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  But such a phenomenon was not unprecedented: gold had been pivotal in bringing wealth and benefits to society for millennia. It was the first precious metal known to mankind. Its brilliant lustre, its resistance to tarnishing and corrosion, its ability to be easily smelted and moulded, its scarcity and the fact that it could be found in a near-pure state made it highly prized. It became a visible sign of wealth, and a symbol of immortality and kingship.

  Gold was first used within ancient communities for ornamental purposes. Priam’s Treasure, named after the mythical King of Troy, was unearthed in what is now Turkey in 1870. This large and spectacular hoard, dating back to between 2600 and 2450 BC, comprised a wide variety of gold artefacts including jewellery, dazzling ornamental items and dining pieces. Still more splendid were the Mask of Agamemnon, uncovered at Mycenae in Greece, and the golden treasures of King Tutankhamun of Egypt. The Incas referred to gold as ‘the tears of the sun’, and it inspired the Colombian legend of El Dorado.

  In Greek mythology, Jason and the Argonauts’ quest for the Golden Fleece takes on new meaning when it is realised that miners in ancient times used a sheep’s fleece to recover alluvial gold. They would filter a mixture of gold-bearing sand or soil and water through the wool of a sheep’s hide. The flakes of gold would become trapped in the wool, which, when fully saturated, was dried in the sun then gently beaten so the flakes of gold would fall out and be recovered.

  Historians suggest that gold became a form of currency around 700 BC, and as the skill of metallurgists increased, the variety of applications grew. Across centuries and cultures, its value has never diminished.

  Conversely, gold has always been recognised as a cause of evil, greed and heartbreak. In his great epic the Aeneid, the Roman poet Virgil makes reference to ‘auri sacra fames’, ‘the infernal thirst for gold’. Likewise, the thousands of hopefuls who came to dig it from the ground of California in the 1850s would come to see its power as both a blessing and a curse.

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  As historic as it became, the Californian gold rush of 1848 was not the first in America. That occurred fifty years earlier, more than 2000 miles away to the east, in Cabarrus County, North Carolina. It started with the discovery of a 17-pound nugget and led more than 30,000 fortune-hunters to descend on the region.

  However, history recognises 24 January 1848 as the day ‘the big one’ started. That was the day when James Wilson Marshall, a carpenter working on the construction of a timber mill for local pioneer farmer John Sutter, was standing at the edge of the South Fork of the American River, in Coloma, California, when a golden glint coming from among the smooth river stones caught his eye. He bent down, put his hand into the water and picked up two shiny objects. They would prove to be gold nuggets!

  Marshall was euphoric at his discovery, but ironically, his excitement was countered by Sutter’s dismay: the landholder knew immediately that if news of the find went public, his plans for establishing a large farming venture in Coloma, high and remote in the Sierra Nevada mountains, would be wrecked.

  Inevitably, his worst fears were soon realised: it was impossible to suppress general awareness of such a discovery, especially after the extent of the deposit became apparent. Initially the news spread quite slowly by word of mouth, but that changed dramatically in March when Samuel Brannan – a Mormon newspaper publisher in the small seaport town of San Francisco, 100 miles to the south-west of Coloma – made it headline news. Opportunist that he was, Brannan is said to have then set up a store in the middle of Sutter’s Fort (modern Sacramento), near the site of the find, where he sold everything a prospector might need. He promoted this business by striding along the streets of San Francisco holding aloft a small glass vial containing gold, shouting as he went: ‘Gold! Gold! Gold from the American River!’

  Within a few weeks of the discovery, the first participants in what was perhaps the largest human migration associated with a single purpose since the Crusades were already heading for the Sierra Nevadas. Much of the initial wave of fortune seekers came from within California and neighbouring Oregon, the Sandwich Islands (Hawaii), South America and Asia.

  The cause of this early onslaught from beyond American shores was geographical: news of the Coloma gold discovery reached nearby Pacific ports far earlier than it did towns on the east coast, so it was from there that much of the rush’s first wave originated.

