Funding the second leg of the "Brooklyn" pioneers' migration was made possible by the discovery of gold in the California foothills. On January 24, 1848, three months after receiving word that Brigham Young and the overland immigrants were not coming, gold was discovered in the American River near Sutter's sawmill at Coloma. Some of the Mormon Battalion veterans (commonly referred to as "battalion boys") had been building a water powered sawmill there when James Marshall spotted gold in the tailrace under construction. Only "a loosely held secret," word passed among Mormons and others about what to look for. In early March, Battalion veterans Sidney Willis, Wilford Hudson, and Levi Fifield located an even richer find twelve miles down river at Mormon Island. Samuel Brannan got word through his trading post at Sutter's Fort. He informed the "Brooklyn" settlers in San Francisco, urging them to go at once to the mines. About 150 Mormons staked claims alongside the "battalion boys" on that high yield deposit. Long before the rest of “the world rushed in,” "Brooklyn" pioneers and other Mormon settlers already in California carried out placer mining at Salmon Falls, Murderer's Bar, south along the Cosumnes River, and at other rich sites.