More info on this..

__________________

Carl,

James Marshall first reported the discovery to John Sutter in 1848 setting
up Sutter's future relocation to Pennsylvania.

As for Brannan, the following is interesting.  I obtained it from:
http://www.jps.net/vitus/sambrannan.htm

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History of Sam Brannan


                                   Sam Brannan Born 1818, Passed 1889
                                         Submitted by Frank Houdek, SGNH,
-P




   He died just about as far away from where he was born as it's possible
to without leaving the country. He
   created San Francisco in anticipation of it becoming the new Mormon
capital only to have Brigham Young
   stop short in Utah. He published San Francisco's first newspaper, the
second in California, and used it to
   orchestrate the Gold Rush of '49. He led the move to clean the scum out
of 1851 boomtown San Francisco by
   forming the Committee of Vigilance.

   He was California's first millionaire and died penniless. He built the resort town of Calistoga and reputedly
   named it by slurring its' dedication speech while drunk on whisky from the town's distillery. And he fell under
   the sway of the lovely and notorious Lola Montez, as had many another before and after him, with tragic
   results.

   He was Sam Brannan, one of California's most colorful and controversial characters. Brannan was born in
   Maine on March 2, 1819 to an alcoholic and abusive father and died an alcoholic's death himself in San Diego
   in 1889. He became Mormon when that religion was only five years old after he moved to Ohio with his older
   sister and her husband at age 14. He rose within the church and when persecution of the sect became too
   much, Sam was asked by Brigham Young to lead a New York contingent of 238 Saints to California by boat,
   taking with him the sect's three-ton Acorn printing press. Young would lead the rest of the contingent from
   Ohio by land and join him in California later.

   When the Brooklyn docked at the unappealing muddy shore of Yerba Buena on July 31, 1846 with its 230
   Mormon immigrants (during the trip, 10 had died and two were born), Brannan set to work immediately to
   build the unprepossessing place into what he hoped would be the new home of Mormonism. The Mormons'
   arrival had effectively doubled the size of the squalid site. He collected the tithes from his followers and
   invested the money in property and buildings. He and his followers constructed nearly 200 buildings in their
   first year at Yerba Buena.

   He published the first issue of The California Star in January of 1847. Brannan made visits to Stutter's Fort
   and saw that there was a need for a provisioner to service the growing population-a population that he would
   encourage, when he was ready. Gold was discovered in 1848 but at first little was made of it. Gold had been
   discovered before in California. Sam Brannan saw a profit to he made if gold-seekers were lured into
   California. He could supply them in San Francisco and again in Sacramento.

   The supplies he'd ordered hadn't yet arrived. When he was ready with his warehouses filled with the goods
   gold miners would need, he borrowed some of the gold, put it into a bottle, and traveled down the river to
   San Francisco, where he made a big to-do about the discovery. A discovery that he'd until then been
   pooh-poohing. Naturally, he announced the strike in The California Star, which boasted subscriptions at
   Eastern newspapers where it was used as a source to provide bits and pieces of Western news.

   The news of the strike spread and in 1849 the Gold Rush became history-and made Brannan rich. He used
   the money to buy more and more property, turning San Francisco into a boomtown. Without his influence,
   gold seekers would have come through the Golden Gate and sailed right past San Francisco and up the
   Sacramento River.

   A boomtown has its problems. San Francisco's came in the form of hooligans and cutthroats. The town
   became a cesspool unfit for its citizens to live in. Murder was rampant, drunkenness everywhere, and
   violence was out of control. What had been good for business was now not only bad for business but
   downright dangerous. Brannan met with other businessmen and civic leaders and formed the Committee of
   Vigilance which went out into the night, arrested murderers, gave them a speedy trial, and an even speedier
   execution by strangulation due to a fatal tightening of a necktie. To make the point that the Committee was
   serious, they let one murderer hang in pubic for several days with the threat that anyone who cut him down
   would come to enjoy the same fate. But Brannan ran afoul of the Mormons.

   Young arrived in Utah a year later than Brannan arrived in San Francisco. Brannan and his followers assumed
   Young would establish the Mormons in San Francisco, but Young refused to budge from Utah even after
   Brannan visited him to urge him to continue west. Brannan was furious and his followers blamed him for the
   rift. They began to drift off to Utah, only to realize once they got there that Brannan had kept their tithes over
   the years. Young sent two "angels" to Brannan to collect the back-tithes and Brannan reputedly sent them
   away with the promise that he'd pay the money to Young "when they came bearing a receipt from God." He
   was excommunicated in 1851.

   Undaunted, he proceeded to become California's first millionaire. But he also ran afoul of his second wife,
   which can be more dangerous. She resented Sam's independent lifestyle and his extravagant ways with
   women not his own. He carried on unashamedly with the infamous Lola Montez during her visit to San
   Francisco. His wife began looking into divorcing the scoundrel. Brannan used some of his money to buy up
   land in what is today Calistoga. He built an elaborate settlement there, hoping to make it the Saratoga Springs
   (New York) of California. He even built the Napa Valley Railroad in 1864 to bring visitors to his new resort.
   Unfortunately, there was a distillery on the property. During the dedication of the new town, Brannan weaved
   to the podium and declared that this was going to be the "Calistoga of Sarafornia," and the name stuck. So
   says legend.

   He began to lose his grip with business ventures, his second wife filed for divorce and further tapped him,
   and he fell too much in love with alcohol. He spiraled toward the drain, sleeping on benches on the streets in
   San Francisco he had once owned. He drifted to Mexico, where he sold pencils on a street corner in Nogales.
   Because of his notoriety, many history books written near the turn of the century fail to mention Brannan or if
   his name cropped up at all, it was carried as a footnote. More recent scholars have raised him back to the
   position he rightly deserves; a tainted and eccentric angel who founded San Francisco, orchestrated the
   Gold Rush of '49, created Calistoga, began one of California's first newspapers, brought quick and violent
   peace to San Francisco, and went over Brigham Young's head directly to God to keep his ill-gotten fortune.

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My guess is to look up the quote in the California Star archives, wherever
they may reside.

I guess we can blame the California gold rush on the Mormons.  They were
the first to discover gold in the American River, and one of their own
announced it to the world.

A street in San Francisco (not on Yerba Buena) is named after Brannan.

As for the gold, the real gold was in land speculation and transportation.
Oh those railroads!!!!

Hal