I was standing in Howard & Mellus’s store, on Montgomery Street, near what is now Commercial Street, one day in March of this year, watching Sutter’s launch Sacramento, with its crew of Kanakas and Digger Indians, maneuver against an ebb-tide to make her landing off the foot of Clay street, about a stone’s throw from the beach at Montgomery street, and wondering if the two or three anxious-looking passengers in the stern were acquaintances, when the clerk of the store, who has been also watching the little schooner-rigged vessel, quietly remarked, “I suppose we shall hear if that story is true about the gold mine up in American.”

I have already said that the upper country had “turned loose” this Spring to hunt for silver, quicksilver, coal, iron, copper, sulphur, saltpeter, salt, black lead, and, in short, everything but gold (not excepting diamonds, which were reported to have been discovered in the Sonoma Valley), and that paragraphs in the two local papers about new mineral developments were beginning to grow stale and unprofitable. I was hoping for an item from the Sacramento to vary this monotony, and in the mind’s eye of a printer had measured the chances for about a “stick-full of matter,” needed to fill up the closing column and send the weekly Star to press. There had been woven into the dull gossip of the town that week a tiny thread of gold, caught from a rumor that floated like gossamer down from the upper country, but it was too thin and unsubstantial to make any sort of figure in the pattern, and had been rejected from the news material with which the Star loom with lofty discrimination supplied the market. Some native Californian, it was said, one of those hard riders who were continually posting about the country on their fast horses, had ridden across from Sutter’s embarcadero, through the “take cut-off,” to the ranches back of Benicia, and thence, crossing Carquinez Straits, had come through Livermore’s Pass to San Jose and San Francisco, all in two days from the point of starting (opposite the present site of Sacramento), and he had brought a report that some of Captain Sutter’s men had found gold on the American Fork.

So, when Howard & Mellus’s clerk suggested that the launch Sacramento might bring further tidings about the gold mine up the American, the editor of the Star hoped it might bring an item about the number of acres Captain Sutter would sow in wheat this Spring, and thus foreshadow a more certain golden harvest in the Fall.

The passengers by the Sacramento—only four days from Sutter’s Fort—were strangers, and when they stepped ashore one of them asked where Captain Vioget lived, and being shown made haste in that direction, leaving the Star reporter to interview the others. They didn’t know anything about Captain Sutter’s sowing, or how many hides he would send down, or whether any parties were rendezvousing at the Fort for a start across the plains, or whether the prospects of an emigration from Oregon of the dissatisfied last year’s comers was as reported, or what was what, or which was which, for any practical purpose that the Star editor plied his questions; and the chanced of the “stickfull of matter” began to diminish to a bare possibility of a line or two, when of them said if we would “come up to the store” he would show us something.

And back to the store we all went. It is the strangest thing that I cannot remember this man’s name. He has been in the employ of Captain Sutter, but had come down on business of his own. He was black-eyed, bushy bearded, lank and nervous, and chewed tobacco as a school girl chews gum—as though the lower jaw was run by clock-work. Standing at the counter, he took out a greasy purse, and out of that produced a little rag, which he carefully opened, disclosing a few thin flakes of a dull yellow metal. “That there,” said he in an undertone, “is gold, and I know it, and know where it comes from, and there’s a plenty more in the same place, certain and sure!”

Too thin! What would have been the modern criticism on the specimens and on the stranger’s profession of faith in them? He was not in the least excited, and we set him down as acting a part. Other townspeople came into the store. And the little rag, with its lusterless bits of metal, was handed around. One said it was mica, and another that it was “fools’ gold”—he had “seen plenty of it in Oregon.” By and by the exhibitor was joined by his companion who had inquired the way to “old Vioget’s.” I afterwards learned that he had gone there to submit some specimens to the captain for “a test,” as he was reputed to have some skill in the analysis of minerals. Vioget’s opinion, if given at all, was not revealed. The party at the store separated without any very lively impression having been made on the lookers-on, and, if I remember aright, the Star went to press that night without an item concerning the gold mines.

These were the first drops of the approaching shower—the first flakes of that yellow snow-fall which was soon to change the face of the whole country—burying out of sight like the ashes which fell on Pompeii all traces of the former civilization, arresting human activity in its natural and healthy channels, and laying broad if not deep the foundations of a new order of things. The fair vestal of the Pacific was to receive in her embrace a new creating power, descending in a shower of gold, like the mythological deity of old. But like one of those foolish virgins, she still slumbered and slept. There was a considerable interval between the period when our eyes first beheld the new potentate whose scepter was to rule the land and the time when his throne was set up in our midst—a space of several weeks at least. During that interval the editor of the Star made a journey to the gold mines, the first quest of gold actually undertaken from San Francisco after the mines were discovered. But this memorable trip must form the subject of another chapter. Some notes which I have preserved of the business and social characteristics of San Francisco seem to fall appropriately into place here.

