In August they started for their new field of enterprise, taking their belongings in Mexican ox-carts, and driving a flock of sheep before them for food.
By New Year's day, 1848, the mill frame was up.
On the afternoon of January twenty-fourth, Superintendent Marshall was inspecting the tail-race of the mill. There had been a heavy flood, which had previously retreated, and to his surprise Marshall found the ground thickly strewn with a peculiar yellow dust. He stooped down and gathered some of it, remarking quietly, "Boys, I believe I have found a gold mine!" Then he began some simple tests upon the metal. Gold must be heavy. He weighed it. That was all right. Gold must be malleable. He bit and pounded it, and it stood the test. Then he applied aqua fortis to it, and it responded as it should. And so the truth was known at last. It was gold, and the ground was full of it.
Marshall saddled his horse, and dashed over to consult with Sutter, and together they agreed to keep the matter quiet, and if possible to buy up the surrounding land. But how to buy it. That was the question! They leased it from its semi-barbaric owners, paying for it in hats and trinkets, but that title seemed insecure. The Mexican government could no longer give grants. The United States government was appealed to in vain. The answer came that California was held as a conquered province, and no title deed could be executed.
And meantime the precious secret leaked out. Sutter was impelled to write the wonderful news to friends at a distance. All the men at the saw-mill knew of the discovery. One of them, named Bennett, while in a store near Monte del Diablo, pulled out of his pocket a bag of gold dust, exclaiming, "I have something here which will make this the greatest country in the world." The same man took a specimen of the precious metal and showed it at San Francisco. A few days later an intoxicated Swede offered, at a store, to pay for his drink in gold dust. Then a Mormon must tell his fellow-saints of the discovery. So the secret was out, and the precious mystery became public.
Both Sutter and Marshall were backwoodsmen, unsophisticated, child-like, trustful, slow. They hesitated, they faltered, they delayed mining, and they were lost! Before they fully comprehended the matter, the great world had rushed in, and taken possession of the treasure.
In the last issue of The Californian appears this only too true statement: "The whole country from San Francisco to Los Angeles, and from the sea-shore to the base of the Sierra Nevada, resounds to 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 shovels and pick-axes, and the means of transportation to the spot where one man obtained one hundred and twenty-eight dollars' worth of the real stuff in one day's washing, and the average for all concerned is twenty dollars per diem."
In the rush Marshall and Sutter were crushed.
Marshall had little or no money to invest. He was particularly unfortunate in locating his small claims. Worst of all, the miners, knowing him to be the great discoverer, followed him en masse, believing that he knew the secrets of the hills and rivers. The crowds so overwhelmed him, that he had no chance to mine. They even threatened to hang him if he did not lead them to the finest diggings. In a few years after, he died, miserable, broken-hearted, poverty-stricken.
