James Marshall

“That James W. Marshall picked up the first piece of gold, is beyond doubt. Peter L. Weimer, who resides in this place, states positively that Mr. Marshall picked up the gold in his presence.”
The Coloma Argus Newspaper – 1855

Prospectors and settlers were amazed at the ease with which gold was recovered among the rocks and streams of the California foothills in early 1848. The first gold was discovered by James Wilson Marshall, a carpenter by trade and an employee of Captain John A. Sutter. Marshall was wandering along the bank of the American River where he was building a sawmill when he noticed a peculiar golden stone in the bedrock. It was a find that changed the course of western history.
By most accounts James Marshall was a surly man who kept to himself. He was born in Lambertsville, New Jersey in 1810 and from an early age worked with his father learning the trade of carpentry, carriage making and wheel righting. In 1828, he left home to start his own life. He settled in the Midwest farming on land in Kansas, Indiana and Illinois.
Farming proved to be an unsuccessful venture for him and in 1844 he headed west along the Oregon Trail to Puget Sound. Later he traveled down the Sacramento River arriving in California in 1845. He quickly found work at Sutter’s Fort and in a short time had acquired several acres of land and livestock.
Towards the end of August 1847, Captain Sutter and Marshall formed a co-partnership to build and operate a sawmill on a site 54 miles east of the fort. Mr. P.L. Weimer and his family were hired on to accompany Marshall to the location to cook and labor for the builders constructing the mill. The building began around Christmas and gold was discovered a little more than a month later. Marshall glanced down into the river water and something caught his eye. He leaned forward to get a better look and saw something shining in the gravel. “Gold!” Could it be gold?” He said to himself.
Marshall showed the rock to the workers around him. Many of them suspected the material to be iron pyrite, or fool’s gold. Marshall decided to return to Sutter’s Fort to verify the discovery. Before he left he swore the mill workers to secrecy. In exchange for their silence they would be given the chance to prospect on Sundays and after work.
As Marshall rode swiftly across the beautiful countryside towards the Fort he was troubled by a complication with the land where the gold was found. The property was purchased by Captain Sutter from Mexico and the local Indians, but since the sale of the land California had become a territory of the United States. Marshall was concerned the United States government would not honor Sutter’s prior claim once the gold strike was made public. When Marshall unveiled his findings to Sutter, Sutter was sure that the rock was gold and he too was concerned about the claim. Marshall’s hope was that the news of the discovery would be kept quiet long enough for Sutter to be granted full legal title with the new government. It was not to be however. Marshall and Sutter’s employees began to talk, sharing the news of the find with teamsters and trappers. Within 6 weeks of the discovery Sutter’s entire staff at the fort had deserted him and Marshall’s workers abandoned the mill.
Marshall informed the new prospectors in the area that he and Sutter owned a 12 mile tract of land along the river banks. He charged them 10 percent of their take for the privilege of working the gravel. His claim discouraged many miners, but when some of them made their way to San Francisco with full pockets the rush was on. A band of frustrated miners who felt they were being denied access to the gold defied Marshall. They overtook the half completed mill and killed several men who sided with Marshall.
After being pushed off the stake that he found, Marshall left the area in disgust. He traveled around Northern California searching for another strike, but was never fortunate enough to locate one. Marshall returned to the Coloma area in 1857 where he bought some land and started a vineyard. High taxes and increased competition eventually drove him out of business.
In 1872, the California State Legislature awarded Marshall with a 2 year pension. The funds were in recognition of his role in the Gold Rush. The $200 a year pension was renewed in 1874 and 1876, but lapsed in 1878.
James Marshall died a pauper on August 10, 1885, in Kelsey, California. He was 73 years-old. He was buried in Coloma near the site of the vineyard he once owned. The monument atop his grave features a granite stature of Marshall pointing towards the place he found the glittery substance that dazzled a nation.

