“Millions for a penny!”
The cry became familiar in strife-torn France when news of Marshall’s gold discovery reached the country in December of 1848. As revolutionary fever turned to gold fever, up to ninety immigration companies hastily formed in Paris between 1849 and 1852; investors bought stock in these companies which chartered ships, booked passages, and secured French miners who were contracted for a percentage of their prospecting profits. The companies competed fiercely to capture the investors’ imagination and capital with tantalizing names like The Golden Fleece, the Golden Hive, The Seine & the Sacramento, The Californienne, and the Fortune.
Although all of these immigrations companies bankrupted, their aggressive advertising lured enormous numbers of Frenchmen from all walks of life to California. No less than 25,000 and perhaps more fled their nation’s political turmoil, to seek the riches of the gold fields between 1849 and 1854. Up to 8,000 headed for the southern mines, another contingent of the same size for the northern mines. French is today the most commonplace name of a nationality in the toponymy of the gold country.
While many came seeking their fortune in the mines, most found success in the growing cities of California when their luck ran out. After a stay long enough to “see the elephant”, many Frenchmen left the hardships and isolation of the mining life to live in the growing commercial centers of Sacramento and San Francisco. San Francisco’s French community expanded in size and activity, its business thrived, and a Frenchtown soon was born in the heart of the booming town, close to Long Wharf, around Dupont [now Grant], Montgomery and Commercial streets. Signs were in French, French was heard in the shops, French food and beverages served at the cafes, French singers and actors dazzled the town with all-French plays enthusiastically critiqued the next day in one of the city’s French newspapers.