The California Gold Rush of 1849 Quiz

Answer: Switzerland

Sutter arrived in California in 1839 (California was then owned by Mexico), and he initially called his 48,827-acre land grant New Helvetia (Latin for New Switzerland). He later built Sutter's Fort on a part of New Helvetia (he also had a penchant for wearing military uniforms). After the discovery of gold, he swore his workmen to secrecy to prevent being overrun by gold prospectors, but it was hard to contain that kind of news. The secrecy lasted about a week!

Historical note:
Thousands of prospectors did get rich in the California Gold Rush, but John Sutter wasn't one of them. After the news got out, his property was indeed overrun by prospectors, just as he had feared. He had to abandon his land, and then began a decades-long campaign to have the US government reimburse him for his financial losses. He was unsuccessful in that and died in Washington D.C. a man of modest means. (He is buried in Lititz, Pennsylvania, his last home). Kind of ironic end for a man who owned the land where gold was discovered!

Answer: Saw mill

Marshall's description of the find: "I reached my hand down and picked it up; it made my heart thump, for I was certain it was gold. The piece was about half the size and shape of a pea. Then I saw another."

Historical note:
The initial rush of prospectors to the area from the eastern U.S. and numerous foreign countries is generally considered to have occurred during the years approximately late 1848 to 1855, but gold prospecting continued for many years after that initial rush. The early prospectors made most of the strikes.

Answer: More than 145 pounds

Gold nuggets were something I always thought you could hold in the palm of your hand, so researching this question was a real eye opener for me! Sources differ on how much this nugget weighed, but I'd be satisfied with any of them. As hard as it may be to imagine, most sources say it weighed 195 pounds (for the one nugget)! They all do agree it was found in 1854 at Carson Hill in Calaveras County, California.

Historical note:
Another huge gold nugget was the "Welcome Stranger" nugget found near the town of Dunolly in Victoria, Australia in 1869. Most sources say that find was by two Cornish immigrant prospectors working near the roots of a tree when a mining pick struck what was thought to be a rock. The "rock" turned out to be a gold nugget that weighed about 71-72 kilograms (about 156-158 pounds)! The "Holtermann" mass of gold (also found in Australia, in 1872) was even larger, but it can't really be called a nugget. Technically, it is what is called a matrix, sometimes called reef gold.

Answer: Digging mine shafts

Gold found in nature is in two basic forms: alluvial gold (sometimes called placer gold) and reef gold (sometimes called lode gold). Alluvial gold has been washed out of the underground deposit and is usually found loose in creeks and streams as nuggets or flakes. Reef gold is found in underground veins, often intermingled with quartz deposits. Alluvial (placer) gold is recovered by panning, sluicing, using a rocker cradle or dredging. Reef (lode) gold is mined by digging mine shafts. Alluvial (placer) gold is usually only a small portion of the total deposit, so discoveries of it often lead to digging mine shafts in nearby areas to try to find the reef gold it came from.

Historical note:
One of the especially destructive methods developed to mine gold was hydraulic mining. High-pressure water jets were used to wash away everything the jet was aimed at. In 1884 the practice was banned in California because it was so destructive of the environment.

Answer: James Polk

President James Polk (11th president of the US) oversaw some major changes in the boundary of the US during his one term in office (1845-1849). In late 1845 the Republic of Texas joined the US as the 28th state. The Treaty of 1846 with Britain divided the Oregon Country along the 49th parallel between the US and Canada (resulting in all of present day Washington, Oregon and Idaho and part of Montana and Wyoming). The treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo ended the Mexican-American War in late 1848, transferring to the US much of northern Mexico (including all of present day California, Nevada and Utah and part of Arizona, New Mexico, Colorado and Wyoming).

Historical note:
Zachary Taylor was one of the US commanding generals during the Mexican-American War (along with Winfield Scott). And just like Dwight Eisenhower many years later, Taylor rode his war popularity into the White House to become the 12th president of the USA. The rest of Arizona and New Mexico came from the Gadsden Purchase from Mexico in 1853 during the administration of Franklin Pierce (14th president of the US). The slogan of "54-40 or fight!" in Polk's 1844 presidential campaign referred to a higher parallel than the 49th that was finally agreed on. (If 54-40 had prevailed, the city of Vancouver, British Columbia would be in the USA, not Canada.)

Answer: Guadalupe Hidalgo

The slow transmission of news in those days was a pretty big factor in Mexico agreeing to this! The treaty was signed 2 February 1848 in Mexico City, transferring much of northern Mexico (including all of California) to the US. Gold was discovered in California on 24 January 1848.

