I was born in England and came as a boy of twelve years to Philadelphia  and went to Illinois in the
spring of 1844 and with my wife joined a train for Oregon at Independence in [April] 1845, and at
Fort Hall we determined to come to California. There we met Greenwood, the mountaineer, who
told us we could get land of the grant holders and agreed to fetch us in. He got $2.50 .......... apiece
to pilot us in to California. There was in our train about thirty wagons and perhaps--persons
including men, women and children. Near Fort Hall we fell in with Jacob R. Snyder and Judge
Blackburn who were travelling with pack horses. They came on with us. With our party came
George McDougal,  a young man. He was brave and handsome. He joined us at Fort Hall, and
also Knight from whom Knights Valley is named. The Elliotts  were along, and John Grigsby,
and the McChristians and family, and the Hudson family. We had no trouble at all at the sink of
the Humboldt [except that we] had a few shots fired into our cattle. Ide, who issued the
proclamation at Sonoma,  was also along. He was a prominent man; he was well provided.

Note:
James Gregson was born in Little Bolton, Lancashire, England, on September 14, 1822. In 1837, in
Philadelphia, he was bound to James Brooks as an apprentice to the blacksmiths' and machinists'
trade and served until he was 21 years old. Hist. of Sonoma County , p. 474.

We got into the Sacramento Valley the last of October, and went to Sutter's Fort, and there I was
employed as a whipsawyer with Henry Marshall who came out with us. The lumber was to build a
schooner on the headwaters of the Cosumnes River, fifty miles from the Fort. We cut a good deal
of lumber. While there an Indian came in who had never seen a white man; he had a hat made like
their baskets and all covered with feathers. I traded him a white shirt for it, and afterwards traded it
to a Mormon for a horse. We went in to the Fort in the fall of 1845. Captain Sutter sent for us, and
the lumber got to the Fort a few days before Christmas. He gave us $30 a thousand for lumber
payable in goods.

We then entered into a contract with Mr. Hardy who owned a great estate at the mouth of the
Feather River where the town of Sacramento was. We stayed with him three months, doing
general farm work and living in a tule shanty. I only stayed there three months and then went back to
Sutter's Fort. Hardy fell off of a schooner in Suisun Bay and was drowned.
 

I went to work digging a ditch for Captain Sutter with Henry Marshall, at $2.50 a rod, a foot wide
at the top and four feet deep, and two feet at the bottom.  We worked at this Fort until the war
began. When we first came in we heard that Sutter was favorable to the Americans. Then I went to
work for the Captain at anything he wanted. Soon after we got in, a proclamation was read notifying
the Americans to leave. After it was read Sutter told us to stand by him and he would stand by us.

Fremont came to the Fort in February 1846. In the fight with the Klamath Indians Captain Gillespie
killed an Indian with a coat of mail made of wood slats and a warp of sinew. I saw the coat of mail
when it was shewn to Captain Sutter on his return. Captain Gillespie afterwards commanded sixty
men as volunteers.

I was at Sutter's Fort when Vallejo and the Bear Flag prisoners [were there and] took my regular
turn as a guard of the prisoners. I had been enlisted into the services of the United States for three
months at $12 per month. [When I] guarded the men they all appeared quiet. We used to take them
out to exercise--Bob Ridley, J. P. Leese, Victor Prudon, Salvador and General Vallejo--then stood
guard over them. I stayed there until they were released on parole. Then I enlisted in the California
Battalion in Captain Brown's Company and went down to meet Fremont at Monterey. We had no
trouble until we got to San Juan South. We had twelve Walla Walla Indians along, Captain Burris
[Charles Burroughs] in command.

We saw the long glittering lances of the Mexicans as we got into the plain. We were joined about
this time by Captain Weaver [Charles M. Weber] and thirty men which gave us about sixty men.
The sun was about an hour high when the fight began. We had eight hundred head of horses and
four pieces of artillery. We put the horses in the corral at the Gomez ranch and left a dozen men to
guard them and took part and fought two hundred Mexicans with fifty men. We formed in line and
counted off. Captain Burris [Burroughs] said for No. 1 to fire while No. 2 was to hold his fire, but
we soon got mixed up and fired on the Indians who were in advance and fell back, and the
Mexicans charged us boldly and we give them the best we had and charged at them. I was close to
Burris [Burroughs] when he fell, the captain of the Mexicans killed him, he rode up close to him, and
fired, I thought with a pistol. Burris [Burroughs] was killed before we could get him to the rear. We
lost a man named Ames and Billy the Cooper of Weaver's [Weber's] Company, and Foster who
was a lieutenant. All killed with musket balls or pistols.

After the charge we held the ground. We thought we killed ten of the Mexicans; they retreated. We
went to Gomez's house and got two men to go to Monterey and tell Fremont we were there--they
got in safely and told Fremont. We buried our dead, when Fremont came up with three hundred
men and we all then went to the Mission of San Juan and encamped. Most of us were enlisted into
Captain Ford's Company. [We stayed] at San Juan three or four weeks, then started for the
lower country with Fremont. I think he was a confounded scamp and a coward.

