LIBRARY OF CONGRESS. 
 
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 UNITED STATES OF AMERICA. 
 
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THE 
 
 LIFE AND TIMES 
 
 Gen'l John A. Sutter 
 
 T. J. SCHOONOVER. 
 
 ILLUSTRATED POCKET EDITION. 
 
 JULlS11893f 
 
 SACRAMENTO : 
 
 D. Johnston & Co., Printers. 
 
 1S95. 
 
 (ip wi^9.^ 
 
 /^S^'V ^^^ 
 

 Entered according to Act of Congress, 
 
 in the office of the I,ibrarian, 
 
 At Washington, D. C,, in the year 1895, 
 
 By T. J. Schoonover. 
 
PREFACE. 
 
 This unassuming volume is not a garland of 
 rhetorical flowers, nor is it an offering from 
 Fancy's rich domain. It is a faithful, yet modest 
 presentation of facts pertaining to him whose 
 memory the author desires to perpetuate. 
 
 As a narrative, it may be void of system, bar- 
 ren in elegance and wanting in attraction. The 
 object in offering it to the public is to supply a 
 long-felt want. The author entertains a hope 
 that his motive may incline the charitable reader 
 to deal kindly with him and palliate his errors. 
 
 For assistance, in collecting material for this 
 work, Judge J. H. McKune, C. K. McClatchy, 
 Esq., and Hon. W. J. Davis are remembered 
 with gratitude. 
 
 T. J. SCHOONOVER. 
 
TO THE SOCIETY OF THE 
 
 NATIVE SONS OF THE GOI.DEN WEST 
 
 THIS WORK IS 
 
 RESPECTFUI.I.Y DEDICATED 
 
 BY THE AUTHOR. 
 
CONTENTS. 
 
 Gen. John Augustus Sutter i 
 
 I^etter from Sutter to Alvarado lo 
 
 Sutter's Fort 12 
 
 Desperate Fight with Indians 16 
 
 White Horse and Picket 17 
 
 The Web Foot 19 
 
 Major Ringgold 20 
 
 Bodega and Fort Ross 22 
 
 Captain John C. Fremont 27 
 
 The Flour Mill 28 
 
 Sutter's Distillery 29 
 
 The Tannery 31 
 
 Execution of Raphero 31 
 
 The Mill where Gold Was Found 37 
 
 The Discovery Made Known 44 
 
 Sutter's Fort an Objective Point . 45 
 
 The Fort in Ruins 48 
 
 The Fort Reclaimed 51 
 
 James Wilson Marshall 53 
 
 Farming 60 
 
 Flogging of Adam 63 
 
 The Mormons and the Flag 66 
 
 Vehicles 68 
 
 Castro Rebellion 7° 
 
 Black E:agle 78 
 
 Society 83 
 
 The Bear Flag Revoluion 87 
 
 Murder of Cowey and Fowler 103 
 
 The Carnival of Gold 105 
 
 Freighting , 113 
 
 Bull Fights 119 
 
 Gen. Sutter's I^osses 121 
 
 Private Apartments 132 
 
 Sutter Relief Fund 134 
 
THE LIFE AND TIMES OF GEN. JOHN A. SUTTER. 
 
 GENERAL JOHN AUGUSTUS SUTTER. 
 
 Was born of Swiss parentage in Kandern, in 
 the Grand Dutchy of Baden, on the 28th day of 
 February, in the year 1803. As he was born at 
 midnight, the last day of February and the first 
 day of March divide the honor of issuing into 
 active life him whose name is an honor to his 
 native land; and which, with that of Tell, will 
 live on down through centuries to come. 
 
 After having received a common school edu- 
 cation, he was placed in a military college at 
 Berne, where he was graduated in the year 1823. 
 After having taken his degree, he entered the 
 French service as an officer of the Swiss Guard, 
 and was in the Spanish campaign of 1823-4, 
 where he distinguished himself for his bravery; 
 for his generous, frank and confiding nature, and 
 for the faithful and conscientious discharge of his 
 duties as a soldier and his responsibility as an offi- 
 cer. He continued in the French service 'till 1834. 
 
2 THE IvIFE AND TIMES OF 
 
 His parents were classed with families of re- 
 spectability and local distinction; possessing 
 ample means to introduce them into circles of 
 social and intellectual refinement. Being pos- 
 sessed of an enterprising spirit and a keen relish 
 for romance and pioneer adventures, Captain 
 Sutter, as he was then called, early in his life 
 conceived the idea of founding a Swiss colony 
 somewhere in North America. To this end he 
 made available such means as he possessed, bade 
 adieu to friends and fatherland and sailed for 
 New York, where he arrived about the middle of 
 July, in the year 1834. Thence he pushed on to 
 what at that time was called the "far west," his 
 objective point being Saint Charles, Missouri, 
 where he arrived in due time. He proceeded 
 to explore the vast region lying west of the 
 Mississippi, where he intended to acquire pos- 
 session of a large tract of land and pave the way 
 for a settlement of his own countrymen. This 
 scheme he was soon forced to abandon. The 
 vessel containing his means was wrecked in the 
 Mississippi river, by which occurrence he sus- 
 tained a total loss of all his possessions. Severe 
 as the loss was, his spirits remained good and 
 
GEN. JOHN A. SUTTER. 3 
 
 his ardor unabated. He then made an exploring 
 trip to Santa Fe, where he ventured in some 
 speculations with trappers — whites and Indians — 
 with whom he carried on an extensive and 
 profitable fur trade. At this place he received a 
 description of California. He left Missouri on 
 the nth day of April, 1838, and traveled with 
 the American Fur Company, under command of 
 Captain Tripp, to their rendezvous on the Wind 
 river, in the Rocky mountains. Thence, in 
 company with six men, he set out on horseback 
 across the mountains and over the long- stretch 
 of unbroken solitude lying between him and the 
 fur-trading posts on the northwestern frontier of 
 the Oregon territory. In due time he reached 
 the Dalles, on the Columbia river, from which 
 place he went to Fort Vancouver, whence he 
 soon took passage on a trading vessel bound for 
 the Sandwich Islands, where he remained five 
 months. At this place he shipped as supercargo 
 on an English vessel bound for Sitka. After 
 remaining in Sitka one month, he sailed down the 
 coast, encountering heavy gales, and entered 
 San Francisco bay in distress on the 2d day of 
 July, 1839. Being ordered by the provincial 
 
THE I<IFE AND TIMES OF 
 
 C en. John A. Sutter. 
 
GEN. JOHN A. SUTTER. 5 
 
 officer to leave that port, as it was not a port of 
 entr}', without delay, he sailed for Monterey and 
 obtained from Governor Alvarado a passport, 
 with full permission to travel through California 
 with his men, and a promise of a grant of any 
 unappropriated land he might desire to occupy. 
 He returned to San Francisco and began to 
 explore the Sacramento river. San Francisco, 
 at this time, contained about 40 inhabitants, not 
 one ot whom possessed any knowledge whatever 
 of the Sacramento river. One man had under- 
 stood that a large river emptied into the bay 
 from the northeast. Opposed by tide and wind 
 and fog he was eight days in finding the mouth 
 of the river. 
 
 On the river bank, ten miles below where the 
 city of Sacramento now stands, 500 painted war- 
 riors assembled to dispute his passage up the 
 stream. A chief and one or two others being 
 able to speak quite good Spanish, Sutter informed 
 them that his mission was peaceful; that they 
 were not Spaniards, and that they (his party) and 
 the Indians would endeavor to maintain friendly 
 relations. He gave them some beads, which was 
 like pouring oil on angry waters. Two of the 
 
6 THE I.IFE AND TIMES OF 
 
 Indians who spoke Spanish, engaged to pilot 
 him up the river, which he explored as far as the 
 mouth of the Feather river. Here he dropped 
 anchor, and proceeded some distance up the 
 Feather in a small boat. On returning, he found 
 the crew in incipient mutiny, protesting against 
 penetrating further into a country where the indi- 
 cations promised great hardships and peril, if not 
 their utter extermination. Whether Sutter had 
 a desire to explore still further up the stream, we 
 are unable to learn. But he weighed anchor on 
 the following morning and dropped down to the 
 mouth of the American river, on the left bank of 
 which he discharged his goods on the 12th day 
 of August, 1839. 
 
 Remote from the hum of enterprises and from 
 the bustle and din of civilization, on the tide 
 waters of the Sacramento, with fifteen men, eight 
 of whom were Kanakas, given him by the King 
 of the Sandwich Islands, he pitched his tent, plant- 
 ed his cannon, established sentinels and laid the 
 foundation for a settlement which, for the benefi- 
 cial and lasting consequences it has entailed on 
 our country, and on the world, is peerless in the 
 republic of colonies. 
 
GEN. JOHN A. SUTTER. 7 
 
 Captain Sutter now found himself legally 
 established in a country unsurpassed in natural 
 resources, extending its boundaries over every 
 variety of soil and climate, and everywhere 
 canopied by the softest and sweetest tints of 
 azure. 
 
 The Indians at this time and place were 
 numerous, hostile and treacherous, and to 
 guard against these barbarous ills, a trusty senti- 
 nel was ever kept on duty at night. Any devia- 
 tion from this vigilance would have been fatal to 
 the colony. In after years, when Sutter's 
 strength was acknowledged and his dominion 
 well established, an Indian chief told him that, 
 had it not been for his "big gun" (cannon), his 
 tribe, long before, would have scalped every 
 man in the colony and plundered the settlement 
 of all its treasure. 
 
