Excerpt from The Beginnings of San Francisco, Vol. 2: From the Expedition of Anza, 1774, to the City Charter of April 15, 1850 The placers from which this gold came were on the San Francisco rancho, near the mission of San Fernando. The rancho had formerly belonged to the mission, but at this time was in possession of the Del Valle family. The discovery was made in March 1842 and in the following May, Ignacio Del Valle was appointed encargo de justicias to preserve order in the mining district. William H. Davis says that from eighty to one hundred thousand dollars of gold was taken from these places in two years. Colonel Mason in his report of August 17, 1848, on the gold fields of California says: The gold placer near the mission of San Fernando has long been known but has been but little wrought for want of water. About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.