The Cecil Whig. [volume] (Elkton, Md.) 1841-current, 1885-08-22
JAMES W. MARSHALL'S DEATH.
The Man Who Discovered Gold in Califor-
nia-A Life Ended in Poverty.

The Man Who Discovered Gold in Califor.
nia--A Life Ended in Poverty.
A correspondent of the Philadelphia
Times gives an interesting sketch of Jas
W. Marshall, the discoverer of god in
California, who died Monday last at his
home in Kelsey, in that State, in con
dition of poverty, aged "A years. He was
native of Warren county, N. }. When
Marshall was 4 young man of twenty -one
he vas smitten with the 'Western fever
and bought farm in Kansas. The eli
after he packed no and joined Il train OF
one hundred wagons, bound for that at
that time almost unknown land, Califor-
MIA. Marshall and few of his cnmpan-
ions entered the service o: Gen. Suttel
and engaged as volunteer in the some.
what remarkable campaign waged by
General Fremont against the Mexicans,
who sought to prevent the entrance of a
body of Americans into Mexico, and
which was known as the Bear Flag war.
Alter the treaty of March, 1917, recog-
nizing the Independence of California,
Marshal returned to find that all his DOS
sessions, consisting for the most part of
cattle, had been stolen during his alb.
sence. lie then started in the lumber
business with General Sutter. at Coloma,
Amador county, and ut this time he made
his famous discovery.
1t was on the 18th of January, 1913,
that Marshall was experimenting the
building of the mill race. After shutting
off the water at the heal of the race he
walked down the ditch to see what sand
and gravel had been removed during the
previous night. He strolled to the lower
end of the race and stood looking down
ut the mass of debris. At this juncture
his eye caught the glitter of something
that lay lodged in a crevce on a rifle of
soft granite. He stopped and picked up
the substance. 1t was heavy, of pecu
liar color and different from anything he
had seen in the stream before. He re-
Elected as to what kind of mineral the
specimen could be and finally concluded
that it was either mica, sulphurets of
cupper-or gold 1t was too heavy for
mica; was not brittle, as are ulphurets,
and, remembering that gold is malleable.
he placed the nugget on fiat stone apd
began striking it with another. The
substance did not crack or flake off, but
simply fattencd under the blows, and
Marshal was satisfied that he had Indeed
made an important discovery. He col
lected few ounces of the precious metal
and at once went to Suffers Fort to in
form Gen. Sutter of bis ''!ind."
General Suffer has given an interesting
account of this interview and the exciting
events that followed. After the dIscov-
erv had become known, in spite of the
efforts of Suffer and Marshall to keep it
secret, the country was invaded by peo
pie of all classes, who cared nothing for
law, property or anything. Gen. Suffer
has told of how his own land was seized
by sqnatters and his property confscated.
and Marshall, it seems, Jared even worse.
The land about the mill which he was
building when he made his great discov-
cry was, of course, the first to be seized
by the squatterS, who marked IG off into
claims and town lots, which they iistrib
uted among themselves, rs they did his
work oxen and horses and everything
else that he called his own. So he was
forced to become a prospector for the
precious metal, but had poor success in
finding it. The squatters added insult
to injury by presuming that he knew the
whereabouts of rich deposits of gold and
refused to give information to them, and
prosecuted him on these false suppose
tions To add to his title to the land he
had purchased PRIOR to his great discov-
ery was uu.stiouci and he lost it all.
His latter years were passed III great
poverty. relieved but little by a small
grant from the State of California.