Detector Gold White
It began on January 24, 1848, when James Marshall noticed a small and shiny object, about the size of half a pea, lying in a foot of water on the south fork of the American River, in the foothills of northern California’s Sierra Nevada mountains. It turned out to be gold; and it turned out there was more – a lot more.
Marshall was a carpenter working for a Swiss emigrant named Johann Sutter, who was ambitiously building a colony he called New Helvetia, including a trading post and fort, in California’s Central Valley. Sutter had sent Marshall up into the forested foothills to build a sawmill that could supply the lumber Sutter needed to build his settlement. When Marshall arrived with samples of what he had found, he and Sutter swore each other to secrecy.
Sam Brannan Spreads the News
But the existence of large amounts of gold just waiting to be picked up off the ground or panned out of streams was not an easy secret to keep. One of those who soon learned of the discovery was a businessman and elder of the Latter-Day Saints (Mormons) named Sam Brannan. Though entrusted with the leadership of a group of two hundred Mormons by Brigham Young himself, Brannan turned out to be not so trustworthy. He collected the mandatory tithes from his flock, but blatantly appropriated the money for his own uses, including setting up a general store at Sutter’s Fort.
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