Page 14 - robinson_storyofvalencia_1967

For several years prospectors worked successfully in Placerita

Cany~n and in near-by Feliciano Canyon. Many of the miners came

from Sonora. Don Abel Stearns, Southern California merchant and

ran ch e r o , s en t a s amp 1 in g o f g o 1 d (vi a A 1 f re d Rob i n s on) t o· th c

United.States mint in Philidelphia where it was coined, with a

value of over.$19 an ounce. The first Placerita gold sent to

Monterey was made into earrings for the wife of Governor Alvarado

~nd-into a ring for the Governor•s daughter. The greatgrandaughter

of Antonio del Valle the actress Lucretia del Valle Grady,

and wife of diplomat Henry Francis Grady, -- many years later

wore proudly a bracelet of Rancho San Francisco gold.

The Placerita gold fever died out in the 1850s, and

California's first~~ L~~~ -- though not the first gold dis-

covery -- became~ golden memory. (There have-been_ma~y riports

of gold being found at various places in California prior t?

1 8 4 2 ·, an d t h e --r e co r. cl s o f th c Un i t e d. ~ t a t es Hi n t a t Ph i 1 a d e 1 p h ~ ~ ;

show gold bullion fro~ California_deposited there Janucry 30, 1838

by the New York brokerage firm of Hussey & Mack~y.)

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