This was in the spring of 1847, before the discovery of gold
in California. The strange little metallic lump was exhibited to several
who are yet living, and who think there is reason for believing it was
really gold. A few years before the construction of the Central Pacific,
Knoxville, about ten miles south of Donner Lake, and Elizabethtown, some
six miles from Truckee, were famous mining camps. Gold never has been
found on the very shore of Donner Lake, but should the discovery be
made, and especially should gold be found in the rocks or earth near the
Reed cabin, there would be reason to believe that this poor unfortunate
man was in reality the first discoverer of the precious metal in
California. Left alone in the snow-mantled forests of the Sierra, what
were this man's emotions? In the California Star of 1847, a bound volume
of which is in the State Library in Sacramento, appears the following
poem. The second relief party found it written on the leaf of a
memorandum book by the side of Denton's lifeless body. The pencil with
which it was written lay also by the side of the unfortunate man. Ere
the lethargy of death stole away his senses, John Denton's thoughts had
been of his boyhood's beautiful home in merry England. These thoughts
were woven into verse. Are they not strangely pathetic and beautiful?
Judge Thornton, in 1849, published them with the following prefatory
words: "When the circumstances are considered in connection with the
calamities in which the unhappy Denton was involved, the whole compass
of American and English poetry may be challenged to furnish a more
exquisitely beautiful, a more touching and pathetic piece.
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