Bavaria. John Schmitt was born on September 19, 1820, in Kassel. At that time, Kassel was in the Main-Kreis region in the far northwest corner of the Kingdom of Bavaria. Kassel is small village and is now part of the town of Biebergemund.

Tiffin, Ohio. John Schmitt immigrated to Tiffin, Ohio, in 1838.

In 1842, Charles Dickens took a tour of the United States as far west as St. Louis, including a two-hour stopover in Tiffin on the way back. He was only 30 years old but already written five famous novels: The Pickwick Papers, Oliver Twist, Nicholas Nickleby, The Old Curiosity Shop, Barnaby Rudge. He brought his wife Kate, her maid, and his Bostonian secretary George W. Putnam. They arrrived in Tiffin at noon for lunch at a hotel. After they dined, they were driven triumphantly all about town on the way to the railroad station. At 2:00 p.m., they boarded a train on the Mad River and Lake Erie Railroad and traveled the 37 miles from Tiffin to Sandusky.

John Schmitt married Mary Augusta Schickell, also a Bavarian immigrant living in Tiffin, in September 1847. They continued to live in Tiffin following their marriage. Their first child was born in Tiffin after John went to California for the Gold Rush in February 1849.

The July 1850 U.S. Census for Tiffin, shows Mary A. Smith, 20, born in Germany, and a Mary A, Smith, 1, born in Ohio. They are living with Catherine Smith, 60, born in Germany. There is no John Smith listed, presumably because he was in California.

Mathenias Creek, California. One day I was looking at a page for special events from the bible of my great great grandfather, John Schmitt, that my cousin Richard Drueke had given us. It was written in German script, but the word "California" popped out. Then I saw what looked like a date in 1849.

To the right is an excerpt from the page in John and Mary Schickell Schmitt's family bible referring to California and the year 1849.

Gerhard and Betty Becker have deciphered the German script:

"Im Jahre 1849 den 2ten Februar, reiste Johann Schmitt nach California von wo er im Jahr 1851 am 7ten April zurück kam,"

"In the year 1849 on February 2nd Johann Schmitt traveled to California from where he returned in the year 1851 on April 7th."

The October 1850 Census for Mathenias Creek shows a John Smith, 28, born in Germany, working as a miner. He is living on Mathenias Creek in El Dorado County, California. There were 16 pages for Mathenias Creek in the 1850 census, each with 42 persons.

It is not certain that the John Smith on Mathenias Creek was our John Smith. Our John Smith would have been 29 or 30 instead of 28, but census ages are not very reliable. There also was a John Smith from Germany in the census for Township No. 5 in Tuolumne County, but he was a year younger than the one on Mathenias Creek. And, there were eight other John Smiths of a similar age born in Germany. Four had middle initials, which our John did not use. Some were not miners.

Next to John on Mathenias Creek were two brothers, John and William Cordes. Because of future relationships between their families, as outlined below, their presence next to John in the census lends credence to the John of Mathenias Creek being our John. Their ages were 28 and 18. They were likely the sons of Anton Cordes (1790-1846) and Elizabeth Platte Cordes (1792-1876), who were immigrants from Prussia living in Alpine Michigan and had sons that age who were not living with them in the 1850 census. In the Mathenias Creek census, they are shown as from "Pa." Perhaps they said they were born in "Prussia," but the census taker thought they said "Pennsylvania." Perhaps the census taker abbriviated Prussia as "Pa."

The Mathenias Creek gold mine is in the Sierra Nevada mountain range, west of the The El Dorado National Forest, 13 miles south southeast of Sutter's Mill. It is just south of Diamond Springs. Diamond Springs is 46 miles east of Sacramento, in the central Valley of California. Mathenias Creek is also called Mathinias, Mathenas or Matheneys Creek. None of these names can be found on present-day maps. But, as indicated below, the name appears to be a variation of Martinez Creek, which can be found on maps.

Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo. The United States acquired California and other southwest territories from Mexico on February 2, 1848, in the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo, which followed the Mexican-American War of 1846-48, also known as the War of North American Invasion. See: Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo.

John Smith left for California on February 2, 1849 the first anniversary of the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo. California did become a State until September 9, 1850.

