Gold Mining in America

By Albert Bolles, 1879

The allure of gold has captivated humanity for centuries, driving exploration, innovation, and societal shifts. While traces of gold had been discovered in the American colonies of North Carolina and Virginia prior to the Revolutionary War, these finds did little to ignite widespread interest. It wasn’t until the momentous discovery of gold in California in 1848 that the American landscape, both literally and figuratively, was irrevocably transformed. Prior to this pivotal event, the pursuit of gold was a quiet, often solitary endeavor, far removed from the dreams of sudden wealth that would soon grip the nation. The California discovery shattered this tranquility, ushering in an era defined by the feverish pursuit of riches.

Before the transformative events of 1848, knowledge of gold in California existed, albeit largely unheeded. In his account of Sir Francis Drake’s 1579 voyage along the Pacific Coast, Hakluyt observed that "There is no part of the earth to be taken up wherein there is not a reasonable quantity of gold and silver." While perhaps an exaggeration, this statement hinted at the potential that lay dormant in the California soil.

Mexican explorers and settlers also encountered placer gold deposits near the Colorado River between 1775 and 1828. However, these discoveries were deemed insignificant and failed to spark any substantial interest. Even as late as 1835, when Forbes penned his History of California, he remarked, "No minerals of any particular importance have yet been found in Upper California, nor any ores of metals." This statement underscores the prevailing perception of California as a region devoid of significant mineral wealth.

A few years later, in 1838, placers were discovered near San Francisco, approximately 45 miles northwest of Los Angeles. Though the deposits were neither extensive nor particularly rich, they were steadily worked for two decades, providing a modest income for those involved. Despite these early indications, the true potential of California’s gold reserves remained largely unrecognized until the fateful year of 1848. This article will discuss Gold Mining in America.

In 1841, the United States Exploring Expedition, led by Commodore Wilkes, surveyed the California coast. The expedition’s mineralogist, James D. Dana, journeyed overland from the Columbia River, traversing the Willamette and Sacramento Valleys before reaching San Francisco Bay. In his subsequent publication on mineralogy, Dana acknowledged the discovery of gold in the Sacramento Valley and the presence of auriferous rocks in Southern Oregon. Yet, Dana did not believe his discovery had any practical value, and his assessment was largely dismissed within California. The notion of California’s mineral wealth, however, persisted among some individuals. On May 4, 1841, Thomas O. Larkin, then serving as the United States consul in Monterey, penned an official letter to James Buchanan, then Secretary of State, stating: "There is no doubt, but that gold, silver, quicksilver, copper, lead, sulfur, and coal mines are to be found all over California; and it is equally doubtful whether, under their present owners, they will ever be worked." Larkin’s foresight hinted at the untapped mineral resources of the region, awaiting the catalyst that would unleash their potential. The history of Gold Mining in America has been fascinating.

That catalyst arrived on January 19, 1848, when James W. Marshall, while constructing a mill race for a sawmill at Coloma, California, approximately 35 miles east of Sutter’s Fort, stumbled upon pieces of yellow metal in the mill race. Marshall and his team of workers suspected the metal to be gold. Convinced of the significance of his find, Marshall diligently searched the mill race each morning, collecting specimens of the yellow metal. As his collection grew, his associates began to share his belief that they had indeed discovered a valuable resource.

Around the middle of February, one of the mill workers traveled to San Francisco to verify the nature of the metal. He was introduced to Isaac Humphrey, an experienced miner who had previously mined for gold in Georgia. Humphrey, upon examining the specimens, immediately recognized them as genuine gold. After inquiring about the location of the discovery, he was convinced of the richness of the deposits and swiftly prepared to travel to the mill.

Arriving at Coloma on March 7, Humphrey found the mill operations continuing as usual, seemingly unaffected by the presence of gold in the area. The following day, he took a pan and spade and began washing dirt from the bottom of the mill race, focusing on the locations where Marshall had previously found his specimens. Within a few hours, Humphrey declared the mines to be far more promising than any he had encountered in Georgia. The early history of Gold Mining in America is linked to California.

Humphrey constructed a rocker and began earnestly washing for gold, consistently finding an ounce or more of the precious metal each day. The other men at the mill followed suit, building their own rockers and joining the search for gold. The discovery triggered a widespread abandonment of other tasks, as the allure of gold proved irresistible. Yet, the news of the discovery spread slowly at first.

In mid-March, Pearson B. Reading, the owner of a large ranch at the head of the Sacramento Valley, visited Sutter’s Fort. Hearing of the mining activity at Coloma, he traveled there to witness it firsthand. Observing the methods of washing, Reading noted the similarity of the geological formations to those on his own ranch, leading him to believe that gold mines might exist there as well. He returned to his ranch and, within a few weeks, commenced mining operations on the bars of Clear Creek, nearly 200 miles northwest of Coloma.