 A large bull-dog owned and kept by Sutter 
 saved his master's life on two occasions. The 
 instances being similar, I will relate but one: 
 
 On a dark night, when balmy sleep was 
 holding the pioneer in its soft embrace, a stalwart 
 Indian, induced by some occult incentive, softly 
 and stealthily entered, with tomahawk in hand, 
 
8 THE I.IFE AND TIMES OF 
 
 tlie tent where the hero hiy. Brave, the dog, 
 had a couch near his master's feet. True to 
 canine instinct, he "snuffed the game," and, 
 seeing his master's perilous situation, displayed 
 his fidelity by springing upon the murderous 
 assailant with a courage that knew no bounds. 
 His eyes blazed like diamonds as he drove his 
 ivory clamps to the Indian's throttle. 
 
 By virtue of a contract duly entered into 
 between Sutter and the Russian government, the 
 latter was bound to furnish him annually with 
 good iron and steel and files, to be used in his 
 shops, and beads for the Indians, and many 
 other things, including one hundred pounds of 
 coarse cannon powder and one hundred pounds 
 of fine rifle powder. To these supplies he 
 attached great importance and guarded them 
 with miserly care. Especially did he look upon 
 his ammunition as his "tluis sayeth the Lord." 
 
 In October, 1839, he brought to his ranch 
 about 500 head of cattle, 50 horses, and a 
 monada of 25 mares, which he liad previously 
 purchased of Sefior Martinez. In the autumn of 
 1840, he purchased of Don Antonio Sunol 1,000 
 head of cattle, and as man}' horses of Don 
 
GKN. JOHN A. SUTTKR. 9 
 
 Joaquin Gomez and others. In the same autumn 
 he l)uilt an adobe house where the fort now 
 stands, coverino^ it with tules (bull rushes), which 
 turned sunshine better than it did rain. In the 
 same year the Kanakas, assisted by the friendly 
 Indians in Sutter's employ, built three grass 
 houses, fashioned after those in the Sandwich 
 Islands. 
 
 In 1840 the Indians were very troublesome, 
 killing cattle and stealing and driving off horses. 
 By an occasional exhibition of his prowess in the 
 field, Sutter sought to inculcate in them a higher 
 conception of righ.t and wrong. A little whole- 
 some and well-timed authority reduced the 
 desperadoes to an improved system of behavior. 
 
 The colony obtained its supplies from San 
 Francisco. The trip to that place must be 
 made by Indians and Kanakas, and in an open 
 boat. Sometimes the wind blew adversely, and 
 again a dead calm prevailed for many days. In 
 the latter case, they turnea to the god of muscle 
 and invoked a white- ash breeze. 
 
 In his journal Sutter says: "It is a wonder we 
 got not swamped a many time, all time with an 
 Indian crew and a Kanaka at the helm." 
 
lO THE I^IFK AND TIMKS OF 
 
 In 1 84 1 Sutter received from Governor 
 Alvarado a grant of eleven square leagues of 
 land, entitled New Helvetia, and an appointment 
 to the military command of the Northern Dis- 
 trict of California. He was also appointed 
 alcalde of the same district. 
 
 LETTER FROM SUTTER TO ALVARADO. 
 
 The following is copied verbatim from a letter 
 written by Captain Sutter to Governor Alvarado: 
 
 "A su excellencia Senior Don Juan Bap- 
 tistta Alvarado, Governador constitutionalde 
 las das Californas, en Monterey. — Excellent 
 Sir! Allow me to write you in English, 
 because I like not to make mistakes in 
 an expression. I have the honor to send you 
 with this an act of a committed crime on this 
 place; please give me your orders what I have to 
 do with the Delinquent which is keept as a 
 Prisoner here. Delinquent Henry Bee was put 
 in Irons, but his friends bound themselves for 
 1000 Dollars Security, when I would take the 
 irons from him, in which their wishes I consented. 
 
 "John Wilson, Black Jack, is well known, as at 
 
GEN. JOHN A. SUTTER. It 
 
 life he was a bad character, which may be some- 
 thing in Bee's favour. Waiting for your Orders, 
 I shall keep the Delinquent in Prison. 
 
 "The Trapping party from the Columbia 
 River will be here in about 8 Days under com- 
 mand of Mr. Ermatinger. I am also watting for 
 oneof my friends, a German Gentleman, with the 
 same party. I believe he travels for his pleasure. 
 
 "A strong body of American farmers are 
 coming here, a young Man of the party got lost 
 since lo Days, nearly starved to death and on 
 foot; he don't know which Direction the party 
 took. I believe the will come about the Direc- 
 tion of the Pueblo. I was also informed that 
 another company is coming stronger than this 
 under Mr. Fanum [Farnum]. 
 
 "Some very curious Rapports come to me, 
 which made me first a little afraid but after two 
 hours I get over the fit. 
 
 "I remain, Excellent Sir! 
 
 "Very Respectfully, 
 
 "J. A. Sutter. 
 "Neuva Helvetia, November 4 de 1841. 
 
 "P. S. — in a short time I shall have a secretary 
 who is able to write Spanish." 
 
12 THE I.IFE AND TIMES OF 
 
 Sutter's Fort. 
 
 In the summer of 1841, Sutter began to build 
 liis fort. It was an adobe structure, the brick 
 being made by Kanakas and Indians; the latter, 
 having become friendly and serviceable to the 
 colony, were kept constantly in Sutter's employ. 
 Sutter, himself, worked very hard building the 
 fort, not only in superintending the entire plant, 
 but in directing all of the operations and, with 
 his own hands, making and laying brick. This 
 fort, so justly famed as a landmark of pioneer 
 adventure, industry and enterprise, was built, 
 ostensibly, for the purpose of protecting the 
 colony from the incursions of wild, warlike and 
 treacherous Indians; but to protect the settle- 
 ment from the violence of the more cowardly, 
 and not less treacherous Spaniards, was an 
 incentive to all others paramount. Great as the 
 undertaking must have been, in the absence of 
 energetic and skilled laborers and appliances 
 suited to the advancement of a great work, the 
 
G^N. JOHN A. SUTTER. 
 
 13 
 
i4 THE LIFE AND TIMES OF 
 
 outer wall was pushed to a completion in the 
 autumn after its commencement. 
 
 The fort was so grand and commodious that 
 the entire settlement could, and did, sleep, cook 
 and dine within its walls; and with a faithful sen- 
 tinel on duty at the gate, a feeling of security- 
 enhanced the pleasures of this far away home. 
 The work-shops, tools, store-houses and sup- 
 plies were also kept within the walls. 
 
 Sutter, naturally enough, reposed greater con- 
 fidence in the virtue of the massive battlements and 
 the intrepid and iron-throated debaters on whose 
 fidelity he could safely rely, and which were 
 ready, on a moment's warning, to thunder 
 through the embrasure, an avalanche of con- 
 vincing argument, than he did in the good faith 
 and sincerity of those upon whom he had been 
 taught by experience to look with distrust, and 
 whose real aim was a problem which defied solu- 
 tion. 
 
 In imagination, we can enjoy with the little 
 t:olony the pleasure a feeling of safety was calcu- 
 lated to inspire. It was a luxury that extracted 
 the bitter from toil and the sting from human 
 existence. 
 
GEN. JOHN A. SUTTER. 1 5 
 
 In 1846 Sutter was offered by California, 
 through General Castro, $100,000 for his fort, 
 which had been completed in 1844. 
 
 The following is an extract from the narrative 
 of Captain John C. Fremont, who visited the fort 
 n 1844: 
 
 "The fort is a quadrangular adobe structure, 
 mounting 12 pieces of artillery (two of them 
 brass), and capable of admitting a garrison of a 
 thousand men; this, at present, consists of 40 
 Indians, in uniform — one of whom is always 
 found on duty at the gate. As might natur- 
 ally be expected, the pieces are not in very good 
 order. The whites in the employ of Capt. Sut- 
 ter, American, French and German, amount, 
 perhaps to 30 men. The inner wall is formed 
 into buildings comprising the common quarters, 
 with blacksmith and other workshops; the dwel- 
 ling house, with a large distillery house, and 
 other buildings occupying more the center of 
 the area. 
 
 "It is built upon a pond-like stream, at times a 
 running creek communicating with the Rio de 
 los Americanos, which enters the Sacramento 
 about two miles below. The latter is here a 
 
/' 
 
 1 6 THE life: and times of 
 
 noble river, about three hundred yards broad, 
 deep and tranquil, with several fathoms of water 
 in the channel and its banks continuously 
 timbered. There were two vessels belonging to 
 Captain Sutter at anchor near the landing — one 
 a large, two-masted lighter, and the other a 
 schooner, which was shortly to proceed on a 
 voyage to Fort Vancouver for a cargo of goods." 
 
 DESPERATE FIGHT WITH INDIANS. 
 
 In the summer of 1840 several hundred painted 
 warriors, armed with guns, bows and spears col- 
 lected on the banks of the Cosumnes river, 
 twenty miles away, tor the avowed purpose of 
 attacking the settlement. 
 
 Captain Sutter left a small garrison at home 
 with cannons and other arms all loaded, and with 
 eight brave men (and brave they must have been), 
 two of whom were expert vaqueras, went to attack 
 them. This, the reader will bear in mind, was 
 before the fort was built. 
 
 The unsuspecting warriors imprudently en- 
 camped, the night before the battle, without set- 
 
GEN. JOHN A. SU'iTKR. l^ 
 
 ting sentinels, and at daybreak were surprised in 
 their camp. The eneni}^ being thrown into dis- 
 order and confusion fought at a disadvantage, 
 and, after a hard fight, in which they lost se- 
 verely, a settlement was adjusted to the entire 
 satisfaction of Sutter. By virtue of a treaty with 
 these warriors they became his friends and allies, 
 enabling him to conquer nearly all of the San 
 Joaquin and Sacramento valleys. 
 
