<P> However, rumors soon started to spread and were confirmed in March 1848 by San Francisco newspaper publisher and merchant Samuel Brannan . The most famous quote of the California Gold Rush was by Brannan; after he had hurriedly set up a store to sell gold prospecting supplies, Brannan strode through the streets of San Francisco, holding aloft a vial of gold, shouting "Gold! Gold! Gold from the American River!" </P> <P> On August 19, 1848, the New York Herald was the first major newspaper on the East Coast to report the discovery of gold . On December 5, 1848, President James Polk confirmed the discovery of gold in an address to Congress . Soon, waves of immigrants from around the world, later called the "forty - niners," invaded the Gold Country of California or "Mother Lode". As Sutter had feared, he was ruined; his workers left in search of gold, and squatters took over his land and stole his crops and cattle . </P> <P> San Francisco had been a tiny settlement before the rush began . When residents learned about the discovery, it at first became a ghost town of abandoned ships and businesses, but then boomed as merchants and new people arrived . The population of San Francisco exploded from perhaps about 1,000 in 1848 to 25,000 full - time residents by 1850 . Miners lived in tents, wood shanties, or deck cabins removed from abandoned ships . </P> <P> In what has been referred to as the "first world - class gold rush," there was no easy way to get to California; forty - niners faced hardship and often death on the way . At first, most Argonauts, as they were also known, traveled by sea . From the East Coast, a sailing voyage around the tip of South America would take five to eight months, and cover some 18,000 nautical miles (33,000 kilometres). An alternative was to sail to the Atlantic side of the Isthmus of Panama, take canoes and mules for a week through the jungle, and then on the Pacific side, wait for a ship sailing for San Francisco . There was also a route across Mexico starting at Veracruz . Many gold - seekers took the overland route across the continental United States, particularly along the California Trail . Each of these routes had its own deadly hazards, from shipwreck to typhoid fever and cholera . </P>

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