fields of ripe grain, were left for a time to take care of themselves.

A primitive outfit.

In 1848 the gold hunters of the Sierra Nevada did not need a scientific education. The method of washing gold was then so simple, and they were so skilful in many kinds of industrial labor, that they learned it quickly. Capital, like scientific education and technical experience, was unnecessary to the early placer-miner. With the savings of a week's work he could buy the pick, shovel, pan, and rocker which were his only necessary tools. As compared with other auriferous deposits of which we have definite knowledge, those of the Sierra Nevada were unequaled for the facility of working. They were not deep under ground, or scantily supplied with water, as in Australia and South Africa; nor in a land of tropical heat, as in Brazil; nor in a region of long and severe winters, as in Siberia. The deposits were on land belonging to the National Government, which, without charge, without official supervision, and without previous permit or survey, allowed every citizen to take all the gold from any claim held in accordance with the local regulations adopted by the miners of his district.

The first gold washing was done on the bars of the rivers, where the gravel was shallow, usually not more than two or three feet deep, and where prospecting was easy, and mining was prompt in its returns and liberal in its rewards. The gravel was rich if it yielded twenty-five cents to the pan; and in favorable situations a man could dig and wash out fifty to sixty pans in a day, while with a rocker he could do three times as much. But on the bars of the American, the Bear and the Yuba Rivers it was no uncommon event to obtain from one dollar to five dollars in a pan, and then the yield for a day's work was equal to a princely revenue.

When the rainy season began in the winter of 1848 the rivers rose and covered their bars, and the miners, compelled to hunt claims elsewhere, found them in ravines which were dry through nine months of the year. These were in many cases almost as rich as the bars. It was not uncommon to hear, on good authority, that this or that man had taken out $1000 in a day, and occasionally $5000 or more would reward the day's work. In 1849 the miners generally got $16 a day or more, and when a claim would not yield that much it had no value.

The successful miners demanded provisions, tools, clothing and many luxuries, for which they offered prices double, treble, and tenfold greater than those paid elsewhere. Sailing vessels went to Oregon, Mexico, South America, Australia and Polynesia with gold dust to purchase supplies, and soon filled all the seaports of the Pacific with the contagion of excitement. The reports of the discovery, which began to reach the Atlantic States in September, 1848, commanded little credence there before January; but the news of the arrival of large amounts of gold at Mazatlan, Valparaiso, Panama, and New York in the latter part of the winter put an end to all doubt, and in the spring there was such a rush of peaceful migration as the world had never seen. In 1849, 25,000—according to one authority, 50,000—immigrants went by land, and 23,000 by sea from the region east of the Rocky Mountains, and by sea perhaps 40,000 from other parts of the world, adding twelve-fold to the population and fifty-fold to the productive capacity of the territory. The newcomers were nearly all young, intelligent, and industrious men. Fortunately the diggings were rich enough and extensive enough to give good reward to all of them, and to much larger numbers who came in later years. The gold yield of 1848 was estimated at $5,000,000; that of 1849 at $23,000,000; that of 1850 at $50,000,000; that of 1853 at $65,000,000; and then came the decline which has continued until the present time. In forty-one years the gold yield of California was about $1,200,000,000.

Gold mining was neither novel nor rare, but the unexampled combination of wonderful richness, highly favorable geographical conditions, high intelligence in the miners, and great freedom in the political institutions of California led to such a sudden rush of people, and such an immense production of gold, that the whole world was shaken. The older placers of Brazil and Siberia, and the later ones of Australia and South Africa, had a much smaller influence on general commerce and manufactures.

The discovery of the mines was an American achievement. It was the result of the American conquest, and of preparation for American immigrants. It was made by an American, one of a little group of laborers in which all the white men were Americans, as were the first men who devoted themselves to mining. They also were Americans who subsequently invented the sluice and the hydraulic process of placer-washing, and who planned and constructed the great ditches, flumes, and dams that gave a distinctive character to the placer-mining of California.

Let us now consider the consequences of the discovery. First, as to the men at Coloma in January, 1848, Marshall was not enriched. His lumber was soon in demand at $500 a thousand feet of board measure, or twenty-fold more than he had expected when he commenced his work; but not many months elapsed before all the good timber trees near Coloma had been cut down by the miners, and then the mill had to stop. He turned his attention to mining, but was not successful. When he had money he did not know how to keep it. When he had a good claim he did not stick to it.