In 1848 San Francisco newspapers were read so thoroughly by excited citizens in the East that only scraps remained. Front pages were filled with encouraging words about a significant find at Sutter’s Mill on the American River in California. “The streams are paved with gold,” the report read, “the mountains swell in their golden girdle. It sparkles in the sand of the valleys, it glitters in the coronets of the steep cliffs.” The news brought ambitious miners from all over the world to the area to get rich. Michael Brennan, an Irishman from New York, arrived in the Gold Country in late 1850 determined to find the mother lode. The well-educated man convinced the management of the Mount Hope Mining Company in Grass Valley, California, that he had a gift for locating major gold veins. He was quickly hired and made the company’s superintendent. After moving his wife and children into a modest home near the mine, Brennan went to work. For two years Brennan and his team of diggers searched for gold, but the rich strike eluded him. He was racked with guilt over the money the mine owners had invested in his efforts and believed he had disgraced his family in the process. On February 21, 1858, in a fit of melancholy and dejection, Brennan decided to end the pain he was feeling. The suicide note he wrote sadly stated he “could not bear to leave his family behind living in poverty.” Using prussic acid, he poisoned his wife and children and them himself. A pistol was found lying next to Brennan’s body along with the vile of poison. Authorities determined that he had intended to shoot himself if the acid was not effective. The entire family was laid to rest side by side at the Elm Ridge Cemetery in Grass Valley, California. A single marker listing the names and ages of all five of the Brennans covers the grave. Michael was 38, his wife was 32, and their three children ranged in age from seven to two-years-old.

The barroom at the Hotel Carey in Wichita, Kansas, was extremely busy most nights. Cowhands and trail riders arrived by following the smell of whiskey and the sound of an inexperienced musician playing an out-of-tune piano inside the saloon. Beyond the swinging doors awaited a host of well-used female companions and an assortment of alcohol to help drown away the stresses of life on the rugged plains. Patrons were too busy drinking, playing cards, or flirting with soiled doves to notice the stout, six-foot-tall woman enter the saloon. She wore a long black alpaca dress and bonnet and carried a Bible. Almost as if she were offended by the obvious snub, the matronly newcomer loudly announced her presence. As it was December 23, 1900, she shouted, “Glory to God! Peace on earth and good will to men!” At the conclusion of her proclamation, she hurled a massive brick at the expensive mirror hanging behind the bar and shattered the center of it. As the stunned bartender and customers looked on, she pulled an iron rod from under her full skirt and began tearing the place apart. The sheriff was quickly sent for, and soon the violent woman was being escorted out of the business and marched to the local jail. As the door on her cell was slammed shut and locked, she yelled out to the men, “You put me in here a cub, but I will go out a roaring lion and make all hell howl.” Carrie Nation’s tirade echoed through the Wild West. For decades the lives of women from Kansas to California had been adversely affected by their husbands’, fathers’, and brothers’ abuse of alcohol. Carrie was one of the first to take such a public albeit forceful, stance against the problem. The Bible thumping, brick and bat-wielding Nation was a member of the Women’s Christian Temperance Union. The radical organization, founded in 1874, encouraged wives and mothers concerned about the effects of alcohol to join in the crusade against liquor and the sellers of the vile drink. Beginning in 1899, prior to Carrie’s outbursts, the group had primarily subscribed to peaceful protests. Carrie had been born Carrie Amelia Moore on November 25, 1846, in Garrard County, Kentucky. Her father was an itinerate minister who moved his wife and children from Kentucky to Texas, then on to Missouri and back again to Kentucky. Carried married in 1866. Her husband was a heavy drinker, and after their wedding she pleaded with him to stop. After six months of persistent nagging. Carrie’s husband still refused to give up the bottle. With a child on the way, she left him and returned home. He died of acute alcoholism one month before the baby boy was born. Not long after this death, Carrie remarried, but David Nation possessed the same love for alcohol. He was a lawyer and a minister who did not share in what he called “his wife’s archaic view” about liquor. Their differences of opinion not only interfered with their personal life but wrecked havoc on David’s professional life as well. The Nations moved to Texas, and Carrie immediately joined the Methodist church. Her outlandish beliefs and revelations prompted the members of the congregation to dismiss her. Carrie then formed her own religious group and held weekly meetings at the town cemetery. In 1889 Carrie insisted that David move her and their children to Medicine Lodge, Kansas. Kansas had a prohibition law, and Carrie believed the fact that liquor was outlawed would stop David from partaking of any libations. Determined Kansas residents found ways to drink and so did Reverend Nation. Drugstores and clubs sold whiskey in backrooms and alleys, calling the liquid medicine instead of alcohol. Carrie was outraged. Not only did she chastise members of her husband’s assembly in Sunday service, but she also scolded those whom she knew drank when she saw them on the street. Carrie believed the Lord had called her to take such drastic action against alcohol. According to her autobiography, The Use and Need of the Life of Carrie Nation, she felt it was her duty to defend the family home and fight for other women locked in marriages with excessive drinkers. At the age of fifty-three, she marched into a drugstore on the main street of Medicine Lodge and preached the evils of drink to all the customers. She was tossed out of the business, but a crowd of women who had gathered to inquire about the excitement applauded her efforts. Their response and the Women’s Christian Temperance Union members spurred her on. She continued to visit liquor stores until all the bars in town were effectively forced to close. Carrie Nation passed away on June 9, 1911, after collapsing during a speech at a park in Eureka Springs, Arkansas, at age sixty-five. The tombstone over her grave, erected by the Women’s Christian Temperance Union in 1924, reads Faithful To The Cause Of Prohibition, She Hath Done What She Could.

