A final irony is that Marshall was not, as is generally assumed, the original discoverer of gold in California. The metal was mined at least as early as the beginning of the 19th century, if not before. California Indians gave gold to the mission padres in return for trading goods. According to the late California historian W. H. Hutchinson,’such minor amounts…did not stimulate any gold seeking expeditions of consequence…because the Franciscans had seen the evils wrought by mining upon the native population of Mexico and did not wish to see such havoc repeated in California.’

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Padre Luis Antonio Martinez of Mission San Luis Obispo did, however, operate a modest gold mine in his district in 1829. And in 1841, Baptiste Ruelle, a French Canadian fur trapper who had worked for the Hudson’s Bay Company, uncovered a gold deposit near Los Angeles, according to John Bidwell, organizer of the first emigrant wagon train from Missouri to California.

Early gold discoveries such as these generally were unpublicized and were of only local interest. Still, small shipments of gold dust turned up in the trade between merchants in New England and missionaries and rancheros in California.

A vaquero named Francisco Lopez is credited with making the first commercially significant, well-documented gold discovery on March 9, 1842, in Placerita Canyon about 35 miles northwest of Los Angeles. According to legend, Lopez fell asleep under an old oak tree after tending cattle on a nearby rancho. When he awoke, he unearthed some wild onions–with which to season his lunch of dried beef or jerky–and found glittering gold flakes clinging to the roots. Within two months, about 100 miners, mostly Mexican, were working the diggings, which produced gold for several years. It is estimated about $80,000 in gold was taken from the canyon before the shallow deposits played out.

Oddly enough, the first gold sent from California to the U.S. mint in Philadelphia did not come from James Marshall or Coloma but from Placerita Canyon. Don Abel Stearns, a native of Massachusetts who became a naturalized Mexican citizen and large landowner in California, shipped 20 ounces of gold to the East. It was another six years before James Marshall made the discovery that created his reputation, mistakenly, as the original discoverer of California gold. Unlike the earlier discoveries, however, his find was like a shot heard around the world.

This article was written by Richard H. Peterson, Ph.D. and originally appeared in the December 1997 issue of Wild West. Peterson has published extensively in the mining history of California and the West, including numerous book reviews, articles and three books. The best-known of the latter is The Bonanza Kings: The Social Origins and Business Behavior of Western Mining Entrepreneurs, 1879-1900. Suggested for further reading: James Marshall, a Biography, by Theressa Gay; Sutter’s Fort, Gateway to the Goldfields, by Oscar Lewis; The California Gold Discovery, by Rodman Paul; and The Gold Discovery Journal, by Azariah Smith.

Note: An abbreviated version of this article was published in the January 1997 issue of the International California Mining Journal, and this version appears here with the permission of that publication’s publisher/editor.

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