Charles Adams wrote a book "The Magnificent Rogues of San Francisco" (1998, S.F. Library no.3 1223 05782 5599). He refers to a "A Short History of San Francisco" by Tom Cole in 1981, pg.26, that says James Marshall found gold in the mill stream at Sutters Mill on January 8, 1848. Somewhere I read that it was January 25, 1848. Does anyone have any reason to doubt these authors that it was January 8? Just curious.

-- Frances Gorman (Frangor@aol.com), June 13, 2002

Answers

This is just another example of which I have spoken of many times about IDIOT authors who don't verify facts and rely completely on their memories because they think that their intelligence is above reproach. Idiots, Complete IDIOTS. Tom Cole ought to be shot but in reality he has shot himself with that January 8th date. Who the hell is going to believe any word he says after that rediculous date. The Marshall date controversy goes like this: The problem is that Marshall himself said that he was absolutely sure he discovered Gold on January 19th 1848. John Sutter had a diary and in his diary it said that Marshall discovered Gold on the 19th. One of Marshall's workers also kept a diary and recorded that Marshall discovered Gold on the 19th. The problem with those recordings is that they may have been taken from Marshall's word and the question remains about Marshall's reliability since it was said that he couldn't even remember the exact year of his own birth. Surprisingly, there were many people who kept diaries who were there at Marshall's discovery of Gold and one of those people was Henry Bigler. Well, Henry Bigler was a very reliable person who had a habit of recording events in his diary as they were actually happening. In fact, he wrote in his diary something like the words that he must now make a recording of this discovery because it might prove to be of some importance and wrote the date as Monday the 24th of January and Henry Bigler's date is the date that is the one that most historians accept as being the most reliable date for Marshall's discovery.

-- Harry Murphy (harrymurphy*@bigmailbox.net), June 14, 2002.

Henry Biggler was a Mormon and most Mormons were very good a writing journals everyday about everything. If he said it was the 24th he can be trusted more than anyone else.

-- Christina Godfrey (Trackgulr213@aol.com), December 15, 2002.

ur the complete idiot ive never seen a bigger moron wit tits the size of pamela andersons. john sutter was a good man not an idiot

-- josh anthem (sudders@msn.com), May 16, 2003.