Legendary lawman William Barclay Masterson had a reputation for being a tough talker, an excellent shot, and a dandy dresser. He wore tailor-made suits and a derby hat and carried a gold-headed cane. He was a handsome, well-liked character with black hair and blue eyes who was extremely fast on the draw. Born in Illinois on November 22, 1855, Bat (as he was more commonly known) was the second of five brothers. His parents were homesteaders who moved their family to a prairie farm in Wichita, Kansas in 1871. At the age of nineteen, Bat persuaded two of his brothers to abandon farm life for a job hunting buffalo. The Masterson boys stuck together for a while, but the trip split up when his siblings decided to return home and Bat decided to continue on with the difficult work. For more than a year, Bat roamed from Topeka to the Texas Panhandle. He changed employment often: He was a section hand for the Santa Fe Railroad, a ranch hand, and an Indian scout for the army. After his first gunfight in January 1876, in which Bat killed a man who fired on him and the woman he was with, he headed for Dodge City. There he invested in the Lone Star Dance Hall on the main street of town, and the establishment proved to be profitable. Not long after Bat’s arrival in the rough-and-tumble town, he helped a prisoner escape from jail. He’d had too much to drink and involved himself in an arrest that had nothing to do with him. The town marshal gave Bat a beating that turned him around so much so Masterson decided he would never go against the law again. In fact, the incident opened his eyes to the possibility of a future as an officer of the law. Bat followed his brothers-one a marshal, the other a deputy-into the field of law enforcement. Bat campaigned hard for the position of Ford County sheriff deputy and was subsequently awarded the job. He was an effective lawman who tried to talk perpetrators into surrendering rather than resorting to gunplay. Using his fists and finesse, he persuaded many wrongdoers to “leave town peacefully” or “be carried out with a bullet hole in their chest.” Bat had an impressive and famous array of friends that included Wyatt Earp and Doc Holliday. Outlaws who knew of their association refused to tangle with Masterson for fear the Earp brothers and Holliday would come after them. Before Bat’s siblings were killed in the line of duty, the men participated in numerous posses that successfully tracked down and apprehended outlaws in the area. As such, the plains around Ford County during Masterson’s time in officer were relatively peaceful. A controversial act drove Bat out of law enforcement in April 1881. Bat was in Tombstone, Arizona when he got the news that one of his brother’s lives was being threatened by a ruthless businessman. He quickly made his way back to Dodge City and arrived just in time to face the bad guys on the street. Once the smoke cleared from the gun battle, Bat alone was left standing. He resigned from his position as an officer and left Kansas to see the West. He traveled through New Mexico, Utah, and Texas, earning his keep at each location by gambling. His natural gift for storytelling led to a job writing newspaper articles in Creede, Colorado, where his work was noticed by a correspondent for the New York Sun who helped him secure a position as a sportswriter for the New York Morning Telegraph in 1901. Bat returned to law enforcement in 1905 when President Theodore Roosevelt appointed the fifty-year-old man as a special United State marshal to the Oklahoma Territory. He did not hold the post long due to the prior commitment he had with the Morning Telegraph. Just before noon on October 25, 1921, Bat headed up 8th Avenue from his New York apartment to the newspaper office and wrote his column for the next day. He died of a heart attack fifteen minutes after he finished writing the article. He was found slumped over his desk with his pen in one hand and his column in the other. He was laid to rest at the Woodlawn Cemetery in New York. The tombstone over his grave carries his name, date of birth, and the words Loved By Everyone.

