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About The Oregon daily journal. (Portland, Or.) 1902-1972 | View Entire Issue (Dec. 19, 1920)
Wherein. James W. Marshall Is Required By Statements of Authorities to Share Credit . of Discovery; With Charles Bennett Both Men Were Oregon Pioneers .-. x At CoIoma.Cat. nine ycajs made, Marshall andBcanctC By Earl C. Brovmlce flPHE half-told tale of California gold, scores of times repeated, Is the story of iad men, rushing before the lash of desire to fields of" treasure In an unknown land, there to seek their shares in the new-found riches riches whose discovery California reluctantly credits to a pioneer of the Oregon country. The missing half of the story ii the credit that is due another Ore gon pioneer credit that the his torians of the Bear state have long denied the memory of the man. Yet recent findings, not inspired by any desire of those who owe him so much to do him justice, seem certainly to warrant Charles Bennett, who was for so long a resident of Salem, ranking with James Wilson Marshall of Oregon In recounting the fortunes of Cali fornia. - Through years of study authori ties hereabouts have confirmed, apparently beyond doubt, Bennett's title to a share of Marshall's credit for paving the way for California's golden future. Before that wonderful January 24, 1848 when Marshall. and Ben nett picked from the mire of an open ditch the glittering yellow particles that reflected California , into the eyes of the world" and started the great westward migra tion in 1849, there had been a long series of gold "discqveries" on the streams and creeks of that Spanish . domain. "Discoveries" "are credit ed to a series of adventurers who seem to have started with Sir Francis Drake's entry into Drake's bay as early as 1579. In 1845-46 the BoViney girls, well known to George H. Hlmes of the Oregon Historical society, found at their play brilliant particles that were proved to be gold. .The Bo ney girls, with the.ir parents, had been destined for Oregon, incident ally, but were dissuaded and went instead to California. But it remained for James W. Marshall and Charles Bennett,; Ore gon pioneers, to discover and prove the presence of native gold in quantities of commercial impor tance and to start that wild human rush from every corner of the - known world the rush that is his toried now as "the days of '49." The, itory of California gold, modernized in the sense that Charles Bennett is given his richly , merited place with Marshall, is told .ty mmes-upon a basis of history and personal investigation that led him to conversations, with eye wit- nesses to the unlatching of the treasure trove. ' Marshall had crossed the plains to Oregon in1844, indirectly from bis native state. New Jersey, where he had been a carriage maker. . He is pictured by some who knew him as & shiftless chap, imbued. with a near - wanderlust, whose itching feet led him far afield and so far off. he straight and narrow path to success that he died in compara tive poverty; largely supported by the state whose present owes hiiiv so much. " " , ; . ; The pioneer settled in Oregon, presumably somewhere in the Wil lamette valley, -and undertook the quest .of fortunes But that was a trying Win tar uui Uaj-ahaJl'a nla.na THE belbre this picture was oPOioon, discovcrcicL came to grief in failure. Discour aged with his brief taste of the fray, he moved on, undoubtedly attracted by the activities of Cap tain John A. Sutter, whose many works had echoed into Oregon a call for workmen. We can know little of Marshall from the time he left Oregon until his discovery gave him fame that dates, from January 24, 1848. He had won employment with Captain Sutter, then the leading citizen of what became California. Authenticated records prove that Marshall and Charles Bennett, who had latetly arrived from Oregon, Where he had been successfully es tablished, together with Peter I Wimmer, undertook for Captain Sutter a contract to erect at the edge of the woods, not a great dis tance . from the' famous Sutter's fort, a primitive sawmill, that-the emigrants thereabouts might be satisfied in their demand for build ing materials and that Sutter's -many, activities might have outlet. Plans for the mill called for an open ditch near by, and this was . excavated from a natural arroyo, in a fashion that must have been typ ical of Marshall, for it was only half deep enough. To save them selves more labor the workmen determined to wash out the bed to greater depth. Had that ditch been made prop erly in the first place it 'might be that today California's golden era would date from a decade later, for what was to become a state, carved from Spanish domain, was very little populated and only the cry of "goldf" that echoed around the world could inspire what has been pictured as one of the great est migrations in . man's history ' a migration that opened the inten sive development of the state to which the, cry of "gold!" has ever since been bringing new genera tions of fortune seekers. With a full head of water In the "half-done ditch " the. banks gave way before the force from Ameri can river, near by. That job done successfully, Marshall and Bennett, facts now apparently indisputably indicate, set out upon .an inspec tion on the bright morning of Jan uary '24, 1848. In the sand over which a trick ling little stream was flowing, Mar shall discerned bright, shining grains of yellow that drew his pass ing attention. He knew nothing of gold, its source nor its nature; and was only impressed when Bennett, one a miner on his own account in . Georgia, had passed opinion upon the find. Marshall exhibited the finy par ticles he had picked from the sand, sand. . r - "Gold," Bennett affirmed. That, briefly, is the story of the discovery 'of California gold by Marshall and : Bennett. Marshall might never have known