The Lambertville record. [volume] (Lambertville, N.J.) 1872-1968, 1926-07-01
ONCE RICH IN GOLD
Continued from first page)
CoLOMA, A TRAGEDY OF GOLD


day, but three-quarters of a century
ago every American able to speak
had it at his tongues end. There
was that New Jersey adventurer,
James Wilson Marshall, discovered
gold in January, 1913, and started
the rush of fortune seekers from all
the world to California. Coloma
grew quickly to town of 10000 in
habitants and boasted of all the lux
uries that pioneer could demand. !
A stranger wandering among the !
hills of FL Dorado county recently
rediscovered it. He found country
store and a postoffice in the midst
of a cluster of deserted shops and
houses. The mail carrier said that
in the whole community there were
scarcely $50 persons. In the grave
yard on the hillside was the only re-
minder of Coloma's fame, a memoir
ial TO Marshall. the bronze statue
surrounding it pointing to the place
of CALIFORNIA; first gold discovery.
Coloma had dreams of magnifi-
cence in the early Sos. At its first
Fourth OF July celebration, -trat3iklpn.
says, the orator of the occasion in a
burst of eloquence, declared: Co
"lumbus, in whose honor we named
"our fair city, discovered a new con-
"tinent, but we have uncovered its
treasure chest. Coloma is no boom
"town, no mushroom, but as the
| years roll by it will grow into the
metropolis of the Sierra and the
greatest city of the Pacific coast"
Coloma then had a dozen hotels, a
street lined with stores, a hundred
saloons, as many wide open gambling
places and dance halls, an express
office, three schools, four churches
and a Jail. The shells of the dance
| halls, the saloons and the gambling
places remain. The churches and
schools passed generations ago. The
| Jail that had housed the bad men,
the killers and crooked gamblers
long ago fell into ruins.
Bret Harte perpetuated for us the
romance of this golden day of the
placer mines. The recently discov-
cred writings Of a Britisher who
drifted into the region with the early
influx of Forty-niners, even though
favored with obvious prejudice, may
have really preserved the unroman
tic side of Coloma. In his apostrophe
to the miner the Briton says: Your
"riches are vile trash, your repin-
"ings are unavailing, your sutferings
"are ineradicable." Despite this
uterance he fingered and fingered
to the last. In the "best place" in
Coloma he asked for drink of
brandy and got his "first sample of
California prices" The barkeeper
demanded two shillings for the drink.
L hoJ
brandy, fiery and hot"
He found that every house had ats
tap and contained AN apartment
consecrated to the god of gambling,
"where a set of hawks, with whetted
"beaks were lying in wait for green
pigeons, and although improvident
"miners were invariably relieved of
their gold dust in these infamous
"haunts, they punctually returned
"every Saturday night" The CO.
Iona merchants, he declared, used
false weights and measures, (which
"told with double effect against the
purchaser, dust being the circulat-
"ing medium; for his goods were
weighed with light weights and
"his gold with heavy ones"
Things apparently got into ter
rible state at one time; for the peo-
pie, beginning to close things" called
a meeting and decided to use "the
system called Judge Lynch" 1t
proved very effective. eve had no
"jails nor jailers, so just as soon as
"the judge gave the sentence it was
carried into execution Immediately.
"If the man was to hang we got a
rope and hanged him right up on
"the nearest tree that had branch
Large enough for the purpose"
estate of John A. Suffer and not
far from the mill where Marshall
is said to have picked up his. first
large tract of land which he had con-
verted into a cattle ranch. The dis
covery of gold on his property ruin
and stock, and after he had been
islature granted a pension to him.
lMarshall's experience was not less
lunfortunate; the gold seekers seized
his property and stock and laid out
his land in town lots, and he was
reduced to extreme poverty His
enemies have tried to take from him
even the credit of the gold discovery.
They assert that he merely came
upon cache of gold and platinum
found by two of his workmen. Mar
shall did not return to his boyhood
home in New Jersey, as he had
hoped, to spend the last years of his
life; he died at Coloma.