# data[].attributes.body
The Mines

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.readable_text
The gold mines that were the focus of these forty-eighters and forty-niners fell into three major regions. The first discoveries were along the American River and other tributaries to the Sacramento River. Not long thereafter, gold was found in the tributaries to the San Joaquin, which flowed north to join the Sacramento in the great delta east of San Francisco Bay. The Mokelumne River formed the boundary between the two areas, with the upper fields known as the Northern Mines, and those below the Mokelumne known as the Southern Mines. Other strikes occurred to the northwest around the Trinity, Klamath, and Salmon Rivers.

Illustration IX: Miner and Pack Burro. Reproduction of line drawing from unidentified publication. Lot 4392A. LC-USZ62-55016. #2911

As mining spread, mining techniques changed. At first, miners relied on "panning" gold--swirling water from a stream in a shallow pan until the heavier, gold-bearing materials fell to the bottom while the water and lighter sand fell out over the rim. This was soon displaced by simple mining machines like the wooden "rocker" into which pails of water could be emptied and processed at one time. Even this minor technological advance meant that there was now an investment in equipment and methods that worked best with a team of men, not a single miner. Thus miners began to join together in formal and informal companies. Gold in and around stream beds was soon exhausted, and hard-rock miners took over, using their pickaxes to dig shafts up to forty feet deep with horizontal tunnels radiating from these shafts in search of subterranean veins of gold-bearing quartz.

And there were hillsides with gold-bearing gravel left from now-vanished stream beds. Here men devised hydraulic mining: streams and rivers were diverted from their original courses to provide water for primitive high-pressure hoses that washed down the gravel from a hillside. Indeed, the hoses washed down so much silt that the bed of the Sacramento River was raised several feet by the tons of debris that came down from the hills, drinking water was polluted, and the danger of flooding rose sharply. In 1884, the courts banned hydraulic mining, but by then the hunt for gold had become a business, with substantial investments in equipment, and the individual miner gave way to joint-stock companies.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
The Mines | Early California History: An Overview | Articles and Essays | California as I Saw It: First-Person Narratives of California's Early Years, 1849-1900 | Digital Collections | Library of Congress

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
The gold mines that were the focus of these forty-eighters and forty-niners fell into three major regions. The first discoveries were along the American River and other tributaries to the Sacramento River. Not long thereafter, gold was found in the tributaries to the San Joaquin, which flowed north to join the Sacramento in the great delta east of San Francisco Bay.

# data[].attributes.body
USC DI

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.readable_text
Sutter's Mill, Coloma, El Dorado, California

After their formal discharge from the military, many members of the Mormon Battalion headed north in California. While at Sacramento, they learned of a need for skilled laborers to assist John Sutter and James Marshall build a sawmill and gristmill on the south branch of the American River some 40-50 miles to the east.

Perhaps one hundred former battalion members hired on to earn money for the trip to join their families in Utah and further east.

On January 24, 1848, James Marshall discovered gold in the mill race. The diaries of Henry Bigler and Azariah Smith of the Mormon Battalion documented the moment when Marshall noticed the flecks of gold in the water. Bigger made an entry in his journal on the very day; Smith the following weekend. This discovery initiated the famous California Gold Rush, changing California's history in a remarkable way. Not only did some of the battalion members discover gold there, during the next decade 300,000 people made the journey by land and by sea to seek their fortunes as well. Some looked for gold; others sold merchandise and needed services to those seeking the precious metal.

In 1898, Henry Bigler participated in the fiftieth anniversary celebration of the discovery of gold in at Sutter's Mill. Presently, the site of the discovery is preserved with historical recreations at a state park in Coloma, El Dorado County, California. There is a visitors' center, interpretive signage, and rebuilt structures including the mill and cabins where the workers lived. The rebuilt cabin seen below is referred to as the "Mormon Cabin" because of the significant role Latter-day Saints played in the establishment of the mill site and documentation of the discovery of gold.

Map & Directions

Marshall Gold Discovery State Historic Park is located in Coloma/Placerville, California. From Sacramento, take Highway 50 eastbound to Placerville. From I-80 at Auburn, take Highway 49 heading southeast toward Placerville. The address of the visitor center is 310 Back Street, Placerville, California 95667. The gps coordinates of the visitor center: 38°48'1.05″ N; 120°53'30.94″ W.

