G.W. Chesley McCoy, gold prospector
The story of the California gold rush is one that most all of us are familiar with. In 1849, John Sutter, who operated a big ranch and saw mill about 50 miles upriver from Sacramento, California had workmen dig a new trench to carry water to his mill and ended up discovering gold that initiated the California gold rush, the largest gold rush in history. The discovery drew men afflicted with get rich quick fever from all over the continent who came to be called the “forty-niners.” So, how did this historic American event effect local Marion citizens, if at all?
According to historian, Milo Erwin, no less than 200 residents of the county left in search of the elusive riches and whereas most returned broke and sometimes broken there were a few success stories. The story of Marion’s gold seekers begins in 1849 when a man returned from California and brought a nugget to Marion weighing about 1 1/4 ounces which he sold to a merchant here for about $18. Today, that chunk of gold would be worth $1,665. People began at once to make their way to California, mostly across the plains, because it was cheaper, but very dangerous. To put things in perspective as to how difficult an overland trip to California would be in those days, consider that the first transcontinental railroad wasn’t finished until 1869 and the Oklahoma land rush didn’t occur until 1889. The trip was so fraught with danger that a number of Marion residents that did go took what I would call the southern route by leaving from Cairo, Illinois, going to New Orleans and then departing by boat either around South America or by crossing the Panama isthmus. A trip that would have been considerably expensive and took four months.
My first story is about a Marion resident named John G. Sparks. John was present when all of the lots on the newly formed Marion square were put up for sale in 1839. He bought a lot and opened a hat shop in the location now occupied by the Marion Star newspaper. After a while, Sparks dropped his hat store and took up law. In 1852, he took the southern route to California in search of riches. He entered the gold fields of Sacramento and was soon half owner of the Table Mountain mine, for which he was offered the then enormous sum of $100,000, but refusing he was soon afterwards tricked out of it and lost it all. Fortunately for Sparks, while practicing law in Illinois he had befriended Abraham Lincoln who later appointed him as Assessor of Internal Revenue for the then territory of Washington.
In 1849, John M. Cunningham, an important Marion historical figure, joined an expedition that went across the plains to California. The expedition was late starting and suffered severely before they reached Sacramento. In fact, all of the animals of the overland train and many of the party died. Cunningham was left about seventy-five miles from Sacramento all alone beside the road, too ill to go any farther, insisting that the few survivors should go on and send back for him, which luckily for him, they did. He often used to tell thrilling stories of his experiences and narrow escapes from being massacred by Indians or dying from alkaline water and want of food, and of the lonely graves they passed as they walked from Alton, Illinois, to Sacramento, of poor men who belonged to the many parties that had preceded them in their quest of the gold fields. He was in the California mines from the summer of ’49 having spent nearly four months of that year in route, until the summer of 1852 when he returned to Marion where he would later become the father in law of John A. Logan. His fortunes went up and down the scale as did those of many other men, but at least he came alive.
None of the Marion fortune seekers were as devoted or determined as a local named Chesley McCoy. Chesley made his first trip across the plains in the company of Dr. James P. Thorn, H. L. Hayes, James and Thomas P. Louden, Henry Purdy and William Lipsey. Dr. Thorn was the namesake for Thorn Street and left his children and wife boarded in a Marion hotel while he was gone. The group started with three yoke of cattle and bought another when they stopped at Independence, Missouri finally reaching their destination in California after four months of cross country travel. Most of the group gave up and returned home within a year or so, but Chesley stayed until 1898. He was quoted as saying, “I suppose I’ve dug a half a ton of gold, but I don’t have a dollar.”
One of the few success stories was related to Willis Aikman, who at the age of nineteen, traveled with James McCoy, brother to Chesley McCoy, in 1854 via the southern route by boat, crossing over the Panama Isthmus, reaching California after four months and began operations about six miles from the Oregon line. Unlike most, Willis returned home four years later in 1858 with his “pile” and settled down for a successful life as a prominent Marion businessman.
One of the best documented trips in search of gold came from the diary of Brice Holland who participated in an expedition of Marion men into the Black Hills of South Dakota in 1877. After weeks on a paddle boat going up the Missouri River, the expedition reached their destination and ran into no end of bad luck, most of them returning within weeks empty handed, but hopefully slightly wiser. Holland went on to become Mayor of Marion for four one year terms in 1887, 1888, 1897 and 1898.
My last story is related to an article that appeared in the Marion Daily Republican in 1941 having to do with the destruction of a historic home located at 306 E. College St. It was thought that Oliver H. Wiley, one of the previous owners, had buried gold on the property. Two days later a further article related that when the gentlemen had died in 1877, the executors of his estate had found over $80,000 worth of gold in his home, an amount equal to about $5.5 million in today’s value.
Maybe there was gold in them there hills.
(Sources: 1905 Souvenir History of Williamson County, Milo Erwin’s History of Williamson County, Marion Daily Republican; posted by Sam Lattuca 9/13/2018)