Gold! (26 page)

It made no difference who played what part. It was a pretty good racket. The Earps gave people what they wanted for a price, and were protected by their own kin. Unfortunately, the Clanton/McLaury gang ruled the roost in Tombstone.

The gang were “ranchers” who got most of their beef, it was suspected, by rustling from Mexican ranchers across the border. Some locals who fell afoul of them also found
themselves missing beef. Many in Tombstone, including the Earps, believed the Clantons and the McLaurys to be holdup artists who murdered to reach their nefarious goals.

The Clantons and the McLaurys formed an instant dislike to the starchy, uptight Earps, who would not tolerate anyone or anything who adversely affected business. After the former physically threatened the latter many times, the stage was set for the most famous gun-fight in American history, the gunfight at the O.K. Corral on November 21, 1881.

After the shooting was over, the only man left standing without a scratch was Wyatt Earp. At that moment, the legend of the tall stalwart, taciturn American who faced down an overwhelming foe in pursuit of righteous justice was born. No matter that it bore little relation to reality. Wyatt Earp sold well then and sells well now. More importantly, the image of the American man he fostered would find its way into every facet of American society.

Earp would also have a hand in the next big gold rush, in Alaska, which began in 1897, when gold was discovered in the Klondike in Canada's Yukon Territory. Once again lured by the California get-rich-quick ideal, thousands of prospectors flocked to Alaska. By 1898, the best gold fields had already been claimed. Miners began searching other parts of Alaska.

A major strike in Nome in 1898 brought Wyatt Earp and his wife, Josie, to the town, where they ran a saloon. They made money, but most of the miners did not get rich. Many stayed, however, helping to settle the territory of Alaska, which eventually became the forty-ninth state.

As a new century dawned in 1900, the Gold Rushes were over. Well, sort of.

After all his other business ventures had failed, James Marshall had gone back to his smithy's shop, where he continued to shoe horses and mules until the time of his death at age seventy-five in 1885.

The man who dug his grave was Andrew Monroe, a man who knew something about busting a few chains. He realized what an honor it was to serve someone who had, very directly, helped his mother, Nancy Gooch, buy his freedom. As for Nancy, she died in 1901.

General William Tecumseh “Cump” Sherman retired in 1883 and subsequently lived in New York City, where he died on February 14, 1891. He is buried in Calvary Cemetery, St. Louis, Missouri.

During the twentieth century, the same kind of get-rich-quick mentality that had become a part of the American character during the California Gold Rush found a new outlet and fueled two stock market crashes and the dot com boom of the 1990s. But the more far-reaching effect of the Gold Rushes in the western United States, and especially California, was to accelerate the country's growth by light-years.

Railroads and roads were built to link the continent together to these outposts of civilization that rose to become great cities. Out of this growth came new territories, new states, new technology, new money, and more than anything else, a new worldwide belief that in the United States, anyone can make his fortune by the
sweat of his brow and a little bit of luck. Clearly, more than a few people had in California.

How much money did the California Gold Rush diggings yield in total? No one knows for sure, but best estimates are 125 million ounces combined, from 1848 to 1900. In 2005 dollars, with gold selling for $425 an ounce in early 2005, that would be $53.125 billion.

Today, anyone who has ever believed in even the minutest facet of the American Dream is being affected by the same emotions as Cump Sherman, James Marshall, Captain John Sutter of the Swiss Guards, and all the rest of the dreamers, including the shoemaker from Lancaster, Ohio, Samuel McNeil.

What happened to Samuel McNeil? Once again, the shoemaker deserves the last word:

“On the 12th of October, 1849, I landed in Cincinnati. There I took the cars for Xenia, and from that place the coach to Columbus—and the coach like wise from Columbus to Lancaster. Here I met my Ellen at the gate, the happiest hour I ever experienced, reminding me of the fact that it was my most sorrowful hour when I went out of that gate to start for California. I acquired gold in California, and more than gold was acquired at home in my absence. I presented her plenty of the gold, and in return she presented to me a lovely son.

“Robinson Peters, John D. Martin, and James Pratt, furnished me with $400 to go to California on the halves. I went, acted honorably, gave them the half, and, impelled by gratitude, I honor them, and hope and pray that they, their children, and their children's children,
may enjoy every necessary earthly blessing, and die happily, feeling convinced that they had performed their duty towards God and man as their predecessors had done.

“The shoemaker is convinced that California in time will become a glorious State, or States, of this glorious Union, and that thousands, in future years, will be emigrating from the States to it. Wishing it and them the greatest prosperity and highest happiness, to present to them the following song, hoping that they will sing it as they are journeying to that land which gives as well as promises, wealth and happiness to the honorable and industrious:

The California Emigrant's Song

Far onward towards the setting sun
,

We are bound upon our way
,

Nor till each ling'ring day is done

Our toilsome march we stay:

We're trav'lingon, a pilgrim band
,

Another home to find
,

Remote from that dear native land

We now have left behind!

The clime we seek is rich and fair
,

As blessed isles of yore
,

And lovelier prospects open there

Than e'er was seen before!

Vast plains spread out on ev'ry side
,

Stretch to the sloping skies:

Broad rivers roll in tranquil pride
,

And tow'ring forests rise!

There mines of California gold

Their shining treasures show
,

Which coming years shall yet unfold

To glad the bold and true!

That treasure we shall joyful find

With labor's sweetest smile
,

To help the State, in purse and mind
,

And bless ourselves the while!

There smiling uplands catch the beams

Of pearly morn serene
,

Gay verdant meadows fringe the streams

That silvery wind between!

Of ev'ry hue and sweet perfume
,

Wild flowers luxuriant spring
,

While birds, with varied note and plume
,

'Mid bowers of Nature sing!