Excerpt from map of the states and territories of the United States as it was from 1849 to 1850, with yellow markers added for Diamond Springs, California, and Tiffin, Ohio. The distance is about 2,500 miles through Chicago, Omaha, the Rockiy Mountains and the Sierra Nevada. Map source: United States 1849-1850

Routes of the California, Mormon and Oregon Trails west of the Rocky Mountains. Source: California Trail

California Trail. It is estimated that approximately 90,000 people went to California in 1849—about half by land and half by sea. Of these, perhaps 50,000 to 60,000 were Americans. The California Trail was an emigrant trail of about 1,600 miles across the western half of the North American continent from Missouri River towns to California. After it was established, the first half of the California Trail followed the same corridor of networked river valley trails as the Oregon Trail and the Mormon Trail, namely the valleys of the Platte, North Platte, and Sweetwater rivers to Wyoming. The main route of the California Trail branched from the Oregon Trail west of Fort Hall, as immigrants went on forward going southwestward into present-day Nevada, then down along the Humboldt River to the Sierra Nevada. The journey was often slow and arduous, fraught with risks from dysentry, infectious diseases, dehydration, malnutrition, cholera, highwaymen, Indian attacks, injury, and harsh weather, with as many as one in ten travelers dying along the way, usually as a result of disease. See: California Trail.

Panning for gold on the Mokelumne River. Originally published in Harper's Weekly, 1860, as part of the article "How We Got Gold in California."

California Gold Rush. On January 24, 1848, gold was discovered at Sutter's Mill in Coloma, California. Word of the Gold Rush spread slowly at first. In March 1848, San Francisco newspaper publisher and merchant Samuel Brannan, after he had hurriedly set up a store to sell gold prospecting supplies, strode through the streets of San Francisco, holding aloft a vial of gold, shouting "Gold! Gold! Gold from the American River!" On August 19, 1848, the New York Herald was the first major newspaper on the East Coast to report that there was a gold rush in California. On December 5, 1848, the State of the Union message of President James Knox Polk urged Americans to explore and exploit California's new-found mineral wealth. Suddenly a mania for gold swept the United States. Because the gold in the California gravel beds was so richly concentrated, early forty-niners were able to retrieve loose gold flakes and nuggets with their hands, or simply "pan" for gold in rivers and streams. Panning cannot take place on a large scale, and industrious miners and groups of miners graduated to placer mining, using "cradles" and "rockers" or "long-toms" to process larger volumes of gravel. Miners would also engage in "coyoteing", a method that involved digging a shaft 20 to 43 feet deep into placer deposits along a stream. Tunnels were then dug in all directions to reach the richest veins of pay dirt. Early gold-seekers did perhaps make a modest profit, after all expenses were taken into account. Most, however, especially those arriving later, made little or wound up losing money. See: California Gold Rush. See also: Mindat.

USGS map of the Mother Lode belt in California. Source: California Mother Load

California Mother Lode. Sutter's Mill is part of he California Mother Lode, a long alignment of hard-rock gold deposits stretching northwest-southeast in the Sierra Nevada of California. The California Mother Lode is a zone from 0.93 to 3.73 miles wide and 120 miles long, between Georgetown on the north and Mormon Bar on the south. The zone contains hundreds of mines and prospects, including some of the best-known historic mines of the gold-rush era. Individual gold deposits within the Mother Lode are gold-bearing quartz veins up to 49 feet thick and a few thousand feet long. The California Mother Lode was one of the most productive gold-producing districts in the United States. Now it is known as a destination for tourism and for its vineyards. As with most gold rushes, the California gold rush started with the discovery of placer gold in sands and gravels of streambeds, where the gold had eroded from hard-rock vein deposits. Placer miners followed the gold-bearing sands upstream to discover the source in the bedrock. This source was the "mother" of the gold in the river and so was dubbed the "mother lode". See: California Mother Load.

Mines of El Dorado County. Doug Noble lists about 500 mines in El Dorado County, but only four mines date back to the 1850s. The only mine with the name Mathenias, Mathenas, or Martinez is the the Mathenas Creek (Schneider) Mine that was active between 1888 and 1894. He says that during the discovery of gold around 1850, thousands of mineral claims were filed. "Each mining claim was named by the miner or miners who discovered or worked it. Like the towns they created, some reflected their personal name, the place they had left from on their trip west, loved ones left behind, a nearby physical landmark or often, something now totally obscure. In time some of these claims grew into large mining operations operated by a cooperative "company" or large crews of hired miners. However, most were simply abandoned, once any value was removed, and soon became just a forgotten entry in the record books. Like the early towns and roads, these mines, and often their names, have become a part of our history." Source: Mines of El Dorado County by Doug Noble, copyright 2002.

