they learned that they had been forestalled by the United
States forces in California, and they then determined to settle
down where they were. Therefore, when this battalion of five
companies of Mormons (raised by Allen, who died on the way, and was
succeeded by Cooke) was discharged at Los Angeles, California, in
the early summer of 1847, most of the men went to their people at
Salt Lake, with all the money received, as pay from the United
States, invested in cattle and breeding-horses; one company
reenlisted for another year, and the remainder sought work in the
country. As soon as the fame of the gold discovery spread through
California, the Mormons naturally turned to Mormon Island, so that
in July, 1848, we found about three hundred of them there at work.
Sam Brannan was on hand as the high-priest, collecting the tithes.
Clark, of Clark's Point, an early pioneer, was there also, and
nearly all the Mormons who had come out in the Brooklyn, or who had
staid in California after the discharge of their battalion, had
collected there. I recall the scene as perfectly to-day as though
it were yesterday. In the midst of a broken country, all parched
and dried by the hot sun of July, sparsely wooded with live-oaks
and straggling pines, lay the valley of the American River, with
its bold mountain-stream coming out of the Snowy Mountains to the
east. In this valley is a fiat, or gravel-bed, which in high water
is an island, or is overflown, but at the time of our visit was
simply a level gravel-bed of the river. On its edges men were
digging, and filling buckets with the finer earth and gravel, which
was carried to a machine made like a baby's cradle, open at the
foot, and at the head a plate of sheet-iron or zinc, punctured full
of holes. On this metallic plate was emptied the earth, and water
was then poured on it from buckets, while one man shook the cradle
with violent rocking by a handle. On the bottom were nailed cleats
of wood. With this rude machine four men could earn from forty to
one hundred dollars a day, averaging sixteen dollars, or a gold
ounce, per man per day. While the' sun blazed down on the heads of
the miners with tropical heat, the water was bitter cold, and all
hands were either standing in the water or had their clothes wet
all the time; yet there were no complaints of rheumatism or cold.
We made our camp on a small knoll, a little below the island, and
from it could overlook the busy scene.