hastened northward; their keepers followed in pursuit, if indeed they had not preceded, but they took care not to find them. Soldiers fled from their posts; others were sent for them, and none returned. Valuable land grants were surrendered, and farms left tenantless; waving fields of grain stood abandoned, perchance opened to the roaming cattle, and gardens were left to run to waste. The country seemed as if smitten by a plague.[1]
All along down the coast from Monterey to Santa Bdrbara, Los Angeles, and San Diego, it was the same. Towns and country were wellnigh depopulated. There the fever raged fiercest during the three summer months. At the capital a letter from Larkin gave the impulse, and about the same time, upon the statement of Swan, four Mormons called at Monterey en route for Los Angeles, who were reported to carry 100 pounds avoirdupois of gold gathered in less than a month at Mormon Island. This was in June. A fortnight after the town was depopulated, 1,000 starting from that vicinity within a week.[2] At San Fran
- ↑ Such is Mason's report. Maria Antonia Pico de Castro, announcing from Monterey to her son Manuel in Mexico the grand discovery, says that everybody is crazy for the gold; meanwhile stock is comparatively safe from thieves, but on the other hand hides and tallow are worth nothing. Doc. Hist. Cal., MS., L 505. At Santa Cruz A. A. Hecox and eleven others petitioned the alcalde the 90th of Dec. for a year's extension of time in complying with the conditions of the grants of land obtained by them according to the usual form. Under the pressure of the gold excitement labor had become so scarce and high that they found it impossible to have lumber drawn for houses and fences. The petition was granted.
- ↑ Swan's Trip, 1-3; Buffum'a Six Months, 68; Carson's Rec, 4. 'One day,' says Carson, who was then at Monterey, 'I saw a form, bent and filthy, approaching me, and soon a cry of recognition was given between us. He was ma old acquaintance, and had been one of the first to vist the mines. Now he stood before me. His hair hung out of his hat; his chin with beard was
mechanic can be obtained in town.' Vallejo says that the first notice of gold having been discovered was conveyed to Sonoma through a flask of gold-dust sent by Sutter to clear a boat-load of wheat which had been forwarded in part payment for the Ross property, but lay seized for debt at Sonoma. 'Gov. Boggs, then alcalde of Sonoma, and I,' says Vallejo, 'started at once for Sacramento to test the truth of the report, and found that Sutter, Marshall, and others had been taking out gold for some time at Coloma . . . We came back to Sonoma, and such was the enthusiasm of the people that the town and entire country was soon deserted.' Vallejo's Oration at Sonoma, July 4, 1876, in Sonoma Democrat, July 8, 1876. The general evidently forgets, or at all events ignores, the many rumors current prior to the reception of the flask, as well as the positive statement with proofs of friends and passers-by.