William H. Bonney, better known as Billy the Kid, drifted through New Mexico in the mid-1870s, defying the law and becoming famous in the process. By the time he turned age sixteen, he had killed one man and been jailed twice. Desperate circumstances and a misplaced sense of justice was what spurred Billy on toward his life of crime. Born in New York on November 23, 1859, Billy was the younger of two boys. His father died in 1864, leaving Billy’s mom alone to look after the children. In 1873 she moved her sons to Indiana, where she met and married a man named William Antrim. Antrim took his new wife and her family to Silver City, New Mexico. The four no sooner arrived than William Antrim abandoned his new family to prospect. Billy’s mother managed a hotel to support her boys, and Billy worked with her. In 1874 she was diagnosed with tuberculosis and died shortly thereafter. Billy was fourteen years old. Not long after his mother’s death, Billy had his first run-in with the law. The clothes he stole from a Chinese launderer’s business were meant to be a teenage prank, but the act was perceived as malicious theft to the local authorities. Wanting to teach Billy a lesson, the sheriff decided to lock him up. After spending two days in jail, Billy escaped and made his way to Arizona. In 1877 Billy was hired on at a sawmill at the Camp Grant Army Post. The blacksmith who worked at the military post was a bully of sorts and took an instant dislike to Billy. He frequently made fun of him, taunting him until the teenager snapped and called the blacksmith a name. That was the cue he was waiting for and he attacked Billy, and Billy shot him. He was arrested for the killing the following day and subsequently escaped. Billy roamed about New Mexico’s Pecos Valley in Lincoln County, working odd jobs at various ranches and farms. Wealthy English cattle barren John Tunstall eventually offered the restless young man full-time employment to watch his livestock. Billy took the job with great zeal-Tunstall was kind to him, and Billy appreciated his integrity. Not everyone felt that way about Tunstall. A pair of rival merchants and livestock owners who were resentful of his riches were determined to destroy the man and his holdings. The heated battle, which erupted between the established business owners and ranchers who had a monopoly on beef contracts for the army, and entrepreneurs such as John Tunstall, was referred to as the Lincoln County War. As an employee of John Tunstall’s, William Bonney found himself in the middle of the feud. It became a personal battle for him when the disgruntled ranchers had Tunstall gunned down. Billy first joined in with law enforcement to help bring the murderers in legally, but he ended up being jailed for interfering with the sheriff and his deputies. After his release Billy decided to take matters into his own hands and joined a posse bent on hunting down the killers. When the murderers were located, Billy and the other members the vendetta riders, known as the Regulators, shot them dead. The Lincoln County War ended in a fiery blaze on July 19, 1878, and a number of men were killed. Billy kept the Regulators together, and the boys ventured into cattle rustling. More people were killed along the way and Billy the Kid, as he was now called, was a wanted man. So Billy negotiated a deal with the governor of the state. If Billy turned himself in to the proper authorities and gave them information about those who participated in the Lincoln County War, he could go free. When the deal was agreed upon, Billy laid down his weapons and submitted to the arrest. After Billy was incarcerated, the district attorney went against the governor’s arrangement with the Kid and promised to see him hanged. An enraged Billy the Kid escaped from jail and went on the run-managing to elude the authorities for two years. In 1880 Pat Garrett was sworn in as the new Lincoln County sheriff and assigned the duty of apprehending Billy the Kid. He had a reputation as a determined lawman and expert tracker, and he was persistent in his efforts to bring the Kid to justice. After laying several traps for Bonney, Garrett arrested him in April 1881. Billy the Kid was tried, found guilty, and sentenced to be hanged, but he escaped before making it to the gallows. Garrett again pursued the young fugitive and caught up with him after two months. Billy the Kid was hiding at a ranch near Fort Sumner, New Mexico. Under the cover of darkness, Garrett waited for Billy to appear and then shot him on sight. “All this occurred in a moment,” Garrett later told journalists. “Quickly as possible I drew my revolver and fired, threw my body aside and fired again…the Kid fell dead. He never spoke,” Garrett explained. “A struggle or two, a little strangling sound as he gasped for breath, and the Kid was with his many victims.” Garrett went on to describe the scene of the outlaw’s demise as a sad occasion for those closest to him. “Within a very short time after shooting, quite a number of native people had gathered around, some of them bewailing the death of a friend, while several women pleaded for permission to take charge of the body, which we allowed them to do. They carried it across the yard to a carpenter’s shop, where it was laid out on a workbench, the women placing lighted candles around it according to their ideas of properly conducting a ‘wake for the dead.’” On July 16, 1881, the day after Billy the Kid was shot, he was buried at the Old Fort Sumner Cemetery (a military cemetery) in DeBaca County, New Mexico. He was placed in the same grave as his friends Tom O’Folliard and Charles Bowdre. Both boys had been shot and killed by Garrett and his men in December 1880. The single tombstone over the plot lists the three desperados’ names and the word PALS. You’ll find more stories about the deaths and burials of the Old West’s most nefarious outlaws, notorious women, and celebrated lawmen in the book Tales Behind the Tombstones.