The Rush for Gold

The Year is 1848, right before the San Francisco gold rush, and my name is Jimothy. I work with a gang in New York called The Forty Thieves looking to make a big score by scamming them of their money. Us members in the gang normally have a young apprentice tag along with us while we steal, mine is named James, and we plan on leaving the gang life soon. We have to return to the hideout with a certain quota, or else there will be consequences.

“James we need hurry now!” As we were trying to escape with our riches we have stole from the town bank. The money we stole will be enough to pay back and leave the Forty Thieves. Also stealing a little extra money ourselves, so we won’t have to worry about jobs. “Let’s get back to the hideout before we get caught, and leave this wretched gang,” so we slipped through the ally’s in a race to return. Then as we turned the corner we encountered the The Bowery Boys, another notorious gang who heard about our cash pot we had just stole. They brought a lot of men with them, outnumbering us four to one. With each of them carrying a Colt Model Pocket Revolver one of them approached and asked, “Give us the money or die where you stand.” James and I had no choice to surrender if we wanted to keep our lives so we did. We made our return to the hideout empty handed, not ready to face our consequences for losing the money. As we entered the guard asked us “where’s the money?” I responded to him saying “The Bowery Boys heard of our score and jumped us.” The guard looked displeased and sent us upstairs to Boss, which is his actual name. We enter his office and already notices we don’t have the money. He tells his private troop “What should we do about this?” As they start to discuss James taps my shoulder and I look. It the daily paper saying people have struck gold in San Francisco, I look at Boss and he began to say “kill them now!” “Wait!” I yelled, “We can earn it back and then some more.” Boss froze and asked us “how could we possibly do that?” So I told him, “gold has been found all over in San Francisco.

We woke up early this morning to begin our journey across the the states. We took the railroads to get to a wagon stationed out in Ohio. The trip wasn’t to bad by railroad, but now came the hard part. The two to four month journey by land was ahead of us, and James and I weren’t excited.

*                                         *                                          *

The traveling took us three months and sixteen days to complete and we have arrived in San Francisco. We went to meet a man named John Shutter who owned land where gold has been found. His land has already been overran by gold seekers and average people in the area. Once we met him, he told us “find anyway to look, my land is already ruined anyways.” So we decided to set up by a stream bank and started collecting gold little by little.

*                                         *                                          *

After a month and a half digging we ended with five hundred and sixty five pounds of gold. We headed back to our wagon to begin our journey back to New York. I told James, “once we get back to Ohio, we’re going to send the gold back with another member of the Forty Thieves.” James was curious as to why and I said to him “we can’t afford to run into the Bowery Boys again.”

*                                      *                                     *

After the trip back from San Francisco, and from Ohio to New York we arrived. We began to make our way through the city back to the hideout, and just as I predicted, the Bowery Boys found us. They demanded for the gold we found, and started to threaten, but since I planned ahead, I told Boss to expect the Bowery Boys so we can jump them. Our gang quickly captured them and the rest took off running. We finally made it to hideout with the gold, and bought our way out of the gang life. James and I left to live out whatever comes next in life with a little gold still in our pockets.

 

 

 

Bibliography

Andrews, Evan. “7 Most Infamous Gangs of New York.” History, A&E Television Network, 4 June 2013, https://online.salempress.com/articleDetails.do?articleName=GE19_1551090022. 15 April 2019.

Website Editor. “Colt Model 1849 Pocket Revolver.” Military Factory, Military Factory, 17 February 2018, https://www.militaryfactory.com/smallarms/detail.asp?smallarms_id=492. 15 April 2019.

Website Editor. “John Augustus Shutter.” Britannica, Encyclopedia Britannica, https://www.britannica.com/biography/John-Sutter. 16 April 2019.

Website Editor. “California Gold Rush.” History, A&E Television Network, 6 April 2010, https://www.history.com/topics/westward-expansion/gold-rush-of-1849. 17 April 2019.