We crossed the Santa Inez Mountain on Christmas day in a dreadful storm, lost fifteen head of
horses, left cannon on the mountain and went down a trail. We might have gone through Gaviota
Pass. One of the most noted things that happened was just before we got to San Luis Obispo on
the Salmon. We captured an Indian with dispatches, shot him and went on to San Luis Obispo and
caught Pico, caught him in bed, surrounded the house and took him down to San Luis Obispo that
night and tried him by court martial. [He was] found guilty of violating his parole and sentenced to be shot. We
thought he would be shot. We were marshaled out and Fremont released him on the condition that he would
stay with and pilot us over the mountains. His family came and begged for him. The boys thought it was a
shame to kill the Indian and not Pico.

At Santa Barbara we had no trouble. We lived on beef, had no bread. We had with us about 450
men. As we left San Buena Ventura the Mexicans rode up on top of the hill and the next morning
we marched out in battle order, artillery in the center. The Mexicans came out and Fremont got
scared and ordered us up a hollow. .......... We could not get through and had to come back, and
camped on the Santa Anna River [Santa Clara River]. There we had no trouble until we got to Los
Angeles--and had none there.

I came up by land to San Francisco in the spring of 1847 with ten Mexicans. We were given ten
dollars apiece and indebted to Major Reading for this. We came up by the coast. All shipped at
Santa Clara and I went on to San Francisco and gave up my horse. I was in San Francisco without
money, and I had to buy clothes from a sailor. I was standing on Black's Point.  1st Lieutenant
Revere  came up and asked me what man-of-war I belonged to. I told him I did not belong to any.
He asked me if I had no coat. I told him "No" and showed him my papers. He told me to come the
next day and he would give me a coat, which he did. I had nothing to eat and asked him if he could
not give me an order to get something. He said that he had nothing, but to come tomorrow and see
Captain Dupont. The next day I met Captain Dupont and asked him to give me something to eat
until I could get to Sacramento. I lived in San Francisco three months and crossed to Sonoma with
J. P. Leese in the sloop Amelia and from there to Sacramento. The officers gave me a horse at
Sonoma and I went to Sacramento City.

I paid in work to Captain Sutter for my wifes relations [rations?] while I was gone, and I never got
but ten dollars for my services and a 120-acre land warrant; this was the summer of 1847. Myself
and a man named Lenox helped to get out the large mill stones for Captain Sutter's grist mill on the
American River,  then we made a contract to do the blacksmithing for Sutter and Marshall who
were partners in building a saw mill at Colusa [Coloma] where gold was discovered. Up to this time
I had not heard of gold. Where I first worked with the whipsaw was afterwards all worked out for
gold. My wife was to cook for one or two men. I was to work for three years, to be paid in cattle.
The morning we were to start for Colusa [Coloma] from Sutter's Fort, Marshall came into the Fort
with a little vial of about an ounce, greenish glass, which was over half full of scale gold. I looked
at it and this was the first gold seen in the country. That vial was sent to Capt. [Joseph L.] Folsom in
San Francisco, and in six weeks there came back word it was gold of fine quality. It was sent down
on the old launch.

I think Major McKinstry took it down, a cousin of Judge [E. W.] McKinstry.

I went up to the mill with my wife and went to work. There were a number of men there, five or six
white men. I recollect Weaver and his family, Marshall, Humphreys and Charles Bennett (he died
in Oregon), two Mormon teamsters and perhaps a dozen Indians. In the daytime the Indians would
dig in the race, which was twenty feet deep in some places and an average of ten feet. At night we
would turn the water in and shut it off in the morning, and we would find the gold in the crevices of
the rock. It was all scale gold in that race. I went up there just after New Year's Day 1848. It was
in the race every morning, we did not pay much attention to it. We picked it up off and on for six
weeks without any excitement. A letter came to Marshall from Sutter [reporting] that it was gold of
a fine quality. Marshall was then living with me. We had salt salmon and boiled wheat, and we, the
discoverers of gold, were living on that when gold was found, and we suffered from scurvy
afterwards.

Myself, Marshall, Humphries, and Bennett were living together in a double cabin. Soon as we got
word it was gold I said to Marshall: "Let us go up the river, the south fork of the American River,
and see if we can't find some gold." We had a pick and pan. We went up the river three miles to a
bar and called it Live Oak Bar. We went out on the bar and picked out lump gold of the size of a
bean with our fingers, without digging--in all a pint cupful. I said,"This lets up our contract. Now,"
says I, "James, suppose we divide this gold." "No," says he, "I don't divide. You are a hired man." I
said, "That ends our contract." The next day I went back and dug and took out a good deal for
myself. It was the first prospecting done.

The people flocked in after that, and I got sick and had to come to Sonoma. I brought down about
$3,000 in the fall of 1848. I went back in 1849, in the spring, and worked three months and came
back. While in the mines we found a man deserted, on the middle fork of the Feather River. He had
chronic diarrhoea. Mills visited him. At last one morning he was found dead. He had written on a tin
plate, "Deserted by my friends, but not by my God." My partner was named Mills--perhaps it was
D. O. Mills  --he and me were working together. Some young fellows came into Spanish Bar
where we were, from Napa, and they had one hundred pounds of flour to sell. I told Mills we had
better buy it. We gave an ounce for it and found some nice butter rolled up in the center.

We left with eight hundred dollars and came back to Sonoma in the fall of 1849 and have been here
ever since. I bought land of Captain Cooper. I have a daughter who is now Mrs. Robert Reid of
San Luis Obispo, who was born at Sutter's Fort, September 15, 1846. She was the first white child
born in the Sacramento Valley.