Background
George Henry Goddard came to California in 1850 settling in Sacramento. He prospected for gold but earned a living as an artist,
selling sketches of California scenes. With Edgar Mills, he helped found the mining camp of Columbia in Tuolumne County. He
was originally an architect and surveyor and surveyed the first railroad line in California, the Western Pacific, extending
out of Sacramento. In 1861, he became a land examiner for various banks in Sacramento. He assembled a large collection of
minerals from California mines and more than 1000 sketches of places he had surveyed. This collection was destroyed in the
San Francisco earthquake and fire of April, 1906. George Goddard died December 27 1906.