The First Rocker

• Shortly after the discovery of gold by James Marshall, gold dust was sent to Issac Humphrey by one of John Sutter's employees to test the substances for validity. Humphrey, after returning the test results as gold, slipped quietly away to the American River where he settled in to do some mining of his own. He used an improvised rocker that he had learned about during another gold discovery elsewhere. He is actually the first person during the California gold rush to devote himself entirely to mining.