1849 Ad for ship to California Gold Rush |
Anyone who has ever studied history of the United States
will associate the words, ‘Sutter’s Mill,’ in connection with the
California Gold Rush of 1849. They may know John Sutter as owner of
that mill, and they may even know that it was James W. Marshall, Sutter’s
foreman at the mill, who made the actual discovery of gold. After that, most
history books go off into the gold rush itself, and its effect on the expansion
of the United States, and the development of California in particular. Sutter
and Marshall, now as then, get pushed aside. And the truth of the
matter is the men who went into the history books, who really made money out of
the gold rush, were the merchants who supplied the 49ers—men like Leland
Stanford, Mark Hopkins, and Levi Strauss. Sutter and Marshall just got trampled
on…
John Sutter, a German Swiss immigrant, had made money in
trade and received a large land grant from the Mexican government, who had
possession of California at the time. Making a deal with the disbanding Russian
colony at Fort Ross, Sutter obtained various livestock and implements, and
built his own fort called New Helvetia. With dreams of starting an
agrarian community, he employed a decommissioned battalion of Mormons, who had
come to California with the army of General Kearny.
Add James W. Marshall at Sutter's Mill, 1850, from a daguerrotype by R.H. Vance |
He set them to work building a sawmill on the south fork of
the American River under the management of his foreman, James W. Marshall, to
whom he purportedly gave a half-interest in the mill.
On 24th January, 1848, Marshall discovered what
he believed to be gold. Being a good partner and faithful employee, he showed
the metal to Sutter, the men ran tests, and they ascertained that the metal
was, indeed, gold. Shortly after, on 2 February, 1848, the United States and
Mexico signed the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo, thereby bringing the Mexican
American War to an end, giving the U.S. half of all Mexican territories
including, of course, California-- and eventually ruining the two men’s lives.
Although Sutter obtained promises from his Mormon workforce
to keep the gold a secret, it wasn’t long before they discovered they could
make more money mining the gold than the wages Sutter was paying them.
Naturally, rumors spread and, despite the spread being rather slow in those
pre-telecommunication days, and the rumors somewhat enhanced with the telling,
the California Gold Rush had begun.
Anglo and Chinese miners circa 1852. Daguerrotype by J. B. Starkweather |
Forty per cent of enlisted men in California deserted,
two-thirds of homes in San Francisco stood empty, and John Sutter’s land was
invaded. And this is where the history books veer off into American
expansionism, fortunes won and lost, wagon trains heading across the great
plains, and possibly even the building of the Panama Canal—or at least the
building of the Panama Railway, which preceded it. But what happened to Sutter
and Marshall?
Sutter’s agrarian community was decimated by the influx of
miners, who killed his livestock for food and stole everything in sight. When
he appealed to the courts for restoration of his land, the title was declared
invalid because it was a Mexican land grant. Three years later,
in debt, Sutter retired to his Hock Farm and deeded the remains of his land
grant to his son (who would subsequently initiate the building of Sacramento).
He did eventually receive a stipend of $250 a month for the taxes he had paid,
and moved to the Moravian community in Pennsylvania. He continued to petition
the United States government for fifteen years; in fact, two days before his
death, Congress adjourned without action on yet another bill that would have
given him reparation.
James W. Marshall |
Of course, as the Present has a way of making cack-handed
amends for the Past, the Society of California Pioneers and the Native Sons of
the Golden West buried Marshall on a hill overlooking the original site of
Sutter’s Mill. They spent a great deal of money for a monument to the man no
one supported in life, and now pay a salary to a caretaker for this important
site. And Sutter? Over the years, various streets, schools and other geographic
places—as well as a rose—have been named after him. And California rebuilt his
vandalized fort for the tourists—and maintain it, no doubt, at great cost.
Main source: Brown, Dee: The Westerners,
London, 1974
All photos are public domain
Originally published Sept., 2014, at http://andreadowning.com
2 comments:
I have to confess I knew none of this before! And as usual with your posts, you're going to send me off today jumping down various rabbit holes online to find out more. Mormons? Disbanded Russian colony?! Thanks again for an informative post. Interesting point that the merchants such as Strauss made more money than the actual miners.
Thanks for your kind words, Patti. I was surprised by what I learned, too, but think about it: we know the names of Strauss, Mark Hopkins and Stanford (as in university) but whom can you name that made money as a miner?
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