We have worked on John Sutter’s sawmill for a long time, but this day was not like other days. When I walked around the mill I looked down in the dirty ground, I saw something yellow metal was lying on the ground. I picked it up and analysed it. It was gold! I didn’t say it to the men at the sawmill. As fast as I could, I catch my horse rode 48 miles on horseback to see the mill’s owner John Sutter.
John Sutter said that I had found gold. We agreed to keep it a secret. We knew that if the men on Sutter’s mill heard about the gold they would stop work and begin look for the gold.
May 1, 1849
Today Sam Brannan ran through the streets. He yelled: ’’Gold, gold there is gold in the American River.’’
Later president Polk said there was gold in California.
May 3 1850
I didn’t have the time to write in my diary for a whole year.
The secret about the gold got out. Thousands of people travelled to the west. We call them “forty-niners”, because they started coming in 1849. The fortune-hunters came not only to California, but all over the west.
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