Marshalll - James Wilson
SOURCE: Corporation for Public Broadcasting, © 2006.
James Wilson Marshall
(1810-1885)
Although he never struck it rich, James Marshall is linked forever to the story of the California gold rush as the man who set the whole world heading westward with his discovery of gold along the American River in northern California.
Marshall was born in 1810 in New Jersey and took up his father's trade as a skilled carpenter and wheelwright. At age eighteen he decided to head west, settling as a farmer near Fort Leavenworth, Kansas, after briefly residing in Crawfordsville, Indiana and Illinois. After several unhealthy and unsuccessful years of famine, Marshall decided in 1844 to join a wagon train headed to California.
In July of 1845, Marshall arrived at the Sacramento River settlement run by John Sutter, who quickly gave him employment as a carpenter. Marshall's economic prospects brightened considerably, and he soon owned livestock and several hundred acres of land in the Sacramento Valley. He was also among the up-and-coming settlers who joined forces with John C. Fremont early in 1846 to stage the Bear Flag Revolt, a premature bid to seize control of California that was snuffed out when American troops arrived to occupy the territory at the start of the Mexican-American war.
Marshall served in Fremont's California Battalion, the remnant of the revolt, for the next year, then returned to the Sacramento Valley to find that his cattle had been stolen. Forced by financial necessity to sell his ranch, Marshall formed a partnership with John Sutter to construct a sawmill along the American River, agreeing to operate the mill in return for a portion of the lumber. On January 24, 1848, while checking to see that the tailrace of the mill had been flushed clean of silt and debris, Marshall looked down through the clear water and saw gold.
Ironically, the subsequent gold rush actually harmed the man who had begun it. Marshall was unsuccessful in securing legal or practical recognition of his own claims in the gold fields,[When Col. Richard B. Mason reported on his official tour through the mines to President Polk in 1848, he made the astute observation that, technically, the miners were trespassing on land that belonged to the federal government by virtue of the Treaty of Guadalupe with the Mexican Republic, which had been signed nine days after Marshall discovered gold at Sutter's Mill in Coloma. Legally, the prospectors were squatters] and his sawmill quickly failed when all able-bodied men in the area turned all their efforts to the search for gold. Marshall bitterly resented his misfortune, but he was helpless to change a course of events he had himself set in motion. Through the rest of his life, he drifted from place to place in California, eventually settling in a spartan homesteader's cabin where he raised a small subsistence garden. He died in 1885.
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SOURCE http://www.famousAmericans.net/jameswilsonmarshall/ (no longer on-line.)
James Wilson Marshall
MARSHALL, James Wilson, discoverer of gold in California, born in Hope, Warren County, New Jersey, in 1812; died in Coloma, California, 8 August, 1885. He received a plain education, learned the trade of coach and wagon builder, and about 1833 bought a farm on the Platte river, near Fort Leavenworth, Kansas In 1844 he emigrated to California and entered the service of General John A. Sutter. He volunteered in the Bear Flag war, serving through the entire campaign that resulted in a treaty, recognizing the independence of California, that was signed in March, 1847. After his discharge Marshall returned to Sutter's Fort, but abandoned the stock farm that he had established and entered the lumber business with General Sutter in Coloma. On 18 January, 1848, while superintending the construction of a mill-race, he found a nugget of gold, and, collecting several ounces of the ore, took the specimens to Sutter's Fort. His discovery brought a great influx of adventurers into California, many of whom, knowing that gold had been discovered in Coloma, went there, seized Marshall's property and stock, and divided his land into town-lots, even disputing the title to the land that he had purchased prior to his discovery, and he became reduced to extreme poverty. Another version of the story is that two Mormons who were employed by him to dig the mill-race had found both gold and platinum, and after washing the ore had hidden their pile of treasure until they could accumulate a large quantity, and that this was the deposit that was accidentally found by Marshall. It is said that he never denied this statement.
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Source: The Columbia Encyclopedia, Sixth Edition. 2001-05.
Marshall, James Wilson
1810-1885, American pioneer, discoverer of gold in California, bornHunterdon County, N.J. Migrating to California for his health, he arrived at Sutter´s Fort (site of present Sacramento) in 1845 and soon acquired land and livestock. After fighting in the Mexican War, he returned in 1847 to find his livestock gone. Having sold his land, he undertook to build a sawmill for John A. Sutter. In Jan., 1848, while supervising the digging of the mill race, Marshall discovered gold. This discovery launched the famous gold rush of 1849. The claims of Marshall and Sutter were ignored, the sawmill failed, and Marshall ended his days, embittered and misanthropic, working as a gardener. 1
See biography by Theressa Gay (1967).