 WHITE HORSE AND PICKET. 
 
 Some time in October or November, 1848, a 
 resident of the fort, who was an emigrant from 
 Oregon, and who went by the name of the 
 "White Horse," undertook to fence in an open 
 space in the fort. C. E. Picket, Esq., also a resi- 
 dent at the fort, and since a well-known character 
 in the State, claimed the open space, and taking 
 the law in his own hands knocked the fence down. 
 "White Horse" started to rebuild his fence, and 
 Picket interfered; an altercation occurred, and 
 Picket shot and killed his antagonist. 
 
l8 THE I^IFE AND TIMES OF 
 
 There were then 200 white men at tlie fort, one 
 of whom (William Tanner), was acting as sheriff 
 by appointment of Captain Sutter. He took 
 Picket in charge, detaining him as prisoner. 
 Picket refused to submit, but Tanner was a man 
 of great strength and courage, and well fitted for 
 his office. He disarmed his prisoner and forced 
 him to submit. It was then and there deter- 
 mined that Picket should be tried for murder. A 
 court was instituted, with Sam Brannan on the 
 bench. A jury of eight was impanelled to try 
 the case. The trial came off the same day of the 
 homicide, and Picket pleaded his own case. 
 Brannan in his charge to the jury instructed it 
 that they lived in a country where there were 
 laws, and that the laws should be obeyed. But 
 that if their verdict was imprisonment there was 
 no prison in the place where the culprit could be 
 kept. The jury, after being out six hours, agreed 
 upon a verdict of not guilty. 
 
CEN. JOHN A. SUTTER. I9 
 
 THE WEB FOOT. 
 
 In the beginning of the year '46 there resided 
 at the fort a good-natured, unsuspecting fellow — 
 a native of Pike county, Missouri, and who went 
 by the name of "Bob." He had heard many 
 favorable reports of the Willamette valley, Ore- 
 gon, and had partially arranged matters to go 
 there and make himself a home. 
 
 Isaac Spiker, a jolly man who relished a joke 
 hugely, and who had lived in Oregon, but was 
 at this time sojourning at the fort, said to the 
 Pike countyan: "Bob, you'll not get me to go to 
 Oregon and live with them web- feet, no how. 
 I've tried it wonst, an' I say Bob, you'd better 
 take some of my advice while it's goin', and let 
 well enough alone " 
 
 "I say Spiker," said Bob, "Why do they call 
 them thare as lives in Oregon web- feet?" 
 
 Spiker, when a boy, scalded one of his feet so 
 seriously that when the sore healed his toes con- 
 solidated. Now was offered a rare opportunity. 
 "Bob," I say, "after a man lives in Oregon a 
 
20 The i.ii^E and Times of 
 
 while his toes grow together from foot to nail, 
 and that is why he is called a web-foot." 
 
 "Spiker," said Bob, "I don't believe that 
 yarn, no how;" whereupon Spiker drew off one 
 of his boots and exhibited a genuine webbed foot, 
 and no mistake about it. "Bob," looking 
 
 greatly surprised, exclaimed, "By , I'll 
 
 never go to that ■ country." 
 
 MAJOR RINGGOLD. 
 
 In 1 841 Captain Sutter was visited at the fort 
 by Major Ringgold, seven officers, and fifty men 
 of Commodore Wilkes' exploring squadron, then 
 lying in San Francisco bay. Professor J. D. 
 Dana was also a member of the visiting party. 
 Captain Sutter, with consummate courtesy, dis- 
 patched a servant with saddled horses for the 
 officers and a secretary to invite the company to 
 the fort. The beauty of this courteous act will 
 appear more fully when it is remembered that 
 had a band of Spanish cattle been grazing along 
 the line of travel from the embarcadero to the 
 
GEN. JOHN A. SUTTER. 21 
 
 fort the party, unprotected and on foot, would 
 have imperiled their lives in the transit, for one 
 of those steers or heifers, especially the latter, on 
 the plain was little less formidable than a grizzly. 
 
 Wilkes subsequently became famous through 
 the Trent affair, which resulted in the arrest and 
 discharge of Sirs Mason and Slidell of the Con- 
 federate States during the civil war, and putting 
 at rest the troublesome question involving the 
 "right of search." 
 
 This exploring party was in the service of the 
 United States, and its mission here was to extend 
 a knowledge of the geography and the geology 
 of the Pacific coast. 
 
THE IvIFe; and times of 
 
 BODEGA AND FORT ROSS. 
 
 In i8i2 the government of California, under 
 Spanish rule, granted the Russian Fur Company 
 the privilege of erecting huts or buildings and 
 establishing settlements at Bodega and Ross; the 
 former place lying about fifty miles north of San 
 Francisco and the latter twenty -five miles further 
 up the coast. 
 
 These settlements were made for the purpose 
 of salting the beef and caring for the hides and 
 tallow of wild cattle and of their own cattle as 
 well, and of raising grain and vegetables for other 
 Russian settlements too high in latitude for agri- 
 cultural pursuits. 
 
 The permission granted by Mexico to settle at 
 these points was never reduced to the dignity and 
 virtue of a written instrument. However, the 
 settlements flourished and presented a formidable 
 appearance; quite too much so to be entirely 
 agreeable to the Californians. Orchards were 
 planted; ranches were improved, and corn, 
 turnips, cabbage, potatoes, wheat and barley 
 
GKN. JOHN A. SUTTKR. 23 
 
 were grown and habitations were erected. The 
 lumber used in these settlements was shipped 
 from Norway, there being- no saw- mill on the 
 Pacific Coast ot North America. The upper 
 settlement grew to a population of 300, in which 
 were embraced Muscovites, Kodiacs, Kodiac and 
 Russian half breeds and California Indians. 
 
 To Spain and Mexico the growth and pros- 
 perity of these settlements were fruitful sources 
 of jealousy and unrest. The Mexican gov- 
 ernment remonstrated against the steady en- 
 croachments of their neighbors. This remon- 
 strance was wholly disregarded by the Russians. 
 General Vallejo in the meantime advanced upon 
 the settlement with a force of armed men, but, 
 deeming his strength insufficient to reduce the 
 place, retired without further demonstrations of 
 hostility. 
 
 Spain then made a formal demand, which 
 proved to be quite as inoperative as the remon- 
 strance of Mexico had been. They defied all 
 authority and continued to "hold the fort" until 
 1841, carrying on a large and profitable trade; 
 when, having stripped the shore of sea otter and 
 other fur-bearing animals, and being threatened 
 
24 THE LIFE AND TIMES OF 
 
 by Indians, Californians and Mexicans, they sold 
 out and withdrew from the country. 
 
 In the autumn of 1841 Alexander Rotchoff, 
 the governor of Bodega and Fort Ross, visited 
 Sutter and offered to sell him the possessions 
 under discussion. In the purchase of this prop- 
 erty there were but two competitors, Jacob P. 
 Leese and Captain Sutter. The former offered 
 $25,000 and the latter made the purchase for 
 $30,000 and was dined and wined by the Russian 
 governor. 
 
 Embraced in this purchase were 2,000 cattle, 
 1,000 horses, 50 mules, 250 sheep, a herd of 
 swine, several pieces of ordnance, one four- 
 pound brass field piece and some smaller arms, 
 farming and mechanical implements and a 
 schooner of 180 tons burden and a barrel of 
 flints, thrown away by Napoleon in his retreat 
 from Moscow. 
 
 Sutter dispatched some men and a clerk to 
 receive the property and bring the live-stock to 
 New Helvetia. Some of this stock was lost in 
 transit; one hundred head of cattle alone were 
 drowned in crossin"' the Sacramento river. The 
 
GEN. JOHN A. SUTTER. 25 
 
 most ol the liides wt'ic saved, which Sutter aller- 
 ward observed "were our bank notes." 
 
 A young man in Sutter's emi:)loy, by the 
 name of Bidwell, was sent to Bodeo^a, where he 
 remained about a year, in charge of the property 
 not yet removed. 
 
 One of the pieces of artillery included in the 
 Russian purcliase has a history written by Judge 
 J. H. McKune and published in Themis — 
 (a very ably edited paper of the past) dated 
 October 5, 1889, which, as it is quite interesting, 
 I give in full: 
 
 • "It was cast at a foundry of the Russian govern- 
 ment at St. Petersburg in 1804. It is 40 inches 
 long, 3}^ inch bore; cast with two handles that 
 two men can handle or carry it. 
 
 "This gun was presented by the Czar to the 
 Russian American Company, and by that com- 
 j)any to Captain Sutter, in December, 1841. 
 
 "It was one of the first guns mounted in the 
 southeast bastian of Sutter's fort, and was used 
 by Captain Sutter in firing a salute to the Ameri- 
 can flag hoisted over his fort at sunrise, July 4, 
 1846. It was taken from the fort, placed in the 
 hands of Commodore Stockton, used by him as 
 
26 
 
 THE lylFE AND TIMES OF 
 
 a field piece by his command in his advance from 
 San Pedro to Los Angeles; did good service in 
 the battle of San Pasqual, December 8, 1846, and 
 again at Los Angeles, January 8 and 9, 1847. 
 
 "The gun was then transferred to Colonel 
 Mason's command, First United States Dra- 
 goons, and was by him returned to Captain Sut- 
 ter after the treaty of Guadaloupe Hidalgo, md 
 Captain Sutter presented it to the California 
 Pioneers, at San Francisco, in the archives of 
 which society it still remains, 
 
 "The gun has a chamber running to a point at 
 the vent, and takes, for a charge, eight ounces 
 of powder." 
 
GEN. JOHN A. SUTTER. 27 
 
 CAPTAIN JOHN C. FREMONT. 
 
