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Transcription: [00:04:00]
{SPEAKER name="Ann Shumard"}
In 1846, Domingo's wife dies, and the following year he remarries
[00:04:09]
{SPEAKER name="Ann Shumard"}
a woman who is of Peruvian-Spanish extraction, and she had an infant daughter at the time that they married, and
[00:04:17]
{SPEAKER name="Ann Shumard"}
the couple would later have 7 children of their own.
[00:04:21]
{SPEAKER name="Ann Shumard"}
Well, in 1846 or '47, James Lick leaves Lima and goes to California, to the San Francisco area, and begins buying up land.
[00:04:31]
{SPEAKER name="Ann Shumard"}
He reportedly travels to California with 600 pounds of Ghirardelli's chocolate
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{SPEAKER name="Ann Shumard"}
and clearly found a market for it there.
[00:04:40]
{SPEAKER name="Ann Shumard"}
He is in California at the time that gold is discovered at Sutter's Mill, in January of 1848.
[00:04:47]
{SPEAKER name="Ann Shumard"}
And he writes to Domingo Ghirardelli and says "Yo-- You've got to come. You've got to come to California!"
[00:04:53]
{SPEAKER name="Ann Shumard"}
And so, Domingo is reading reports in the Lima newspapers now that--
[00:04:59]
{SPEAKER name="Ann Shumard"}
of the discovery of gold. And like many others, sees this as an opportunity.
[00:05:04]
{SPEAKER name="Ann Shumard"}
So, he leaves his-- his wife, his-- his young family behind, and I think,
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{SPEAKER name="Ann Shumard"}
from reading birth dates, that his wife was actually expecting their second child at the time that he left. And he sails to--
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{SPEAKER name="Ann Shumard"}
to San Francisco and he arrives there on February 24th, 1849. And he makes his way to the California gold fields in the Jamestown, Sonoma area
[00:05:29]
{SPEAKER name="Ann Shumard"}
and tries his hand at gold mining, but recognizes very quickly that the opportunity to make money in California
[00:05:38]
{SPEAKER name="Ann Shumard"}
lies in providing provisions for those working in the gold fields. And so he very quickly establishes a tent, basically a tent store,
[00:05:48]
{SPEAKER name="Ann Shumard"}
and becomes a purveyor of general merchandise. He is very soon,-- and this tent store is in Stockton, California.
[00:05:57]
{SPEAKER name="Ann Shumard"}
He is very soon bringing shipments from San Francisco to Stockton.
[00:06:00]
Transcription Notes:
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Reopened for Editing 2023-03-29 14:11:47
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Reopened for Editing 2023-03-29 10:24:53