But cherish'd home! 'tis painful still

To quit thy much loved shore
,

For fears our sorrowing bosoms fill
,

We ne'er may see thee more!

Yet thy green hills and sunny vales
,

Those scenes of childhood all
,

How oft 'till recollection fails
,

Fond memory shall recall
!

For there are faithful ones endear'd

By Nature's tend'rest ties
,

Whose cordial smiles so oft have cheer'd

Life's burdening miseries!

Comrades, whom first in youth we knew
,

In that bright region dwell:

Friends, whom we prov'd in perils true
,

We bid them all farewell!

The joy must fade which most delights

The fond enraptur'd heart
,

And souls, that friendship's chain unites
,

Must still be torn apart!

From home departing, doom'd by fate
,

Like wand'rers o'er the main
,

From dearest friends we separate
,

Never to meet again!

Farewell! farewell! but not forever:

We yet shall meet again

Beyond the reach of absence here
,

Beyond the reach of pain!

There is on high a brighter land

Than California's shore
,

Where rich and poor, not one behind
,

Shall meet forevermore!

EPILOGUE

This account rests in the Monterey County Historical Society in California. It is contained in the unpublished diary of Daniel Martin. In the autumn of 1877, Daniel Martin was working as a vaquero on the Laurel Ranch, in the Carmel Valley.

One morning, as Martin was about to depart on his daily duties, his boss, Sam Clinkenbeard, hailed him and said to wait for a while. There was an old man who had stayed there all night. He would be down to saddle his horse in a moment.

Martin picks up the story in this passage from his unpublished diary:

Clinkenbeard wanted me to hear or witness the conversation. Then, the old man approached.

The old man put his hand in his pocket.

“How much do I owe you for staying here last night?' he asked Clinkenbeard.

“Nothing, we are of the old California style but I would like to ask you some questions,” Clinkenbeard replied. “Were you ever in the Sierra Nevada Mountains?”

“Yes, a long time ago.”

“Did you ever stop at Clinkenbeard's Road House between Lake Tahoe and Truckee and buy provisions and sometimes stay with your party all night there?”

“Yes, but how did you know?”

“I am Clinkenbeard's son who used to wait on you at times. Aren't you Joaquin Murieta?”

“Yes.”

“Don't you know you are supposed to have been killed?”

“I hear so, but I got away and went to Mexico, the Americans were getting too
valiente
[desperate].”

“What are you doing back here now?”

“I came after some treasures that I had hidden in the Big Canon above here—the Chipinos (Indian) and I came down here last night thinking I would find the Boronda family still here.”

“Are you going to stay in California?”

“No, I am going right back to Mexico, I like it better there among my people.”

Joaquin Murietta saddled up his beautiful mare with the silver bridle and rode off into the sunset, perhaps the biggest Gold Rush winner of all.

Afterword

COLOMA, 2005

Samuel McNeil would not recognize the place. Sutter's Fort had been made of stucco. This, the reconstructed Sutter's Fort in the twenty-first century, had a white brick foundation with an atypical California chichi red stucco roof.

No longer was Sutter's Fort five miles outside Sacramento City. The city had crept out all five miles and beyond. You could see the freeway in the distance. What was left of Sutter's land was the reconstructed fort set into a park smack dab in the middle of the city. Instead of the voices of settlers, today children's voices rise high above the din from the freeway traffic. The children come from area schools, as far away as Los Angeles, to be educated in their state's history. Some of those children had ancestors who mined in the Gold Rush and decided to stay.

To get to Coloma, it's back into the car and out onto the freeway, north into the foothills of the Sierra Nevada. As I drove, for some reason I thought of Roy Earle, Humphrey's Bogart's killer with a heart in
High Sierra
, which took place where I was driving. The Sierras had a brooding quality, between the interminable fast-food stands and the gray clouds coming in over the mountains.

To get to Coloma, you take a left at Hangtown and keep going. It's rural country, over rolling hills. Suddenly, the foliage on the right side that seemed to cover the roadway gave way to a grand view of the Sierra Nevada misting up in the gray twilight. Positively terrifying, considering that the drop-off looked to be more than a hundred feet, and Governor Schwarzenegger, no matter how much I like him, had failed to put in any shoulders.

When I was sixteen, I was sent to California to live with my Uncle Harry for a month. It was my idea. I
had
to see California. I did the whole tourist route—Disneyland, Knott's Berry Farm, and Universal Studios—and when I finally went home, I knew I had to go back. I did, the next year, and it was awful.

Somehow, what pleased me at sixteen didn't quite work at seventeen, when I had already learned to drive and was not content to sit around in my uncle's house and wait for him to take me someplace. I went home in two weeks flat. The next time I was in California, I knew that wherever I went, the place would always be with me.

When I was twenty-two, I found myself traveling through the Feather River Valley on a bus. Someone in
the front seat began playing “500 Miles,” the old Civil War standard Peter, Paul, and Mary brought back to a new generation. Looking out the window, it wasn't hard to see the place in Gold Rush times; it looked the same.

The next year I went to film school at the University of Southern California in Los Angeles. At first I thought California was heaven, the El Dorado of legend, with its opportunity to become a big shot in the film business. I had bought into the dream. The reality was more like the line in Larry Gatlin's song “All the Gold in California”: “All the gold in California is in a bank in the middle of Beverly Hills in somebody else's name.”

Now I was twenty-five years in the future, traveling to where the dream had started. Except for the reconstruction of the sawmill, I might have kept going without realizing exactly where I was. Only a few brick buildings were left of what had been a thriving settlement. The Gooch-Monroe family had eventually bought the actual site where Marshall discovered gold and had given it over to the state, which had made a park of it.