 On the 6th day of March, 1843, Captain John 
 C. Fremont, in command of an exploring expe- 
 dition sent out by the sfovernment of the United 
 States, reached Sutter's Fort in a distressed 
 condition. He left Fort Vancouver, on the 
 Columbia river, in November on his return to 
 the United States. When crossing the moun- 
 tains lying between Oregon and Sutter's Fort, 
 he encountered heavy storms and deep snows, 
 where he and his men suffered untold hardships. 
 Their beasts of burden perished, and the starving 
 men wandered on with the grim prospect of 
 death before them, till reason — in some instances 
 — was driven from her empire. Fremont, being 
 a strong, active and resolute man, and possessing 
 great power of endurance, left his command and 
 pressed on to Sutter's fort for relief. 
 
 Sutter, on being apprised of the distressed 
 condition of these men, dispatched a man with 
 a pack animal to minister to their wants. Fre- 
 mont and his men remained at the fort, sharing 
 
28 THE I.IFE AND TIMES OF 
 
 the hospitality of their generous host until all 
 were well recruited, and the animals were newly 
 shod; when, on the 24th day of the same month, 
 the expedition set out for the United States. 
 
 THE FLOUR MILL. 
 
 Within the walls of the fort was rather a primi- 
 tive and rudely-constructed mill for grinding 
 wheat and barley. A large stone was placed 
 upon the ground, with the upper side reduced to 
 a level surface, on the top of which was another 
 stone, also reduced to a suitable surface and 
 dimension, and made to spin by means of an 
 arm or sweep, to which animal power was 
 attached. The number of mules necessary to 
 communicate motion to the stone is variously 
 reported to have been — ranging from one to 
 twelve. Compared to a modern corrugated 
 roller mill with all its appliances, the mill in 
 Sutter's fort would suffer. 
 
 The mill was m charge of an Indian, who 
 dressed the stones, dictated all repairs and im- 
 provements and had the management of the 
 
GEN. JOHN A. vSUTTER. 29 
 
 entire plant. Men who ate bread made of the 
 "Digger mill" flour found no fault if they 
 antagonized with no lumps larger than a bird's 
 egg. No woman in the settlement clamored for 
 Graham flour, no other kind being made there. 
 
 SUTTER S DISTILLERY. 
 
 Within the walls of the fort, Sutter erected a 
 distillery for the purpose of converting into an 
 exhilirating beverage the wild grapes, of which 
 there was an abundance along the Sacramento 
 river and its tributaries. He also ran high 
 wines. This enterprise he was soon forced to 
 abandon, as he was unable to keep the liquor 
 from the Indians, or rather to keep the Indians 
 from the liquor. Every Indian appeared to 
 possess a worm of his own and a strong inclina- 
 tion to run "high wines" through it. Sutter 
 once said to a young squaw, who was employed 
 at times by him in making blankets, and who 
 had a well-grounded relish for strong drink, 
 "Anita, if you could have three choices and all 
 you want of each, what would you choose first?" 
 

 30 
 
 THE LIFE AND TIMES OF 
 
 "Vino," (wine) she quickly responded. 
 
 "What would you select for the second," 
 asked Sutter. 
 
 "Amigo" (a lover) was her reply. 
 
 "And what would you take for your third and 
 last choice?" 
 
 After a little hesitation she said she would take 
 a little more vino. She declared she first drank 
 it at the San Jose Mission. 
 
 Anita. 
 
GEN, JOHN A. SUTTER. 31 
 
 THE TANNERY. 
 
 Sutter built a tannery also, where he carried 
 on an extensive and profitable business. This 
 enterprise closed very abruptly after the gold 
 find of '48. Crazed by the stories of the gold 
 field, his men, except a few Indians who remained 
 on roustabout duty and a mechanic whom he 
 paid ten dollars a day, left New Helvetia, headed 
 for Sutter's mill. Two Indians managed the 
 ferry and made, as Sutter observed, good and 
 honest returns of the money received until they 
 had mingled too much with the whites. 
 
 EXECUTION OF RAPHERO. 
 
 In the summer of 1845 a courier brought word 
 to Sutter that Castro and some of the jealous 
 Spaniards at San Jose had incited the Indians to 
 attack New Helvetia, burn the grain which was 
 then ready for the harvester, and, if possible, to 
 take the life of Sutter. Some of the narrow- 
 minded Californians, ot whom Castro was justly 
 
Raphcro. 
 
GKN. JOHN A, SU'TTER. 33 
 
 an accredited member, had looked upon him as 
 a foreign invader whose growing strength might 
 some day enable him to defy their authority. 
 
 Evidences of dissatisfaction had appeared on 
 several occasions and the feeling had finally 
 ripened into open hostility. Raphero, a well- 
 known Mokelumne chief, was in command of the 
 mercenary Indians who were charged with the 
 work of destruction and death, and who were on 
 their march and about 300 strong. 
 
 The celebrated chief in command was an 
 anomaly. Few men as brave as he, are so 
 treacherous and unworthy of confidence. Usually 
 men of great courage have a warm, tender 
 and kind heart. Alexander, Caesar and Napoleon 
 were, at times, as tender as a flower. 
 
 Sutter gave Raphero, on a former occasion, a 
 token of friendship and good will and presented 
 him with a fine horse and saddle. But the 
 Spaniards, supported by Castro, for ready pay 
 or rich promises, presumably the latter, that 
 being carried by them as their principal stock in 
 trade, induced him to undertake a task they had 
 not the courage to perform. 
 
 In bravery he ranked with King Philip and 
 
34 THE I.IFE AND TIMES OF 
 
 Tecumseh. But while they presented an asso- 
 ciated beauty of oratory, bravery and statesman- 
 ship that dazzled the gaze of the world, he 
 possessed no valid claim to any virtue but 
 physical courage. 
 
 Sutter, knowing the cunning and energy of 
 the enemy, resolved upon prompt action. A few 
 brave men, whites and Indians, under command 
 of Kit Carson went to intercept him. They 
 found the warriors encamped in a stronghold in 
 the thick brush that skirted the banks of the 
 Mokelumne river. After a spirited engagement, 
 in which the enemy lost severely, the whites hav- 
 ing exhausted their ammunition and being un- 
 able to dislodge the aborigines withdrew from the 
 field, leaving them free to skulk amid the rag- 
 ged chaparrals. 
 
 There was a son of Erin in Carson's command, 
 and a fine fellow he was, too, whose hat was quite 
 high in the crown, through which a ball passed 
 just above his head while in the engagement. 
 After having returned to the fort he related the 
 circumstance, declaring that had his hat been 
 low-crowned the ball would have entered his 
 brain. 
 
GEN. JOHN A. SUTTER. 35 
 
 A few months later the chief, who commanded 
 the warriors in the campaign against New Hel- 
 vetia, it was alleged had killed his brother-in-law. 
 On this charge he was arrested and brought to 
 the fort, and was tried for murder. 
 
 Sutter had been duly appointed Alcalde (jus- 
 tice) in and for the northern district of California 
 by the Mexican government, and therefore was 
 clothed with authority, in his district, to arrest, 
 try, and condemn or acquit at will, and to try 
 and determine all civil cases. 
 
 The trial was conducted in the Spanish lan- 
 guage, an interpreter being employed when neces- 
 sary. Raphero, who spoke Spanish with some 
 fluency, conducted his own case. The situation 
 would have been painfully embarrassing to almost 
 any one but him. Far from his tribe he must be 
 tried for homicide before a judge whose grain he 
 had sought to destroy, and against whose life he 
 had conspired. He denied the allegation and 
 argued, in support of his innocence, that he held 
 a lieutenant's commission under the Mexican 
 government, and that by virtue of his commission 
 he was clothed with authority to punish a man for 
 stealing a horse in his district, that the penalty 
 
36 THE IvIFK AND TIMES OF 
 
 fixed by law for horse-stealing was death, and 
 that his brother-in-law was a horse thief. 
 
 This position was well taken and ably argued; 
 but unfortunately the chief was unable to prove 
 that the slain man was a horse thief, and he 
 was unable also to produce his commission; 
 and it was doubtful whether he ever possessed 
 one. 
 
 He met his fate with the coolness and bravery 
 that were characteristic of his behavior all through 
 life. He walked to the place of execution with a 
 haughty and dignified bearing. 
 
 Thus closed the career of a chief and warrior 
 whose influence for evil at home and disturbance 
 abroad, and whose insidious artifice, daring, and 
 treachery combined in making him an object 
 much to be dreaded, and whose freedom imper- 
 iled the life and property of every white settler 
 within the plain of his orbit. His scalp was 
 nailed over the main gateway of the fort, where 
 his long black hair waved in the breeze as if 
 mourning for the brains it had so long decorated, 
 and as a warning to him who contemplated burn- 
 ing his neighbor's grain, reducing a settlement, 
 or taking the life of his fellow man. 
 
GEN. JOHN A. SUTTER. 37 
 
 THE MILL WHERE GOLD WAS FOUND. 
 
 The arrival of Mormons extended the settle- 
 ment and increased the demands for building 
 material and for women. With a view to supply- 
 ing the former article, Sutter sent out an explor- 
 ing party with instruction to search for good 
 timber, good water power, and good location, 
 with accessibility as the determining factor. 
 
 James W. Marshall, of whom this work fur- 
 nishes a brief biography, was selected as the man 
 best calculated to perform the task. He was, at 
 this time, in the maturity of his strength, being 
 about thirty-five years old, and was active, strong, 
 and energetic, and a good judge of timber. Ac- 
 cordingly, some time in May, 1847, he was dis- 
 patched, with one of Sutter's most intelligent and 
 trustworthy Indians as interpreter and guide, up 
 the south fork of the American river to select a 
 mill-site. 
 
