James Wilson Marshall

James William Marshall

Birth: Oct. 8, 1810 Hopewell Mercer County New Jersey, USA

Death: Aug. 10, 1885 Kelsey El Dorado County California, USA

Folk Figure, Gold Rush notable. James Marshall is forever linked to the California gold rush as the man who set the whole world heading westward with his discovery of gold along the American River in northern California. He was born in Lambertsville, New Jersey leaving home at the age of twenty-four. He settled down along the banks of the Missouri River in the Missouri Territory and took to farming. After recovering from a fever, he surmised a healthier climate would be better and joined an emigrant train on its way to the Oregon Territory. Still not content, he set out once again this time for California. Marshall arrived at the Sacramento River settlement and was given employment as a carpenter. He soon was a land owner with a gowning number of livestock.

He became a stable settler and joined John C. Fremont in staging the Bear Flag Revolt trying to seize control of California which failed when American troops arrived to occupy the territory at the start of the Mexican American War. He continued to serve with Fremont along with a few other loyal men, the remaining remnants from the revolt. He eventually returned to his farm only to find his cattle had been stolen and the house ram sacked and looted. He was forced to sell the property but was able to form a partnership with John Sutter to construct a sawmill along the American River, agreeing to operate the mill in return for a portion of the lumber. While checking around the finished mill, Marshall looked down through the clear water and saw what appeared to be gold. The only knowledgeable gold person in the construction crew was Elizabeth Wimmer who as a young girl while working with her father a gold prospector, learned to identify gold bearing ore. The gem was taken to her and she used the old folk method of letting the nugget sit overnight in lye soap water. In the morning the ore appeared shiny indicating pure gold. The famous California Gold Rush had begun. The nugget weighted approximately one-third of an ounce with a value of $5.12. John Marshall, foreman of the mill, gave Jennie the gem while dubbing it the "Wimmer Nugget". She carried it around in a buckskin pouch. It was displayed at the Chicago World's Fair in 1893.

Ironically, the subsequent gold rush actually harmed the man who had begun it. His sawmill quickly failed when all the able bodied men in the area turned all their efforts to the search for gold. He drifted from place to place in California, eventually settling in a spartan homesteader's cabin where he lived on a small subsistence gleaned from his garden. When James Wilson Marshall died in nearby Kelsey, penniless, he was taken back to Coloma and was buried on his former land, on a hill overlooking the town and the South Fork of the American River. Five years later the state erected a monument over his grave, atop which stands a bronze statue of Marshall, pointing to the spot where he made the discovery that electrified the world.

In 1927, the state of California declared the one acre parcel where he grew grapes and attempted to sell wine with the center piece his grave, the 'Marshall Gold Discovery State Historic Park. In 1966, 

The boyhood home of Marshall in New Jersey was saved from demolition and has been restored and houses the Lambertville Historical Society. The historic house known as the 'Marshal House' had a stored past and it now houses an extensive collection of archieved items and documents not only pertaining to the Marshall family but the history of the town of Lambertville. (bio by: Donald Greyfield (inactive))

Family links:

Parents:

• Phillip Marshall (1789 - 1854)
• Sarah Wilson Marshall (1787 - 1878)

Burial: James Marshall Monument and Gravesite Coloma El Dorado County California, USA

Maintained by: Find A Grave Record added: Oct 14, 1999 Find A Grave Memorial# 6649

Find a Grave

James Wilson Marshall, the oldest of four children and the son of Philip Marshall and Sarah Wilson, was born in Hopewell Township, Mercer County, on 8th October, 1810. When he was a child the family moved to Lambertville.

Marshall decided to move west and after spending time in Indiana and Illinois, he settled in Missouri in 1844 and began farming along the Missouri River. The following year he joined a wagon train heading for Oregon. He eventually reached Sutter's Fort in California in July 1845.

