CHAPTER V.

FURTHER DISCOVERIES.

MARCH-DECEMBER, 1848.

ISAAC HUMPHREY AGAIN-BIDWELL AND HIS BAR-READING AND HIS INDIANS ON CLEAR CREEK-POPULATION IN THE MINES-ON FEATHER RIVER AND THE YUBA-JOHN SINCLAIR ON THE AMERICAN RIVERTHE IRISHMAN YANKEE JIM-DR TODD IN TODD VALLEY-KELSEY— WEBER ON WEBER CREEK-THE STOCKTON MINING COMPANY-MURPHY -HANGTOWN ON THE STANISLAUS-KNIGHT, WOOD, SAVAGE, AND HEFFERNAN-PARTY FROM OREGON--ON THE MOKELUMNE AND COSUMNES-THE SONORANS ON THE TUOLUMNE-CORONEL AND PARTY.

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ONE of the first to realize the importance of Marshall's discovery was Isaac Humphrey, the Georgia miner before mentioned, who accompanied Bennett on his return to Sutter's Fort, after the failure to obtain a grant of the gold region. Humphrey advised come of his friends to go with him to seek gold, but they only laughed at him. He reached Coloma on the 7th of March; the 8th saw him out prospecting with a pan; the 9th found him at work with a rocker. The application of machinery to mining in California was begun. A day or two later came to the mill a French Canadian, Jean Baptiste Ruelle by name, commonly called Baptiste, who had been a miner in Mexico, a trapper, and general backwoodsman. Impressed by the geologic features of that region, and yet more perhaps by an ardent fancy, he had five years before applied to Sutter for an outfit to go and search for gold in the mountains. Sutter declined, deeming him unreliable, but gave him occupation at the whip-saw on Weber Creek, ten miles east of Coloma. After

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examining the diggings at Coloma, he declared there must be gold also on the creek, wondered he had never found it there; indeed, the failure to do so seems stupidity in a person so lately talking about gold-finding. Nevertheless, he with Humphrey was of great service to the inexperienced gold-diggers, initiating them as well in the mysteries of prospecting, or seeking for gold, as in washing it out, or separating it from the earth.1

So it was with John Bidwell, who came to Coloma toward the latter part of March.2 Seeing the gold and the soil, he said there were similar indications in the vicinity of his rancho, at Chico. Returning home he searched the streams thereabout, and was soon at work with his native retainers on Feather River, at the rich placer which took the name of Bidwell Bar.3 Not long after Bidwell's visit to Coloma,* P. B. Reading arrived there. He also was satisfied that there was gold near his rancho at the northern end of the great valley, and finding it, he worked the

1 Humphrey died at Victoria, B. C., Dec. 1, 1867. Alta Cal., Dec. 4, 1867. Hittell, Mining, 15, ascribes to the Frenchman the first use of pan and rocker on the coast.

He says that Humphrey, Ruelle, and others were at work 'with pans in some ravines on the north side of the river.' Bidwell's Cal. 1841-8, MS., 232. He makes no mention of any rocker, although the machine must have been new to him. It may have been there for all that.

On my return to Chico I stopped over night at Hamilton on the west bank of Feather River. On trying some of the sand in the river here I found light particles of gold, and reckoned that if light gold could be found that far down the river, the heavier particles would certainly remain near the hills. On reaching Chico an expedition was organized, but it took some time to get everything ready. We had to send twice up to Peter Lassen's mill to obtain flour; meat had to be dried, and we had to send to Sacramento for tools. Our party were Mr Dicky, Potter, John Williams, William Northgraves, and myself. We passed near Cherokee and up on the north fork. In nearly all the places we prospected we found the color. One evening, while camped at White Rocks, Dicky and I in a short time panned out about an ounce of fine gold. The others refused to prospect any, and said the gold we had obtained was so light that it would not weigh anything. At this time we were all unfamiliar with the weight of gold-dust, but I am satisfied that what we had would have weighed an ounce. At length we came home and some of the men went to the American River to mine. Dicky, Northgraves, and I went to what is now Bidwell's Bar, and there found gold and went to mining.' Bidwell's Cal. 1841–8, MS., 232–3; Sac. Union, Oct. 24, 1864.

