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CHAPTER
II - EXCERPT
As a teenager, George ranged through the local
foothills, fishing, hunting, exploring, and evidently keeping a
sharp eye out for the very specific element that had brought his
family to California—gold. 1862 started off with ten feet of
snow blanketing the mountains just east of Mariposa, promising a
brisk spring runoff. George may have known to monitor the local
ephemeral streams as they began to swell in late winter, washing
away silt and rocks and occasionally revealing an overlooked
treasure. That March found George on a ramble south of Mariposa,
about four-hundred yards north-east of Mariposa Creek. He was,
maybe not by chance, in the vicinity of perhaps the oldest stamp
mill in California, erected in 1849 to pulverize gold-bearing
quartz. While George may have been hunting or fishing for that
evening’s family dinner, something must have caught his eye,
prompting him to reach into an icy rushing creek to pull out a bit
of rock. Heading home, instead of merely bringing in fish or
quail, George handed the family a windfall, meriting a blurb in
the papers:
“Last
week George Monroe picked up in Quartz gulch near town, a piece of
quartz and gold which yielded on pounding up, $273, as is
stated.” [i]
Online calculators estimate George’s find in current dollars
(2023) to be over $8,000.[ii]
Spring
of 1863 brought new optimism for the Union; Grant, after repeated
successes in battle, was formally promoted by Lincoln to the
exalted rank of Lieutenant General. The Monroes had further cause
for optimism: seven years after their tenuous arrival in Mariposa,
they were now well-known, established residents, and it appears
that part of Mary’s program to rehabilitate her family had
included some effective financial planning. With the funds she had
brought from Georgia, and the success of Louis’ Tonsorial Saloon
(and George’s newfound gold), the Monroes conceived a plan to
establish their own ranch, or farm, outside of town.
In
September 1863, Louis applied for a homestead claim about six
miles to the southeast. It was good farmland, but after filing the
claim they made no move to develop or live on the property, so the
claim eventually expired. With the Civil War still raging, the
Monroes’ aspirations to land ownership may have been premature.
The federal government had not yet recognized African Americans as
equal citizens, and even though the Homestead Act of 1862 had no
racial restrictions, the Monroes’ homestead claim may have
struck officials as too radically progressive. [iii]
Change
was coming, though, and whatever the reason for their inaction,
seven years later the Monroes will have homesteaded and developed
a 160-acre farm-ranch adjacent to the claim they’d previously
abandoned. During those seven years, Ulysses S. Grant would carry
the Union Army to victory in the American Civil War, ascend to the
presidency, and pave the way for many of the Monroe family’s
future achievements through his energetic backing of
constitutional rights for African Americans. [iv]
[i] Mariposa
Gazette,
March 18, 1862, pg. 2, col. 1.
Quartz Gulch was by Mariposa Creek, just south of Mariposa,
and featured the first steam-powered quartz-mill brought in by
James Duff in 1849 (Mariposa Gazette,
January 17, 1873, pg. 2, col. 2). The ruins of the mill were
mentioned in connection with the place-name “Quartz Gulch”
(Chamberlain 1936)
, introduction, pg. x. The location is shown as “Fremont’s
first Mill” in “Quartz Mill Gulch” on the southern
perimeter of Mariposa, in an 1861 map: “Las Mariposas Estate
Mariposas County California” (1861, Pub. New York, Sarony,
Major & Knapp); David Rumsey Historical Map Collection:
davidrumsey.com/luna/servlet/detail/RUMSEY~8~1~1821~180008:Las-Mariposas-Estate-Mariposas-Coun
(accessed 3/21/2023).
The snow-depth
that winter was reported by Galen Clark in Mariposa
Gazette,
December 17, 1861, pg. 2, col. 1.
[ii] A couple of sites for calculating
current monetary values: in2013dollars.com;
westegg.com/inflation (accessed
3/21/2023).
[iii] Monroe’s 1863 homestead claim of September
10, 1863 was revealed in
testimony during the 1888 court case
(Mary A. Monroe, Plaintiff vs. Wm. G. Grove and D. P. Allen, Defendants
1887)
.
[iv]
(Chernow 2018)
p. 858.
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"A
very well written, carefully documented story."
– Dr. John Oliver Wilson, School of Social Welfare,
University
of California at Berkeley
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