Francis Bret Harte was born in 1836 in Albany, New York. After moving to San Francisco with his family in 1854, Harte began his literary career as a "printer's devil," a person who set the type for the printing presses of local newspapers. Harte wrote articles for several small newspapers, then left San Francisco to teach school in a Sierra mining town. He may have spent a short time prospecting during this period. Harte eventually returned to San Francisco, where he was encouraged by the editor of a local periodical, the Overland Monthly, to write stories about the gold rush mining camps that he had seen firsthand. In 1868 Harte's story, "The Outcasts of Poker Flat," was published in the Overland Monthly and became an instant success.
The California gold rush. The first major discovery of gold in California occurred in February 1848, at Sutter's Mill. John Sutter was a cattle rancher and entrepreneur who had plans for establishing a community on the Sacramento River in northern California. During the construction of a saw mill on the American River, Sutter's chief carpenter, James Marshall, discovered gold while digging into the river bottom.
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