Gold!!

   It all started on this day back in '48. I was in charge of building a sawmill up on the American River for my boss Mr. Sutter. I should say Señor Sutter since he was a Mexican citizen. This Alta California area wouldn't be American till the Fourth of July, 1848. We had won it in the Mexican War, which wouldn't  be over officially till next week when Mexico and the U.S. signed the peace treaty.
   My name is John Marshall. I was born in New Jersey in 1810. I left New Jersey in my thirties and moved to Missouri. I had a farm along the Missouri River, but I came down with malaria and couldn't work. The doctor told me to go west where the air was healthier.
    I ended up at Fort Sutter northeast of San Francisco. As I say, this was part of Mexico which was part of the Spanish Empire. But the Mexicans or Spaniards or whoever never came up here. They pretty much left the Indians alone. But American settlers were starting to move in to raise cattle so the Mexicans appointed Mr. Sutter magistrate to keep an eye on things for them.
   Mr. Johan Sutter (he changed it later to Captain John Sutter of the Swiss Guard) was from Switzerland, though he said he was born in Germany. He had started all kinds of businesses in the six years he had been there. He said this place was going to be  important someday. The Sacramento River was deep enough for ships to come up from San Francisco. He was going to build this city and call it Sutterville. But he needed lots of lumber to do it.
   When I first came to Fort Sutter in '45, Mr. Sutter put me to work as a carpenter. He also gave me some land along the river and I started raising cattle there. But the next year war broke out with Mexico. I joined up with a couple of hundred other settlers and we declared California independent from Mexico. We had a white flag with a grizzly bear on it so they called it the Bear Flag Revolt. After three weeks of this we declared ourselves "The Republic of California."
    Our republic only lasted a week. A naval lieutenant down in San Francisco arrived at our headquarters in Sonoma, pulled down our Bear Flag, and raised the Stars and Stripes. His name was Revere and his grandfather had been good old Paul Revere. We were now U.S. territory.
   After a few months in this volunteer army, I went home. I should have made better provision for my cattle, because they had either wandered off or been stolen. Taxes were due and I had no way to pay them so I lost title to my land. This is when Mr. Sutter hired me to build his sawmill. I headed up the American River to find a good spot for the mill. I found the perfect spot about forty miles upstream from Fort Sutter. Mr. Sutter hired a crew made up of Indians and Mormons who had come west to fight the Mexicans. These Mormons were headed back to Utah, but said they'd stay long enough to help build the mill.
  We had to divert river water to scour out a channel for where the mill's water wheel would go. It was dangerous work, so I did this at night so the workmen would not be at risk. One morning I noticed some shiny nuggets in the channel. I thought they were iron, but when I hammered on them, they spread out the way gold would. I took them to Mr. Sutter. "Don't tell anyone about this," Mr. Sutter said. "If my workers find out, they'll go looking for gold and my mill will never get built." I found out later he started buying up all the land along the river. He was right about the mill. A newspaperman found out about the gold and soon prospectors started pouring in from all over. The mill was abandoned and I was out of a job.
   I tried growing grapes for awhile for the new wineries. Taxes got the best of me and the big growers undercut me. I took all the money I had saved and went into the gold digging business myself. But that went bust too. The State of California voted me a little two-year pension for my contributions to the "Golden State." They renewed it a couple of times but then they forgot about me. I had a little cabin and that's where I died in 1885, pretty much broke. I was 74. Five years later the state built me a fancy monument. I could have used some of that money when I was still alive.
   As for Mr. Sutter, he was deep in debt so he turned his businesses over to his son who didn't listen to him. The son even let them name the place Sacramento instead of Sutterville. Mr. Sutter's land claims were overturned by the court, but the state did give him a more reliable pension. He and his wife moved to Pennsylvania and he spent the last 15 years of his life trying to get Congress to compensate him for his losses. But Congress did nothing for him. Captain John died in 1880. He made it to age 77.
   I should mention the Indians before I go. The gold didn't do them any good. The "Forty-Niners" forced the Indians off their land and herded them onto reservations. If they wouldn't go, a big gang of Americans would attack their village and wipe them out. The Indians weren't used to white men's diseases and lots died from things like smallpox. Gold Fever was the worst of all.

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