Seattle daily post-intelligencer. [volume] (Seattle, W.T. [Wash.]) 1881-1888, 1885-12-10
THE gold FINDERS.

A. official rsrcrf n sde 20 the Director
Of the Mint brands - fiction the stories
in tie school histories that gold was
rrss discovered IN California IS Sattsrs
Mill. James Marshall, 80 the fable ran.
was walking BY the nIli-tail looking st
the water when the elIstening of the
nugget in the sands caught his eyes de
stopped down. picked It up, and then At
full speed rode TO the f0rE. which stood
on the present site of Sacramento. IL
subssq uept years Marshall has bad 10
divide the honor attaching TO the dis
covery of gold II California with Peter
l.. Weimer. a poor man who v.s With
him when the nugget was found. Wei
uler claimed that BE fret saw the gold
aud called his con paRloR's attention 70
it, bat Marshall bad the horse and car
ried the unknown metal to the fort,
so that he obtained tie credit for the
" iud."
! Tie lapse of time has served to in
I crease the beat of the controversy over
/ this credit for discovery, and in The
search for truth facts bSve been col
lated which greatly diminish the i'm
I portance history has attached 20 the
I incident at Suffers mill. Sir. Walter
A. Skidmore, who makes the report TO
Tue DlECCtDEs SAYS tue VI kb-A
[ in California was well known nearly a
: hundred years ago.
Gen. N g. Vallejo, who reached Cali
forria in 1910. and whe is an authority
on the earlier annals of the coast. states
that In 1924, while on a military eIpedi
ton TO the region which - now Kern
and San Bernardino counties. he found
a Russian living between the Kings
and Kern rivers, who was and had been
for some time mining gold. This miner
vas fully equipped with all the then
known appliances for separating the
metal. About that time, and for years
later, General Vallejo used TO remit gold
dust. IN the sealed Gnills of the vul-
t1re, to the authorities in the City of
Mexico.
Captain Walter ComStoek, a whaler,
who was in the employ of the Grinnells
of New York. has asserted that he took
gold from California in 1924. and that
nearly every vessel which put into the
barbor of Yerba Buens. Row San
Francisco, IN those times carried away
gold.
Pref. Hanks. the California mineral
ogist, has evidence that a placer was
discovered near the Colorado river, in
San Diego county, in 1775. For twenty
years before lS4S. the date of the dis
covery at Suffers Mill, gold diggings
were operated on the upper waters of
the Santa Clara river. Gold dust TO the
value of 100000 was taken out.
Bot for at least two centuries before
these records of actual mining Califor-
MIA had the rather mythical reputation
of possessing gold in abundance. An
old work, published in Europe in the
sixteenth centary, contained this state
ment:
The soldiers of Vasquirus Coronatus
having found no gold in Vevola, in or
der not to return to Mexico without
gold. resolved to come to Quivera, Cal.
for they had heard much of its gold
mines. and that Tatarrsxas, the powerful
king of that country, was amply provided
with riches"
Sir Francis Drake in 1879 visited the
coast of California and entered the bay
which bears his name. On bis return
to England he gave such a glowing sc-
count of the country that Hakluyt, a
historian of that day. in writing of Cal
ifornia, said there was no part of the
soil that did not contain a reasonable
quantity of gold or silver. This early
knowledge. however, was not altogether
reliable. No precious metals We ever
been found in the district around
brakes bay.