Q.David Bowers
San Francisco real estate dropped in value precipitously as there were few people willing to stay in the city. Some places sold for half the price of a few months earlier. On the corner of Pine and Kearny streets was a house which cost $400 to build. The house and lot together were put on the market at $350. On the doors of other houses were to be seen notices which stated, 'Gone to the diggings" or some variation of this sentiment.
An observer, Brooks, wrote in his journal on May 17, 1848, of the lack of workers in San Francisco:
Work people have struck. Walking through the town today I observed that laborers were employed only upon half a dozen of the 50 new buildings which were in the course of being run up.
Waiters and cooks were demanding and getting wages of $10 and $15 a day. Faced with the lack of local subscribers The Californian expired on May 29th and The Star on June 14th. In its swan song The Californian noted:
The whole country from San Francisco to Los Angeles and from the seashore to the base of the Sierra Nevada resounds to 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 shovels and pick axes, and the means of transportation to the spot where one man obtained $128 worth of the real stuff in one day's washing, and the average for all concerned is $20 per diem.
In the meantime John Sutter was having many problems. The flour mill, which was in the process of construction, was never completed, despite an expenditure of over $30,000, an immense sum at the time. Sutter was later to write:
My grist mill was never finished. Everything was stolen, even the stones. There is a saying that men will steal anything but a mile stone and a mill stone. They stole my mill stones. They stole the bells from the fort and the gate weights. They stole hides and salmon barrels. I had 200 barrels which I made for salmon. I was just beginning to cure salmon then. I had put up some before, enough to try it, and to ascertain that it would be a good business. Some of the cannon at the fort were stolen, and some I gave to neighbors so that they could fire them on the 4th of July. My property was all left exposed, and at the mercy of the rabble, when gold was discovered.
My men all deserted me. I could not shut the gates of my fort and keep out the rabble. They would have broken them down. The country swarms with lawless men. Emigrants drove their stock into the yard and used my grain with impunity. Expostulation did no good. I was alone. There was no law. If one felt one's self insulted, one might shoot the offender. One man shot another for a slight provocation in the fort under my very nose.
Philosopher Pickett shot a very good many who differed with him on some question.
The men in Sutter's fields demanded more pay, until their demands reached $10 per day, and Sutter discharged them. Then the cook left, and then those who were working on the flour mill deserted. "The Mormons did not like to leave my mill unfinished, but they got the gold fever like everyone else," Sutter remarked. By summer the tannery, which was just becoming profitable, was abandoned, and hides and leather were left to rot.
In San Francisco the town council suspended its sittings. The church on the plaza halted services for there was no congregation left on Sunday mornings. The mayor's office was closed. Ships were deserted as soon as they came into port. One captain who sensed this was happening quickly gave the order to head out to sea again. His crew refused to obey. At night they gagged the watchman, lowered the ship's boat, and rowed to shore-off with others to the gold fields.
Around the same time a ship from Peru entered the bay, the first vessel to arrive in San Francisco in three weeks. A strange scene prevailed. No one came to greet the ship. All was silent and dead. At length the captain was able to learn from a passerby that everyone had gone northward where the valleys and mountains were made of pure gold. The crew abandoned ship immediately!
Among the first ships to be deserted was one owned by the Hudson's Bay Co. The crew left, and the captain soon followed behind, leaving the vessel in charge of his wife and young daughter. It was reported that every ship lost most of its crew within 48 hours of the time it arrived.
In San Jose the jailkeeper, Henry Bee, had 10 Indian prisoners, two of whom were charged with murder. He wanted to turn these over to the mayor for custody, but the mayor had already left for the gold fields. Finally he decided to take the prisoners along with him to the American River, where they worked for Bee until other miners, jealous of Bee's ingenious method for obtaining labor, incited the prisoners to revolt. In the same city John M. Horner left 500 acres of planted wheat behind when he and his family abandoned their farm and headed for the mines. It was subsequently reported in Sonoma that "not a laboring man or mechanic can be obtained in town."
Writing from San Francisco on June 1, 1848, Thomas O. Larkin advised Secretary of State James Buchanan of the discovery. About that time $20,000 worth of gold had been exchanged for merchandise. About 200 or 300 men had left San Francisco to work in the mines. It was reported that $10 to $50 per day was the going rate of return in the mines, with one man averaging $25 per day for 16 days. Miners would sometimes go, spend a short time, and then return to San Francisco to more completely provision themselves.
Sometimes those returning from the gold fields would bring 20 to 30 ounces or more each. Over half of the dwellings in San Francisco were boarded up. Lawyers, mechanics, storekeepers, and laborers had all gone to the mines. Many United States soldiers had deserted the post at San Francisco. The United States ship Anita had just six men left on board. One ship captain, realizing it was useless to prevail upon his crew to stay, made a deal to continue the pay of the crew if one person would stay on board to watch things while others went to the mines. The captain agreed to furnish tools and supplies in exchange for two thirds of the metal found.
Shovels, which earlier sold for $1 each, brought $10 or more at the mines, with one offer of $50 being reported.
On June 28, 1848, T. O. Larkin wrote a second letter to Buchanan. He informed the secretary of state that he had visited the mining area and had found it to be all that earlier rumors had suggested, and perhaps even more. Two of his nights had been spent in a tent occupied by eight Americans, two of whom were sailors, one a clerk, two carpenters, and three laborers. They mined by means of rockers, each ten feet long and made like a cradle without the ends, consisting of about 100 feet of lumber, which cost on the spot about $150 for supplies, or $1.50 per board foot. These eight people every evening brought in about two pounds of gold, which equated to four ounces for each man. At $16 per ounce, this was $64 per man per day! Larkin interviewed two brothers who worked using a single tin pan and found that in one day one had obtained $7 worth of gold and the other, luckier, had found $82 worth. Larkin himself tried to hire a carpenter to construct a rocker, but the carpenter was busy mining and wanted $50 per day for his labor. According to Larkin's estimates there were about 2,000 people at the mines, nine tenths of whom were foreigners. There were about 100 families, mostly Americans, with teams, wagons, and tents.