 Precipitous hills, overhanging cliffs and deep 
 caiions, along which a mountain stream dashes 
 its winding way, have suitable locations for a saw 
 mill, almost as far between as angel s visits. 
 
38 THE LIFE AND TIMES OF 
 
 In due time Marshall reported favorably, 
 stating that he had found a desirable location for 
 a mill at a place called Coloma, and about forty 
 miles east of the fort. The water power, he 
 said, was fine, the timber abundant and of excel- 
 lent quality, and the plant could be easily 
 reached by a system of natural ridges extending 
 along the foot-hills in nearly a direct line from 
 the fort. 
 
 The progress of an undertaking is usually 
 proportioned to the magnitude of the enterprise; 
 delays increasing with increasing magnitude. 
 Not until late in August was the contract for 
 building the mill entered into between Marshall 
 and Sutter. This contract was drawn up by 
 General John Bidwell, and provided that Mar- 
 shall should erect and run the mill, and receive 
 one-fourth of the lumber as compensation for his 
 services, and Sutter was to furnish the building- 
 material and supplies and board and pay the 
 men employed. 
 
 Some of Marshall's admirers claim at this late 
 date that he was a joint and equal partner with 
 Sutter in the mill. This story is both unreason- 
 able and untrue. Marshall's purse, in longitude, 
 
GEN. JOHN A. SUTTER. 
 
 39 
 
 Sutter's Mill. 
 
40 THE I.IFE AND TIMES OF 
 
 was sorely wanting. In fact, he was habitually 
 short of ducats. This suggestion is by no means 
 calculated, nor intended, to reflect upon him. It 
 was his misfortune; and in this respect he was 
 not alone. But the mill was Sutter's when it 
 was built; it was Sutter's when it was torn down; 
 and as Sutter's, it will go down in history to the 
 latest posterity. 
 
 Marshall so far completed the mill as to cut 
 some lumber in January, 1848. By experiment- 
 ing, it was found that the tail-race was insuffi- 
 cient to convey the water from the wheel. To 
 remove this difficulty, the water was turned into 
 the race from the river each night for the purpose 
 of deepening its bed and cutting away its margin. 
 
 One morning, about the 24th of January, while 
 examining the race, which was now empty, 
 to ascertain what service the water had rendered 
 him through the night, he saw some yellow 
 grains sticking in the crevices of the rocks in the 
 bed of the stream which, on examination, he 
 found to be some kind of metal, and it occurred 
 to him that it might be gold. 
 
 Late that night, in a heavy rain, he arrived at 
 the fort, forty miles away, wet, bespattered with 
 
GEN. JOHN A. SUTTER. 4I 
 
 mud, and appearing very strangely. Sutter's 
 surprise at his arrival on such a dark and stormy 
 night at so late an hour was increased when 
 Marshall said he wished to see him alone. They 
 repaired to a private room. Sutter did not know 
 what to think of the singular behavior of Mar- 
 shall, who now asked to have the door locked. 
 
 In after years, in relating this circumstance, 
 Sutter said he kept one eye on his loaded rifle. 
 Thinking it inexpedient to lock himself in a room 
 alone with Marshall, he remained inert for a while. 
 On becoming convinced that they would not be 
 disturbed, Marshall drew a pouch from his pocket 
 and emptied about an ounce of the precious 
 grains upon the table. The pieces of yellow 
 metal thus exhibited by Marshall, varied in size, 
 of which a large grain of wheat would be an 
 average. 
 
 A placer miner of moderate experience, would 
 have known the metal was gold by the shape of 
 the grains; as placer gold, from whatever mine 
 and of whatever size the pieces, has, in its origi- 
 nal condition, a form or shape peculiar to itself. 
 Although, out of ten thousand pieces, no two 
 may be fashioned alike, it nevertheless maintains 
 
42 THE WFE AND TIMES OF 
 
 an identity distinct in shape from all other 
 metals. 
 
 Sutter calmly asked him where he got it. 
 Marshall said he had picked it up in the tail-race 
 at the saw- mill at Coloma; that the laborers, 
 whites and Indians, were picking- it up, and that 
 he believed it could be obtained in large quan- 
 tities. Sutter, being incredulous, expressed some 
 doubt about its being gold. Marshall, aglow 
 with excitement, said he was certain it was gold. 
 
 After a little search Sutter found, among his 
 stores, a bottle of nitric acid, and submitted the 
 metal to a chemical test, when it was found to 
 be pure gold. How big with importance was 
 this embryo in the womb of the future. It was 
 the aurora of a commercial era, 
 
 Marshall, it is said, returned to Coloma that 
 same night, making a horseback journey of 
 eighty miles without an interval in which to 
 sleep or recuperate, and half of this distance was 
 covered in a night darkened with overhanging 
 clouds and made dismal by a driving rain. He 
 insisted that Sutter return with him that night. 
 Thinking it inexpedient, Sutter declined doing 
 so, but promised to set out in the morning for 
 
GEN. JOHN A. SUTTER. 43 
 
 the scene of the discovery. On reaching a point 
 on the road within fifteen miles of his saw- mill, 
 Sutter saw something coming out of the thick 
 chaparral (a shrub with a multitude of woody 
 brush stems densely interwoven) on all fours, 
 which, at first, he thought was a grizzly bear, 
 but on closer inspection, found it to be Marshall, 
 who, in his anxiety and impatience, was return- 
 ing from the mill to meet him. 
 
 Instead of being elated over the gold find, Sut- 
 ter was visited with dark forebodings. He had 
 been to $25,000 expense on a flouring mill and 
 mill race at Brighton (a point on the American 
 river, six miles east of the fort), both of which 
 were in an unfinished condition; he had expend- 
 ed $10,000 on his Coloma saw- mill, which would 
 eventually remain idle should the gold fever set 
 in, and tannery and grain-fields would be fruit- 
 less for want of laborers when a knowledge of the 
 discovery became general. 
 
 To guard against a conjecture so well founded, 
 he modestly asked his employees to keep the 
 matter a secret for six weeks, during which time 
 he would push his unfinished business and shape 
 things generally, for the great carnival of gold 
 
44 THE IvIFE AND TIMES OF 
 
 which he plainly saw was soon to follow. With 
 his request, his men promised faithfully to com- 
 ply, and he returned to the fort after having; 
 remained three days at Coloma. 
 
 THE DISCOVERY MADE KNOWN. 
 
 The secret was too great to be long kept. 
 "True it is that murder will out." A drunken 
 teamster, in possession of the secret, fearing he 
 would not be able to keep it without help, asked 
 a Mormon merchant to assist him. Sutter sent 
 the teamster to the mill with supplies. He, 
 having heard in some way that gold had been 
 found there, managed to procure a small quantity 
 of the "dust." On returning to the fort, he 
 repaired to a neighboring store kept by a Mor- 
 mon, and called for a bottle of whisky. Tangle- 
 foot being scarce and expensive, and the 
 teamster poor pay, the merchant refused to let 
 him have it without the cash. The teamster 
 assured him he had plenty of money, exhibiting 
 at the same time a quantity of gold dust. No 
 "pearls before swine." The Mormon, knowing 
 
GEN. JOHN A. SU'rTER. 45 
 
 the character of the metal, was astonished. He 
 let the customer have the bottle of whisky and 
 asked where he got the gold. He refused to tell 
 until he had imbibed quite freely of the liquor, 
 when he told all about the discovery at the mill. 
 The exciting tale spread like a scandal in high 
 life, running up and down the coast like a tidal 
 wave. Nor was the news long confined to the 
 sparsely inhabited territory of California. It 
 crossed the continent, traversed the seas, and in 
 a few months found its way into every fireside 
 circle all over the civilized world. 
 
 Sutter's fort an objective point. 
 
 Homeseekers, travelers and exploring parties 
 who visited the western shore, and especially in 
 the latitude of California, before and after the 
 discovery of gold in '48, made Sutter's fort an 
 objective point. A few months after the dis- 
 covery, boxes, chests and every description of 
 baggage were seen at the great commercial 
 centers of every civilized nation on the globe, 
 labelled, marked and checked for "Sutter's 
 
46 THE LIFE AND TIMES OF 
 
 Fort, California." But to the emigrant who had 
 experienced the long and perilous journey of 
 crossing the plains, with a pathway shadowed by 
 unfriendly Indians, did the thought of Sutter's 
 fort have a peculiar charm. 
 
 When they gained the summit of the majestic 
 Sierras, after weary months of toil; with their 
 beasts of burden reduced in numbers and condi- 
 tion; with ascanty supply of pasture in view, and 
 the party themselves existing on food not the 
 most desirable, and that, too, measured out 
 from the wasting stores; with their distress and 
 dark foreboding, already nearing the limit of 
 human endurance; aggravated by accumulating 
 evidences of near approaching storms, so over- 
 powering and so terrible at high mountain alti- 
 tudes, the thought of reaching Sutter's fort, I 
 repeat, must have quickened the fondest hope 
 and dearest heart beat. 
 
 The story of Sutter's hospitality had reached 
 their ears in their distant homes and the memory 
 of it was never so sweet as now. It was like a 
 star of hope on eternity's ocean. No man ever 
 reached the fort in distress except his wants were 
 gratuitously removed ; no visitor was ever 
 
GEN. JOHN A. SUTTER. 47 
 
 despondent except words of encouragement were 
 iddressed to him; was his journey's end not 
 reached, he was furnished with a passport (an 
 essential document to a traveler in a Spanish 
 realm) and sent on his way rejoicing. 
 
