The gold nugget above is the exact size of one of several that James W. Marshall found at Sutter's Mill that began the California Gold Rush. He found it in 1848. It took awhile for the news to travel east that gold was to be had with little effort. It wasn't long before a stream of gold prospectors lined the banks of several California rivers.
Those that got richest from the discovery were the ones that lived nearby or arrived in the area in 1848. It could take by ship as long as a year to get from New York to California. (One ship that took a year was "the little steam packet Hartford.")
(This information, including photo of nugget, from the book, THE FORTY-NINERS by the editors of TIME-LIFE BOOKS with text by William Weber Johnson)
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