Having traveled by wagon to Fort Sutter, participating in the Bear Flag Revolt, camping with the Donner Party Survivors, and finding gold that started the gold rush.. he had plenty to contribute to a history volume.
So did his wife. Although she wasn't asked, she penned her own "Memory", that can be read here: https://heathersgen.blogspot.com/2024/02/elizas-memory-eliza-gregson.html
The dictated “Statement of James Gregson” was sent by Robert A. Thompson, editor of the Sonoma Democrat, to Hubert Howe Bancroft, on April 16, 1876, with a letter requesting compensation for the clerical work involved.
James Gregson's “Statement” follows the general outline of his wife's account but gives fewer family details. A fair amount of attention is given to his experiences as a soldier, his land warrant for service, and his work with James Wilson Marshall, the discoverer of gold.
Of the two manuscripts, the “Statement” is the better written, probably because it was dictated to Thompson. Since it is a transcription and not Gregson's own writing, the spelling and punctuation have occasionally been corrected. [As originally noted in CALIFORNIA HISTORICAL SOCIETY QUARTERLY VOLUME XIX NO. 2 JUNE 1940. ]
As with Eliza's memory, I have removed the inline footnotes and placed them all at the end, to make the account more readable.
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Statement of James Gregson
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I was born in England and came as a boy of twelve years to Philadelphia* and went to Illinois in the spring of 1844 and with my wife joined a train for Oregon at Independence in [April] 1845, and at Fort Hall we determined to come to California. There we met Greenwood, the mountaineer, who told us we could get land of the grant holders and agreed to fetch us in. He got $2.50 apiece to pilot us in to California. There was in our train about thirty wagons and perhaps—persons including men, women and children.*
Near Fort Hall we fell in with Jacob R. Snyder* and Judge Blackburn * who were travelling with pack horses. They came on with us. With our party came George McDougal,* a young man. He was brave and handsome. He joined us at Fort Hall, and also Knight from whom Knights Valley is named. * The Elliotts * were along, and John Grigsby,* and the McChristians and family, * and the Hudson family.*
We had no trouble at all at the sink of the Humboldt [except that we] had a few shots fired into our cattle. Ide, who issued the proclamation at Sonoma,* was also along. He was a prominent man; he was well provided.
We got into the Sacramento Valley the last of October, and went to Sutter's Fort, and there I was employed as a whipsawyer with Henry Marshall who came out with us. The lumber was to build a schooner on the headwaters of the Cosumnes River, fifty miles from the Fort. We cut a good deal of lumber. While there an Indian came in who had never seen a white man; he had a hat made like their baskets and all covered with feathers. I traded him a white shirt for it, and afterwards traded it to a Mormon for a horse. We went in to the Fort in the fall of 1845. Captain Sutter sent for us, and the lumber got to the Fort a few days before Christmas. He gave us $30 a thousand for lumber payable in goods.
We then entered into a contract with Mr. Hardy who owned a great estate at the mouth of the
Feather River where the town of Sacramento was.* We stayed with him three months, doing general farm work and living in a tule shanty. I only stayed there three months and then went back to Sutter's Fort. Hardy fell off of a schooner in Suisun Bay and was drowned.
I went to work digging a ditch for Captain Sutter with Henry Marshall, at $2.50 a rod, a foot wide at the top and four feet deep, and two feet at the bottom. *
James and Eliza resided in the buiddling in the foreground, at Sutters Fort
We worked at this Fort until the war began. When we first came in we heard that Sutter was favorable to the Americans. Then I went to work for the Captain at anything he wanted. Soon after we got in, a proclamation was read notifying the Americans to leave. After it was read Sutter told us to stand by him and he would stand by us.*
Frémont came to the Fort in February 1846. In the fight with the Klamath Indians Captain Gillespie killed an Indian with a coat of mail made of wood slats and a warp of sinew. I saw the coat of mail when it was shewn to 20 Captain Sutter on his return. Captain Gillespie afterwards commanded sixty men as volunteers.
In the early morning of June 14, 1846, Mariano Guadalupe Vallejo was taken prisoner by a ragtag band of Americans, led by William B. Ide, who had decided to emulate the Texans by revolting against California's Mexican government. They later made and raised an improvised flag featuring a grizzly bear that some viewers mistook for a pig. Instead of resisting, Vallejo, who favored the American takeover of California, invited the rebels inside his quarters in the Casa Grande for a meal and drinks. The Americans proceeded to get drunk while negotiating with Vallejo a letter of capitulation that guaranteed that neither Vallejo nor his family would be taken prisoner, which he unopposedly signed. However, when the agreement was presented to those outside they refused to endorse it. Rather than releasing the Mexican officers under parole they insisted they be held as hostages. Although Vallejo was sympathetic to the advent of American rule, he deemed the perpetrators of the Bear Flag Revolt to be mere lowlife rabble.
