Mormon Island: Battalion Veterans Make One of the Richest Gold Finds of the Rush — Then Choose Zion Over Gold (March 1848)

On March 2, 1848, Sidney Willis and Wilford Hudson — both former Mormon Battalion soldiers — made one of the richest gold finds of the California Gold Rush at a site on the American River that became known simply as 'Mormon Island.' Their find was independent of and secondary to the Sutter's Mill discovery, but the site proved spectacularly productive.

When Sidney Willis and his brother Ira went to San Francisco and told Samuel Brannan, Brannan advised all Battalion men to go mine and pay their tithing directly to him as 'head of the Church.' He was simultaneously publicizing the gold strike across California, running through the streets of San Francisco swinging a bottle of gold dust and shouting 'Gold! Gold! Gold from the American River!'

The Battalion men worked the mines through the spring. They panned as much as twenty-five dollars per night while still being paid one and a half dollars per day to finish the mill for Sutter.

Then Brigham Young called them home.

When the summons came to gather to the Salt Lake Valley, most of the Battalion veterans left their claims in California and crossed the Sierra Nevada. They brought seeds, tools, and skills — but they left behind ground that was producing wealth that would make other men millionaires.

The contrast was deliberate and understood. These men had already chosen faith over comfort once. They chose it again.

Fuller account of this event (as retold in Eyewitness to the Discovery of Gold at Sutter's Mill - 1848):

However, Sidney Willis and Wilford Hudson began to feel that they would like a little venison, and with that for an excuse took their guns and set out on foot, having been assured that by following up the river they would come to the sawmill, which they succeeded in doing the first day. I think that it was only thirty-five miles distant. As they passed down on their way home they discovered a small ravine or creek in which there was some of the same kind of bed rock that they had seen at the mill race, and by picking around in the sand and gravel they discovered quite a rich prospect that was just opposite what was afterwards called Mormon Island, about twelve or fifteen miles. Having explained briefly the find and proclamation, we will return to the mill race, while from 100 to 150 Mormons flocked to Mormon Island, and then people from every part of the States followed, and the search for gold was commenced in earnest. Marshall had never seen, the most notable of which was Mormon Island, to where the first rush was made, and from where the news was spread to the uttermost bounds of the everlasting hills and to all the nations of the earth.