  With a transcontinental railroad still two decades away, there were only two viable options for travelling from California to the more populous east coast: by painfully slow and physically demanding wagon trains, or by ship via Cape Horn. So it took about five months – the minimum time it took to sail from San Francisco to New York – before the east was afire with the golden gossip. On 19 August 1848 the New York Herald published the story of the discovery, and from there, the news spread across America and the rest of the world like the surge of a massive flood.

  Crews of every ship departing New York for coastal and foreign ports, and folk on wagon trains crisscrossing the land, all told of the remarkable discovery. In some cases it circulated like Chinese whispers, and fanciful declarations further fuelled the excitement: it was suggested that one need only stand on the bank of the shallow American River to see the sun-soaked glint of nuggets that were there for the taking. Payable gold had apparently never been so easy to find. The year after the discovery, government officials added to the excitement by gazetting that the region around Coloma would be officially identified as El Dorado.

  Ironically, it was only a few weeks after Marshall made his discovery that Mexico and the United States signed the treaty to end the American–Mexican War, which ceded California and a considerable portion of the North American south-west to the United States. On 9 September 1850, after all the necessary formalities were completed, the United States, under President James K. Polk, would purchase from the Mexican Government, for little more than $18 million, land that would eventually be divided among seven separate States.

  Edward Gould Buffum, a New York journalist and author, had fought in the Mexican–American War and decided to stay on in California and head for Coloma. He described in his book Six Months in the Gold Mine what he saw as the consequences of the gold rush:

  . . . never in the world’s history was there a better opportunity for a great, free, and republican nation like ours to offer to the oppressed and downtrodden of the whole world an asylum and a place where . . . they can build themselves happy homes and live like free men . . .

  On 5 December 1848, President Polk announced to Congress details of Marshall’s discovery, and the fact that considerably more gold had been either unearthed or removed from the riverbed since then. He told the Congress: ‘the accounts of the abundance of gold in that territory are of such an extraordinary character as would scarcely command belief were they not corroborated by authentic reports’. The promise of easy wealth was further boosted by a display in Washington, DC, of gold nuggets and flakes that had come from Coloma.

  For Polk and the Congress, this event was their own gold strike: they recognised that the associated stampede to the west would help hasten the achievement of the government’s desire for the territory of Alta California to become a State of the Union sooner rather than later. (On 9 September 1850, the western part of that territory would become California, the thirty-first American State.)

  By the end of 1848, Australians, New Zealanders and Europeans were following the path to the goldfields. Rivalry amongst the shipping companies was intense: they did everything they could to entice fortune hunters to their ships destined for San Francisco.

  It is believed that around 6200 Australians ventured to California to join the onslaught of ‘Argonauts’: a significant figure considering that the country’s population at the time was around 400,000, with many of them living away from the main cities. Fittingly, the gold-seeking foreigners who arrived early in the new year of 1849, along with their American counterparts, became known as ‘forty-niners’. It is a tag th
at has survived in San Francisco to this day: the city’s famous football team is known as the 49ers.

  Estimates suggest that at the time of Marshall’s discovery, there were only 157,000 people in what was referred to as California: 150,000 Native Americans, 6500 people of Spanish or Mexican origin, and fewer than 800 other foreigners. In under two years, this foreign population climbed at a staggering rate to more than 100,000. By the mid-1850s the number had increased to more than 300,000 (of whom only about 8 per cent were women). Over all, it was estimated by American authorities that one in every ninety people in the land was living in California.

  Yet there was a terrible downside to this massive population influx: it had a devastating effect on the Native population. California’s first governor, Peter Hardeman Burnett, an avowed racist with no consideration for Native Americans, African Americans or the Chinese, was the driving force behind a major genocide against the Natives. During his Second Annual Message to the Legislature, delivered on 7 January 1851, he declared: ‘That a war of extermination will continue to be waged between the two races until the Indian race becomes extinct, must be expected.’ Bounties were set on the scalps of Native men, women and children, and this led many miners, along with timber-getters and settlers, to form vigilante groups and mount killing raids on Native villages. It is estimated that by 1890, the already decimated Native population of California was reduced to less than 20,000.