Photos

Articles & Resources

Resources

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
Sutter's Mill, Coloma, El Dorado - Ensign Peak Foundation

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
After their formal discharge from the military, many members of the Mormon Battalion headed north in California. While at Sacramento, they learned of a need for skilled laborers to assist John Sutter and James Marshall build a sawmill and gristmill on the south branch of the American River some 40-50 miles to the east.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.readable_text
by CW Bayer
This is a brief overview of gold rush songs. Some recorded examples are included, accompanied by a mid-nineteenth century some of these songs were accompanied by guitar or, perhaps, melodeon. CW's books on history can be read at minstrel banjo -fretless with gut strings- though at the time of their writing nevadamusic.com.

From 1849 through the 1850s, the California gold rush inspired songs that told stories and made commentary. Some of these songs, like "Oh, California", were written by emigrants as they left the East and are full of excitement at the expectation of finding gold and getting rich. John Nichols wrote "Oh California" as a parody of the 1848 minstrel show hit, " Oh! Susanna." He sang it with two friends to waving townspeople from the deck of the bark Eliza as they set sail from Salem, Massachusetts. The lyric enjoyed brief popularity in Sacramento upon their arrival in 1849.

(lyric excerpt)

The optimism of "Oh, California" contrasts gold rush songs written in California. These found their appeal among miners by commenting on unruly society, rough characters, and hardship. Americans in gold rush California were not the only people with music-all other cultures had music as well. And, in American culture, gold rush song tended to be limited to the world of the miner while city dwellers often played or listened to the popular music of the day.

All gold rush song and, in fact, all gold rush mining culture evolved in the shadow of the phrase, "to see the elephant." This phrase had been popularized in a gold rush song lyric written by Thaddeus Meighan for a play, Gold Mania , put on by P.T. Barnum in New York City. A parody of "Jeannette and Jeannot", the song "California As It Is" warned young men that the promise of riches in California was false. "If you go, why you will see, the elephant, yes sirree, and some little grains of gold that are no bigger than a flea..."

(lyric excerpt)
I've been to California and I haven't got a dime
I've lost my health, my strength, my hope, and I have lost my time
I've only got a spade and pick and if I felt quite brave
I'd use the two of them 'ere things to scoop me out a grave
This digging hard for gold may be politic and bold
But you could not make me think so; but you may if you are told
Oh! I've been to California and I'm minus all the gold
For instead of riches plenty I have only got a cold
And I think in going mining I was regularly sold

Ignoring this advice, young men used the phrase "seeing the elephant" when emigrating from the East by land and sea as well as throughout the 1850s in California. For young men who hoped to pick up gold off the ground and get rich, the phrase summed up the contrast between dreams and reality during emigration and then in far-flung diggings.

While individual gold rush songs appeared in both eastern and western newspapers, the majority of California gold rush song lyrics came from the pen of a few key individuals. Almost all were lyrics written to popular melodies of the day-parodies. Aimed at young men who, in California, often lived far from civilization, gold rush songs were frequently comic and irreverent-celebrating having "seen the elephant."

Dr. David Robinson ran the Dramatic Museum in San Francisco during the early 1850s. Modeling himself after P.T. Barnum and hoping to imitate Barnum's American Museum in New York City, Robinson wrote songs for his theater that poked fun at local government. He collected these in the book, Hits At San Francisco . His most notable lyric proved to be "Life in California," a parody of the English saloon theater song, "Used Up Man." The last line of the chorus went, "And if I ever get home again, I'll stay there if I can."

(lyric excerpt)
O I ha'nt got no home, nor nothing else, I spose
Misfortune seems to follow me wherever I goes
I come to California with a heart both stout and bold
And have been up to the diggings there to get some lumps of gold

But I'm a used up man
A perfect used up man
And if ever I get home again
I'll stay there if I can

An attorney working in the Sierra Nevada and writing under the pen name "Old Put," John Stone published two books of original lyrics-"Put's Original California Songster" in 1855 and "Put's Golden Songster" in 1858. Stone's songs included "Sweet Betsey From Pike," with a lyric that parodied the 1848 song "Ben Bolt," set to the melody of the 1853 English saloon theater song, "Villikins And His Dinah." "Sweet Betsey" is noteworthy as a portrayal of a strong woman, an "Amazonian" (to use a term from that time) in mid-nineteenth-century America.

(lyric excerpt)
Oh don't you remember Sweet Betsey from Pike
Who cross'd the wide mountains with her lover Ike
With two yoke of cattle and a large yellow dog
A tall Shanghai rooster and a one spotted hog
Too ral lal, loo ral la! Loo ra lal la

One evening quite early they camped on the Platte
"Twas near by the road on a green shady flat
Where Betsey, sore-footed, lay down to repose
With wonder Ike gazed on that Pike County rose
Too ral lal, loo ral la! Loo ra lal la

Stone also wrote "The Arrival of The Greenhorn," a parody of "Jeannette and Jeannot." The lyric begins with humor about the chief killer of overland emigrants-diarrhea.

