James W Marshall made history, and fortunes, in the 19th century. This one man was digging at Sutter’s Mill in Coloma, California, one day in January 1848 when he found gold – and his actions led to a flood of some 300,000 people to the state, thinking they would make their fortune. These gold-diggers were drawn not only from other states of the US, but also from further afield, including Britain – and they led the way for a series of goldfield discoveries during the rest of the century that saw people travel across the Atlantic not only to California but also further north, to the Klondike of the north-west.

It all started with Marshall, who was of English origins, but was born in New Jersey in 1810. Marshall was a carpenter and sawmill operator. At the age of 24, he headed west, travelling through Indiana and Illinois, working in Missouri and Oregon, before ending up in California in 1845. Here, he started work for local man John Sutter, who in return gave Marshall some cattle, enabling him to run a ranch. In the spring of 1846, he volunteered to serve in the Mexican–American war, but when he returned, his cattle had disappeared, and he had lost his main source of income. Luckily, John Sutter wanted to build a sawmill, and he employed Marshall to oversee its building and operation, receiving wood in return.

It was in the morning of 24 January 1848 that Marshall noticed something shining in the ground below the mill. He immediately guessed that it was gold.

For Marshall, the discovery did not lead to riches. His workmen stopped working on the mill in order to search for gold themselves, and soon, speculative prospectors started turning up in large numbers, as news of his find spread. When Marshall finally died in 1885, he was penniless, despite having tried to make a living over the previous four decades both through investing in a gold mine and starting a vineyard.

However, Marshall’s discovery led to the famous American Gold Rush of the late 1840s. Within two months of the initial discovery, a San Francisco publisher, Samuel Brannan, was walking through his town’s streets holding what he claimed to be a sample of gold, shouting, ‘Gold! Gold! Gold from the American river!’. This was a handy sales pitch for the business he set up to make the most of the gold rush – a shop selling supplies for gold prospectors. By the summer of 1848, east coast newspapers were reporting the discovery of gold in California, and by the end of the year, the news was being discussed in Congress. Now the word was well and truly out, it was inevitable that others would come in search of gold and financial security: and 1849 saw the first tranche of prospectors from outside the state flood in.

Difficult journey
Initially, those in Oregon, Hawaii and Latin America started to move to California, followed by those from Europe, Australia and China. They came by sea, by wagon, suffering hardships and illness en route. In fact, initially, there was speculation that the rush would be a quick one – the New York Herald reported in January 1849 that the gold fever had already ‘abated’ as prospective gold-diggers in Britain and elsewhere were hesitating because of the difficulties of travelling to California, and even abandoning plans to emigrate, scared of the potential hardship. Their fears were overcome, however, as it was reported that more goldmines had been discovered, together with silver and quicksilver mines. In addition, others gave newspaper interviews claiming to have made their fortunes, with one man claiming that a Santa Clara mine ‘yields upward of 50 per cent; the proprietors are now working it, and are preparing to quadruple their force’.

As the gold rush increased, it led to small, isolated American settlements exploding in numbers as more and more people settled – San Francisco, for example, only had a population of 200 in 1846; in August 1849, it was reported that ‘San Francisco was full of people, and it is stated to be not uncommon for 20 or 30 individuals to occupy one small apartment – the tents about the town are also crowded to excess’. Just two years later, in 1851, San Francisco was home to around 36,000 people.

At first, there was a free-for-all in terms of prospecting; people searched wherever they wanted, and kept what they found. This was clearly not sustainable, and so laws had to be developed quickly to establish the ownership of land and what might be on – or in – it. Although this initial gold rush is linked to 1848-1849, and the name of the initial prospectors is the ‘forty-niners’ because of this, the search for gold had longer-term impact. A regular steamship service to America started; in the 1860s, the railroads linked California to the east, a modern version of the Californian Wagon Trail. Economically, the Gold Rush made America a modern nation, with new roads, schools, and even towns being constructed.

Building boom
On the downside, however, Native Americans were forced from their land, with prospectors failing to respect older claims to the land they saw as theirs for the picking. It was not just land where mines could be built that was wanted by these incomers; they also wanted land to build homes and new communities. Around San Francisco bay, building lots were being sold for $2,000 each, where previously there had just been wilderness. There were opportunities for others to set up lumberyards, or stores selling building materials, to sell to those wanting to build a new home in this new mecca.

This initial Gold Rush lasted primarily from 1849 to 1855, over which time one in 12 of the ‘forty-niners’ had died. Relatively few women had travelled to California compared to men, but when they did come, they were able to take part in the prospecting, or run businesses; when they travelled with their husbands, they were often faced with either being widowed on the journey (cholera and other diseases being rife) or in California, as many prospectors were injured or killed in accidents.

The situation was played out again at the end of the century, further north this time, in the Klondike region of the Yukon, in north-west Canada. Gold was discovered here in the summer of 1896, and again, when news reached other parts the following year, it caused a rush of prospectors over the next three years. This time, the prospectors had to undertake another treacherous trip through mountains, in cold conditions, journeying through Alaska and then taking a trail to the Yukon River, before sailing down to the Klondike – all while carrying equipment and a year’s supply of food (as mandated by Canadian authorities). Many gave up, or even died, and those who did make it only arrived after months of hard work – and when they did get there, many found that the prospects weren’t as great as they had been led to believe. However, gold towns were still established, including Dawson City, with its saloons and gambling halls – and its corruption.

Britons in Canada
The British had been part of the contingent travelling to California in search of gold in the mid part of the century; now, they formed part of the immigrant population of the Klondike. George Teppet pre-empted the gold rush, emigrating in 1882, when he was 40 years old, but he took advantage of the situation later, becoming a miner in the Yukon, while 47-year-old Arthur Cantwell headed out only in 1900 to start mining, leaving his family behind and lodging instead with miners drawn from Germany and Scotland. Others, though, helped service the boomtowns of the Klondike gold rush. For example, Robert Mason emigrated to Dawson City in 1899, and worked there as a bartender.

The Klondike was a short-lived gold rush; by 1898, newspapers were tiring of it, and although they had encouraged others to try their luck there, they were now quieter on the subject. In 1899, as gold was discovered in Alaska, wages fell, and many decided to leave the Klondike, although mining continued into 1903. The boomtown populations decreased, and the rush was over, having made rich men out of only a minority of the speculators.