Q.David Bowers
The Mormons carried news of the gold discovery over the Sierra and spread stories among the people at the Great Salt Lake settlement. A number of Mormons subsequently came to the gold field using missionary work for the church as a reason.
The Hawaiian ship Louise under Capt. Menzies sailed from San Francisco on May 31, 1848, arriving in Honolulu on June 17th. News of the gold discovery reached the editor of The Polynesian, who in the edition of June 24th repeated the news earlier reported in California papers and congratulated Honolulu merchants on the prospect of having their debts from California merchants paid off quickly. The July 8th issue of The Polynesian chronicled the rising excitement of the people. The issuing of passports in Hawaii, except to debtors, was detailed. On July 15th the same paper reported that "one crowded vessel departed on the 11th and a half dozen others are making ready; 24 persons gave notice of their intention to depart this kingdom; 200 will probably leave in two months if passage can be procured." On August 5th it was reported that 69 passports had been granted and as many more have left without waiting for this formality. On the 26th of August it was noted that three vessels had sailed within a week and one man had set out in a whaleboat. On September 23rd the increasing excitement was reported; a vessel advertised to sail, and every space was secured by eager travelers. On September 30th it was noted that in Hawaii real estate was depressed, business was at a low tide, and the whole character had changed. Books and other items needed at home were not selling, whereas shovels were bringing increasingly high prices. The term "when are you off?" was heard everywhere in the streets.
On October 7, 1848, the Lahaima left Hawaii with 40 passengers. On October 21, 1848, it was reported that 27 vessels had left Honolulu since the gold discovery and that 300 Europeans plus many native Hawaiians, called Kanakas, were aboard. "The islands suffer in consequence;' it was noted. On October 28th it was reported that some natives had returned, some bearing as much as $500.
The news reached Oregon by means of commerce in and out of Honolulu, the overland trip from California through the northern mountains being more difficult and slower. News traveled northward via the employees ofthe Hudson's Bay Co. to Victoria and other places in British Columbia, to forts Nisqually and Vancouver, finally reaching Oregon City early in August. As more and more information reached Oregon, many settlers in that area left for the California gold fields. It was estimated that 10,000 white people lived in Oregon in the midsummer of 1848, and that two thirds of the adult male population left for California.
Between October 1848 and November 1849 nearly 5,000 people left Sonora, Mexico for the gold fields. During the spring of 1850 close to 6,000 left taking with them 14,000 animals.
By the autumn of 1848 gold seekers had arrived in quantity from Chile, Peru, the South Sea Islands, and other diverse locations as the news continued to spread. San Francisco, formerly idle, became a bustling commercial center. Many of the former inhabitants, tired of working in the mines, found that a quicker fortune lay in store by selling supplies to the eager adventurers. Newspapers revived, employment strengthened, and real estate values resumed their upward march.
The first notice printed in the Atlantic states of the gold discovery appeared in the Baltimore Sun on September 20, 1848. By that time many Easterners had received letters from relatives working in the gold fields. Most urged their friends to give up whatever they were doing and come to California. As recipients of letters compared them with others, the gold fever increased. More and more people dreamed of California and the golden riches which awaited them.
Shortly thereafter the New York Journal of Commerce published a dispatch bearing the date of August 29, 1848, from Monterey, California, which noted:
At present the people are running over the country and picking it out of the earth here and there, just as 1,000 hogs, let loose in a forest, would root up ground-nuts. Some get 8 or 10 ounces a day, and the least active one or two. They make the most who employ the wild Indians to hunt it for them. There is one man who has 60 Indians in his employ; his profits are $1 a minute. The Indians know nothing of its value, and wonder what the pale-faces want to do with it. They will give an ounce of it for the same weight of it in coined silver or for a thimbleful of glass beads or a glass of grog. And white men themselves often give an ounce of it, which is worth at our mint $18 or more, for a bottle of brandy, a bottle of soda powders, or a plug of tobacco. As to the quantity which the diggers get, take a few facts as evidence. I know seven men who worked seven weeks and two days, Sundays excepted, on the Feather River; they employed on an average 50 Indians, and got out in those seven weeks and two days 275 pounds of pure gold. I know the men and have seen the gold . . . I know ten other men who worked for 10 days in a company, employed no Indians, and who averaged in those 10 days $1,500 each ... I know another man who got out of a basin in a rock, not larger than a washbowl, 21/2 pounds of gold in 15 minutes. No one of these statements would I believe, did I not know them to be plain matter-of-fact men-men who open a vein of gold just as coolly as you would a potato hill ...