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James N.
Colonial Militia
USA
Bumppo's Patron since [at least]:
October 24 2007
Status: offline
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 Posted - September 16 2012 : 7:10:46 PM
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John Augustus Sutter was a German-Swiss immigrant to Mexican California in 1839 before either the War with Mexico or the Gold Rush. He hoped to carve out a European-style fiefdom or "empire" in the hills of northern Alta California, and obtained a Mexican land grant allowing him thousands of acres of fertile land bordering the Sacramento River on which he established ranches and farms boasting thousands of animals: oxen, cattle, horses, and sheep; and employing hundreds of Indians and a few whites, Mexicans, and even Hawaiians. At the center of his domain he built a large fortified compound eventually enclosed by an adobe brick wall and armed with cannon purchased from the Russians when they abandoned Fort Ross, their fur trading post on the California coast. However, Sutter's Fort was less a fort than a trading post and community center and soon became the objective of immigrant trains from the United States like the ill-fated Donner Party. ( Of which more in the Into the Wilderness section of the forum. )
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The two-story headquarters building is the only remaining original structure.
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Sutter's office as recreated in the headquarters.
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Pharmacy/dispensary recreation on the second floor.
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Reproduction Russian artillery includes this Napoleonic-era 4-pounder field gun and the smaller ones in the blockhouses below, shown with the gun gin used to mount and dismount them from their carriages.
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Today Sutter's Fort stands in a city park in downtown Sacramento; only the two-story central headquarters building is an original structure, and the proportion of the reconstructed walls is off a bit, but on a late Sunday afternoon it was still possible to get an idea of what it had been like when it was the only settlement in northern California.
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Old Town Sacramento down along the riverfront was having a Gold Rush Days festival over this Labor Day weekend - with dirt spread over the brick streets amid the Nineteenth-Century storefronts, it also resembled a movie set.
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James N.
Colonial Militia
USA
Bumppo's Patron since [at least]:
October 24 2007
Status: offline
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Posted - September 16 2012 : 7:53:51 PM
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Unfortunately for Sutter and his grandiose plans, things began to unravel starting in 1846 when the U.S. - Mexican War began and Alta California became a target for adventurers like John C. Fremont and Kit Carson who visited the fort: the so-called Bear Flag Republic was proclaimed and California was stripped away from Mexico by the 1848 treaty ending the war, making the legality of Sutter's land grant now open to question. In the meantime, still going about his empire-building business, Sutter took a partner in a new enterprise: carpenter and wheelwright James Marshall was financed to erect and run a lumber mill on the American River, a tributary of the Sacramento, some forty miles away where there was a plentiful supply of wood and water. Marshall led a party of Mormons recently discharged from the U.S. Army to the site where they dug a millrace and erected a sawmill. Walking along the stream one morning, Marshall found the first of the gold, which began the Rush of '49 and eventually wiped out Sutter's empire as self-styled "Argonauts" from all over the world soon swarmed his lands, rustling his cattle and killing, enslaving, or driving off his Indian allies. His own workers abandoned the fort along with the farms and ranches to join the search for gold.
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The original mill site is now a short way out in the American River, popular with holiday rafters, but remains of the millrace are easily visible a short distance downstream.
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Reconstructed working sawmill is located well-ashore and gas engine powered!
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Now Marshall Gold Discovery State Park, the site features a museum, a very few original buildings or foundations from Coloma, the town which grew around the site of the mill, the reconstructed sawmill, and James Marshall's grave and memorial.
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Marshall never profited from his discovery, though he briefly joined in the search for gold. Returning to this area a broken-down alchoholic like so many of his peers including his former partner Sutter, he lived in a small cabin until his death in 1885 at age 75, and is buried on a tall nearby hill beneath the large statue whose finger points to the sites of Coloma and the fatal mill.
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Sutter's Fort, Sutter's Mill, and the California Gold Rush
