The morning news. [volume] (Savannah, Ga.) 1887-1900, 1898-01-02
or sent by mail.
RADWAY & CO.,
So Elm Street, New York.


50 Elm Street, New York.
Shovels, hoes, dishpans FUSED for washing
the gold were sold for almost their weight
in gold at times, between the arrival OF
steamers bringing a fresh supply.
But the greatest excitement Of an in
the mad endeavor to get to the diggings
began in the spring of 1Si9-a year after
the discovery That was when the east
erners began to come to California.
mo one can have an idea what wild de-
lirium possessed US, when we found that
we could, with common shovel and tin
pan, dig and wash out from the sandbars
along the American a pound or two OF
gold every day. None of us who quit Gen.
Suffers service as soon as we saw the
golden specks, had ever made over $50 a
month under the most favorable circum-
stances. Imagine how we greenhorns felt
when we saw hundreds or sandbars, hun
dreds of yards long, and knew that we
could put our shovels in and dig up gravel
and sand with from 50 to SO a pan almost
anywhere. We were foolish enough to be-
lieVe that our discovery would not travel
back to the eastern states, and that we
could dig and wash gold there for a life
time whenever we wanted ready cash.
Many of us got pound of gold in a few
hours In the first weeks of the diggings
That spoiled us for active mining when
we had to compete with the newcomers
lnRfG were thousands OF 1drS among the
miners, and one would no sooner get to
washing gold In a rich locality than he
would hear how some fellows were pick
ing up ounce nuggets or chopping off
blocks of solid gold somewhere else, fifty
miles or so over the mountains. Many a
time whole crowd of us would leave a
chance to wash out six or seven ounces
of gold in a day, and 90 off for a weeks
jamboree in some shady canon. IF some
Of us who knew the geography of Ell Do
RADIO county fairly well before Marshall
discovered gold had stuck to business from
the first the same as such men as Mack
ay, Fair, and Flood did when they came
two and three years later, we could have
had millions of dollars. But we were all
crazy-that's the only word for it--at the
way we made money, and we never looked
a day ahead
January, 1s49. I think there must have
been some 5000 or 10 600 men engaged in
mining. The getting of gold had become
something of an industry by that time
not the happy go-luclSy pursuit we early
fellows made it. The miners by common
consent had agreed that a certain num-
Der of square feet should consti-
tute all that a man could claim
and a code of laws had grown out of
the Unique life in mining camps and
the conditions of wealth-getting along the
sand bars. Very few of us who had the
whole of Central California TO choose our
thiilllH III were TOW better OIL LHdn any OIL
the vast multitude of red-shirted, anxious
and energetic eastern men who came up
the sacramento river or overland In 1S49
seeking where to dig up a fortune with
quick dispatch. / believe I changed the
locations of my diggings over forty times
the first year before the easterners came
into the gold region In small armies, and
then j had to share chances with the lat
est arrivals. After 1S4S, also, the improve
ments in mining came fast. The old pan
was supplanted by the rockers, which two
men could operate to a better advantage
than If each man worked alone. Then
came the long tom, which several men
could get more from than If all worked in
diydually, and In a few months more
companies Of miners we're formed for
slulcing. Those were the earliest mining
companies in America.
Marshall became a hard drinker when
the saloons were opened by the score In
every mining camp in Central California.
Along about 1851 he began to see that he
never could force the miners to pay him
dime for the great fortunes they were
taking from his acres.
James Marshall never proiited-com-
paratively speaking--by his find, which
yielded mankind over billion of dollars
and turned the commerce of the world
When Marshall saw the first stampede of
men into the locality of Suffers millrace,
and he realized his secret was surely out,
ne SWOit lnaL ne would nave the law Keep
the miners off his land. If it took the
United States army. He might have chos-
en- at first an acre In the best localities
along the American river, and the miners
would have respected his rights. That
would have made him comfortably rich
for life. But he vowed he would have it
all, anyhow. so he would not dig or
wash a pan of kold. While the rest Of us
Joined in digging and washing gold Mar
shall swore and growied. For a few
months he made every man on the scene
pay him a dollar for his discovery. But
when the throngs increased he seldom got
dollar, and then only from good-natur-
ed man.
when the miners had washed away all
the gold from the American rover, near
Coloma, in 1857, Marshall was given few
acres by the people of the town, and he
planted a vineyard. He made brandy from
his wine grapes. and became a harder
drinker as he grew older. i. T.. Barnum
offered h9m salary TO go to New York
and sit on exhibition IN a museum. but he
spurned the offer. In 1869 he started out
to lecture on How / Found Gold In Cal
hornla.' He was very poor aud for a
few nights he did god business Then
he went to Stockton, and there his love
I for whisky overcane him, and he fell by
the way. In 1872 the legislature of Cali
forDia granted him pension of $500 a
month for two years. 1t was subsequent
1 ~ renewed for seven years at 500 month.
| lie spent almost every dollar Of it ali in
saloons and on a lot of parasites. That
| was why the first pension was cut down
1 one-half. He died alone in a ramshackle,
desolate cabin in the little hamlet of Kel-
sey, In Eldorado county on Aug. 3, 1855.
''The legislature CT 1889 appropriated sew
eral thousand dollars for a bronze statue
| of Marshall, to be placed at the site of the
| finding OF his first gold. There It stands
at Coloma to-day. It is very life.ike. Mar
shall, in bronze. stands upon granite
| pedestal; he is IN his working clothes his
shirt sleeves rolled up TO the elbow, and
he point a finger down at the exact spot
| where be picked up the first golden uug-
gcStS found fn the limited gtafaSf