Emanuel (“Emil”) Justh, a lithographer from Verboca, Hungary, fled the revolution of 1848-49, arriving in San Francisco on November 14, 1850. He set up a lithography business in his new city and later was a partner in a customs-house brokerage and served as assistant assayer at the newly opened San Francisco Mint in 1854-1855.

Solomon Hillen Hunter, a Maryland native and merchant in the shipping trade in Baltimore, came to California on March 2, 1855. On May 15 of that year Justh & Hunter commenced their assaying business in San Francisco. Business was excellent, with millions of dollars’ worth of gold assayed and formed into bars. The following May the firm opened a branch assay office in Marysville, with S.H. Hunter in charge. In May 1857 Justh & Hunter was joined by Captain Charles Uznay who had worked with Wass, Molitor & Co. and interrelated assayers and refiners. The new firm became Justh, Hunter & Uznay. This partnership proved to be short-lived, dissolving on August 15 after which the old name was revived Justh & Hunter continued to be an important assayer until the firm closed July 10, 1858, and Hunter left for the East, returning to New York City on August 27. Emil Justh remained in the assaying trade in San Francisco for a short time thereafter, and in Marysville until 1859. Later his facilities were sold or leased to others for whom Justh worked as an assayer and for a short time in 1861 he was back in the business on his own, but later in the year he sold his refinery to Kellogg, Hewston & Co. He returned to the East, living in New York City. Justh died in Paris on December 11, 1883, at the age of 55.