The morning news. [volume] (Savannah, Ga.) 1887-1900, 1894-04-05
he WAS WITH MARSHALL.
An Old Miner Tells the Story of the
Discovery of Gold on the Coast.
From the san Francisco Examiner.

From the San Francisco Examiner.
Volumes have been written about the
| discovery of gold in California and stories
without number anent how and when it
| happened. AS matter of fact, the ex-
istence of the precious metal seems to
have been known to the Indians and the
pious Spanish padres long before the
| Americans conquered the land; but, even
! granting that MarshalPs was the first
| find that was heralded to the world at
large, and that the date Thereof was Jan. "a,
! l848, even then the accounts of that dis
| covery have been jun bled and twisted in
such innumerab BILE ways that it would
seem that all chroniclers of
the interesting event were beguiled
\ by its dazzling splendors into the
romantic realms of fiction.
The men who worked for Suffer on the
old Coloma mill have nearly all found
uncontested claims, and are resting there
| in forever: but up at the 40 mining
| camp at the Midwinter Fair is an elderly
| one-legged Mormon, named James S.
Brown, who is the only living man who
was present when Marshall washed the
yellow grains in the camp dough pan; and
he is the man who first tested those tiaky
scales with fire, and, going forth from
the shanty to where the men were at
work on the mill race, was the first to cry:
boys, here's gold!"
James Brown is 65 years old now. In 1S4S
he was a lusty youth of not twenty sum-
mers. He had two legs then. 1t was
only a quarter of century ago that he
lost the other at bear hunt.
II am the Oldest miner alive in Cali
fornia to-day" said he ~ don't mean
that l am the the Oldest in years, because L
am only 60, and there are many men
here to-day who have worked
in the early days and are now much older
| than me. But l was the first miner.
was with Marshall when he first dis
covered gold in January 1s4s, and I was
the first man to know about it. The story
is an old one. 1t was at
| Capt Suffers mill on the Amer
rican river, which we were building.
| Marshall, who was a wheelwright by
! trade, was in charge of the work He
was particular friend of mine. but there
were nearly 100 of US working on the
millrace at the time He had been read
| things, and | remember very well his
coming to me one day and talking about
! quartz, and bedrock and similar
matters, and telling me that he thought
| there was gold in the country.
You see we had come upon the rock
when we were digging the race, and were
| afraid that it would interfere with our
/
| Then it was that. Marshall came to me
and told me about the books he had been
| reading, and on tho afternoon of
! January %, 1S4S, he determined to do
! little prospecting 1t was a common, or
! binary pan that we baked bread in and
the like. He spent all the afternoon with
that pan trying to find gold, but ne
| hadn't got anything by supper.
''The next morning early he started out
with the pan again, We boys were ex-
cavating in the ditch when he came up
! from the hole where he was
working and told us he had
found some mineral He had it in
his hat; whole lot of little fake-like
scales. They were all small
! bits, and all scaly, and he
wasn't sure what they were. He handed
the hat to me, and l TODD one of the fakes
! and bit it, l could tell by biting it that it
was gold but, of course, wasn't sure.
| So / took it into the cabin, where a log
fire was burning and l tested 1t in the fire
to see if 1t would melt But it
wouldn't melt, and then l knew it was
/ gold, sure Then l came out with it to
| where the men were working, and, Boys,
said l. 1T is gold!
"That was the first announcement of the
| discoveryof gold in California, and was
| that first man to test the metal and the
/ first man to proclaim it."
! 1t is needless TO say that neither Brown
nor Marshall nor any of the those other
.miu builders at Coloma was looking for
or expecting gold in those days. AS a
! matter of fact, they were working with
| the vaguest hope Of ever receiving any
monetary consideration for their labor.
! AS the old pioneer very tersely and
pathetically puts it: cold Captain Suffer
owes me 500 cold cash yet for the work
/ put in on that mill race, and know I'll
/ never get it, seeing as he is dead
But we hand no kick coming, because
we had agreed to accept cattle, horses