Marshall, from New Jersey. In the fall of , after the mill seat had been located, I sent up to this place Mr. Wimmer with his family, and a number of laborers, from the disbanded Mormon Battalion; and a little later I engaged Mr.
Bennet from Oregon to assist Mr. Marshall in the mechanical labors of the mill. Wimmer had the team in charge, assisted by his young sons, to do the necessary teaming, and Mrs.
Wimmer did the cooking for all hands. I was very much in need of a new saw-mill, to get lumber to finish my large flouring mill, of four run of stones, at Brighton, which was commenced at the same time, and was rapidly progressing; likewise for other buildings, fences, etc. It was a rainy afternoon when Mr. Marshall arrived at my office in the Fort, very wet. I was somewhat surprised to see him, as he was down a few days previous; and then, I sent up to Coloma a number of teams with provisions, mill irons, etc.
He told me then that he had some important and interesting news which he wished to communicate secretly to me, and wished me to go with him to a place where we should not be disturbed, and where no listeners could come and hear what we had to say.
I went with him to my private rooms; he requested me to lock the door; I complied, but I told him at the same time that nobody was in the house except the clerk, who was in his office in a different part of the house; after requesting of me something which he wanted, which my servants brought and then left the room, I forgot to lock the doors, and it happened that the door was opened by the clerk just at the moment when Marshall took a rag from his pocket, showing me the yellow metal: he had about two ounces of it; but how quick Mr.
Then Mr. After this Mr. I took this news very easy, like all other occurrences good or bad, but thought a great deal during the night about the consequences which might follow such a discovery.
About half way on the road I saw at a distance a human being crawling out from the brushwood. In the afternoon the weather was clearing up, and we made a prospecting promenade. The next morning we went to the tail- race of the mill, through which the water was running during the night, to clean out the gravel which had been made loose, for the purpose of widening the race; and after the water was out of the race we went in to search for gold.
This was done every morning: small pieces of gold could be seen remaining on the bottom of the clean washed bed rock.
I went in the race and picked up several pieces of this gold, several of the laborers gave me some which they had picked up, and from Marshall I received a part. Wimmer possesses a piece which has been found earlier than mine Mr. Marshall can tell, as it was probably received from him.
I think Mr. Marshall could have hardly known himself which was exactly the first little piece, among the whole. After review, selected comments will appear on this page along with the name you provide. Please note that we generally cannot answer questions about the history, rarity, or value of your personal artifacts.
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Description This small piece of yellow metal is believed to be the first piece of gold discovered in at Sutter's Mill in California, launching the gold rush. James Marshall was superintending the construction of a sawmill for Col. John Sutter on the morning of January 24, , on the South Fork of the American River at Coloma, California, when he saw something glittering in the water of the mill's tailrace.
According to Sutter's diary, Marshall stooped down to pick it up and "found that it was a thin scale of what appeared to be pure gold.
Its population soon swelled to many thousands. He was one of the very first ranchos in the great Central Valley of California. Like so many American pioneers, Marshall had been gradually moving west with the frontier. After coming west on the Oregon Trail, he found Oregon too rainy and continued south into California. Marshall was a man handy with tools, and he quickly made himself very useful with his wood and ironworking skills.
John Sutter and James Marshall formed a partnership to build a sawmill. Sutter would supply laborers and materials, and Marshall supplied his skills as a millwright. They would share equally in the lumber produced. They began construction in the fall of By January the mill was half done. The crew then dug a ditch to carry river water through the sawmill.
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