Describe the January 1848 discovery of gold at Sutter's Mill, the people involved, and how news of the discovery spread.
On January 24, 1848, a carpenter named James W. Marshall was building a sawmill for John Sutter -- the same John Sutter mentioned back in week 16 -- along the American River at Coloma, when he spotted flakes of gold glinting in the water. Sutter tried to keep the discovery quiet, worried it would bring a flood of strangers and ruin his land and business plans. He was right to worry, but he could not stop what was coming.
News leaked out slowly at first, then exploded. A San Francisco merchant named Sam Brannan is famous for walking through the city's streets holding up a bottle of gold dust, shouting the news to draw crowds -- and, not by accident, to bring customers to the mining-supply store he owned. By December 1848, President James K. Polk confirmed the discovery in an official message to Congress, and gold fever spread across the country and around the world. The California Gold Rush had begun.
Mastery looks like: They can name Marshall, Sutter, and Brannan's roles and state the date and location of the gold discovery.
Common stumbles: Mixing up Marshall (who found the gold) with Sutter (whose land it was on); forgetting how the news actually spread nationally.