Gone gold mad
by Bill Miller for
the Mail Tribune
Monday, September 9th
2019
George Curry, publisher of the Oregon
Free Press, had every reason to worry. His newspaper was barely five months old
and Curry already sensed he was in trouble.
“Nothing like the present furor has
been known in our age. Sincerely do we hope it may end well.”
Fired as editor of the rival Oregon
Spectator newspaper for refusing to “go along” with that paper’s full support
of Oregon’s first governor, George Abernathy, Curry told his new readers that
his paper was different and would “maintain the people’s rights, unawed by
influence, and unbridled by gain.”
However, it would not “end well.”
 |
| California Gold Rush |
At the end of the previous January, a
sparkle in the sand left by raging currents of an ice-cold California river had
changed the world. George Marshall had discovered gold.
For nearly six months, the discovery
had been a virtual secret, but now, everyone knew, and the desire to get rich
fast without the usual daily routine of labor and business was irresistible.
The California gold mania was a magnet
that almost instantly pulled the younger male population into packs of mindless
lemmings, forsaking family and home for a chance to beat all comers in a
headlong race to dig into the soil and pan the rivers. Delay left too much to
lose.
“But, what the deuce are to become of
such poor fellows as ourself,” Curry said, “who, unfortunately, belong to the
‘Can’t Get Away Club?’”
 |
| 49ers of the California Gold Rush |
For Curry, it meant his newspaper would
fail before the end of the year.
His Oregon Spectator rival, losing all
of its printing crew, couldn’t print a newspaper for five weeks. Still, they
managed to hold on. When it resumed publication they offered an apology to
their readers.
“The Spectator, after a temporary
sickness, greets its patrons, and hopes to serve them faithfully, and as
heretofore, regularly. That ‘gold fever,’ which has swept about 3,000 of the
officers, lawyers, physicians, farmers and mechanics of Oregon, from the plains
of Oregon into the mines of California, took away our printers also — hence the
temporary non-appearance.”
It’s believed nearly two-thirds of
Oregon’s male population headed south on ships, horses and on foot. The steady
stream of immigrants arriving in Oregon over the previous eight years slowed
dramatically. At least 25,000 immigrants arrived in California during the year
1849; more than all of the immigrants who came West between 1841 and 1848.
Perhaps a bit too confidently, the
Spectator’s editor, Aaron Wait, tried to calm everyone’s fears by predicting
Oregon’s ultimate triumph over the situation and over California.
“Oregon is temporarily injured by
reason of so many of her citizens having left for the purpose of gold digging,
but only temporarily. Nothing short of an interposition of Providence can
prevent a dense population of Oregon, when the climate, soil, and her
advantages shall be properly appreciated.”
Curry also tried to be optimistic,
believing that California was destined to become a land of “gold without
labor.” While Californian’s dug for their gold, he said, Oregon could claim a
ready market for her produce and labor.
“Indeed, we think our sister
California, with all her treasure, is in an unenviable ‘fix.’ Her people have
gone ‘gold mad.’ Though her mines be ever so valuable and unfailing, they must
make her a dependent country.”
Of course, it didn’t work out that way,
but who’s complaining?
Still, you can’t help wondering what
would have happened if Oregon instead of California had all of that gold.
My guess is that the way it worked out
makes most Oregonians more than happy and not at all envious.
Writer Bill Miller is the author of
“History Snoopin’,” a collection of his previous history columns and stories.
Reach him at newsmiller@live.com.