the won ders he held in his hand had Ben nett not been" near. Bennett jnight never , have noted the presence' of those sparkling .grains had Mar shall hot espied them. ' : Yet California has erected a monument to Marshall and, in the later years of his life, pensioned . him officially as the discoverer of the glittering yellow stuff that m&da a. Ktata OREGON SUNDAY JOURNAL, PORTLAND, SUNDAY it t) Folk who knew both . Marshall and Bennett, neither of whom were ever burdened by the wealth their discovery opened to them; have re corded 'highly interesting stories about them. They have. too. re peatedly and rather consistently enhanced the half-told story of the discovery. They have disproved .the California claim that Bennett was . only interested in the gold when Marshall had determined its worth. . They have affirmed posi tively that Marshall and ' Bennett were together at the time of the discovery Marshall, they aver, was a rest less, never settled man, with little aim in life aside from doing that and quitting this. He made no success of anything he attempted, neither his adventure in the Ore gon country nor his trade as a car riage maker, though, withal, he was a likeable, agreeable and to ll tally unlettered stalwart, whose jjw $ if J? it F re 1 v S is. only harm in 'the world was his own shiftlessness. Bennett, on the other hand, had been a success in the wild country which he was one of the first to invade and, in spite of the fact that the fabulous wealth he might have had from his find of gold was never his, he returned to Oregon after a few years in California and established himself at Salem as a solid, prosperous man of affairs and family. Marshall, apparently, had ,no family during his western lifetime. ' : When Bennett had ascertained the nature of the yelow particles found among the sand of that primitive tail race there was still a measure of doubt 'in his mind ' and, with Marshall, he submitted a few nuggets to Mrs. P. L. Wimmer, 5 ;:: USiM-'i MORNING, DECEMBER 'ftK'wa-- v Sutter's Mill at site oPltohall-Bennett 3ol& discovc-i. who was cooking for the pioneer crew at the site o Sutter's mill Mrs. Wimmer tested them over the fire and by pounding them between stones until there was no doubt of their golden content. It was then that Marshall, in an attempt to sew up the secret of the find between the discoverers and their employer, Captain Sutter, made his memorable trip to Sut ter's Fort with samples of :the gold he had found. Mysteriously he presented them to the captain, who tested them in his own crude way and satisfied . himself that fortune was at hand. . ' , But the secret would spread, de spite his every effort to. gain title to the banks of American river for himself and associates, and it is re-, corded' that Charles Bennett, over enthusi.stlc, was largely responsi ble for releasing the news that brought t early California that 19, 1920. maze of humanity upon which her human future has been built. First, however. Sutter, Marshall nd Bennett traded beads t and . trinkets to the Indians in the vi cinity of what later became the little town of Coloma, for -what they held up as titles to the terri tory. They collected, too, from all who sought to mine the streams and. creeks, a third of. all the gold obtained. Such a state of affairs main tained until a party of miners, at tracted from the Oregon country, rebelled: at the monopoly and held the Sutter-Marshall-Bennett titles for naught. To solve the problem Sutter dispatched Bennett to seek a grant of land from the governor. The v emissary -s was unsuccessful, however, and in his enthusiasm he had literally "spilled the beans," that were to cause the gold ferer epidemic that' reached almost over" the world. Returning from that trjp, Ben nett brought with him Isaac Humphrey, an experienced miner, who is said to have been the first man to seek consistently; for the treasure Marshall and Bennett had discovered. Though all at Sutter's mill were by now aware of the dis coverv. they little knew ita imnoN tance, and had continued for weeks at their usual tasks. It was not until more than a year after the discovery that word east, west,, north and south, and the human influx, from the states, from the Sandwich islands and sven from South ' America, started in earnest. That influx brought men of all kinds and sizes and minds into the gold fields, with the high cost of living at their heels. Flour ad vanced almost overnight to as high as $400 a barrel and mining tools went "out of sight." The influx, too, brought despair to the discoverers, for their for tunes were not secured t and they had failed to mine the treasure they had found. .Gradually Captain Sutter's vast holdings his mills, his stores and his farms were ravished by the horde that advanced to American river and other Streams. He lost practically all he had made. Mar shall, never, It seems, able to hold fast to what he got,. mined with a slight degree of success, but never, enough to assure his future, and. for some time before his death he was supported by. the state. Bennett, of the three, fared best, for he was & man of family and ambition.- He did not get from his gold pan. the wealth that awaited hisefforts, but he did profit hand somely, it is said. It has, been only a comparatively few years since the Bennett family erected a monument to his memory over his grae at Salem. Reliable inform ants declare that a poke of gold dust was tendered in payment for that monument. . When mining and the wild, life of "the days of 49" had lost its In terest, Bennett settled down on a. California farm and there succeed ed in large measure for several years before his return to Salem, the approximate scene of his first , home in, the Oregon country. . At Salem he caused to be built the Bennett house, an early hotel that enjoyed a wide and popular pa- ' tronage among pioneers. ;