Martinez Creek. Martinez Creek (marked with red arrows on the map) is 7 miles long. It begins southeast of Diamond Springs in El Durado County, California. It flows west, then south. Tributaries (marked in blue) include Deadman Creek from the west, then Squaw Hollow Creek from the east. It flows in to the North Fork of Cosumnes Creek, which which eventualy flows in to San Francisco Bay. Source: Martinez Creek.

Martinez Creek has benn known in the past as Mathenias Creek, Mathinias Creek, Mathenas Creek, and Matheneys Creek.

A 2002 booklet by Doug Noble, Mines of El Dorado County, says the Mathenas Creek (Schneider) mine was one mile south of Diamond Springs. An 1883 History of El Dorado County by Paolo Sioli states that in 1855, the town of El Dorado, which is two miles south of Diamond Springs, was incorporated and included what was then known as Empire Ravine, Dead Man's Hollow, Loafer's Hollow, Logtown creek, Matheney's creek, Slate and Dry creeks.

With help from the California State Library and the Map Room of the New York Public Library, I was able to locate the mine on a 1909 map of El Dorado County issued by the California State Mining Bureau and Lewis E. Aubrey, State Minerologist. It shows mines with dots and numbers. A Register issued with the map shows that the Mathenas mine is No. 70 on the map, putting it on a tributary of Martinez Creek. Using the 1909 map, it is possible to plot the mine on a present-day map. The Register has separate tables for different kinds of gold mines. The table for Quartz Mines, by far the largest, contains information about the Mathenas mine.

From 1902 Register of Mines and Minerals for El Dorado County:

• Name of Mine: Mathenas
• Nearest Town or P.O.: Diamond Springs
• Location
  • Section: 31
  • Township: 10
  • Range: 11
  • Map No.: 70
• Elevation: 1800
• Company, Owner, or Superintendent
  • Name: J. A. Kock (Note)
  • Address: Diamond Springs

Note: The 1900 U.S. census for Diamond Springs shows a John Koch, 39, single, hotel keeper, born in Califonia, parents born in Germany.

David Cismowski, Senior Librarian, California State Library, provided these Annual reports of the California State Mineralogist that mention the Mathenas Creek mine in 1888, 1890, 1894, 1896, 1916, 1926, and 1938.

1909 Map - Excerpt from Excerpt from 1909(?) map of El Dorado County issued by the California State Mining Bureau and Lewis E. Aubrey, State Minerologist. The white circle has been added to mark Mathenias Creek. It is a trbutary of Martinez Creek shown at the bottom. Squares are township sections, one mile by one mile. Small black numbers are section numbers. Large red numbers are mine numbers. A 1902 Register of Mines and Minerals for El Dorado County issued with the map shows that the Mathenas mine is No. 70 on the map, putting it on a tributary of Martinez Creek.

2024 Map - Martinez Creek, 7 miles long, originating southeast of Diamond Springs and flowing into the North Fork of Cosumnes Creek. Source: Martinez Creek

Mathenias Creek Gold Mine on Martinez Creek. Using the 1909 map, it is possible to approximate the position of the mine on a present-day map. The white circle on the map on the left shows the Mathenias Creek gold mine, No. 70 on the 1909 map of El Dorado County. The black circle on the Google map on the right shows a corresponding location of the Mathenias Creek gold mine, on Martinez Creek, 0.2 miles east of the end of Tullis Mine Road, at latitude 38.668983 and longitude -120.817091.

1909 Map - The white circle has been added to mark Mathenias Creek gold mine, No. 70. Excerpt from the 1909(?) map of El Dorado County issued by the California State Mining Bureau and Lewis E. Aubrey, State Minerologist.

2024 Map - The black circle has been added to mark Mathenias Creek gold mine, on Martinez Creek, 0.2 miles east of the end of Tullis Mine Road, at latitude 38.668983 and longitude -120.817091. Source: Google maps

Directions from Sacramento to the end of Tullis Mine Road, Diamond Springs are:

• east 44 miles on the El Dorado Freeway (US 50) to Perks Corner (exit 44A)
• south 1.5 miles on Missouri Flat Road
• east 0.2 miles on Pleasant Valley Road (CA 49)
• south 2 miles on Tullis Mine Road, Justine Avenue, Patterson Drive, Ascella Drive, Tullis Mine Road (Tullis Mine is No. 54)
• east 0.2 miles to Martinez Creek and a possible location of the Mathenias Creek gold mine (No. 70)

Google maps marker for a possible Mathenias Creek gold mine location on Martinez Creek, 0.2 miles east of the end of Tullis Mine Road, at latitude 38.668983 and longitude -120.817091. Source: Google maps, April 2024

Tiffin, Ohio. John and Mary Augusta's first child, Mary Appolonia Schmitt, was born in Tiffin on August 10, 1849, six months after her father left for California. She eventually went by the name Abbie Smith. On April 7, 1851, John Smith returned to Tiffin, Ohio, from the California. His gold mining days were over. He was away for over two years. There is no indication that he made a fortune there.