John Sutter had established the colony of Nueva Helvetia (New Switzerland), which became a centre for trappers, traders and settlers in the region. The venture was a great success and within a couple of years Sutter was a wealthy businessman. Sutter had tremendous power over the area and admitted: "I was everything, patriarch, priest, father and judge." The historian, Josiah Royce, has commented: "In character, Sutter was an affable and hospitable visionary, of hazy ideas, with a great liking for popularity, and with a mania for undertaking too much." Sutter purchasing 49,000 acres at the junction of the Feather and Sacramento rivers in 1841. This site dominated three important routes: the inland waterways from San Francisco, the trail to California across the Sierra Nevada and the Oregon-California road.

Sutter employed Marshall as a carpenter. He also helped him to buy some land on the north side of Butte Creek. He also sold him some cattle but his life as a farmer came to a halt with the outbreak of the Mexican War. Marshall joined the army and served under Captain John Fremont, the commander of the Californian Battalion.

Marshall returned to his ranch in 1847. After finding that all his cattle had disappeared he went back to work for John Sutter. He became his partner in building a sawmill on his property at Coloma, on the South Fork of the American River, upstream from his fort, about 115 miles northeast of San Francisco. Another man who worked for Sutter, John Bidwell, commented that "rafting sawed lumber down the cañons of the American river was a such a wild scheme... that no other man than Sutter would have been confiding and credulous to believe it practical."

On 24th January, 1848, Marshall noticed some sparkling pebbles in the gravel bed of the tailrace his men had dug alongside the river to move the water as quickly as possible beneath the mill. He later recalled: "While we were in the habit at night of turning the water through the tail race we had dug for the purpose of widening and deepening the race, I used to go down in the morning to see what had been done by the water through the night...I picked up one or two pieces and examined them attentively; and having some general knowledge of minerals, I could not call to mind more than two which in any way resembled this, very bright and brittle; and gold, bright, yet malleable. I then tried it between two rocks, and found that it could be beaten into a different shape, but not broken."

That night John Sutter recorded in his diary: "Marshall arrived in the evening, it was raining very heavy, but he told me he came on important business. After we was alone in a private room he showed me the first specimens of gold, that is he was not certain if it was gold or not, but he thought it might be; immediately I made the proof and found that it was gold. I told him even that most of all is 23 carat gold. He wished that I should come up with him immediately, but I told him that I have to give first my orders to the people in all my factories and shops."

The gold was then showed to William Sherman: "I touched it and examined one or two of the larger pieces... In 1844, I was in Upper Georgia, and there saw some native gold, but it was much finer than this, and it was in phials, or in transparent quills; but I said that, if this were gold, it could be easily tested, first, by its malleability, and next by acids. I took a piece in my teeth, and the metallic lustre was perfect. I then called to the clerk, Baden, to bring an axe and hatchet from the backyard. When these were brought I took the largest piece and beat it out flat, and beyond doubt it was metal, and a pure metal. Still, we attached little importance to the fact, for gold was known to exist at San Fernando, at the south, and yet was not considered of much value."

Marshall continued with building the saw-mill: "About the middle of April the mill commenced operation, and, after cutting a few thousand feet of lumber was abandoned; as all hands were intent upon gold digging." John Sutter later recalled: "Soon as the secret was out my laborers began to leave me, in small parties first, but then all left, from the clerk to the cook, and I was in great distress... What a great misfortune was this sudden gold discovery for me! It has just broken up and ruined my hard, restless, and industrious labors, connected with many dangers of life, as I had many narrow escapes before I became properly established."

Marshall was unable to find any significant amounts of gold and he left the area. He returned to Coloma in 1857 and eventually started a vineyard. After that failed he became a partner in a gold mine near Kelsey, California, but it was not a profitable venture and brought him close to bankruptcy.

James Wilson Marshall died on 10th August, 1885.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/James_W._Marshall

James Wilson Marshall (October 8, 1810 – August 10, 1885) was an American carpenter and sawmill operator, who reported the finding of gold at Coloma on the American River in California on January 24, 1848, the impetus for the California Gold Rush. The mill property was owned by Johan (John) Sutter who employed Marshall to build his mill. The wave of gold seekers turned everyone's attention away from the mill which eventually fell into disrepair and was never used as intended. Neither Marshall or Sutter ever profited from the gold find.

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