Shortly after Reading’s departure, John Bidwell, a former California congressional representative, visited Coloma. Inspired by what he saw, Bidwell organized a group of Native Americans from his ranch to wash for gold on the bars of the Feather River, approximately 75 miles from Coloma. Thus, the mining operations began at several distant points.

The first printed notice of the discovery appeared in a California newspaper published in San Francisco: "In the newly-made raceway of the sawmill erected by Captain John Sutter on the American Fork, gold has been found in considerable quantities. One discovery person brought $30 to New Helvetia and gathered them there quickly."

On May 20, the same newspaper, announcing its imminent suspension of publication, reported: "The whole country, from San Francisco to Los Angeles, and from the seashore to the base of Sierra Nevada, resounds with the sordid cry of ‘Gold, gold, gold!’ while the field is left half planted, the house half-built, and everything neglected but the manufacture of picks and shovels, and the means of transportation to the spot where one man obtained a $128 worth of the real stuff in one day’s washing; and the average for all concerned is $20 per day."

Towns and farms were deserted, left to the care of women and children, as rancheros, wood-choppers, mechanics, vaqueros, soldiers, and sailors abandoned their previous occupations to dedicate themselves to washing the auriferous gravel of the Sacramento River. Driven by insatiable greed, they constantly sought new locations that promised even greater yields. As a result, the area of mining activity gradually expanded. By the end of 1848, miners were working in every major stream on the western slope of the Sierra Nevada, from the Feather River to the Tuolumne River, a distance of 150 miles, as well as at Reading’s diggings in the northwestern corner of the Sacramento Valley. The allure of Gold Mining in America has been a constant theme.

Initially, the news of the gold discovery was met with disbelief and ridicule in the Atlantic States and foreign countries. However, the steady influx of substantial quantities of gold, coupled with the enthusiastic reports from army officers and other credible sources, gradually shifted public opinion, generating tremendous excitement.

Oregon, the Hawaiian Islands, and Sonora sent thousands of individuals to partake in the gold rush during its first year. By the following spring, ambitious young Americans east of the Rocky Mountains were eager to travel to the new Eldorado, where they believed riches awaited everyone. The popular imagination painted a picture of gold being easily extracted, simply by shoveling it from the beds of streams.

The year 1850, two years after Marshall’s discovery, was characterized by numerous "rushes," or sudden migrations, in search of purportedly rich diggings. Miners, despite their intelligence and exchange of ideas, often held inaccurate geological understandings of gold distribution. The tales of incredible amounts of gold being unearthed, sometimes with single miners extracting thousands of dollars per day, fueled their imaginations and clouded their judgment. Many believed that gold originated from a volcanic source, scattered across the hills, and that locating this source would lead to unimaginable riches. Consequently, long trains of pack animals were dispatched with the expectation of returning laden with gold within a few days.

Extravagant stories circulated and were readily believed. Men who had previously earned a mere dollar a day were now dissatisfied with clearing $20 and were constantly seeking new expeditions to distant diggings promising even greater wealth. Decades later, miners would develop a more sophisticated understanding of auriferous deposits and abandon the notion of simply shoveling pure gold. Yet, ever since the initial discovery of the mines, they remained prepared to migrate to any newly discovered field of excitement.

A critical requirement for placer mining was an abundant and readily accessible water supply. The first significant attempt to convey water through an artificial channel occurred at Coyote Hill in Nevada County, California, in March 1850. This ditch, approximately two miles in length, proved successful and inspired similar projects in numerous other locations. Within eight years, approximately 6,000 miles of mining canals had been constructed, providing water to the major placer districts and enabling the extraction of a significant portion of the state’s gold yield. Many of these ditches were remarkable feats of engineering.

The primary challenge was to secure the maximum amount of water at the highest elevation above the auriferous ground, while minimizing immediate expenses. Given the high interest rates on money (3-10% per month) and the potential for paydirt to be exhausted within a few years, durability was a secondary consideration. The anticipated profits were expected to quickly offset the cost of a new ditch.

There was no imperial treasury to fund durable aqueducts in every township, nor could the impatient miners wait a decade for the completion of monumental stone and mortar structures. The high value of their time and the scarcity of their money dictated the adoption of the cheapest and most expeditious methods for obtaining water. Where the ground surface provided the appropriate grade, a ditch was dug directly into the earth. Where this was not feasible, flumes were constructed of wood, supported by frameworks that sometimes reached heights of 300 feet to cross deep ravines, extending for miles at elevations of 100-200 feet. The Gold Mining in America required innovation.