Grand Rapids, Michigan. Less than a year after John returned to Ohio, the Schmitts moved from Tiffin to Grand Rapids, Michigan, close to where the Cordes family lived in Alpine, Michigan. He had lived next to their two sons on Mathenias Creek.

John and Mary Augusta's second child, Crescenz Joseph Schmitt, was born in 1852. He became a musician and eventually went by the name Cris J. Smith.

John and Mary Augusta's third child, Rosa Wilhelmina Schmitt, was born in Grand Rapids on October 6, 1854.

In the 1856 and 1859 business directories, John Smith was listed as a saloonkeeper. In 1856 the address of the saloon was given as Front Street. In the 1860 census, the family was living in the 4th Ward of Grand Rapids, and John was listed as a saloonkeeper.

John Schmitt died in Grand Rapids on March 17, 1861. He was buried in St. Andrew's Cemetery. He was 40 years old. He left his wife Mary Augusta and three young children.

John and Mary Augusta's second child, Crescenz Joseph Schmitt is my great grandfather. In 1880, at age 28, he married my great grandmother Christine Koch, 19, in Grand Rapids. In 1882, Cris and Christine had a daughter, Rose Viola, my grandmother. Christine died in 1887.

John and Mary Augusta's third child, Rosa Wilhelmina Schmitt married Charles Andrew Hauser in 1882 and raised my grandmother Rosa Viola after her mother Christine died in 1887. My grandmother called Rosa Wilhelmina "Tante."

John and William Cordes. As mentioned above, also mining gold on Mathenias Creek in El Dorado County were John and William Cordes. The 1850 U.S. Census for Mathenias Creek lists them right above John Smith. Their ages were 28 and 18. They were likely the sons of Anton Cordes (1790-1846) and Elizabeth Platte Cordes (1792-1876), who lived in Michigan and had sons that age named John and William.

The Cordes family had immigrated from Helden, Germany, and settled in Westphalia, Michigan, in 1836. In 1844, they moved to Alpine, a farming commmunity just north of Grand Rapids. Alpine was in Saint Mary's, a German parish created in 1857 on the west side of the Grand River. John and Mary Augusta Smith moved here in 1851 from Tiffin.

There are a number of connections between six Cordes brothers, the Smith family, the Schickell family, and the Berles family. My grandmother descends from the Smith and Schickell families. My grandfather descends from the Berles family. His father immigrated from Helden in 1871.

• Joseph Cordes (1819-1851?) settled in Grand Rapids and opened a grocery store. He married Anna Maria Thome in about 1844. They had two children, Michael and Anne, in the 1850 census in in Michigan. He disappeared and was presumed dead. He left his wife Anna Maria and three children: Michael and Anne. His daughter, Anne E. Cordes (1846-1920), in 1867 married Peter Schickell, John Smith's brother-in-law.
• Casper Cordes (1820-1902) was a farmer in Alpine. He married Mary Ann Marten. Their first child Theresa Cordes (1845-1925) married Joseph Berles (1841-1922), brother of Franz Berles (1828-1884).
• John Cordes (1822-1893) mined gold on Mathenias Creek with John Schmitt. He then settled in Grand Rapids and opened a grocery store. When his brother Joseph disappeared and was presumed dead, John married Joseph's widow Anna Maria, he adopted Anna Maria's children, and they had four children of their own.
• Eberhard Cordes (1827-1908) was also a farmer in Alpine. In 1858, he married Theresa Berles (1838-1923), sister of Franz Berles (1828-1884).
• William Cordes (1832-1907) mined gold on Mathenias Creek with John Schmitt. He returned to Alpine and became a farmer. In 1856, he married Catherine Hoffman and they had seven children.
• Frederick Cordes (1834-1901), yet another brother, was, like John Schmitt, a saloonkeeper in Grand Rapids. In 1870, he married John Schmitt's widow, Mary Augusta. Sometime between 1875 and 1880, they were divorced.

There were three other siblings:

• Johann Wilhelm Cordes (1817-1820).
• Anton Cordes (1825-1842).
• Theresa Cordes (1829-1870), who married Johann Casper Platte.