Gold! by Fred Rosen Page A

my father’s at home, I was a quiet and painstaking merchant of San Francisco, my stock in trade consisting of everything and anything that I might come across in the way of domestic utensils.
    No sooner, however, had the news reached us of the discoveries at Marshall’s that I was instantly deserted by my clerks and even my French Canadian cook, who boasts of having made all imaginable dishes to suit the dainty palate of one or the other of the Iturbide family of Mexico, cut, stick and run, leaving me “alone in my glory.”
    What in this emergency was I to do? Nobody would serve me, in my brief hour of need. I therefore followed the example of my neighbors and there I am, up to my “flanks” in mud, water and c. with a curiously shaped trowel in one hand and a “cradle” in the other, scraping and hawling [sic] up lumps of gold at each endeavor.
    I have, so far, got together 2500 dollars worth of gold and have only been at work a month. My “partners,” however, Hackett and Carr, have made a still better thing of it, having struck a richer spot than that yon whoever I am at work. I assure you, I often think of the pleasant hours were have passed at that restaurant on NY and wish that I could findan opportunity of spending some of my hold there, as “once upon a time” I did.
    There are a number of U.S. deserters staying about and I should not be at all surprised if the entire regiment followed soot [sic]. As for apprehending all deserters, that would be a difficult matter. In fact, it is a dangerous matter to send out other soldiers to apprehend them, as they also would desert, and Col. Mason would have no effective body left to enforce obedience to his orders.
    As there will doubtless be many among you who will be impregnated to visit this fortune-favored region, as soon as the news of the late discovery shall have reached you, I have judged it not malapropos to furnish you with some information respecting the climate, produces of the country, etc. etc. for there will I dare say be many who will locate permanently in the country. You would be astonished to see how rapidly town and villages (of rough material, it is true) are beginning to spring up around the concentrating points on the gold district.
    During the summer and greater part of the fall, the winds on the coast about San Francisco blow from the west and never from the ocean. The mornings are pleasant and clear, the temperature of the atmosphere during the major part of the data is about then same. There is little really cold weather during the winter here; in fact you would be astonished and delighted, should you come outthere yourself at the change between the climate at gore and that here.
    Grapes are raised here in an abundance of a flavor unequalled by those of any country in the face of the globe they are a favorite of diet with everybody, high and low. The soil is in most places fertile beyond description and what water we lack during the dry months is supposed by irrigation. The season for sowing wheat commences early in November and continues until early sprung.
    When I have made my fortune, I will perhaps revisit you.
    Unknown

6.
    TRAVELING TO THE GOLD FIELDS
    By the end of 1848, the discovery of gold had brought thousands to the gold fields. They camped up and down the American and Feather Rivers, in every hollow and valley, using the most primitive of equipment to try to extract gold from earth and water and dust. Most of those prospectors were Californios, Mormons, and other “miners,” such as the Jack Tars from Australia, who were ex-convicts. The started to arrive on ships in San Francisco Harbor, as did Chinese and Mexicans.
    Back east, the stories of gold had been well publicized in all the major newspapers. The New York Times and the New York Herald carried accounts. But whether the public believed them is a different manner. It was just too good to be true. A man born into poverty could,