(lyric excerpt) My mules all died, but poor old Clip I pulled in by the tailI fed him last at Chimney Rock, that's where the grass gave outI'm proud to tell, we stood it well, along the Truckee routeBut I'm very weak and lean, though I started plump and fatHow I wish I had the gold machine, I left back on the Platte!And a pair of striped bed tick pants, my Sally made for meTo wear while digging after gold and when I left says she
I've just got in across the Plains, I'm poorer than a snail

"Here take the laudanum with you Sam, to check the di-a-ree"

More than anyone, Stone made the overland emigrant, "Pike," a hero-probably the first generic American hero of the West. Like gold rush culture, and then western mining culture as a whole during the nineteenth century, gold rush song reflected an effort by the seagoing emigrant, Yankee, to emulate the overland emigrant, Pike. In this sense, gold rush song is often a literate celebration of the ordinary. Stone's 1855 song "Seeing the Elephant" revolves around the plight of young men in the mountains-their clothes becoming tattered, their hair and beards growing long and dirty, sleeping on the sandy bar, getting lice. They go to town and the California girls say, "leave you miner, leave."
Seeing the Elephant
(lyric excerpt - audio not included due to racist and sexist content) I soon fell in with a lot from PikeThe next was, Damn you, back, wo-haw
Off I started, Yankee-like

A right smart chance from Arkansas

In the Sierra Nevada, where tastes were more like those of respectable city dwellers, Italian musician Mart Taylor sought to capitalize on criticism of Stone's lyrics as "vulgar" by writing a book of mining songs in 1856, "The Gold Digger's Song Book." Where Robinson and Stone had penned songs that, in essence, commented on "seeing the elephant", Taylor sought mining song with a sentimentality similar to the purple poetry popular in the East and in civilization. His lyrics proved far less popular among miners than Stone's work. Taylor's more lasting contribution came in 1857 as he hired ten-year-old Lotta Crabtree to sing and perform Irish dancing. She later went East and became a national star. From Taylor's song, "The Pike County Miner," the verses below sound like a poor imitation of John Stone's writing.

(lyric excerpt) And drove an ox team o'er the plainsThat when I got here I should make a big strike
I thought when I first started from Pike

And get some pay for my pains

While the mining song "Clementine" appeared during the 1880s, by the end of 1860 most gold rush California mining song had been written. California miners had begun to disperse into Nevada and across the West-taking with it the habits, manners and, sometimes, the songs that came to define gold rush culture in the Sierra Nevada during the 1850s. Mining song made a couple of appearances on the stage of the minstrel show during the 1860s-with "Joe Bowers" by J.E. Johnson and then "The Days of '49" by banjoist Charley Rhoades. These two songs eclipsed most others with their popularity and spread. Both made wry commentary on the difficult and sometimes violent fate of the 49er.

(lyric excerpt)
At length I went to mining, put in my biggest licks
Come down upon the boulders jist like a thousand bricks
I worked both late and airly, in rain, and sun, and snow
But I was working for my Sally, so 'twas all the same to Joe

I made a very lucky strike, as the gold itself did tell
And saved it for my Sally, the gal I loved so well
I saved it for my Sally, that I might pour it at her feet
That she might kiss and hug me, and call me something sweet

Until the end of the nineteenth century, "The Days of '49" remained popular as the anthem of the old pioneers, the 49ers, while they aged. In each verse, a character dies having fun.

https://balladofamerica.org/wp-content/uploads/2021/12/The-Days-of-49.mp3 The Days of '49

(lyric excerpt) Who could outrun a bull you betHe roared all day and he roared all nightI believe he is roaring yetOne night he fell into a prospect holeTwa's a roaring bad designIn that hole he roared out his soul
There was Rattlesnake Jim

In the days of '49

Bayer, CW. The Strychnine Banjo: Jake Wallace, Charley Rhoades and The Days of '49. See nevadamusic.com.

Dwyer, Richard E., and Richard A. Lingenfelter. The Songs of the Gold Rush. University of California Press, 1964.

Silber, Irwin. Songs of the Great American West. New York, NY: Dover Publications, 1995.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
American Music of the California Gold Rush - Ballad of America

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
by CW Bayer This is a brief overview of gold rush songs. Some recorded examples are included, accompanied by a mid-nineteenth century some of these songs were accompanied by guitar or, perhaps, melodeon. CW's books on history can be read at minstrel banjo -fretless with gut strings- though at the time of their writing nevadamusic.com.