 When the settlement was threatened with an 
 avalanche of barbarians in search of scalps, the 
 white settlers, from a radius of a hundred miles 
 or more, taking informal leave of their domiciles, 
 streamed into the fort for mutual aid and protec- 
 tion. When the fugitive, pale and panting, 
 followed by his murderous pursuers, entered the 
 fort, he felt as I suppose a saint will when he 
 concludes the gauntlet of life and enters the new 
 Jerusalem in the "sweet by and by." 
 
 At the fort the hungry were fed, the houseless 
 were sheltered and the traveler found rest. The 
 trapper, on whose trail some wily and irate chief had 
 set the demons of hell, lost no time in pacing the 
 distance between him and the fort, the gateway 
 of which was open to receive him. The fort was 
 to him what the city of refuge was to the Israel- 
 ites of antiquity. 
 
 We have thus seen that Sutter's fort was an 
 objective point. Objective, because a place of 
 
48 THE LIFE AND TIMES OF 
 
 inquiry. Objective, because a place of refuge 
 and repose. Objective, because hospitality was 
 there dispensed with a generous hand. 
 
 The story of Sutter and his fort is safely 
 embalmed in the memory of the world, where it 
 will remain while the treasures of security and 
 the nobility of action attract the admiration of 
 man. 
 
 THE FORT IN RUINS. 
 
 Of the great throng of adventurers who rushed 
 into California in '49 headed for the gold fields, 
 few appeared to know but little, and care less, 
 about the property rights of individual owners. 
 
 They appropriated to their own use, things 
 which did not belong to them, without even inquir- 
 ing after the owner or thanking him when he 
 was made known to them. They seemed to 
 think Providence had provided the good things 
 especially for their wants and necessities. The 
 increase of lawlessness kept pace with the increase 
 of immigration. They had left home to heal a 
 financial disorder, and appeared to be acting 
 under the advice the Quaker gave his son who 
 
GEN. JOHN A. SUTTER. 
 
 49 
 
50 THE I,IFE AND TIMES OF 
 
 was about to leave home: "John, get rich; 
 honestly, if thee can; but get rich." 
 
 The brick, lumber and other material used in 
 constructing and finishing the fort were removed 
 piecemeal; some of which was dishonestly 
 utilized elsewhere, to satisfy avarice, and some 
 was borne away through an innocent desire 
 to possess some relic o^the famous fort to adorn 
 a cabinet of curios. A piece of wood, a scrap of 
 iron, which had served some purpose there, 
 or a nail on which Sutter, Fremont or Car- 
 son ,may possibly have hung a coat or a hat, in 
 the palmy days of long ago, was carried away by 
 relic hunters, until the walls were so far removed 
 as to obscure the foundation. The fort was not 
 ruined while Sutter was there. 
 
 In 1849 he rented one room in the fort for $200 
 per month. 
 
 I will add, the main building standing near the 
 center of the fort was never destroyed, although 
 it became dilapidated. It would have shared the 
 fate of the rest of the fort had it not been 
 protected by municipal authority. This main 
 building, which served as a landmark, was 34 x 
 64 feet, with two stories; the first being used for 
 a store-house, and the second for a dining room. 
 
GEN. JOHN A. SUTLER. $1 
 
 I have visited the place when the only evi- 
 dence of a fort to be seen, was this building, 
 which was then rapidly falling into ruins. A cut 
 of this building, as it appeared after the walls of 
 the fort had been entirely removed, is given 
 in this work. 
 
 THE FORT RECLAIMED. 
 
 An organized society, entitled the Native Sons 
 of the Golden West, purchased, a few years ago, 
 of Benj. Merrill, of Chicago, the ground on which 
 the historical fort had been erected. This 
 property was owned by a gentleman who did not 
 care whether he sold it or not. It was purchased 
 for the round sum of $20,000, which was raised 
 by subscription, under the auspices of the Native 
 Sons. 
 
 The restoration of this fort had been contem- 
 plated for upwards of twenty years, and an effort 
 had been put forth in that direction by the 
 Pioneers and others, but without success. The 
 Society of Pioneers should not have done the 
 work. They had long before acted their part in 
 
52 THE IvIFp: and times of 
 
 the great drama. They had borne a part in both 
 palmy and trying- days that their sons should 
 delight to perpetuate in the memory of the 
 world. Grandly hav^e they done their duty. 
 The walls of this structure will whisper to their 
 honor when gazed upon by visiting legions a 
 thousand years hence. 
 
 Among the generous donors to the purchasing 
 fund were Col. Fred. Crocker, the Record- 
 Unio7i and the Bee. 
 
 The Native Sons deeded the property to the 
 State of California, for the consideration that she 
 restore the fort to its original condition and pro- 
 tect it from depredation and decay. 
 
 In the winter of iSgo-'gi the legislature appro- 
 priated jS20,ooo for the restoration of the fort In 
 i892-'93 the legislature made an appropriation 
 of $15,000 more to complete the work; making 
 a total expenditure for purchase and improve- 
 ment of $55,000. 
 
GEN. JOHN A. SUTTER. 53 
 
 JAMES WILSON MARSHALL 
 
 Was born in Hope township, Hunterdon 
 county, New Jersey, in 1812 His father was a 
 coach and wagon builder, and he was brought 
 up to the same trade. His early life presents no 
 features of special interest; but at early manhood 
 he began to yearn for pioneer life, and turning 
 his back upon the place of his birth he journeyed 
 to Crawfordsvilie, Indiana, where he engaged his 
 services for a few months as carpenter, after 
 which time he journeyed westward to Warsaw, 
 Illinois. Not having reached the Mecca of his 
 pilgrimage, after a brief stay at this place, he 
 resumed his journey westward, pulling up this 
 time at the Platte Purchase, near Fort Leaven- 
 worth, in Missouri, where he located a homestead 
 and entered into agricultural husbandry and trad- 
 ing. 
 
 He struggled in this place for several years 
 contending with poverty in chief and ague on the 
 side. A party of immigrants was being made up 
 in the neighborhood, with California for its objec- 
 tive point. He had a "round-up," gathering 
 
54 
 
 THE LIFE AND TIMES OF 
 
 fames IV. Marshall. 
 
GEN. JOHN A. SUTTER. 55 
 
 together his stock (one horse), and joined the 
 party. They started about the first of May, 
 1844, with a train of a hundred wagons. They 
 reached Cahfornia by the way of Oregon, thence 
 by Shasta, and went into camp on Cache Creek, 
 about forty miles from the city of Sacramento. 
 
 Sutter's fort was already erected and was re- 
 garded with envy by the Mexicans, awe by the 
 Incians, and admiration by all others. Thither 
 Marshall went, and entered into Sutter's employ 
 some time in July, 1845. 
 
 Sutter was engaged in raising grain and stock, 
 and also in merchandising on a small scale, 
 mostly in blankets and supplies for trappers and 
 hunters. The blankets were made by Indians 
 who had been instructed in the business by their 
 Franciscan masters at the San Jose Mission. 
 Marshall having in early life become accustomed 
 to the use of tools and possessing some knowl- 
 edge of mechanical principles, was employed for 
 a time in repairing and constructing spinning 
 wheels, stocking plows and in building and re- 
 pairing carts and ox yokes, and in the capacity 
 of a Jack-at-all- trades. 
 
 As a man, Marshall was stubborn about the 
 
56 THE lylFE AND TIMES OF 
 
 most of things, and wanting in perseverance and 
 mental concentration in the reahn of lofty 
 thought. Whatever may be said for or against 
 him, he certainly was a useful man in and about 
 the colony. 
 
 The honor of discovering gold in California is 
 justly settled upon him. True it is, that prior 
 discoveries were made and gold was actually 
 taken from a mine farther south and conveyed to 
 the Mint in Philadelphia. This, however, at- 
 tracted but little attention, as the precious metal 
 did not appear in quantities sufficient to induce 
 extended mining experiments, and the mine as a 
 wealth-producing agency became extinct, or 
 nearly so. At other times gold was found, but 
 no importance was attached to the discovery, as 
 it was but little known and promised but small 
 and very indefinite returns. 
 
 And in the Coloma gold field it is claimed that 
 one Peter Wymer, or Wimmer, one of Sutter's 
 employees at Coloma, found the first nugget of 
 gold in the tail-race, and that his wife boiled the 
 specimen in a kettle of lye to test its virtue. 
 This report may be, and doubtless is, true. At 
 all events, for the sake of argument, we will con- 
 
GEN. JOHN A. SUTTER. 57 
 
 cede its correctness. In as much as the fact 
 remained a secret until long after Marshall 
 broug-ht his discovery to light, the said Wymer 
 can never share the honor of the great discovery. 
 The world, by common consent, has settled upon 
 James W. Marshall, and upon him alone, the 
 honor of opening the gates to the boundless gold 
 field and creating the greatest exodus of which 
 history furnishes any account. Any attempt to 
 vitiate his claims to a position so justly estab- 
 lished is akin to an effort to overshadow the 
 splendor of Columbus' fame by bringing forward, 
 as against him, the claims of the Norsemen. But 
 to elaborate the episodes of this distinguished 
 man would swell this little volume beyond its 
 original design. And as his name appears else- 
 where in this work 1 must forego the pleasure of 
 tracing further his individual career. 
 
 It is a pleasure, however, to state that in Feb- 
 ruary, 1872, the Legislature of California passed 
 an Act, which was duly approved by the Gov- 
 ernor, appropriating $200 per month for two 
 years for his relief; providing, however, that the 
 appropriation cease at his death in the event that 
 he should die before the expiration of two years. 
 
58 THK LIFE AND TIMES OF 
 
 This appropriation was kept up until March, 
 1876, when the Le*gislature passed an Act appro- 
 priating $100 per month for two years, providing" 
 that the warrants be not drawn after Marshall's 
 death, which appropriation he continued to re- 
 ceive to the close of his life. 
 
