On January 24, 1848, at Sutter's Mill in Coloma California, Jim Marshall saw a yellow object glistening in the mill race. Picking it up he found it to be a small nugget of gold. Thus began the California gold rush.
Every color, nationality and class was represented in the Forty-Niners - young men of rich families shopkeepers, farmers, workman, including a large number of criminals of the worst type.
Many who started for California in the gold rush died on the way, and all suffered extreme hardships.
Word of this great find also reached Crittenden County and several from this area went to find their fortune. There is very little to be found about who traveled from Crittenden County to California, we have a few names. Some of the men that traveled to the west were: Tom Robinson, George Boaz, George Adams, William Barnes, Jim Barnes and William H. Franklin. We do not know if all the men that returned to Crittenden and Livingston counties struck it rich in the gold fields or not, but they were considered to be men of influence in the business world at their deaths. I wish they had shared their adventures when they returned to Crittenden.
To add some more history and information on this subject, from the Crittenden-Record Press – May 26, 1905 was the following article.
A Gathering of Veterans of the Plains
Wednesday was a bright pleasant day and with the beginning of the day there was clustered around the entrance to the New Marion Hotel a small bunch of men with snow white hair and frosty beard. There were ten in all and it represented almost all of those who survived of the many who crossed the western plains from 1849 to 1852 to seek a fortune in the California gold fields, and who at this time reside within fifty miles of Marion. They have a little organization, which they call "The Forty-Niners", and they had gathered here to hold their annual reunion.
After spending the forenoon in making inquiries, one of the other, of some friend of the plains, and calling up incidents that happened on the plains, they then followed their chairman and historian John Montgomery of Providence in the dining room of the New Marion Hotel where with a few invited guests they partook of a bountiful repast.
After the noon hour they met in session to reorganize and Montgomery was re-elected chairman. Time was then devoted to the calling up of events of the plains, and Rev. James F. Price of this city, one of the guests, was called upon to read Montgomery's history of the trip across the plains. The various parties that crossed the great plains and the great mountains from the Mississippi Valley to California from 1849 to 1852, made the trip in about six months. The parties making this journey consisted of from ten to twenty-five in each party.
The names of pioneers attending this meeting, together with their age and place of residence, is as follows:
John Montgomery, 72, Providence
Judge J. F. Ingram, 70, Princeton
Robert B. Nunn, 73, Owensboro
D. L. Bryan, 72, Marion
James R. Stalion, 79, Carrsville
James A. Trimble, 70, Carrsville
George M. Cash, 78, Kuttawa
Thomas Robinson, 75, Lola
B. J. Spratt, 81, Princeton
Marcus Dunkerson, Lisman
After the meeting, the "Forty-Niners" thanked the citizens of Marion for their interest and the many courtesies shown them, and hoped to meet them in Marion again soon.
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