"Gold, Gold, Gold from the American River"

On our tour of San Francisco we learned about a Mormon settler named Samuel Brennan. He started out as a printer for the New York Messenger in NYC. After the prophet Joseph Smith was murdered he and 240 others boarded the Brooklyn ship and sailed to what is now San Francisco. He took a printing press with him and so he started the first newspaper in California next to union square in what is now Chinatown. It was called the California Star.

What is interesting is Brennan travel to meet Brigham Young, President of the church at that time, and urged him to have members of the church come to California. Brigham Young decided to settle mainly in Utah, Idaho and Arizona with few settlements in Mexico and a few in south end of the central valley in California.

Brennan had some workers from Sutter's Mill come into his hardware store in San Francisco and buy some supplies with gold. It is said that he went to the mill and gathered the tithes of the LDS workers gold they found in their spare time. With that gold he bought up every shovel he could find and then ran through the streets shouting "Gold, Gold, Gold from the American River". He kept buying gold supplies including pans for 15 cents each. He resold them in his stores in San Fran for $20 each. He sold his store in Sacramento one month after it opened for $150,000. He started buying up land in San Francisco.

Brigham Young sent messengers out to San Fran to meet with Brannan probably asking for his tithing. According to legend he said "You go back and tell Brigham Young that I'll give up the Lord's money when he sends me a receipt signed by the Lord". Sure he was a successful business man buying land in Hawaii and all over California. He started his own travel business in what is now Calistoga where he bought land and planned a resort. A railroad company and ferry service were offered there and to places on the east bay like Vallejo.

Here comes the life lesson. He and his wife got divorced and according to law half of all his money was to be paid in cash. Most of it was in real estate so he had to sell things off, declared bankruptcy on his railroad/ferry company and sold it. He and his wife parted ways. He moved to San Diego and started drinking. Apparently remarried there and got into some sketchy land dealings with the Mexican government in Sonora and got into a lot of debt. He finally worked and paid it all off and soon died without money for a funeral but he was debt free.

The tour guide said it best when you turn your back on how you were raise and your faith and values nothing good can come from that. I think that is true. There you go with some more history.