Historical note:
General Antonio López de Santa Anna (of Alamo fame) led Mexican troops in the Mexican-American War. The first line in the U.S. Marine Corps hymn ("From the Halls of Montezuma...") comes from this war. One of the final battles in this war was the difficult Battle of Chapultepec. (The Chapultepec fortress was also known as the Halls of Montezuma).

Answer: Heavy-duty pants (later with copper rivets at stress points)

Levi Strauss arrived in San Francisco in 1853 at age 24 with the intent of opening a branch of his brothers' New York dry goods business. According to a Smithsonian Channel TV biography, Strauss relative Douglas Goldman says the following oft-repeated story about the pants' origination is a widely-known fable but isn't true. According to the fable, he brought with him some merchandise he hoped to sell in the California mining camps, including some rough canvas to use for tents and wagon covers. When informed that miners couldn't find a pair of pants strong enough to last, he used the canvas to instead make pants and they were an immediate success. Goldman says this is just a frequently-repeated fable. For the likely story of the origin of the pants, see historical note below.

Historical note:
Jacob Davis, a tailor who worked in the mining town of Reno, Nevada reported to his fabric supplier Levi Strauss in 1872 that he had discovered heavy-duty work pants could be improved if the pocket seams and other weak points that tended to tear were strengthened by copper rivets. Davis didn't have the money for the necessary patent paperwork, and suggested that if Strauss provided the funds the two men could get the patent together. That patent was granted to both men on 20 May 1873 (US Patent No. 139,121). He later became production manager when Strauss began large-scale production of his pants. The blue color and heavyweight denim we know today came later.

Answer: Central America

A huge shipment of gold bullion, nuggets and uncirculated gold coins (mostly Eagles and Double Eagles) from the California gold rush (30,000 pounds of it) sank to the ocean floor in September 1857 when the side-wheel steamship SS Central America was battered by a fierce hurricane off the coast of the Carolinas. The complete pictorial chronicle of the recovery of the Central America and its gold treasures in 1987-88 is described in the book "America's Lost Treasure." This story is also told in a History Channel TV show entitled "Ship of Gold." If you would like to see pictures of the gold recovered, search on the internet for: Central America Eagles gold and choose Images in the results.

Historical note:
The three wrong answers were ships that were famous for some other event, but not this one. Also, all the wrong answers were sailing vessels. Gold was recovered when the sunken Spanish galleon Atocha was salvaged by Mel Fisher in 1985, but that gold was from South America (it sank in 1622). The Golden Hind (sometimes called the Golden Hinde) was an English sailing ship captained by Sir Francis Drake, which was perhaps best known for its circumnavigation of the globe between 1577 and 1580. HMS Beagle was a sailing ship in the British Royal Navy, which is perhaps best known for carrying the young naturalist Charles Darwin on his voyage of discovery (including his famous observations on the Galapagos Islands). This loss was a big factor in causing the Financial Panic of 1857.

Answer: The Hanging Tree

Marty Robbins' hit song "The Hanging Tree" is featured during the opening credits of this 1959 movie and is included in his album "Gunfighter Ballads and Trail Songs." If you would like to hear this song, search for: Marty Robbins Hanging Tree and choose YouTube in the results. Although the gold-mining camp in this movie is actually set in Montana in 1873, it is typical of the camps in California during the gold rush.

In the 1960 Academy Awards "The Hanging Tree" was nominated for Best Music, Original Song, but the Oscar was won by the song "High Hopes" in the movie "A Hole in the Head." Gary Cooper, Karl Malden and George C. Scott have been nominated for ten Oscars between them (won four), but none for this movie (although Gary Cooper did win a minor acting award for "The Hanging Tree").

Historical note:
Frank Sinatra adapted and recorded a special version of the tune "High Hopes" as a campaign song for John F. Kennedy's 1960 US presidential campaign ("...Jack is on the right track, 'cause he has high hopes...").

Answer: American Football

The San Francisco Forty Niners are a pro team that plays American-style NFL football. They took their team name from the phrase used to label the gold prospectors who rushed to California in 1849.

Historical note:
The San Francisco 49ers advanced all the way to Super Bowl XLVII (played in February 2013), but they lost to the Baltimore Ravens by the score of 34-31. This game was informally called the "Harbaugh Bowl" because the two head coaches were brothers (Jim and John Harbaugh, respectively).