Carson Hill, California

Carson Hill, Camp and Creek were named for James H. Carson who first reached the area that was to bear his name in August, 1848. Carson had been a Second Lieutenant in Col. Jonathan D. Stevenson’s Regiment of New York Volunteers, mustered out in the summer of 1848 in San Francisco. The news of the discovery of gold at Sutter’s Mill found the members of the Stevenson’s Regiment in an ideal position to be among the first Americans in the mines of California. Carson left immediately for Placerville and then traveled southward to Carson Hill with a company of 30 men, many of them Mexicans. Reputedly, Carson “discovered” the placers on Carson Creek with the assistance of an Indian who told him that he could find gold there.

Within ten days Carson and a small company had each taken out 180 ounces of gold; they left the area that fall (Carson 1950:8). By the middle of December, 1849, a traveler was to comment: "We passed by Carson’s Creek where there were no miners then, though Jim Carson had discovered gold there previously” (San Andreas Independent: Sept. 18, 1858). In November of 1849, only 29 men voted in the election held in the Carson District. But upon Carson’s return to the area in that year, he commented upon the change:

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On November 22, 1854, the largest mass of gold ever found in the United States, the “Calaveras Nugget,” was taken from the Comstock claim on Carson Hill by four Americans and one Swiss miner. It weighed 195 pounds troy and was valued at $43,534.

FROM HERE