HISTORY OP CALIFORNIA. 



57 



ment, and founded the settlement known as Slitter's 

 Fort. Upon his land, the first discovery of the rich 

 ness of the soil was made, and his house and the 

 settlement around it has been, ever since, the resort 

 of persons going to and from the placers, and a depot 

 for provisions ^nd articles used by the miners. Stores 

 and workshops have been established, and a consider 

 able amount of business is transacted there. Captain 

 Sutter is held in very great respect by the people of 

 the settlement and those stopping at his house on the 

 road to the placers. Several versions of the account 

 of the discovery of the gold mines have been circu 

 lated, but the true one, in the Captain's own words, 

 is given in a work recently published.* The account 

 is here inserted, both on account of the interest con 

 nected with the discovery, and in order to correct 

 wrong versions of the matter. 



"I was sitting one afternoon," said the Captain, 

 "just after my siesta, engaged, by-the-bye, in writing 

 a letter to a relation of mine at Lucerne, when I was 

 interrupted by Mr. Marshall a gentleman with whom 

 I had frequent business transactions bursting hur 

 riedly into the room. From the unusual agitation in 

 his manner, I imagined that something serious had 

 occurred, and, as we involuntarily do in this part of 

 the world, I at once glanced to see if my rifle was in 

 its proper place. You should know that the mere 

 appearance of Mr. Marshall at that moment in the 

 fort was quite enough to surprise me, as he had but 

 two days before left the place to make some altera 

 tions in a mill for sawing pine planks, which he had 

 just run up for me, some miles higher up the Ameri- 



* Four Months Among the Gold Finders of California, by J. Tyr- 

 whit Brooks, M. D. 



