Sutter's Mill
| Coloma - Marshall Gold Discovery State Historic Park | |||
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| National Register of Historic Places | |||
| Site | |||
 James Marshall in front of Sutter's sawmill (ca.1850) |
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| location | Coloma , El Dorado County , California | ||
| Coordinates | 38 ° 48 '12.6 " N , 120 ° 53' 32.3" W | ||
| surface | 233 hectares | ||
| Number of visitors | 172 540 (Fiscal Year 2016-17) | ||
| NRHP number | 66000207 | ||
| The NRHP added | October 15, 1966 | ||
Sutter's Mill ( Engl. Reduced from Sutter's sawmill for Sutter's sawmill ) was a sawmill near Coloma on American River in California . On January 24, 1848, the carpenter James W. Marshall found several gold grains there . The find sparked the California gold rush of 1848.
history
Before the gold discovery
Johann August Sutter had a great need for timber for his colony New Helvetia . He had been planning the construction of grain and saw mills since 1840, but he needed craftsmen for this. On August 27, 1847, he entered into a partnership with the carpenter James W. Marshall. Sutter was to organize the material and Marschall was to lead the construction and later operation of the sawmill. Marshall had explored the wider area from Sutter's Fort. Large populations of sugar pines and the hydropower of the South Fork American River prompted James W. Marshall to propose the site near the village of Ko-lo-ma to the Nisenan Indians. He had explored the area in May and July, but also searched areas along the Feather River for locations in mid-August .
Sutter agreed - contrary to the warnings of his administrator John Bidwell . The construction site was - far from Sutter's lands - about 60 kilometers northeast of Fort Sutter on the boundary of today's Coloma on the American River . The choice of the remote location was viewed with incomprehension by the neighbors of European descent, but nobody was bothered by the unauthorized use of a site in the wilderness. According to Marshall, he and Sutter had already reached an agreement with the local Indians about the use of the space.
On August 28th and the following days, the construction crew moved into the Coloma Valley in several groups. In addition to Marshall and the Wimmer family, the squad included six whites and seven Indians. The whites were mostly Mormons who fought for the Americans in the Mormon Battalion during the Mexican-American War . After the demobilization, they actually wanted to move to the Brigham Young colony in Utah . From there, however, they were told to stay in California until they could get food to more people in Utah.
Marshall arrived before the rest of the group in the Coloma Valley to determine the exact location of the mill in the so far only roughly defined construction area. Work began in early September 1847 and continued through autumn and winter. Explosives were also used in the construction of the canal. There were more changes in the team, and after about a month more Mormons arrived, including William Bigler and Azariah Smith, whose diaries later also bore witness to the first gold discovery.
After the gold discovery
The construction of the sawmill had progressed and at the end of January 1848 work was being carried out in particular on deepening the drainage channel. Marshall first found gold on January 24, 1848, although he was not sure whether it was actually gold. In the following days, more finds were made in the drainage channel, which was flooded at night. On January 28, 1848, Marshall came to Sutter in Fort Sutter with the first gold discovery, where after a few tests they came to the conclusion that it had to be gold. Sutter visited the site on February 2nd and agreed with Marshal and the workers to keep the find secret for at least a few weeks so that the sawmill and flour mill at Sutter's Fort could still be completed.
| August 27, 1847 | Partnership between Marshall and Sutter to build and operate the sawmill | |
| August 28, 1847 | Departure of the construction crew from Sutter's Fort to Coloma | |
| January 24, 1848 | Marshall's first gold find | |
| January 28, 1848 | Marshalls reports to Sutter at Sutter's Fort | |
| March 13, 1848 | The sawmill is ready for use | |
| December 5, 1848 | US President James K. Polk officially announces the gold discovery in a message to Congress | |
| December 1848 | Sutter sells his stake in the mill | |
| 1853 | Sutter's Mill closes operations | |
| 1857 | nothing is visible of the mill house | |
| 1867 | the river has covered the entire complex with rubble and filled it in | |
| 1947 | Excavations reveal the mill's foundations | |
| 20th January 1968 | Inauguration of the first replica | |
| January 24, 2014 | Laying of the foundation stone for the 2nd replica |
Sutter and Marshall signed a formal contract with the local Nisenan Indians, which should fix the agreements made in August. They were allowed to use the area and mine gold for three years in return for annual deliveries of goods worth $ 200. Sutter returned to his fort and on February 8, sent Bennett to the American Military Governor of California, Richard Barnes Mason , to secure the country for himself under American law, which was unsuccessful.
In Coloma, construction continued and gold was only sought in leisure time. The water wheel and the sawing device were set up, and the roof structure of the mill building was erected. A first test of the sawmill took place on March 11th and on March 13th Marshall reported the completion to Sutter and delivered the first boards to Fort Sutter on March 22nd.