I was at Sutter's Fort when Vallejo and the Bear Flag prisoners [were there and] took my regular turn as a guard of the prisoners. I had been enlisted into the services of the United States for three months at $12 per month. [When I] guarded the men they all appeared quiet. We used to take them out to exercise—Bob Ridley, J. P. Leese, Victor Prudon, Salvador and General Vallejo—then stood guard over them. I stayed there until they were released on parole. Then I enlisted in the California Battalion in Captain Brown's Company and went down to meet Frémont at Monterey. We had no trouble until we got to San Juan South. We had twelve Walla Walla Indians along, Captain Burris [Charles Burroughs] in command.
We saw the long glittering lances of the Mexicans as we got into the plain. We were joined about this time by Captain Weaver [Charles M. Weber] and thirty men which gave us about sixty men. The sun was about an hour high when the fight began. We had eight hundred head of horses and four pieces of artillery. We put the horses in the corral at the Gomez ranch and left a dozen men to guard them and took part and fought two hundred Mexicans with fifty men. We formed in line and counted off. Captain Burris [Burroughs] said for No. 1 to fire while No. 2 was to hold his fire, but we soon got mixed up and fired on the Indians who were in advance and fell back, and the Mexicans charged us boldly and we give them the best we had and charged at them. I was close to Burris [Burroughs] when he fell, the captain of the Mexicans killed him, he rode up close to him, and fired, I thought with a pistol. Burris [Burroughs] was killed before we could get him to the rear. We lost a man named Ames and Billy the Cooper of Weaver's [Weber's] Company, and Foster who was a lieutenant. All killed with musket balls or pistols. *
After the charge we held the ground. We thought we killed ten of the Mexicans; they retreated. We went to Gomez's house and got two men to go to Monterey and tell Frémont we were there—they got in safely and told Frémont. We buried our dead, when Frémont came up with three hundred men and we all then went to the Mission of San Juan and encamped. Most of us were enlisted into Captain Ford's Company.*
[We stayed] at San Juan three or four weeks, then started for the lower country with Frémont. I think he was a confounded scamp and a coward.
The Gaviota Pass
Gaviota Pass is registered as California Historical Landmark #248. On this site during the Mexican–American War on Christmas Day 1846, the Mexican Army waited to ambush the US forces of John C. Frémont. Fremont learned of their plans and instead crossed the San Marcos Pass to capture Santa Barbara
We crossed the Santa Inez Mountain on Christmas day in a dreadful storm, lost fifteen head of horses, left cannon on the mountain and went down a trail. We might have gone through Gaviota Pass. One of the most noted things that happened was just before we got to San Luis Obispo on the Salmon. We captured an Indian with dispatches, shot him and went on to San Luis Obispo and caught Pico, caught him in bed, surrounded the house and took him down to San Luis Obispo that night and tried him by court 21 martial. [He was] found guilty of violating his parole and sentenced to be shot. We thought he would be shot. We were marshaled out and Frémont released him on the condition that he would stay with and pilot us over the mountains. His family came and begged for him. The boys thought it was a shame to kill the Indian and not Pico.*
At Santa Barbara we had no trouble. We lived on beef, had no bread. We had with us about 450 men. As we left San Buena Ventura the Mexicans rode up on top of the hill and the next morning we marched out in battle order, artillery in the center. The Mexicans came out and Frémont got scared and ordered us up a hollow. We could not get through and had to come back, and camped on the Santa Anna River [Santa Clara River]. There we had no trouble until we got to Los Angeles— and had none there.
I came up by land to San Francisco in the spring of 1847 with ten Mexicans. We were given ten dollars apiece and indebted to Major Reading for this.* We came up by the coast. All shipped at Santa Clara and I went on to San Francisco and gave up my horse. I was in San Francisco without money, and I had to buy clothes from a sailor. I was standing on Black's Point. *
1st Lieutenant Revere* came up and asked me what man-of-war I belonged to. I told him I did not belong to any. He asked me if I had no coat. I told him “No” and showed him my papers. He told me to come the next day and he would give me a coat, which he did. I had nothing to eat and asked him if he could not give me an order to get something. He said that he had nothing, but to come tomorrow and see Captain Dupont.*
The next day I met Captain Dupont and asked him to give me something to eat until I could get to Sacramento. I lived in San Francisco three months and crossed to Sonoma with J. P. Leese in the sloop Amelia and from there to Sacramento. The officers gave me a horse at Sonoma and I went to Sacramento City.
