Collection: Books and Periodicals

About This Item:

Title: A Memorial and Biographical History of Northern California (1891) Collection Type: Books and Periodicals Publisher: Lewis Publishing Company Published: 1891 Copyright: In the public domain or published before 1925 Source(s): Google Books # of Pages: 713 Download PDF: User Login Required Download OCR Text: User Login Required

Date Scanned: 2024-07-22 00:25:09 Item Sourced From: PDF First Created: 2025-03-17 03:11:29 Last Updated: 2025-03-17 06:30:36

Original Held At: Searls Historical Library Location: 161 Nevada City Hwy, Nevada City, CA 95959

Page: of 713  

60 HISTORY OF NORTHERN CALIFORNIA. be taken up wherein there is not a reasonable quantity of gold or silver.” At this day we know that this statement must have been untrue, and was doubtless written for the purpose of attracting attention to the importance of the expedition of Sir Francis Drake. California was then a comparatively unknown country. It had been visited only by early explorers, and its characteristics were merely conjectured. When Hakluyt wrote there could hardly be a ‘“ handful of soil taken up wherein there is not a reasonable quantity of gold or silver;” in the light of the present the statement was absurd, for neither gold nor silver has ever been found in the vicinity of the point where Drake must have landed. Other early explorers stated that gold had been found long before the discovery by Marshall; and there is no doubt that a well-founded surmise prevailed that gold existed in California. The country had been explored at times since the sixteenth century, by Spanish, Russian and American parties. It was visited by Commodore Wilkes, who was in the service of the United States on an extensive exploring expedition; and members of his party ascended the Sacramento River and visited Sutter at the fort, while others made explorations by land. James D. Dana, a celebrated author of several works on mineralegy, was the mineralogist of this expedition and passed by land through the upper portion of California. In one of his works he says that gold rock and veins of quartz were observed by him in 1842 near the Umpqua River, in Southern Oregon; and again, that he found gold near the Sierra Nevada and on the Sacramento River; also, on the San Joaquin River and between those rivers. There is, in the reports of the Fremont exploring expedition, an intimation of the existence of gold. It has been said that in October and November, 1845, a Mexican was shot at Yerba Buena (San Francisco) on account of having a bag of gold dust, and when dying pointed northward and said, “ Legos! Legos!” (yonder), indicating where he had found the gold dust. It has been claimed, and with a considerable degree of probability, that the Mormons who arrived in San Francisco on the ship Brooklyn found gold before the famous discovery of Coloma. The circumstances in connection with this discovery are somewhat romantic. The Mormon people had established themselves at Nanvoo, Illinois, a point where they believed themselves to be beyond the reach of persecution. However, the country there became populated by those not of their faith, and the antagonisin against the Mormons resulted finally in bloodshed, and the founder of the church, Joseph Smith, was shot by a mob and killed. The Mormons then determined to remove farther west, and into a section of country beyond the reach of the Government of the United States. They selected California as their future home. Their land expedition started across the plains, and a ship named the Brooklyn carried from the eastern side of the continent a number of the believers. Samuel Brannan, who was prominent in the early history of Sacramento, San Francisco and the State, was une of their leading men who came with the sea voyagers. Whien the Brooklyn emigrants landed at Yerba Buena (San Francisco) they found that the United States forces had taken possession of California, and that they had landed upon soil possessed by the nation trom which they were endeavoring to flee. Couriers were sent overland to intercept the land party, and it is said that they found them at the place where Salt Lake City is now located. The overland’ party determined to locate at that place, although it was then sterile and unpromising. Those who came on the Brooklyn dispersed in California, and some of them located at Mormon Island, in Sacramento County; and it is claimed that they found gold long before the discovery at Coloma, but that they kept their discovery a secret. However that may be, it is a fact that mining was prosecuted by them about the time of Marshall’s discovery. At a banquet of the Associated Pioneers of the Territorial days of California, held in the