ret.

I hope to be strong enough to work in a few days.

Oct. 11th. Feeling anxious to get means for the trip to Salt Lake, I resumed work on Thursday the 7th inst., but in the afternoon had another chill, and have had one every day since. I am so weak that I can scarcely walk, and one night I feared that I should never see my relatives again. Mrs. Weimer, the cook, treats me kindly and I am grateful to her.

Oct. 22d. Through the goodness of the Lord and the kindness of Mrs. Weimer I am gaining strength slowly.

Nov. 1st. In the early part of the week our only provisions were mutton and unground wheat and peas without salt. On Friday a wagon arrived with a supply; and Marshall came with another. I am regaining strength rapidly.

Nov. 10th. Still gaining. went hunting for exercise. but did not get a shot.

Sunday, Nov. 14th. wooden pins for the mill.

Last week I Saw two deer

Have been making

Sunday Nov. 21st. Have been at work mortising. Yesterday five wagon loads of provisions arrived in preparation for the rainy

season.

Sunday, Nov. 28th. Last week was a busy one. The bents of the mill were raised. Sunday, Dec. 5th. Last week I drove team. Two more loads of provision arrived yesterday.

Sunday, Dec. 12th. I had a chill on Thursday but none since. Mrs. Weimer has insisted on having a chimney to the house and today the men are building it.

Sunday, Dec. 19th. Three of us pinned the plank on the forebay. My basin and knife have been stolen. I sometimes fear that I shall not have money enough to go to Salt Lake in the Spring, and I often feel lonesome and miserable, especially Sundays. Sunday, Dec. 26th. Last week I worked five days. On Christinas a party of us climbed a peak, from which we could see many mountains covered with snow, and from which we started many large rocks rolling down into the steep cañon. For dinner

besides bread and meat, we had apple and pumpki npies.

Sunday, Jan. 2d, 1848. Mr. Marshall has been away for some time, and now the cook saves the pumpkin pies and so forth for herself and the second table.

Jan. 11th. Rain began on the 9th and continues to fall.

Sunday, Jan. 16th. The river is very high. Since Monday the weather is clear. Marshall left us a month ago to get the millirons and has not returned. Mr. Bennett has got out of patience waiting for him.

Sunday, Jan. 30th. Marshall having arrived, we got his permission to build a small house near the mill, so as to get rid of the partial mistress, and cook for ourselves. We moved into it on Sunday last. This week Mr. Marshall found some pieces of (as we all suppose) gold, and he has gone to the fort for the purpose of finding out what it is. It is found in the race in small pieces; some weigh as much as a five-dollar piece.

Cap

Sunday, Feb. 6th. Marshall has returned with the fact that the metal is gold. tain Sutter arrived on Wednesday with Johnston for the purpose of looking at the place where the gold is found. He got enough to make a ring. He brought a bottle of whiskey for us and some pocket knives. This morning I found my basin and knife in their proper place. Johnston had hidden them away, though he denied knowing anything about them.

Feb. 14th. Last week I worked only three and a half days. Marshall allows us outside of work hours to pick up gold, and I have gathered considerable of it. Gold is found on the bottom of the tail-race after we shut down the gate.

Sunday, Feb. 20th. It rained in the fore part of last week and I worked only four days. I have been drilling and blasting a rock in the race. The Indians are much interested to see a hard rock split open so easily. Today I picked up a little more of the root of all evil.

Sunday, March 12th. During the last two weeks I have worked on the mill. Last Sunday I picked up gold to the value of two

dollars and half about two miles below the mill. We have used the mill to saw one log into boards to pin on the forebay.

Sunday, March 19th. Last week we ran the mill, and it cuts well. Today I crossed the river and went down stream to hunt for gold, some of which I found. It was raining most of the day. Brother Barger arrived this afternoon from the fort, and says that three wagons are on the way to this place with provisions.

March 21st. Yesterday the wagons arrived with flour, pork, pumpkins, etc. They started back today, and I thought of going back with them to prepare for the trip to Salt Lake; but at the request of Marshall I shall stay here a while longer.

March 28th. With three others I went down the river last Sunday, and we found considerable gold. Yesterday I was much pleased by receiving a letter from father, who writes that he arrived at Salt Lake on the 27th of October. Provisions are very scarce there corn is $6 and $7 a bushel; wheat from $9 to $10. He intends to plant some grain, so that when his family arrives, they will have something to eat.