James Gregson's Anvil
Brought to the fort in 1841. Some of the first gold was hammered on it in 1848 to test the precious metal. A reunion of Gregson Descendants and related families is being held at Sutters Fort Today, June 26th 1955
I paid in work to Captain Sutter for my wifes relations [rations?] while I was gone, and I never got but ten dollars for my services and a 120-acre land warrant; this was the summer of 1847. Myself and a man named Lenox helped to get out the large mill stones for Captain Sutter's grist mill on the American River,* then we made a contract to do the blacksmithing for Sutter and Marshall who were partners in building a saw mill at Colusa [Coloma] where gold was discovered. Up to this time I had not heard of gold. Where I first worked with the whipsaw was afterwards all worked out for gold. My wife was to cook for one or two men. I was to work for three years, to be paid in cattle. The morning we were to start for Colusa [Coloma] from Sutter's Fort, Marshall came into the Fort with a little vial of about an ounce, greenish glass, which was over half full of scale gold.*
I looked at it and this was the first gold seen in the country. That vial was sent to Capt. [Joseph L.] Folsom in San Francisco, and in six weeks there came back word it was gold of fine quality. It was sent down on the old launch. 22 I think Major McKinstry took it down, a cousin of Judge [E. W.] McKinstry. *
I went up to the mill with my wife and went to work. There were a number of men there, five or six white men. I recollect Weaver* and his family, Marshall, Humphreys and Charles Bennett (he died in Oregon), two Mormon teamsters and perhaps a dozen Indians. In the daytime the Indians would dig in the race, which was twenty feet deep in some places and an average of ten feet. At night we would turn the water in and shut it off in the morning, and we would find the gold in the crevices of the rock. It was all scale gold in that race. I went up there just after New Year's Day 1848. It was in the race every morning, we did not pay much attention to it. We picked it up off and on for six weeks without any excitement. A letter came to Marshall from Sutter [reporting] that it was gold of a fine quality. Marshall was then living with me. We had salt salmon and boiled wheat, and we, the discoverers of gold, were living on that when gold was found, and we suffered from scurvy afterwards.
Myself, Marshall, Humphries, and Bennett were living together in a double cabin. Soon as we got word it was gold I said to Marshall: “Let us go up the river, the south fork of the American River, and see if we can't find some gold.” We had a pick and pan. We went up the river three miles to a bar and called it Live Oak Bar. We went out on the bar and picked out lump gold of the size of a bean with our fingers, without digging—in all a pint cupful. I said,”This lets up our contract. Now,” says I, “James, suppose we divide this gold.” “No,” says he, “I don't divide. You are a hired man.” I said, “That ends our contract.” The next day I went back and dug and took out a good deal for myself. It was the first prospecting done.
The people flocked in after that, and I got sick and had to come to Sonoma. I brought down about $3,000 in the fall of 1848. I went back in 1849, in the spring, and worked three months and came back. While in the mines we found a man deserted, on the middle fork of the Feather River. He had chronic diarrhoea. Mills visited him. At last one morning he was found dead. He had written on a tin plate, “Deserted by my friends, but not by my God.” My partner was named Mills—perhaps it was D. O. Mills* —he and me were working together. Some young fellows came into Spanish Bar* where we were, from Napa, and they had one hundred pounds of flour to sell. I told Mills we had better buy it. We gave an ounce for it and found some nice butter rolled up in the center.
We left with eight hundred dollars and came back to Sonoma in the fall of 1849 and have been here ever since. I bought land of Captain Cooper. I have a daughter who is now Mrs. Robert Reid of San Luis Obispo, who was born at Sutter's Fort, September 15, 1846. She was the first white child born in the Sacramento Valley.*
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NOTES:
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James Gregson was born in Little Bolton, Lancashire, England, on September 14, 1822. In 1837, in Philadelphia, he was bound to James Brooks as an apprentice to the blacksmiths' and machinists' trade and served until he was 21 years old. Hist. of Sonoma County, p. 474.
See Note 3.