Sutter, in N. Helv. Diary, says he left the fort April 18th with Reading and Edwin Kemble, was absent four days, and beside gold saw silver and iron in abundance.

deposits near Clear Creek with his Indians. Meanwhile the metal was discovered at several intermediate points, especially along the tributaries and ravines of the south fork, which first disclosed it. Thus at one leap the gold-fields extended their line northward two hundred miles. It will also be noticed that after the Mormons the foremost to make avail of Marshall's discovery were the settlers in the great valley, who, gathering round them the Indians of their vicinity, with such allurements as food, finery, alcohol, went their several ways hunting the yellow stuff up and down the creeks and gulches in every direction. Sutter and Marshall had been working their tamed Indians at Coloma in February.

As the field enlarged, so did the visions of its occupants. Reports of vast yields and richer and richer diggings began to fly in all directions, swelling under distorted fancy and lending wings to flocking crowds. In May the influx assumed considerable proportions, and the streams and ravines for thirty miles on either side of Coloma were occupied one after another. The estimate is, that there were then already 800 miners at work, and the number was rapidly increasing. Early in June Consul Larkin estimated them at 2,000, mostly foreigners, half of whom were on the branches of the American. There might have been 100 families, with teams and tents. He saw none who had worked steadily a month. Few had come prepared to stay over a week or a fortnight, and no matter how rich the prospects, they were obliged to return home and arrange their business. Those who had no home or business must go somewhere for food.

When Mason visited the mines early in July, he understood that 4,000 men were then at work, which certainly cannot be called exaggerated if Indians are

"As on the land of Leidesdorff, on the American River just above Sutter's flour-mill, about the middle of April. S. F. Californian, April 19, 1848; Cal ifornia Star, April 22, 1848.

In his Diary, under date of April, Sutter says that some of his neighbors had been very successful.

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included. By the turn of the season, in October, the number had certainly doubled, although the white mining population for the year could not have exceeded 10,000 men. Arrivals in 1848 have as a rule been overestimated. News did not reach the outside world in time for people to come from a distance during that year. It is impossible to trace the drift of the miners, but I will give the movements of the leading men, and, so far as they have come under my observation, the founders of mining camps and towns.

The success of Bidwell in the north was quickly repeated by others. Two miles from his camp on the north fork of Feather River, one Potter from the Farwell grant opened another bar, known by his name. Below Bidwell Bar lay Long Bar; opposite, Adamstown, first worked by Neal. From Lassen's rancho went one Davis and camped below Morris Ravine, near Thompson Flat. Subsequently Dye and company of Monterey with 50 Indians took out 273 pounds in seven weeks, from mines on this river. The aborigines began to work largely on their own account,

'Simpson should not say there were 3,000 or 4,000 miners at work three months after the discovery of gold, because there were less than 500; four months after the discovery there were less than 1,000; nor should the Reverend Colton speak of 50,000 in Nov., when less than 10,000 white men were at work in the mines. My researches indicate a population in California in the middle of 1848 of 7,500 Hispano-Californians, excluding Indians, and 6,500 Americans, with a sprinkling of foreigners. Of the Californians, probably 1,300 went to the mines, out of a possible maximum of 2,000 able to go, allowing for their larger families. Of the Americans, with smaller families and of more roving disposition, soldiers, etc., 4,000 joined the rush. Add 1,500 Oregonians and northerners, arriving in 1848, and 2,500 Mexicans, Hawaiians, etc., and we have a total mining population of somewhat over 9,000. Cal. Star, Sept. 2, 1848, Dec. 9, 1848, allows 2,000 Oregonians to arrive in 1848, and 100 wagons with U. S. emigrants. The gov. agent, T. B. King, indicates his belief in a population at the end of 1848 of 15,000, or a little more. Report, 15; U. S. Gov. Docs., 31st cong. 1st sess., H. Ex. Doc. 59, 7. The committee of the Cal. const. convention, in statement of March 1850, assumed a population of 26,000, whereof 8,000 Americans, 5,000 foreigners, and 13,000 Californians, but the last two estimates are excessive. See also Stillman's Golden Fleece, 32; Mayer's Mex. Aztec, ii. 393; Grimshaw, Narr., MS., enumerates only five sea-going vessels at San Francisco early in Nov. 1848, and these evidently all on trading trips, and as late as Feb. 1849, the First Steamship Pioneers, found only a few ships here. It is difficult, therefore, to make up 5,000 foreign arrivals before 1849, for the influx from Sonora is shown elsewhere to have been moderate so far.