 His friends tried to make a great man of him, 
 but failed in every effort. He was not calculated 
 for a great man; the requisite elements not being 
 common to his nature. He discovered the gold 
 by incident while in the employ of another man. 
 Had he been in search of gold, basing a conclu- 
 sion upon the deductions of geology, the appear- 
 ance of the soil and the location of the place 
 that the near presence of auriferous metal was 
 indicated, I repeat had he found gold under cir- 
 cumstances like these, he would have possessed 
 an entirely different organism, and one which 
 might have borne him to great distinction on the 
 tide of his important discovery. He was mor- 
 bidly jealous of Sutter, who was very popular 
 with the pioneers, while he was just the reverse. 
 Being disappointed in some of his earlier aspira- 
 tions, and the shady side of life having been 
 reached with no well-defined object established, 
 
GEN. JOHN A. SUTTER. 59 
 
 and his financial and social status falling below a 
 standard he might have desired, and with no 
 strong ties of kindred to bind him to any particu- 
 lar locality, he drifted about on the tide of cir- 
 cumstances, when, bending under the influence of 
 years, worn out and broken down, a condition 
 hastened by the lorce of irregular habits, he died 
 alone in a cabin near Coloma on the loth day of 
 August, 1885, in his seventy-fourth year. 
 
 At an expense of $5,000 a monument has since 
 been erected to his memory and to perpetuate 
 the day and place of his important discovery. 
 The monument stands on the summit of Mar- 
 shall Hill, at an altitude of 300 feet above the 
 river, a half-mile from Sutter's mill site. 
 
6o THE IvIFE AND TIMES OF 
 
 FARMING. 
 
 Sutter took great pleasure in looking over his 
 great fields of waving grain. There being little 
 or no rail timber in the valley, and as shipping 
 fencing lumber from Norway by way of Cape 
 Horn was slow, uncertain and expensive, the 
 fields were enclosed with ditches. These ditches 
 were dug and the plowing, sowing and harrow- 
 ing were done by Indians. The plows were a 
 trifle better than those used by the prophet 
 Elisha, but were exceedingly rude and awkward. 
 The soil, which was rich in grain-producing ele- 
 ments, when broken into by one of these primi- 
 tive plows would look up and laugh. 
 
 The seed time, as well as the harvest time, ex- 
 tended a wide latitude for discretion and conven- 
 ience, a circumstance highly favorable to pioneer 
 life, and especially adapted to the inertness of the 
 Indians and Californians of Sutter's time, and 
 who were in his employ. But the sight of a har- 
 vest field of that date would be a treat to a farmer 
 of to-day. True it is, that but few years have 
 elapsed in the interim, but they have been years 
 
GEN. JOHN A. SUTTER. 6l 
 
 of progress in arts and sciences; and then, too, 
 Sutter was remote from his fatherland and all other 
 civilized nations except Mexico and her province 
 of California, both of which had steadily kept from 
 fifty to one hundred years on the background of 
 civilization, intellectual culture and husbandry. 
 
 In imagination we see one hundred acres of 
 golden grain, whose drooping heads indicate the 
 fullness thereof, ready to rattle to the hum of a 
 harvester, and one hundred wild Indians, vari- 
 ously dressed, some being entirely naked, enter- 
 ing the field, strangely equipped for the work. 
 
 There was every model of "Armstrong" appli- 
 ances, from a scythe down to a butcher- knife, 
 exhibited there; some even pulling the grain up by 
 the roots, or breaking the straw with their hands. 
 One old Indian, whom some "Boston man" had 
 enriched with the title of "Laban," was a regular 
 harvest hand for years. He had by hook or by 
 crook (presumably the former), procured from 
 some stranded barque or antiquated ruins an old 
 scythe of Teutonic invention, and had attached 
 to it a snath, which he had selected from the 
 underwood that grew on the banks of the Sacra- 
 mento. 
 
62 THE LIFE AND TIMES OF 
 
 When this tall, gaunt and grim-looking Indian 
 entered the field with his harvesting outfit on his 
 shoulder he bore no small resemblance to "Father 
 "Time." 
 
 But the threshing, when commenced, was soon 
 over. It was done by horse power, after the fol- 
 lowing manner: A hard, level piece of ground 
 was well smoothed off and fenced, and a few 
 weeks' cutting was piled about four feet high 
 over the circular enclosure, and two hundred, more 
 or less, wild horses were turned in to do the 
 work. This was a picnic for the Indians, who 
 drove the horses around in a circle over the 
 grain. When they succeeded in getting them in 
 a lively whirl they would sally in front of them 
 and yell as only wild Indians can, when the 
 frightened leaders of the band would snort "down 
 brakes," and every horse, in an effort to bring a 
 sudden halt, skated along with stiffened legs, turn- 
 ing the straw bottom side up. In this way the 
 threshing was done very rapidly. 
 
 A Yankee suggested to Sutter that mules would 
 do this work much better than horses. Experi- 
 ence proved this suggestion to be wise. 
 
 When the mules were all in the corral thev 
 
GEN. JOHN A. SUTTER. 63 
 
 could be kept in motion very easily by the following- 
 means: Hit one of them with a stone or a club, 
 and he would kick the nearest mule, which, in 
 turn, would kick indiscriminately, and so on, 
 until every mule in the corral had kicked at least 
 once, and many of them two or three times. 
 The air was so full of straw one might have 
 thought the grain stack had been captured by a 
 cyclone. 
 
 FLOGGING OF ADAM. 
 
 Some of Sutter's men informed him that 
 Adam, an Indian of a neighboring tribe, had 
 been stealing and driving off some of his horses. 
 A squad of well-armed and mounted men were 
 sent after the offender, whom they captured and 
 brought back to the fort for trial. Sutter, who 
 was ex-officio judge, jury and counsel, presided 
 over the deliberations (chiefly his own), with as 
 much dignity as the presiding officer displayed at 
 the trial of Warren Hastings. 
 
 The trial of Adam (if trial it was), was con- 
 ducted in Spanish, it being the language com- 
 monly used in the settlement and throughout 
 
64 THE^IvlFE AND TIMKS OF 
 
 California, at that time, a competent interpreter 
 being always in attendance at court proceedings. 
 
 George McKinstry, who acted as clerk, swore 
 the witnesses and examined them. 
 
 The Indian, who conducted his own case, was 
 permitted to produce and question witnesses for 
 himself. But he had no witnesses. From this 
 court there could be no appeal. 
 
 The evidence against him was so overwhel- 
 ming that Sutter would have been justified, 
 under the laws of the country, had he treated 
 him to the luxury of a death sentence. But he 
 was not a man to abuse his authority. He made 
 the trial as formal as circumstances would allow, 
 as the presence of formality is often sustaining in 
 the discharge of duty. And he may have felt as 
 a passenger did on a Norwegian barque which 
 was foundering at sea. Thinking they would all 
 be lost, he asked some one to pray. As none on 
 board had ever prayed, he asked that a psalm be 
 sung. No psalm singers aboard. He then sug- 
 gested that some one pass the hat. 
 
 The judge, jury and counsel (Sutter) sentenced 
 the outlaw to thirty lashes of a lariet, well laid on. 
 He was accordingly taken by the San Jose Mission 
 
GEN. JOHN A. SUTTER. 65 
 
 Indians, lashed to a cannon and punished, as the 
 sentence directed, by a stalwart Indian, who 
 seemed to enjoy the recreation more than the 
 man did who was receiving the castigation. 
 The punished man was then washed, fed and 
 cared for until sufficiendy recuperated to steal 
 another horse, and then dismissed. 
 
 These California Indians who could lie all 
 right, but who seldom stole a thing they could 
 not reach, had, many of them, been instructed 
 by the holy fathers that it was wrong to steal, 
 and that whoever stole from one of them (the 
 fathers) would be condemned in the court of 
 shades and punished by the great spirit 
 after death. Fearing, however, that, through 
 inadvertency, some of the cases might not be 
 called up for adjudication, in the tribunal 
 referred to, the fathers, anticipating the issue, 
 assumed the prerogative of said court, and 
 administered the punishment an indefinite period 
 in advance. 
 
 There is but little doubt that the miscreant, 
 who knew but little about the after-land court, 
 would rather have submitted his case to its chances 
 than to him who had one eye on virgin Mary and 
 the other eye on virgin somebody else. 
 
66 THE I.IFE AND TIMES OF 
 
 THE MORMONS AND THE FLAG. 
 
 In 1846, when the enraged citizens ousted 
 the Mormons from Nauvoo city, about fifteen 
 hundred men, women and children of the Latter 
 Day Saints, disgusted with American institutions, 
 took their movableproperty and journeyed toward 
 the setting sun. A few of the sect went to 
 Beaver island, near Grand Travers bay, on Lake 
 Michigan. Other prominent Mormons, who 
 were at that time proselyting in various places, 
 purchased the ship Brooklyn, and about two 
 hundred more of the "pure in heart" sailed from 
 New York City the last of January, 1846, expect- 
 ing to purchase from Mexico a grant of land 
 lying near San Francisco bay, where they landed 
 on the 31st day of August, 1846. Montgomery 
 had taken possession of San Francisco but a few 
 weeks before, and had hoisted the stars and 
 stripes over the public square. 
 
 The day on which the Brooklyn sailed 
 through the Golden Gate, was unusually mild 
 and beautiful. The grandeur of the landscape 
 was softened and blended by an atmosphere 
 peculiar to that latitude, and which beautifies 
 every object on which it rests along the Pacific 
 
GEN. JOHN A. SUTTER. 67 
 
 shore. This was the earnestly and long souQ^ht 
 haven of repose. Divinity had shaped their 
 ends. This was the promised land. Here was 
 the place to warble an unknown tongue in all the 
 beauty of holiness. 
 