Snyder had left Independence on May 12. The diary of his trip to California is printed in theQuarterly of The Society of California Pioneers, VIII (December 1931), 224-60. For biographical material concerning him see op. cit., pp. 203-19, and Swasey,op. cit., pp. 172-77.
William Blackburn, a Virginian, was with the Swasey-Todd party, according to Bancroft,op. cit.., II, 721, and Swasey,op. cit., pp. 29 and 179-80.
George McDougal, from Indiana, was also with the Swasey-Todd party. Bancroft,op. cit., IV, 723, and Swasey,op. cit., pp. 29 and 177-79.
Thomas Knight, a native of Maine, had been a trader in Louisiana, Arkansas, and Missouri. See Bancroft,op. cit., IV, 702, for his later history. His MS recollections and statement concerning “Early Events in California” are in the Bancroft Library.
William B. Elliott, a native of North Carolina, came from Missouri in the Grigsby-Ide party with his wife (Elizabeth Patton) and seven children. He joined the Bear Flag party in 1846. For further information concerning him see Bancroft,op.cit., II, 790.
John Grigsby, of the Grigsby-Ide party, a native of Tennessee, was later a leader in the Bear Flag revolt at Sonoma. For his further history see Bancroft,op. cit., III, 767.
Patrick McChristian took part in the Bear Flag revolt the next year, went to the mines in 1848-49, and, after a short residence at Santa Cruz, became a farmer at Sonoma. Bancroft,op. cit., IV, 721. His MS “Narrative” is in the Bancroft Library.
William Hudson, with his family, his brother David, and sister, Mrs. John York, and her husband, also came in the Grigsby-Ide party. David, after taking part in the Bear Flag revolt, serving in the California Battalion, and working for a brief period in the mines, lived in Napa Valley until 1873 and then moved to Lake County. William and his family lived at Santa Rosa.History of Napa and Lake Counties (San Francisco: Slocum, Bowen & Co., 1881), p. 241, and Bancroft,op. cit., IV, 789-90.
William B. Ide's Bear Flag proclamation was printed in this QUARTERLY, I (July 1922), 74-79. For further information concerning him see Simeon Ide,op. cit., and Bancroft,op. cit., IV, 688-89.
See Note 15. On December 27, 1845, Sutter “Started H. Trow for Hardy's—also started Gregson for do.”N.H.
Diary, p. 19.
On February 4, 1846, Gregson commenced working again for Sutter, and on May 18 he and Marshall finished the ditch. N.H. Diary, pp. 26 and 39.
This was on October 21, 1845. See Note 18.
See Note 33. Swasey,op. cit., pp. 67-72, also gives an account of the Battle of Natividad. The Gomez ranch was Rancho de los Verjeles of Joaquin Gomez
This was not Pio or Andrés Pico but their cousin José de Jesus Pico. See John Charles Frémont, Memoirs of My Life Chicago, 1887), pp. 598-99, and Bancroft,op. cit., IV, 777-78.
Major Pierson B. Reading was the paymaster of the California Battalion. Bancroft,op. cit., V, 689. Reading's muster roll of the Battalion is in the California State Library but is not available to scholars.
Black Point, the site of the present Fort Mason, at the end of Van Ness Avenue. Lieutenant Joseph Warren Revere, of the Cyane, who had raised the United States Flag at Sonoma in July,
remained in command of the northern district for several months. See Bancroft,op. cit., V, 692>
Samuel F. Dupont, commander of the U.S.S. Congress and later of the Cyane. Dupont Street (now Grant
Avenue) was named for him.
See Note 46.
See Bekeart,op. cit., pp. 19-30.
Marshall arrived at the fort “on very important business” on January 28.N.H. Diary, p. 113.
A Mormon named Weaver (Franklin or Miles) was one of the workmen on Sutter's flour mill at the time gold was discovered. Reva Holdaway Stanley, “Sutter's Mormon Workmen at Natoma and Coloma in 1848,” in this
QUARTERLY, XIV (September 1935), 278.
This could not have been D. O. Mills, for the man who was to become the well-known banker did not reach California until June 1849 and immediately embarked on a trading trip up the San Joaquin River.
Spanish Bar, on the Middle Fork of the American River, above the junction of the North and South forks, was one of the most important points on the stream. Because the gold found there was coarser than in many other places, the profits were larger, and the place later produced more than a million dollars.
This was Ann E. (or Annie), born on September 3, 1846, according to Mrs. Gregson and the History of Sonoma County.
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