California Gold Rush :: essays research papers

atomic number 20 aureate Rush by Lauren BurtJames Wilson Marshall was a experient carpenter trained by his wheelwright father in newfangled Jersey. Marshall was building a sawmill for California land developer tooshie Sutter in Coloma Valley near Sacramento when he observed just aboutthing glittering in the new millrace that had been allowed to flow overnight. He described the nugget as "half the size and shape of a pea." "It made my heart thump," he later recalled, "for I was certain it was specie." Examining the nugget, he exclaimed to his fellow workmen, "Boys, by God, I believe I have found a gold mine." The move of Marshalls find that afternoon at Sutters Mill in the Sierra Nevada foothills was enormous, and became cognise worldwide. Although Marshalls discovery occurred in 1848, the electrifying news did not reach the einsteinium Coast and other parts of the world until a year later, triggering the Gold Rush of 49, the greatest stampe de of gold seekers in history. The only swear was to keep the discovery quiet. Sutter and Marshall swore the mill workers to secrecy, but word got out. When Jacob Wittmer took devil wagons up to the mill on February 9, the Wimmer children apparently told him of the gold. When he scoffed at the story, it was affirm by Mrs. Wimmer and the other adults. Wittmer brought the news back to the fort, and even used some of the gold to buy a bottle of brandy at the fort gunstock. The store operator sent word to his partner in San Francisco, the enterprising surface-to-air missile Brannan. Henry Bigler shared the news with three of his fellow Mormons who were working on the new flour mill near Sutters Fort. They visited Coloma and then on the guidance back to Sutters Fort prospected at a spot that shortly became the ample diggings of Mormon Island. On February 10, Sutter himself wrote his impatient creditor, worldwide Mariano Vallejo "My sawmill is end and I have made a discovery o f a goldmine ... which is extraordinarily rich." As the word seeped out, Sutter was soon openly grave visitors to the fort about the discovery. The first printed notice of the discovery was in the border district 15 issue of "The Californian" in San Francisco. Shortly after Marshalls discovery, General John Bidwell discovered gold in the Feather River and Major Pearson B. meter reading found gold in the Trinity River.