The recreational gold search was initially limited to the outlet channel of the mill, but on February 6, gold was also found on the other side of the river and by the end of February the search area expanded downstream. From February 14, the news of the gold discovery spread from Sutter's Fort to San Francisco, where in particular one of the leading Mormons in California, Samuel Brannan , spread the word and bought large amounts of equipment for gold diggers, which he then made a good deal of with. On April 8th, some Mormons left Sutter after completing the sawmill as promised. Now they wanted to devote themselves fully to prospecting for gold. At the beginning of March two Mormons had already discovered another site halfway on their way back from Coloma to Fort Sutter. Mormons began to gather here in April and the place became known as Mormon Island . Marshall initially continued to operate the sawmill with a small team, but by mid-May it was shut down due to a lack of labor, as Sam Brannan set up a shop in Coloma and the boards had to be transported by car to Coloma from the ship landing site in Sutter's Fort. Sutter also opened a shop here with partners. The Mormons left California on June 26th for Salt Lake City . Each had found only a few hundred dollars worth of gold. In early July, Governor Mason and his aide William T. Sherman visited the gold fields. On August 30, Mason mailed his report with gold samples to President Polk. The messenger did not arrive by ship until November 1848 on the American east coast. US President James K. Polk officially announced the discovery of gold in a message to Congress, and now thousands of people have made their way west by land and sea.
In December 1848, Sutter sold his stake in the sawmill to John Winters and Alden S. Bayley. Marshall remained a partner but also sold a third of his half. The sawmill worked day and night until May 1849. Then there was an interruption due to a lack of wood. Operations were later resumed and continued until 1853. The demand for construction timber had increased considerably due to the high level of immigration and good prices could be achieved. On the other hand, a number of gold diggers had already sought their way back into normal employment due to small finds and laborious work, as the wages were also high. The sawmill was operated by Messrs. Winters, Bayley & Marshall . In 1853 the peak of the Coloma gold rush was over and the sawmill was no longer used and fell into disrepair. Fragments of the building were turned into souvenirs. Already on pictures of Coloma, which were made in 1857, nothing can be seen of Sutter's Mill and in 1867 the American River flooded the area and the remains were buried by rubble.
The attachment
Sutter's Mill was a watermill with an undershot water wheel . The water required for the drive was led through a dam from the river into the inlet channel and, after the vertical mill wheel, returned to the river through the outlet channel. In order to keep the canal short and straight, Marshall chose a location for the sawmill near a bend in the river, which was then cut off by the canal. The actual mill building had a footprint of 6 × 18 meters. A clapboard-covered log cabin was built for the workers in which the Wimmer family and the Mormons initially lived - Marshall was given his own hut. In mid-January, the Mormons built their own hut because there were disagreements with Mrs. Wimmer, who cooked for the whole group - Sutter set up his shop here a few months later.
Marshall Gold Discovery State Historic Park
On May 3, 1890, a memorial for the deceased Marshall was erected on a hill south of the village. The statue points to the first place where the gold was found. In the late summer of 1924, when the water was low, parts of the former dam became visible and the foundations of the mill house were exposed during excavations and marked with a stone monument. In the run-up to the 100th anniversary of the gold discovery, the State of California acquired the site in 1942. In 1945 the stone monument erected in 1924 was renovated and in 1947 an archaeological investigation revealed the exact location and details of the original sawmill. In 1961 the Gold Rush Museum was opened a little south of the site . A first replica of the historic sawmill was built from 1965 to 1967 and inaugurated in 1968. Due to the damage to this replica and new findings about the historical building, the first replica was canceled and the foundation stone for the second replica was laid in 2014.
The monument ( Gold discovery site ) was built in 1924 and has been a California Historical Landmark since 1955 and part of the Marshall Gold Discovery State Historic Park , which is also a National Historic Landmark District and is listed on the National Register of Historic Places (NRHP). The state park is under the administration of California State Parks . In addition to a small museum about the history of the place and the gold rush, a functional replica of the sawmill and several historical buildings, there is also the opportunity for visitors to wash gold themselves .
The park also includes the Marshall Monument with a statue of Marshall. Marshall died impoverished in 1885 and was buried in Coloma. As early as 1887, the Native Sons of the Golden West tried to erect a monument to Marshall, which was inaugurated in 1890.
Sutter's Mill Meteorite
After Sutter's Mill was meteorite Sutter's-Mill- racer named, which was observed on 22 April 2012 on Nevada and California. Fragments of the meteorite were found near Sutter's Mill on a horse pasture at Henningsen Lotus Park . The analysis of the fragments gave extraordinary results, such as the relatively large proportion of diamonds.
literature
- Paolo Sioli: Historical souvenir of El Dorado County, California: with illustrations and biographical sketches of its prominent men & pioneers. Oakland 1883, pp. 59-67 in the Internet Archive and pp. 177-180 in the Internet Archive
- Betty Sederquist: Coloma Google digitized version has limited visibility
- Aubrey Neasham: Sutter's Sawmill. In: California Historical Society Quarterly, Vol. 26, No. 2 (Jun. 1947), pp. 109-133 JSTOR
Web links
- California Department of Parks and Recreation: Marshall Gold Discovery State Historic Park
- Entry of Sutter's Mill on the University of California's Calisphere platform with many early photographs; accessed on April 4, 2020
- Discovery of Gold , by John A. Sutter, Hutchings' California Magazine , November 1857. Sutter describes how he wanted a sawmill near the Sacramento and how Marshall told him of the gold.
