A GOLD FINDER'S DEATH.

Lake Wakatip Mail, Issue 1525, 2 April 1886, Page 3

A GOLD FINDER'S DEATH.

Could tnything be more pathetic than this brief notice that comes to us from Plncpnille, California? "Aug. 12. 1885, James W Marshall, the discoverer of gold in California, died on Monday at his home in Kelsey. He was 74 years old. and died a poverty strickpn, disappointed man." This was, says a New York paper, the man whose discovery in 18iS made the State of California and led to that production of gold that has since then amounted to one thousand sii hundred million dollars. Many a time since that fateful I8»h of January ha* the unfortunate man cursed the day he found the elittering nugget in the mill-race at Coloms, and full of golden dreams flflw with the news to hfs partner, General Sutter. Alas for the golden dreams, and for the happiness ot industrious obscurity! His discovery was his great misfortune —a veritable curse through life. Adventurers flocked in from every part of the world. They dispossessed him of bis hard earned property and coolly appropriated his booses. His cattle were killed by tbe starving miaer*, bis claims were "jumped j" and, surrptitiously credited with tome mysterious power of

finding gol 1, the unfortunate discover-1 er was for erer tracked and dogged by men whom disappointed avarice made demons. Again and again he sought to elude them, and would steal off in search of some unexplored gulch, where in peace he hoped to find the millions, the vision of which for ever burned in his brain; but go where he would he conld work but a few hours, when a stream of men poured in upon him and took up the claims above and below him, and finally, disappointed, they would even drive him from the little spot he selected. He was always unfortunate; he never made any rich strikes, but drifted about, for ever seeking Tantalus-like the fortune that for ever eluded him, until, disappointed and embittered by injustice and misfortune, the wretched man found only in the grave rest and refuge from the curse that pursued him. The great State of California, with its millionaires whose lightest folly costs more than would have pensioned Marshall for life, abandoned the discoverer of California's wealth to poverty and wretchedness. Some years ago the Legislature recognising the claim he had, appropriated £4O a month for him; but this appropriation lasted only two years, and since then the great State and its millionaires have stood ignobly by and left to slarvo the man whoso discovery was the origin of their weath.