April 3d. Yesterday some of us went down along the river and picked up some gold.

April 7th. Brothers Brown, Stephens, and Bigler started today for the fort. Marshall gives us the privilege of hunting for gold on condition that we give half to him. I have about $30 in gold now.

April 15th. The boys have returned from the fort with the news that the first company will start for Salt Lake today. As the wages due me amount to $100 and more, I think I shall be able to fit myself out for the trip.

Sunday, April 23d. Started from the saw mill on Monday, and reached the fort on Tuesday. Have seen Capt. Sutter twice, but got no pay as yet. Bought some sugar to keep myself sweet. Worked two days with a scraper at the grist mill head race.

Sunday, April 30th. Have been at the fort three or four times, without succeeding in getting anything but a saddle and abundant promises.

May 5th. Started alone last Monday morning from the grist-mill for the mines; took the wrong track and slept under a pine tree in a heavy rain. Next morning turned back and met a company going to search for a pass to the emigrant road to Salt Lake. Brother Willis gave me directions how to find the mining camp I had started for, and I struck across the country for it. The rain continued, and after traveling about 20 miles that day I slept under another tree. The night was rainy and cold. Wednesday morning had nothing to eat, but continued my course, and at 3 P. M. reached the camp very tired. The next day I rode a borrowed horse to the fort.

race.

May 26th. I scraped one day on the On the 9th, the road party returned, having found the snow too deep for crossing the mountains. A party, including myself, then went up to the mining camp [at Mormon Island], where we remained till the 23d. I got about $300 there. The most that I made in a day was $95, but of this I had to pay $30 to Willis and Hudson, the owners of the claim. Before we came away, men, women, and children were flocking in by the wagon load. While there [Sam.] Brannan held a meeting to see if they would pay toll. Some were willing and some were not. I came over to the grist mill to help finish the race, and I have agreed to go with a party to leave for Salt Lake in June. Some men, who have been getting gold on the other side of the river, arrived last night.

May 30th. Today I went to the fort to get some animals from Capt. Sutter but did not succeed.

June 3d. Was at the fort yesterday and got an order on Smith, the storekeeper, and bought hickory shirting and sugar to the amount of $22.

June 7th. Went to see Capt. Sutter today and he promised to let me have a mule on Saturday.

June 12th. Saturday went to see Capt. Sutter but got no mule. Sunday saw him again and he was out of humor so I got nothing. Today I went to the fort, and the captain, being in a good humor, gave me one of

his mules employed at the mill. I had bought a horse previously from another man. June 21st. The spare horses and mules of our party were sent to the mountains today. I have three horses and two mules, so I can make the trip without a wagon. June 22d. We bought part of a barrel of potatoes for $25, as a protection against scurvy of which I have had a touch.

kept at places forty miles apart; and the other by the failure to show that Mr. Bigler knew anything at that time of the date mentioned by Mr. Marshall, or that he attached any importance to the day.

The 19th of January was accepted on the exclusive authority of James W. Marshall, whose first printed statement appeared as a letter in the California Chronicle (published

[MR. SMITH'S diary, like Mr. Bigler's, is brief and direct with all the characteristics of genuineness and veracity. It has no events of marvelous novelty to tell; no theory to advance or support; no perceptible motive for departure from the simple truth. It is valuable for its corroboration of the 24th of January as the true date of the gold discovery. A few persons are unwillng to give up the 19th of January, which had been generally accepted for thirty years. The Associated Pioneers of the Territorial days of California in New York City celebrate the 18th of January every year as the anniversary of the discovery. The secretary of that society addressed a letter to the Sacramento Society of California Pioneers, soliciting their opinion of the date, and Winfield J. Davis, Historian of the Sacramento Association, wrote an interesting report expressing doubts of the genuineness of Mr. Bigler's diary. This paper, published in the daily Sacramento Record-Union of November 28th, 1887, though it does not, in my opinion, make out a strong case against Mr. Bigler's diary, may be worthy the attention of persons examining the question. Mr. Davis finds two circumstances that suggest to him suspicions of Mr. Bigler's veracity. First, his diary says the week preceding January 30th, 1848, was clear, whereas Sutter's diary says there was rain on the 28th; and second, Mr. Bigler published a letter on the 2d January, 1871, in the San Francisco Evening Bulletin, without any mention of the date of the gold discovery. Both these circumstances may be readily explained: the first by the fact that the two diaries were