All known mechanical methods for conveying water from hilltop to hilltop were employed. Aqueducts of wood and iron pipes were suspended on wire cables or supported by wood bridges, and inverted siphons carried water up the sides of one hill using the heavier pressure from the higher side of another.

The ditches were typically owned by companies, with approximately 400 such entities operating in the state at one point, collectively owning 6,000 miles of canals and flumes. The largest of these, the Eureka, in Nevada County, comprised 205 miles of ditches constructed at a cost of $900,000, generating daily receipts of $6,000 from the sale of water. Unfortunately, these mining canals, while more numerous, extensive, and daring in design than the aqueducts of Rome, were less durable. Most were abandoned and left to decay, leaving behind only the heaps of gravel from which clay and loam had been washed in the search for gold.

As the placers in many districts became depleted, the demand for water and the profits of the ditch companies diminished. The more expensive flumes, when damaged by severe storms, floods, or the decay of wood, were often not repaired.

The construction of hundreds of ditches within a few years following the successful experiment at Coyote Hill revitalized placer mining and significantly altered its nature. Despite the crude nature of the operations, new inventions were continuously developed to facilitate the extraction of gold. One such innovation was the introduction of the "tom," an implement previously used in Georgia. While an improvement over the rocker, it was soon superseded by the sluice, a broad trough ranging from 100 to 1000 feet in length, equipped with transverse cleats at the lower end to trap gold. With a descent of one foot in twenty, water rushed through the sluice like a torrent, carrying away large stones and breaking down lumps of clay. Miners, often a dozen working at a single sluice, simply threw in dirt and extracted gold.

Occasional tasks such as removing stones or shoveling dirt were necessary to prevent blockages, but these required little time. The sluice represented the most effective device yet developed for washing gold and was widely considered unsurpassed. Its use was more prevalent in California than elsewhere, although American miners introduced it to Australia, New Zealand, British Columbia, Transylvania, and other countries.

Although an original invention in California, the sluice had been previously used in Brazil, but it never achieved the same level of refinement or widespread adoption. In 1849, such an implement was unknown in the gold mining industry.

To further accelerate the process, Edward E. Mattison of Connecticut invented hydraulic mining in 1852. This method involved directing a high-pressure stream of water against a bank or hillside containing placer gold, causing the earth to be torn down and carried into the sluice for washing. This eliminated the need for shoveling.

A miner using a rocker could wash approximately one cubic yard of earth per day. With a tom, the average increased to two cubic yards. A sluice enabled the washing of four cubic yards, while the combination of hydraulic mining and a sluice allowed for the processing of 50 to 100 cubic yards. The difference was significant. The force of water flowing through a two-inch pipe under a pressure of 200 feet perpendicular was immense, causing hills to crumble as if they were piles of clouds dispersed by a breeze.

Yet, even this formidable power was sometimes insufficient. When the hills were dried by prolonged heat and drought, the clay became so hard that the hydraulic stream could not effectively dissolve it. Often, the water would run through the sluice clear, resulting in wasted effort.

To address this issue, miners would cut tunnels into the heart of their claims and use explosives to loosen the clay, making it more susceptible to the action of water. Some of these blasts involved the use of two tons of powder.

The introduction of the sluice, ditch, and hydraulic processes led to the hiring of laborers, replacing the individualistic nature of pan and rocker mining.

While rocker claims were plentiful in 1849, there were not enough suitable sluice claims to accommodate even a third of the miners three years later. The construction of a long sluice, the excavation of drains (often necessary for tailings disposal), and the purchase of water from ditch companies required capital. The process of clearing up the gold made it possible for the sluice owner to prevent theft by employees, leading to the widespread hiring of miners for wages in placer diggings.

Following the discovery of the original gold sources, extraction became more scientific than placer mining.

Other, now obsolete, methods of obtaining gold included the arrastra, a rudimentary but effective Mexican device for pulverizing ore, and winnowing, or "dry-washing," practiced by Mexicans in Lower California due to the scarcity of water. Winnowing involved using the wind to blow away dust and light particles, leaving behind the heavier gold dust.

During geological surveys, gold was discovered in numerous locations, but nowhere in quantities comparable to California. It was found in the White Mountains of New Hampshire, Vermont, New York, New Jersey, and Pennsylvania, as well as in larger quantities in the remaining Southern seaboard states, extending to Alabama.

Gold Mining in America is a fascinating subject. Gold mining, particularly placer mining, has always possessed a strong gambling element, contributing to its enduring allure. However, quartz mining, if conducted properly, offered more consistent profits than other methods of extracting the precious metal.