Individual evidence
- ^ State Park System Statistical Report 2016/17 parks.ca.gov
- ↑ James S. Brown: An Authentic History of the First Find With the Names of Those Interested in the Discovery , January 24, 1894, on the website of the Virtual Museum of the City of San Francisco
- ↑ see Zollinger p. 1353.
- ↑ Sutter's Mill in the United States Geological Survey 's Geographic Names Information System
- ↑ see John Bidwell: Echoes of the Past about California. Chico o. J, p. 91 in the Internet Archive
- ↑ see Zollinger p. 1354.
- ↑ James W. Marshall's account of the first discovery of the Gold at www.malakoff.com; accessed on April 9, 2020
- ↑ Weimer or Wemer are often mentioned in the literature
- ↑ John Shertzer Hittell: Marshall's gold discovery , San Francisco 1893 archive.org
- ↑ see Zollinger p. 1378.
- ↑ see Neasham p. 120.
- ↑ see Neasham p. 123.
- ↑ see Sioli p. 178.
- ↑ see Neasham p. 111.
- ↑ California Gold Rush Museum To Open at Site of Sutter's Mill. In: History News, Vol. 16, no. 3 (JANUARY, 1961), p. 31 (1 page) JSTOR
- ↑ see Sederquist p. 100.
- ↑ Office of Historic Preservation: Gold discovery site , California Historical Landmark No. 530
- ↑ List of NHL by State
- ↑ NRIS No. 66000207
- ↑ Office of Historic Preservation: Marshall Monument , California Historical Landmark No. 143
- ^ Marshall Monument - California Historical Markers on Waymarking.com ; accessed on March 31, 2020
- ↑ NASA: Sunday morning bolide over California , 23 April 2012 found.
- ↑ Astronomy Picture of the Day - Sutter's Mill meteorite from April 28, 2012.
- ^ Seth Shostak: Analysis of the Gold Rush Meteorite finds exotic materials. on the homepage of the SETI Institute; accessed on April 7, 2020
- ↑ NASA Researchers Strike Scientific Gold With Meteorite on the homepage of the SETI Institute; accessed on April 7, 2020
Remarks
- ^ A summary of the testimony can be found at: John Shertzer Hittell: Marshall's gold discovery , San Francisco 1893 archive.org . Witnesses were: James Stephens Brown: California gold; an authentic history of the first find, with the names of those interested in the discovery; published by the author, James S. Brown , Salt Lake City, Utah. Oakland Cal., Pacific press publishing company, 1894, In: The Magazine of history, with notes and queries. New York, NY, 1933. 27 cm. Extra number. no.191 (v. 48, no.3) p. [5] -21. pdf ; Henry W. Bigler: Extracts from the journal of Henry W. Bigler. Utah Historical Quarterly, Volume 5, Issue 2 (April 1932), pp. 35-64 collections.lib.utah.edu ; Diary of Azariah Smith in 1847 and 1848, with notes by John S. Hittell. In: Overland monthly and Out West Magazine, Volume 11, Issue 62, Feb 1888, pp. 123-127 online
- ↑ The exact date of the gold discovery was long disputed, since Marshall himself stated January 19th in his memoirs. By comparing the records of Marshall, Sutter, Bigler, Brown, and Smith, Hittell concluded that it must have been January 24th. However, all records of the people present at the place of discovery were not made immediately, but at the end of the week or, for some, only after years from memory.
- ↑ Mason used this opportunity to make map sketches of the Upper and lower gold mines (Sutter's mill and Mormon Island)
- ↑ In his assessment, Mason emphasized that there was enough gold in California's Central Valley to cover the costs of the American-Mexican war a hundredfold - see Neasham, p. 125.
- ↑ Partners were the businessman John Winters and the lawyer Alden S. Bayley (see Betty Sederquist: Coloma. P. 8 books.google.de ). Marshall himself speaks of Messrs. Ragley and Winters James W. Marshall's account of the first discovery of the gold ; accessed on April 7, 2020
- ↑ Numerous articles of daily use from the time of the gold rush were found - see Franklin Fenenga: Artifacts from Excavation of Sutter's Sawmill. In: California Historical Society Quarterly, Vol. 26, No. 2 (Jun. 1947), pp. 160-162 JSTOR