There he said the discovery was made "about" the 19th. In his next statement, in Hutchings' Magazine for November, 1857, he used the words, "I am not certain to a day, but it was between the 18th and 20th." According to his biography, written by G. F. Parsons, it was on the 19th. Marshall never claimed to have made any contemporaneous record of the discovery, and in fixing the day he trusted to his unaided memory after a lapse of eight years, a very uncertain trust. The diaries of Bigler, of Smith, and of Sutter, agree substantially with each other and with Marshall's statement that he went to the fort four days after the discovery. Sutter says Marshall arrived at the fort on the 28th. Marshall must be wrong either in his date of the discovery or in the period between the discovery and his trip to the fort. The certainty of his error on one point or the other destroys all our confidence in his accuracy; and that confidence is the only basis for accepting the 19th.

Whoever reads Marshall's biography must be impressed by the great influence of his imagination on his statement. On many occasions the wildness of his language led his hearers to suspect that his mind was unsound. The memory of such a man is far from in fallible. An instance of the untrustworthiness of his recollections is given in his letter of February 9th, 1856. He there mentions the arrival of Sutter at the sawmill to look at the gold mine, and adds that "at the same time Captain Sutter, myself, and Isaac Humphrey entered into a co-partnership to dig gold." There is however an abundance of evidence to prove that Isaac Humphrey was not at the sawmill in February. He told me that he went to Coloma

in March. The Hon. John Bidwell, in a letter to me, writes that Humphrey did not go to the mountains till April 3d, 1848, and this is, I presume, correct. Bigler and Smith did not know him, and they certainly would have known him if he had been at the sawmill in March. Marshall says further that Humphrey "suggested the tithe," or tax, of fifty per cent which Marshall and Sutter demanded for all the gold dug on their claim of ten or twelve miles square, a claim that had no legal validity. That tax was presumably not claimed in February or March, for it is not mentioned in Bigler's diary, and first appears on Smith's on the 7th of April. Marshall does not state distinctly whether the four days was interval between the discovery and his start for or his arrival at the fort. If the latter, then there is no disagreement between him and Bigler, Smith, and Sutter that is if the date was the 24th; whereas if the date was the 19th, then the interval of four days has no support save Marshall's word, and is contradicted by all the other authorities. The diary of Bigler in its entry for January 30th says, "Our metal has been tried and proved to be gold," implying that Marshall had returned. Smith's entry of the same date has no knowledge of the return of the test. Perhaps one was written early and the other late in the day, one before and the other after the arrival of Marshall. There is no difficulty in finding petty discrepancies between the diaries of Sutter, Bigler, and Smith, but I think that no one accustomed to sift evidence and competent to weigh it fairly, can come to any conclusion except that they were kept at the time, and were truthful, though in many respects incomplete, records of the knowledge and impressions of the writer.

Neither Mr. Bigler nor Mr. Smith has sought publicity. Mr. Bigler's letter in the Bulletin was written in response to an appeal

to him as a living witness, an appeal made by Marshall against the injustice of those who insisted upon giving the honors and rewards for the discovery exclusively to Sutter. In that letter the writer claims no credit for himself, and seeks merely to state the facts, which he regards as entirely in favor of Mr. Marshall, an opinion then rejected by many and now generally accepted. He said nothing publicly of the date until I sent to him a pamphlet about the discovery, with a request for his corrections of errors or omissions. He replied that the 19th did not agree with his diary, which said the 24th. I solicited a copy of the entries relating to the discovery and early mining, and he sent them Subsequently he consented that I should publish. I inquired whether any of his companions had kept diaries at Coloma, and at his suggestion I wrote to Mr. Smith, who gave me a copy. Both diaries remained in the dark for forty years; they and their authors were dragged into print by the efforts of others.

The only person besides Marshall, Bigler, and Smith, who was at Coloma in January, 1848, and has made a public statement of the date, is Mrs. Weimer, the cook. Her story given in the San Francisco Bulletin of December, 19th, 1874, says the gold was found in the last days of 1847 or the first week of 1848. Her authority in this matter has never had any weight, and may be passed by here without any remark save that her memory was more treacherous than that of Marshall.

Several months or years may elapse before the concurrence of those persons whose opinion is authoritative will be known to the general public, but when it shall become known there will, I think, be no doubt that the auriferous deposits of the Sierra Nevada were first found on the 24th of January, 1848. JOHN S. HITTELL.]