MATHEW IVANKOVICH AT DISCOVERY OF GOLD IN CALIFORNIA

By Adam S. Eterovich

Matt Ivancovich was born in old “Slavonia” (Croatia) near the city of Trieste in the year 1822. His father was Slavonian (Croatian), his mother French or Italian. His early schooling was obtained at Trieste, later at Milan. When he reached the age of eighteen he joined the Italian navy, and while serving on a warship he was wounded while engaged in a battle with pirates. As to the outcome of the battle, Matt made the following remark, “We shot them to pieces.” After his one year with the navy, Matt continued the life of a sailor on merchant ships of Dutch, Norwegian and British nationalities. He advanced in rank to boatswain.

On one of his voyages he was a sailor on board a British merchant vessel sailing from Southhampton to Sydney Australia. On this ship was a band of sheep. While waiting for some repair work to be done on the ship, Matt assisted in driving the sheep to the tableland, some hundred miles west of Sydney. He thus got to see the Blue Mountains of the sparsley settled interior of Australia.

Ivancovich in Mexican San Francisco

Matt had an older brother by the name of John Ivancovich who was also a sailor. In the year 1842 John was a sailor on board a whaling vessel, and during a storm on the pacific, he fell from the rigging, to the deck, breaking a leg and also received other injuries. He was landed at San Francisco, and never returned to the sea. His leg was improperly set which left him permanently lame. John wrote to his brother Matt, and urged him to come to California, and take advantage of the higher wages then paid to workers in all lines. In the meantime Matt was a boatswain on board a merchant ship on a long voyage. He did not return to his home port until about three years later. In the summer of 1847 Matt was a deck officer on a Dutch ship that sailed round the horn to San Francisco. In a statement to the writer Mr. Ivancovich reported he had some difficulty with one of the Dutch sailors.  The sailor in question was both dull of understanding and stubborn, and Matt threatened to clout him. When the ship arrived at San Francisco this sailor and one other deserted the ship.

Ivancovich at Discovery of Gold

The two sailors were later employed by Captain Sutter. Matt had made prior arrangements to leave the ship at San Francisco. Matt soon met his brother John, and through him found employment repairing boats and ships. While he was thus employed he had the pleasure of meeting Captain Sutter. It seems that one of Sutter’s launches had sprung a beam and was leaking badly. Matt repaired the launch and delivered it to Sutter in a first class sea-worthy condition. Matt returned to San Francisco and in company with his brother they did boat repair work and other carpentering. Toward the latter part of December Sutter wanted his ‘Sailor man’, to go up to the sawmill to help him build the mill-dam. Matt arrived at the sawmill a few days before Christmas, and bean work before the first of the year, getting things ready for building the dam, brush, rocks and foundation timbers. Matt intended to stay only until the dam was completed, but as things turned our he stayed there until the 13th of February in 1848, when he left for San Francisco to inform him brother of the gold discovery.

He soon after returned to mine gold on Weber creek. Mr. Ivancovich has received a good education in the Italian language. He kept a diary in which he made entries at various times, while on the high seas, also at the sawmill, and in Australia. Matt also had a fair command of the English language, having been in contact with English speaking people most of his life. He had been a sailor on several British ships. All his wring was in Italian. From the time of the gold discovery in 1848, Matt did little else but mine gold. He was a expert prospector and miner, in both placer and quarts, and he made considerable money during his life time. He then went to Australia. Matt made considerable money in the Ballarat mines in Australia, and also in the Caribou mines of British Columbia.

Ivancovich Goldmine in Calaveras, California

In the fifties, after he returned from Australia, Matt and his brother John mined in partnership in Calaveras county. The two brothers discovered a rich vein of quarts, which they later sold for a rather large sum of money. The two them dissolved partnership because a disagreement over the change of names. John decided to shorten his name of Ivankovich to plain Evans, of Evens, not sure which. Matt refused to make the change. Said he, I was born with the name Ivancovich, which suits me well enough, and I will be known under that name to the end. Matt was annoyed to think his brother appeared to be ashamed of the name Ivankovich, and so they parted company. With his half of the proceeds form the mine, Matt went to San Francisco, and spent a year enjoying the good things of life. Then having spent nearly all of his money he returned to the golden hills of Calaveras to again engage in placer mining. Matt could seemingly discover gold in places where others searched in vain for the metal.

