ENVIRONMENT
A TARNISHED PAST
How stakeholders in the Sierra Nevada are confronting the lasting legacy of the gold rush
BY Sena Christian
In January 1848 , six Mormon men bunked together in a small wood cabin along the South Fork of the American River in Cullumah , as the Nisenan named the land where they had lived for thousands of years , meaning “ beautiful valley .”
The men , part of the U . S . Army Mormon Battalion , had traveled from Iowa to San Diego to fight in the Mexican-American War , which , fortuitously or not , was close to an end upon their arrival . The war allowed the victorious United States to acquire more than 500,000 square miles of Mexican territory from the Rio Grande to the Pacific Ocean . Undeterred , the men headed north to become laborers at John Sutter ’ s sawmill in Coloma , which supplied lumber for a settlement Sutter was building called New Helvetia — present-day Sacramento — after having secured a 48,800-acre land grant from the Mexican government .
The men kept journals , taking meticulous notes of the days ’ events . That ’ s how historians know with certainty the very day , Jan . 24 , 1848 , that sawmill foreman James W . Marshall spotted the glisten of gold settled into the crevices of bedrock as he and his workers dug a water channel . Many years later , in a recounting of his life , Marshall said this :
( T ) here , upon the rock , about six inches beneath the surface of the water , I DISCOVERED THE GOLD . I was entirely alone at the time . I picked up one or two pieces and examined them attentively . … I then collected four or five pieces and went up to Mr . Scott ( who was working at the carpenter ’ s bench making the mill wheel ) with the pieces in my hand , and said , “ I have found it .” “ What is it ?” inquired Scott . “ Gold ,” I answered . “ Oh ! no ,” returned Scott , “ that can ’ t be .” I replied positively — “ I know it to be nothing else .”
30 comstocksmag . com | May 2021