Ruined by Gold, January 1848

John A. Sutter worked hard for a living after he came to America. After his journey from Germany, to New York, to California, all he wanted was to build a mill to produce lumber to finish his flour mill. He sought out a piece of land near Sacramento. Even though many in the city made fun of him for it and called his choices“folly", he continued to build the mill, hotel, and other buildings in the city he called Coloma.

Another “crazy” man, James Marshall, was building the mill at Coloma for Sutter. One day, Marshall came to Sutter’s office, compelled him to secure his office and lock his doors for the information he was about to share.

“He told me then that he had some important and interesting news which he wished to communicate secretly to me, and wished me to go with him to a place where we should not be disturbed, and where no listeners could come and hear what we had to say. I went with him to my private rooms; he requested me to lock the door; I complied, but I told him at the same time that nobody was in the house except the clerk, who was in his office in a different part of the house; after requesting of me something which he wanted, which my servants brought and then left the room, I forgot to lock the doors, and it happened that the door was opened by the clerk just at the moment when Marshall took a rag from his pocket, showing me the yellow metal: he had about two ounces of it; but how quick Mr. M. put the yellow metal in his pocket again can hardly be described. The clerk came to see me on business, and excused himself for interrupting me, and as soon as he had left I was told, “now lock the doors; didn’t I tell you that we might have listeners?” I told him that he need fear nothing about that, as it was not the habit of this gentleman; but I could hardly convince him that he need not to be suspicious. Then Mr. M. began to show me this metal, which consisted of small pieces and specimens, some of them worth a few dollars; he told me that he had expressed his opinion to the laborers at the mill, that this might be gold; but some of them were laughing at him and called him a crazy man, and could not believe such a thing.”

Then, Gold Fever, sparked by the discovery at Sutter’s Mill, January 1848, started a downward spiral in Sutter’s life. “What a great misfortune was this gold discovery for me. It has just broken up and ruined my hard, restless, and industrious labors . . .”

Read Sutter’s entire article on his gold find at http://www.sfmuseum.org/hist2/gold.html. Above quotes taken from Sutter’s article in the Hutchings’ California Magazine, November 1857