![]() Shufelt reveals his motivation when he tells his cousin that: "I have left Behind him he left a wife and child in Windham, NY near the Catskills. New York City along with about 200 fellow fortune hunters risking all on a gamble Know if he struck it rich or whether he ever returned to his wife and home. Is contained in a letter he wrote from the gold fields to his cousin in March The massive influx of fortune seekers Americanized the once Mexican province and assured its inclusion as a state in the union. ![]() By December 1849 the population had mushroomed to an estimated 100,000. A census of San Francisco (then called Yerba Buena) in April 1847 reported the town consisted of 79 buildings including shanties, frames houses and adobes. Gold seekers traveled overland across the mountains to California (30,000 assembled at launch points along the plains in the spring of 1849) or took the round-about sea routes: either to Panama or around Cape Horn and then up the Pacific coast to San Francisco. The New York Herald printed news of the discovery in August 1848 and the rush for gold accelerated into a stampede. Towns were depleted as prospective prospectors headed to the gold fields. Their jobs - San Francisco's two newspapers were forced to close their doorsĪs their staffs were struck by gold fever. Was soon cluttered with derelict ships deserted by their crews. San Francisco shouting 'Gold! Gold! Gold from American River!' The residentsÄiscovery and the stampede to the gold fields was on. Storekeeper in Sutter's Creek, brandished a bottle filled with gold dust around ![]() The spark that ignited the gold rush occurred in May 1848 when Sam Brannan, a The discovery was reported in the San Francisco newspapers in March but caused little stir as most did not believe the account. In January 1848, James Wilson Marshall discovered gold while constructing a saw mill along the American River northeast of present-day Sacramento.
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