  While the gold hunters worked almost shoulder to shoulder in their relentless search for a fortune, the State, the nation and many entrepreneurial individuals were reaping considerable financial benefits through licence fees, taxes and commercial enterprises. In 1850, a foreign miner’s tax of $20 a month was levied by the Californian State Legislature on all gold diggers who had come from overseas. These foreigners saw the fee – which equates to over AU$700 a month today – as being grossly unfair. Not surprisingly, then, this financial imposition led to ugly scenes between American and non-American miners. The situation became so bad that the authorities were forced to rescind the tax, which they did within two years of its introduction. But the Chinese diggers, who were the most disliked of all nationalities on the fields because of their relentless work ethic and unsociable attitudes, were singled out for a tax of $2 per month (more than AU$70 today).

  Beyond the taxes, the financial and social effects of the gold rush were far-reaching. The need for food was such that the immediate area around Coloma became a food bowl for the masses. Similarly, there were widespread gains for industry: roads had to be built and ports developed. The rush also made it apparent that a transcontinental railway linking California to the east was essential, so survey work soon began to determine a potential route.

  Like the gold rush’s first millionaire, newspaperman Samuel Brannan, many astute individuals looked beyond the goldfields for their fortune and succeeded in grand style. One, Levi Strauss, saw a unique business opportunity when he moved from New York to San Francisco in 1853. He had with him some canvas which he intended to use for the manufacture of tents and wagon covers, but he quickly realised the heavy-duty fabric was ideal for making hard-wearing trousers for the miners. Within twelve months, Levi Strauss was the largest manufacturer of trousers in California. Eventually, his ‘blue jeans’ became a fashion statement around the world.

  Similar success came to Johnnie Studebaker, who took a job in California making wheelbarrows for miners. This soon led him to establish his own business designing and making similar products. Having amassed a considerable fortune, in 1858 he decided to return to his home town, South Bend, Indiana, with a new idea. He and his brother soon formed a company to make wagons for westward-bound settlers. It went on to become the famous Studebaker motor vehicle company.

  But it was the tiny waterfront port of San Francisco that benefited most, as the feeder port for the gold rush. A large number of its shrewder inhabitants, along with many from across America and beyond, were quick to realise that there was probably a greater opportunity to make a true fortune in the town than there was on the goldfields.

  East-coast lawyer and politician Richard Dana, who sailed into San Francisco Bay fifteen years prior to the gold rush, offers us an early picture of the town. He arrived aboard a hide-trading vessel, Pilgrim, which had completed an arduous voyage from Boston via Cape Horn.

  San Francisco’s expansive bay, which measures around 45 miles from north to south, was discovered by Sir Francis Drake in 1579. At the time of Dana’s visit, however, there was still little evidence of any European influence. He noted in his famous book Two Years Before the Mast that only one ship was riding at anchor when Pilgrim sailed through the bay’s narrow entrance to the tiny town of San Francisco, located on the southern side. Dana described it as ‘a magnificent bay, containing several good harbours, great depth of water, and surrounded by a fertile and finely wooded country’. Of particular note was that there were few houses to be seen.

  If ever clear evidence was needed of the impact a major gold discovery might have on a small settlement, then San Francisco provided it abundantly. At the time when the New York Herald headlined the news of Marshall’s exciting find, there were fewer than eighty buildings of any note in the town. Then, within a year, the local population had grown from less than 1000 to more than 100,000, and a shanty town comprising tents and hovel-like mud-brick huts stretched as far as the eye could see. At the same time, the bay was filled with countless ships at anchor, often gunwale to gunwale – the majority of them having been abandoned by their crews, who had left for the goldfields.