The writer’s first meeting with Mr. Ivancovich, who was present when gold was discovered in the tailrace at Coloma. On a bright sunny afternoon in the early part of September 1895, the writer and his mining partner, who was a veteran of the Civil War, were sitting on a log outside our cabin, resting in the shade of the pines for a few minutes before proceeding up the canyon to our placer mine. Glancing down the canyon we could see in the distance a lone man plodding slowly up the trail. He appeared to be carrying a heavy pack, for he stopped occasionally to rest. Being that our cabin was at the end of the trail, my partner and I decided to wait until he arrived in out midst. When the stranger arrived, he first unloaded his huge pack, which contained his camp outfit and mining tools, which totaled a weight of nearly a hundred pounds. The man sat down on the log and introduced himself, saying he had arrived on the creek the day before.

He had recently sold his placer mine near Angles Camp, where he had lived out most of the time since he returned from Australia in 1852, and from British Columbia, Canada in 1860. He had now purchased a placer mine a short distance down the stream from our two placer claims. There had been a log cabin on his placer claim, built in the early fifties, but it was burned down the previous year during a raging forest fire. Being there was no cabin on his placer mine in which he could stay, Mr. Ivancovich asked permission to stay with us until he could build a cabin, which permission was readily granted. The substance of the matter was, he camped with us for nearly two years. We found him to be a perfect gentleman, and a man of education. During his seven years before the mast, Matt had visited nearly every major port in the world. About the middle of January 1896, my partner and I were ground-sluicing though a mass of earth and rocks, that at some time in the past had slid down the mountain into the creek, filling up the original stream, and turning it to one side. We dug a ditch through the mass of earth in line with the original channel, just deep enough to start a stream of water through. We groud-sluiced through the side until most of the earth had washed away. The stones had been stacked to one side. Early one morning, the writer went up the canyon as usual to close the gate, to shut off the water and allow the resevoir to fill. While returning by the slide area, considerable gold could be seen on the exposed bedrock. A large stream of waster had been slowing through the slide during the night. After eating a hurried breakfast, my partner and i prepared to go up to the slide and gather what gold is now in sight. Mr. Ivankovich was not feeling well on this morning, and said he would not go to work in his mine, so he was asked to accompany us to the slide and view the display of gold. He replied that he would like to see it and compare it with the display of gold he had the pleasure of seeing in the tailrace of Coloma. In about twenty minutes we were standing on the bank gazing at the bedrock which was covered with gold mostly in nuggets ranging in size from the size of a pinhead to nuggets worth more than five dollars.  Said Mr. Ivankovich, What a magnificent display of gold.

Gold at the Sawmill in 1848

That’s just how the gold looked in the tailrace at the sawmill on that Friday morning in 1848 after Marshall had picked up his ounce of gold only here the pieces are larger. This was the first we knew of his being present when gold was discovered at Coloma, and my partner and I wanted to learn more about that famous discovery, so Matt kindly consented to give us the details, and he also drew a rough sketch of the position of the gold in the tailrace from memory, and also the whole sawmill setup. The sawmill then under construction, the approximate size of the saw, about six feet in length, the water wheel and the dam. He had a diary written in Italian, giving it dates and other information. Some difficult was experienced in making our translation into English, but a fairly accurate translation was finally accomplished.

Mr. Ivancovich was anything but a miser, he spent his money freely, and considerable of it was exchanged for whiskey, wine and beer. Said he, Money is made to be spent, not hoarded, and no matter how much money you make, you can’t take any of it with you. What folly it is for a man to store up a fortune to leave for others to quarrel over and squander. Mr. Ivancovich spent the greater part of his life in California, and to the writer he made the following remark: California is the best state in which to reside, to enjoy life and make money, and I want to live in no other. They were his exact words. As to the future of gold mining, Matt expressed the opinion that much gold still remains in the ground in California gold belt. The writer last saw Mr. Ivancovich in the spring of 1898. He was then hard at work in the placer mine.

Related to W.A. Moxley in the 1890’s. Manuscript and Map on file at the California Historical Society in San Francisco.