Marshall, James. Rare card signed ("Jas. W. Marshall")....

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Marshall, James. Rare card signed ("Jas. W. Marshall"). Marshall, James. Rare card signed ("Jas. W. Marshall") (5.25 x 2.75 in.; 133 x 69 mm.) Oval image at upper left captioned "Old Sutter Mill." Printed at upper edge "Autograph of" and below "The Discoverer of Gold in California January 19th, 1848." In the center, Marshall has boldly signed his name for a collector who penned in a blank area above his signature: This Card was given to me by Mr. Marshall 1882 P.E. McCarthy. Light mounting remnants on verso. Fine condition. James Marshall - the discoverer of gold in California. Patrick E. McCarthy (1846-1921) was born in Killarney, Ireland. When he was three, his parents immigrated to Canada, where he served as a quartermaster's clerk in the U.S. Army in Kansas. He arrived in San Francisco in 1868 when the Gold Rush fever had begun to settle down. McCarthy began publishing "The Standard" and "The Pathfinder" and worked on the staff of the "San Francisco Chronicle" in the 1880s. McCarthy acquired paintings from all the major California painters from the 1870s to the turn of the century. His collection, ostensibly including this card, was the only one in San Francisco that survived the 1906 earthquake intact. Pioneer autograph expert Charles Hamilton wrote about James W. Marshall in his definitive volume "Collecting Autographs and Manuscripts" (Norman: University of Oklahoma Press, 1961), "Near the end of his long life he printed a few cards, picturing Sutter's mill, with a note about his discovery of gold..."