  Every conceivable business sprang up in San Francisco to cater to the demands of the hopeful hordes heading for the Sierra Nevadas – businesses that were making their owners very rich, like food and clothing stores, mining equipment suppliers, hotels, hostels, bars, brothels and banks. Many of the mark-ups on essential items were exorbitant: a barrel of flour costing $5 anywhere else was selling for $50, and a single egg could cost as much as $1.

  The owners of the clipper ships were among those eager to capitalise on this opportunity to the full. For example, in 1850 the clipper Samuel Russell returned her owners an astounding profit after she arrived in San Francisco crowded with passengers and carrying 1200 tons of merchandise, primarily flour. That same year the record-setting Sea Witch departed New York with a cargo of essential supplies costing $84,600. The lot was sold for $275,000 on arrival in San Francisco: enough money to build four clipper ships.

  In the twelve months to April 1848, only thirteen commercial vessels from Atlantic ports had called at San Francisco; for the twelve months of 1849, that figure exploded to no fewer than 775 vessels from the east coast.

  This number included the first ever clipper ship to arrive there, Memnon. Her voyage set a precedent: she amazed local residents and seafarers alike by taking just 122 days to cover the 16,000 nautical miles from New York, some eighty days less than the vast majority of ships before her.

  Ironically, her time would have been considerably better had it not been for a mutiny en route. Donald Gunn Ross III, in his book The Era of the Clipper Ships, writes that the captain, J.R. Gordon, was confronted by his crew halfway down the east coast of South America. They were refusing to do their duties because they felt he was demanding far too much of them in the tough conditions. Fortunately, some remained loyal to the captain, so he was able to sail into Montevideo in Uruguay, where he discharged the troublemakers and signed on additional men for the remainder of the passage.

  The human invasion that descended on San Francisco placed overwhelming pressure on the supply of materials needed for the construction of buildings. It took only one individual to look out across the bay and apply some logic, and the problem was solved. In no time the abandoned ships were being hauled in close to the shore and dismantled.

  They proved to be the source of many types of timber, canvas, metal items, rope and cordage. And any ship that wasn’t worth pulling apart wasn’t wasted. She was scuttled on the waterfront so sh
e could form part of the foundations for the port’s much-needed docks.

  With all this activity, it is not surprising that it took only two years for San Francisco to establish itself as the most important settlement on the west coast – a burgeoning town that was already a vital and vibrant commercial, naval and financial centre. By 1870 it was the tenth-largest community in the United States.

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  The demands of the New York-to-San Francisco run and the enormous profits that accompanied each east-to-west voyage caused almost every ship owner in America to abandon the tea trade from Asia and concentrate on the gold-rush bonanza. While the clippers’ cargo-carrying capacity was nowhere near that of the full-bodied and sluggish merchant vessels, they were ideal as passenger ships for those wanting to reach the west coast. The influence of events in California on this transformation of maritime voyaging was stated succinctly at the time by a newspaper reporter in San Francisco:

  . . . the discovery of our golden sands has done more in four years towards improvement in the style of ship building, than would have occurred from other general causes in half a century . . .

  The 224-foot extreme clipper Challenge, built in New York at a cost of $150,000 and launched in 1851, was the largest and potentially fastest commercial vessel ever to have been constructed to that point, and the first triple-decker. Her one purpose was to transport the maximum number of passengers in the shortest possible time from New York to the goldfields. Fittingly, her sail area, spread across three masts, was then the largest ever seen.

  Such a ship demanded the best master for her maiden voyage, and Bully Waterman, a captain who (like Bully Forbes) had become as infamous as he was famous, was deemed by Challenge’s owners, N.L. & G. Griswold shipping company, to be the only man for the job. Unfortunately, though, he had taken early retirement, so it wasn’t until there was an offer of a $10,000 bonus for reaching San Francisco within ninety days of departure that he decided to accept the appointment.