This talk will cover the geological and historical background of the Gold Rush illustrated with quotes from an unpublished family diary.
John Langdon is a retired professor of Biology and Anthropology from the University of Indianapolis. He is also a genealogist and family historian. He is a Scientech Club member who has presented several programs to the Club.
Program: California Gold
Speaker: John Langdon, PhD, Professor Emeritus of Biology and Anthropology (retired), University of Indianapolis, Scientech Club member
Introduced By: Rick Whitener
Attendance: NESC: 93 ; Zoom: 26
Guest(s): Darrel Allen, Steve McCuen, Geoff McCuen, Kathleen Tobey
Scribe: Terry Ihnat
Editor: Bill Elliott
Talk’s Zoom recording found at: https://www.scientechclubvideos.org/zoom/11242025.mp4
The speaker was john Langdon, retired professor from the University of Indianapolis. Dr. Langdon had a great great uncle who went to the California gold rush and chronicled his experiences. He was Joseph Warren Wood.
Gold is found in the earth’s core and comes to the surface as magma due to tectonic plate activity, which was what happened in the Sierras. There were deep valleys and rivers running out of the Sierras, which carried the products of the cold magma into the rivers. Gold was one of these.
In 1848 Gold was discovered at Sutter’s Mill. Word did not travel much in the U.S. for about a year; however, word had spread across the Pacific and people came from China, Indonesia, Australia, Mexico, Peru, and Chile.
The next year word spread in the U.S. and people came from the East. cross country via wagon train, around the tip of South America and across the Isthmus of Panama. That particular route was dangerous because of yellow fever and malaria, though they all had their dangers.
The U.S. miners from the Eastern U.S. found that the gold deposits in the streams had been, in many cases, picked clean by foreign miners in the previous year. One of the methods they used was panning for gold to separate the gravel from the gold. This was very inefficient. Other methods that were found to accomplish the same task was a wooden rocker which processed more dirt with an increased yield, a washer which used water to help separate gravel from gold and even a water cannon, efficient but dangerous. Mercury was also plentiful, and it was found that gold would stick to the mercury, forming an amalgam. This amalgam was later heated to vaporize the mercury, to separate the gold, then cool the vapor to retrieve the mercury .
Some of the difficulties the miners experienced were discomfort due to poor housing and food, a deluge due to extremely high rainfall, diseases such as cholera and malaria which killed 20% of the miners within six months of arrival, disappointment due to poor results of mining, dispossession where the Americans blamed their failures on the foreigners and had them removed and committed genocide of native Americans, dissipation whereby they lost their findings by gambling, an addiction just as can be mining.
Mr. Wood saw that he was not going to make his fortune in mining. He bought pack animals to help the miners move their equipment and later herded cattle to sell to the miners for food. He was paid in gold. He made a fortune and returned East via Nicaragua. He cashed in his gold at the Philadelphia mint and returned to Wisconsin and enjoyed a long life.
John Langdon, Ph. D.
