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First deposit of California gold at the Philadelphia Mint - via Boston resident
RogerB
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This is a photo of the receipt for the first officially recognized deposit of California gold at the Philadelphia Mint made on December 8, 1848.
U.S. Mint
Philadelphia
December 11, 1848
Mr. David Carter
Boston
Dear Sir,
I enclose you the statement of the value of your deposit of the California gold you made at the Mint. The fineness you will see approximates that of standard gold, which is 900/1000 and the aggregate value is $32,581.41.
Very respectfully,
Your obedient servant
/s/ James Ross Snowden, Treasurer
6
Comments
What was the price/oz during that time?
$32,581.41 must be a lot of gold weight-wise.
Roughly 1,750 ounces - it looks like it beat Mason's 228-ounce deposit by a week or so. According to some reports, the Mormons were already striking Eagles when this deposit arrived in Philadelphia.
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What fun that must have been to get all that cash for gold.
Now at current spot it is about $2.17 million.
Round the horn or cross country, moving fast for the time. Thanks nice document.
All that I can say at this juncture in time is................. I truly wish that I had more time to read and learn from your very informative posts .
Thanks very much @RogerB
Thanks for all of your research, transcription, and posting the info here for us
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PS
I'm quite sure that I am not related to 'David Carter'
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Interesting, thanks for sharing !!!
A very interesting piece of American history, thanks.
That's fascinating, like many of your posts from our numismatic history, Mr Burdette.
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There was an earlier deposit of California gold, sent to the Philadelphia Mint on December 7,
1847, by Beach Brothers of New York City. The total weight was 22,572 dwts (pennyweights)
10 grs (grains), which translates to 1128.62 Troy ounces. The purity and value are not available.
Why this deposit was not recognized as the first from California is not clear but may be due to
California still being part of Mexico until the Treaty of Peace was signed. The deposit predates
the Sutter discovery and may represent gold from another area of California.
These letters make me want to get my gold panning equipment and metal detectors out for a trip out west.... I really enjoyed that when I lived there....Never struck it rich, but have a couple of small nuggets....no idea what happened to the vials of gold dust...well, I have an idea
Cheers, RickO
A possible source for the 1847 gold shipment from California:
From 1842 to 1847 there were several thousand people, mostly Mexican, working at gold mines at Rancho San Francisco in the Los Angeles mountains.
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Fascinating. Why was this kept quiet? It would make sense that the U.S. would not want Mexico to say "Wait a minute! We don't want to give that up!"
Makes me wonder how much Washington knew before it started the Mexican War of 1846:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mexican–American_War
I would assume that a ship of the Pacific Squadron brought the gold back around the Horn?
$20.6767 per Troy ounce, pure
RE: Earlier gold from California. The Mexican gold mining was relatively modest and California was well off any trade route. Mexico had established silver and gold mines elsewhere. Mexico was also politically unstable as was most of post-Spanish central and south America. The portions of land ceded by Mexico were considered to be worthless tracts too vast, and useless to be of any real value. The United States had a stable government, an open immigration policy, and a general goal of continental expansion and control. The War of 1812 was about attempting to annex Ontario and eastern British colonies; the Oregon Treaty of 1846 resolved potential armed conflict during which the US wanted to acquire all of what are now British Columbia and Yukon. The Mexican War gained most the present US southwest to abut Texas, and the Alaskan purchase captured the last large piece of available North America. US money was dominant throughout the western continent. If there had been no US Civil War, we might have acquired British Columbia, Yukon, NW Territories, Alberta and Saskatchewan by economic default.
Historical note. Col. Mason was reluctant to do anything until the Treaty with Mexico was signed. He had been aware of the gold finds at Sutter's lumber mill and Lt. Sherman visited Sutter in June, while California remained under Mexican law. It was evidently Sherman who convinced Mason to make a first-hand discovery tour of parts of Northern California. "Mason procured specimens of gold from the various districts or the mines, and in addition purchased in San Francisco about two hundred and thirty ounces (as representative of the Sacramento area) for Lieutenant Loeser to carry to Washington with his official report." [Fayette Robinson, “California and its Gold Regions.” p.46.; also Mason's full report.]
(Mason reported 13 places where he obtained gold as gifts or at $10-$12 per ounce, but not the quantities at each location. As is clear in the transmittal letter, Mason was not fully convinced of the quality of gold. However, Sherman had seen and handled gold dust in Georgia, and knew what the miners were digging was not pyrite.)
See the final thread in this series regarding disposition of the War Department gold.
Why was it not until December 8 that the first “California gold” was received at the Philadelphia Mint?
The Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo, which came into effect July 4, 1848 ceded northern territories of Alta California and Santa Fe de Nuevo México to the United States. The US had occupied Alta and Baja California, but was only interested in California south to just beyond San Diego harbor. Substantive word of California becoming part of the United States reached Col. Mason in early August, hence the report to Washington. Official notice arrived in September.
These events meant that all gold from California and New Mexico was simply “foreign gold” until the treaty came into effect. These deposits would not have been differentiated from any other foreign source of bullion.
I am way late to the party on this post, but I had also found an earlier reference to California gold being deposited at the Philadelphia mint in June, 1843, though only 28 ounces. Another reason I find 1840's Philadelphia gold fascinating.
Very Interesting! Thanks!
I am surprised that the fineness was so high. Wasn't the average close to 887?
Sure I’d guess 885-887
As a side note of course some
great pioneer gold got melted
For example on April 8 1850
27.21 ozs of Norris Gregg Norris
coins were deposited for melting at the P Mint.
893 1/2 Fine
In 1843, Mexican California was a lot bigger than the later US state. Could have come from anyplace.
I wonder why we never had a mint in Boston?
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The first mint was in Philadelphia because that was the political, commercial and approx. geographic center of the early USA. The two gold-only mints were added to capture US gold for coinage and avoid export. The New Orleans Mint was intended to interdict Mexican and newly-independent Central and South American countries that inherited Spanish mines and bullion smugglers.
New York City wanted a mint at the same time as California, but that would have created supply problems at Philadelphia, and there were major problems in fitting our NYC space for a mint. California won because of the mass of gold produced there and along the entire western North America. The US maintained hope of swiping the large, rich western Canadian Provinces for which San Francisco was a very convenient gold mint.
I've never seen a letter from anyone in Boston asking for a Mint. Lots of other places wanted one - Nome, Alaska, St. Louis, etc.
Isn't that really the place of the first American mint? Where the NE, oak, williow and pine tree shillings were made? Yeah, I know not the US Mint, but still had a mint there...
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New England and the Middle States had vibrant, diverse economies and sufficient population density for commercial growth. This encouraged all sorts of economic activity including private and state coinage. The Southern States had very tiny, localized economies based on large agricultural plantations and slave labor. In many ways, it was a static, isolated, no-growth economic system that discouraged change.