By Larry Clinton, Sausalito Historical Society
COURTESY PHOTO
Prospectors working California gold placer deposits in 1850
We all know it as the Gold Rush of ‘49, but the Eureka discovery on the American River was actually announced on the East Coast in August 1848.
The New York Herald carried a two-column article in the form of a letter from a correspondent which quoted an anonymous correspondent:
“The gold mine discovered in December last, on the south branch of the American fork, in a range of low hills forming the base of the Sierra Nevada, is only three feet below the surface, in a strata of soft sand rock. From explorations south twelve miles, and north five miles, the continuance of this strata is reported, and the mineral said to be equally abundant, and from twelve to eighteen feet in thickness; so that, without allowing any golden hopes to puzzle my prophetic vision of the future, I would predict for California a Peruvian harvest of the precious metals, as soon as a sufficiency of miners, &c., can be obtained.”
Who was that anonymous source? According to the California Historical Society, “The origin of this startling bit of news has been the cause of much speculation. In his Overland with Kit Carson, edited by Stallo Vinton from the journals of Lieutenant George Douglas Brewerton, U.S.A., Mr. Vinton, in his introduction, states that ‘A careful analysis of all the available facts and circumstances demonstrates that on the journey of the text Carson and Brewerton brought with them to the East the first news of the momentous discovery of gold at Sutter's Mill.’” Vinton concludes that the carrier of the letter to the New York Herald was none other than the redoubtable Christopher Houston "Kit" Carson himself.
An article in the May 17 1848 Californian, the territory’s first newspaper, stated: “We have been informed by a gentleman recently from the gold region that digging continues brisk, with a great demand for spades and pickaxes. The ore is said to become better and more plenty as the miners advance up the river. It is found scattered over a surface of 30 miles, and we are told that any where within a circuit of that size, one man can dig on an average 2 ounces a day, and that 2,000 men can find employment without difficulty. Many persons have already left the coast for that region, and considerable excitement exists in our midst, which bids fair to become quite a gold fever. The first symptoms of the disease are a strong desire to purchase pickaxes and spades and an immediate rush for a launch.”
But there were unintended consequences from the gold rush. One week later the Californian ceased publication, stating:
“The majority our subscribers and many of our advertising patrons have closed their doors and places of business and left town, and we have received one order after another conveying the pleasant request that ‘the printer will please stop my paper,’ or ‘my advertisement, as I am about leaving for the Sacramento.’ We have also received information that very many of our subscribers in various parts of the country have left their usual places of abode, and gone to the gold region, showing that this fever (to which the Cholera is a mere bungler in the way of depopulating towns) is not confined to San Francisco alone. We really do not believe that for the last ten days, any thing in the shape of a newspaper has received five minutes attention from any one of our citizens. This, it must be allowed, is decidedly encouraging—very. 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 shovels and pickaxes, and the means of transportation to the spot where one man obtained $128 worth of the real stuff in one day's washing, and the average for all concerned is $20 per diem—for such in fact are the reports which have reached us, and from apparently reliable sources. In consideration of this state of affairs, and the degeneracy of the taste for reading so naturally consequent upon the rush for gold, where the word is ‘every man for himself,’ and a total disregard for his neighbor, it would be a useless expenditure of labor and material to continue longer the publication of our paper.”
Even Sausalito fell victim to the fever. According to author Robert Ryal Miller, when the gold rush began, it was a bonanza for Captain William Richardson who transported gold seekers up the Sacramento River and supplied them with victuals. In his biography of Captain Richardson, part of the Historical Society collection, he tells how Richardson employed his launch Guadalupe to take many would-be miners from San Francisco to the future site of the town of Sacramento. “Like most members of the important California ranch families, the Richardsons scoffed at mining. Instead, [the Captain] was occupied with his own maritime activities, especially after his posts as collector and captain of the port reverted to the military about the time the Mexican Ward ended.”
All too soon, Sacramento supplanted Sausalito as the jumping-off point to the gold fields, and Richardson never recovered. Saddled with debt, he died in bankruptcy in 1856 and his heirs were forced to sell his beloved Rancho Sausalito to developers.