One of the grand events of this period was the introduction of steam navigation to the waters of the bay and rivers. Was it prophetic of the unhappy destiny which was to associate Yerba Buena Island (or Goat Island) in after years with the name of the unpopular railroad enterprise that the first trip by steam on these waters involved this island and resulted in failure. In October, 1847, the first steamboat was launched in San Francisco, having been brought into the bay in the hold of a Russian bark, consigned to Captain Leidesdorff, the Russian Consul. The little stranger came hitherward from the Russian settlements, on the Amoor river, and was originally destined for the inland waters of Alaska. Leidesdorff, though a foreigner, was imbued with the spirit of Yankee enterprise, and foresaw the greatness of California long in advance of his American brother merchants. He had the little steamboat put together, and endeavored to freight merchandize to different points on the bay. The Sitka, as she was called, actually made the trip to the present site of Sacramento, and was the pioneer of steam navigation on these waters. It would detract from her fame to place on record the time of her first trip. Let the waters of the bay, in which she foundered, a cable’s length from shore, be as the gentle wave of oblivion upon that page of her history. Her engine was too feeble and her hull too frail to wrestle with the northers that visited the bay that Winter. She was resurrected in the Spring, and her machinery having been taken out the little craft was fitted up as a schooner and called the Rainbow. Having made one or two successful trips to Sonoma and San Jose, she was dispatched to New Helvetia (Sacramento) in April. The first gold prospecting party that left San Francisco for the mines were passengers on that trip, and their adventures will be subsequently related.

The mercantile firms doing business in San Francisco at this time were Mellus & Howard, already mentioned, who advertised “cloths, cassimeres, pantaloons stuffs of various kinds, prints, brown and white cottons, ticking, tea, coffee, sugar, molasses, Columbia river flour, gin, aguadiente, ale, hollow ware, iron and steel, which they offer low for cash or hides,” etc. Shelly & Norris, corner of Clay and Kearny streets, Ward & Smith, Dickson & Hay, W. H. Davis & Co. dealt in a similar line of goods. Robert A. Parker at the “Adobe store” on the hill back of Portsmouth square, and Gelston & Co. (“New York store”) at the foot of Washington street were the latest comers, the former from Boston, and offered fresh and assorted stocks, including “novelties” in dry goods and fancy articles, such as had never been seen before in this market, and only 120 days from the States. The business of these mercantile houses cannot be said to have been extensive, although the local paper congratulates its readers on the brisk business done in April, the month in which the first ripple of excitement consequent on the discovery of gold was noticed. The editor says (April 22d, 1848): “The amount of sales by our merchants this week has exceeded twenty thousand dollars.”

The inland commerce of California was carried on by means of launches, or sloops and schooners of fifteen or twenty tons burthen, used chiefly for hide droghing purposes.The coast trade was confined to half a dozen brigs and schooners, running between San Francisco and the Columbia river, or the southern ports of Santa Cruz, Monterey, San Pedro and a Mexican port or two. There was a monthly arrival from the Sandwich Islands, and an occasional visitor from China. An eastern arrival was an event to make merry over. During December, 1847, and the three first months of 1848 there were fourteen arrivals of all kinds, two of which were from the United States. The others were from China and South American ports, the Sandwich Islands and coastwise traders. In the Fall of the year (about September) the whalers of the North Pacific dropped in to water and recruit supplies. Our merchants were ever casting hungry eyes in the direction of this whaling fleet, and fishing assiduously for these fishermen.

The historian of these times will find a barren page when he carries his search into the local annals after religious and educational items. The billiard-rooms of the two hotels provided the chief mental and moral pasturage of the average San Franciscan of those times for the entire seven days of the week. It is proper to state, however, that there was very little drunkenness and rarely a case of disorder. The town was governed almost without the aid of a constable. Gambling of course there was, as in every unreformed Mexican pueblo. The Town Council of 1848 made an effort to abolish it, but, some of its own members having been caught trying their hand in secret places at monte, the attempt was abandoned. The first school-house was erected during the Fall of 1847. It stood on the southwest corner of Portsmouth Square, occupying a part of the plaza itself. It was a little one-story frame building, and passed subsequently through a variety of uses. In the Winter of 1847–48 it was used for religious purposes. The first regularly organized Protestant congregation in San Francisco held its services there. K.

Source: Edward Kemble, “San Francisco, 1848, First Drops of the Golden Shower,” Sacramento Daily Union, March 22, 1873.