 Here on this virgin soil, polygamous institu- 
 tions would bud and blossom. The atmosphere, 
 so mild and lovely, had not been contaminated 
 with legislative enactments or constitutional laws. 
 This was Eden regained. Every Adam could 
 bask in a multiplicity of Eves. 
 
 As the proud ship moved grandly over the 
 dark waters of the bay and neared the city, one 
 of the elders was observed to look very steadily 
 toward the shore with his face changing appear- 
 ance as often as a dying gold fish. All at once he 
 pointed toward the place where our National 
 emblem was floating, and exclaimed, with an 
 emphasis of despair: "By God! there is that 
 damned American Flag." 
 
 A party was dispatched by the Mormons of 
 San Francisco, to the emigrant train, under the 
 leadership of Brigham Young, bearing the 
 mournful tidings that the United States had 
 taken California, and that it would be well for the 
 emigrants under Brigham Young to select a 
 
68 THE IvIFE AND TIMES OF 
 
 Mecca somewhere ia the interior, where they 
 would be, for a time, at least, beyond the 
 polluting: and ungodly influences of the civilized 
 world. The advice was accepted, and the bor- 
 ders of the beautiful Salt Lake, in Utah, became 
 the chosen, temporary abode of the sanctified. 
 
 VEHICLES. 
 
 Wagons were, at the time of the gold dis- 
 covery, a convenience wholly unknown in Call" 
 fornia, carts being used for freighting and for 
 pleasure riding, and were constructed in the 
 following manner: A white- oak tree was cut in 
 blocks about eight inches thick at the rim, and 
 so tapering as to leave them ten inches or a foot 
 thick at the center of the wheel. A hole seven 
 or eight inches was bored and gouged out to re- 
 ceive the axle. To the axle the deltoid end of a 
 huge pole was attached. By continued use the 
 axle grew smaller, but the hole through the wheel 
 seldom did. Soap was used for lubricating. The 
 groaning of one of these carts, when not lubri- 
 cated, could be heard two miles on a still morn- 
 ing, which music was suggestive of the final 
 trump. 
 
GEN. JOHN A. SUTTER. 69 
 
 Tlie first wagon ever seen in California was 
 sent as a present to one of the provincial g^over- 
 nors by a Boston merchant. It was built for a 
 pleasure carriage and after the most approved 
 model of that date. No harness was sent with 
 it, and as the presentee and his associates had 
 never seen a horse hitched to a wagon, they 
 were thrown upon their inventive genius. The 
 governor had the carriage and it must be utilized. 
 Two mounted vaqueros, one either side of the 
 pole, each with a lariat, one end of which was 
 made fast to the pommel of the saddle and the 
 other end secured to the pole of the vehicle, 
 sought, through their spirited steeds, to commu- 
 nicate the desired motion to the vehicle with no 
 means, except the resistance of air and gravita- 
 tion, of checking any speed to which the 
 carriage might attain. 
 
 During this memorable drive (be the term 
 allowable), up hill and down, here and there, 
 dashing and fetching up like a patent snaftie, the 
 carriage inspected every rut and every other 
 obstruction along the thoroughfare, even veering 
 five or six feet to procure a set-to with a feld- 
 spar or granite boulder by the wayside. Some- 
 times the governor was on his seat and some- 
 
70 THE I.IFE AND TIMES OF 
 
 times on his head. The carriage having been 
 made in New England, where the famous "one- 
 hoss shay" was constructed, endured the ramble 
 remarkably well. The dash, which was of wood 
 and of liberal proportions, looked like a Norman 
 guide -board, of centuries agone, standing by a 
 frontier thoroughfare, directing crusaders to the 
 "Holy Land." The spirited equines, mistaking 
 its use, supposed it to be a cavalry target and 
 occasionally took a random shot at it. The 
 governor, out of respect for the giver, ordered 
 the carriage to be placed under a shed for safe 
 keeping, where its remains, it is said, may be 
 seen to this day. 
 
 CASTRO REBELLION. 
 
 In August, 1842, General Micheltorena 
 arrived at San Diego, empowered by the Mexi- 
 can government to assume both civil and military 
 command in California. Strong opposition to 
 this appointee was early demonstrated by the 
 Californians under the leadership of General 
 Jose Castro, and the disturbance growing out of 
 the disaffection is, or should be, recognized as 
 the Castro rebellion. 
 
GEN. JOHN A. SUTTER. ^l 
 
 Sutter and Bidwell visited Micheltorena at 
 Monterey, on which occasion the latter asked 
 Sutter to aid him in putting down the rebellion, 
 to which he consented. He made a bargain for 
 his friends, however, before he set out in the 
 campaign. He asked that every petition for land 
 on which he (Sutter), as justice, had favorably 
 reported should be no less binding than a formal 
 grant. With this request the governor readily 
 complied. 
 
 This rebellion was so far successful as to oust 
 Micheltorena, one of the best governors Califor- 
 nia had ever had up to this time, and establish 
 Pio Pico in his place, and Castro was appointed 
 general. The deposed governor entered upon 
 his official duties under the instruction to dis- 
 possess Sutter, who, it had been reported, defied 
 the authorities of Mexico. On hearing this, 
 Sutter dispatched a courier, to meet the governor 
 before he arrived at the capital city, with a well- 
 timed letter written in French and sparkling with 
 courtesy. This letter secured the good will of 
 Micheltorena, with whom the Americans also, 
 through Sutter, found favor. Sutter has been 
 unjustly censured for the action he took in 
 support of the governor. We should bear in 
 
72 THE I^IFE AND TIMES OF 
 
 mind the fact that Sutter was a Mexican citizen, 
 having previously obtained his naturalization 
 papers and was also a civil and military officer 
 under the Mexican government. And had he 
 joined the enemy, he would have been a rebel 
 and his property, in the event of defeat, would 
 have been confiscated. Believing that an extract 
 from Sutter's journal relating to this affair will 
 please my reader, I will quote him verbatim ad 
 literatim: 
 
 "In the fall of 1844 I went to Monterey with 
 Major Bidwell and a few armed men (canallada 
 & servants), how it was customary to travell at 
 these times, to pay a Visit to Gen'l Micheltorena. 
 I has been received with the greatest civil and 
 Military honors. One day he gave a great 
 Dinner. After Dinner all the Troupes were 
 parading, and in the evening a balloon was sent 
 to the higher regions, etc., etc. 
 
 "At the time it looked very gloomy the people 
 of the Country was arming and preparing to 
 make a Revolution, and I got some sure and 
 certain information of the British consul and other 
 gentlemen of my acquaintance, which I visited 
 on my Monterey trip. The did not know that 
 the General and myself were friends, and told 
 
CiEN. JOHN A. SU'TTER. 73 
 
 and discovered me the whole plan, that in a 
 short time the people of the Country will be 
 ready to blockade the General and his troupes in 
 Monterey, and then take him prisoner and send 
 him and his soldiers back to Mexico, and make a 
 Gov'r. of their own people, etc. 
 
 "I was well aware what we could expect, 
 should they succeed to do this, they would drive 
 us foreigners all very soon out of the Country, 
 how they have done it once, in the winter 
 1839. Capt. Vioget has already been enoraged 
 by Castro & Alvarado to be ready with his 
 vessel to take the General and his soldiers to 
 Mexico. 
 
 "I had a confidential Conversation with Gen'l 
 Micheltoreno, who recieved me with great 
 honors and Distinction in Monterey, after having 
 him informed of all what is going on in the 
 Country, he took his measures in a Counsel o^ 
 war in which I has been present. I recieved my 
 Orders to raise such a large auxiliary as I possi- 
 bly could and to be ready at his Order. At the 
 same time I received some cartridges and some 
 small arms, which I had shipped on board the 
 Alert, and took a passage myself for San Fran- 
 cisco (or then Verba Buena). If I had travelled 
 
74 I'HE I<IFE AND TIMES OK 
 
 by land, Castro would have taken me prisoner in 
 San Juan, where he was laing in Ambush for me. 
 In Verba Buena I remained only a few hours, as 
 my Schooner was ready to receive me on board, 
 having waited Ya. Ba. I visited the Officers of 
 the Custom house and Castro's officers, which 
 immediately after I left recieved an Order to 
 arrest me, but I was under fair Way to Sacra- 
 mento. 
 
 "After my Arrival at the fort, I began to organ- 
 ize a force for the regular General, Drill of the 
 Indian Infanterie took place. The Mounted Rifle 
 company, about one hundred Men of all Nations, 
 was raised, of which Capt. Gartt was the com- 
 mander. As all was under fair way and well 
 organized and joint with a Detachment of Cali- 
 fornia Cavallry (which deserted from Vallejo), 
 with Music and flying Colors, on the ith January, 
 1845, to join the General and comply with his 
 Orders. Major Reading was left with a small 
 garrison of Frenchmen, Canadians and Indians 
 as commander of the upper Country. 
 
 "Castro had his headquarters in the Mission of 
 San Jose; he did not expect us so soon, as he 
 was just commencing to fortify himselt, he ran 
 away with his garrison; was collecting a stronger 
 
GEN. JOHN A. SUTTER. 75 
 
 force, and wanted to March, but as he saw that 
 I was on a good que vive for him, he left for 
 Monterey to unite with the forces that was block- 
 ading the General and his troops in Monterey, 
 and advanced or runed to the lower Country 
 to call or force the people there to take arms 
 against the government. On the Salinas, near 
 Monterey, the General was encamped, and with 
 our united force, about 600 Men (he left a garri- 
 son in Monterey), we pursued the enemy, and 
 had to pursue him down to Los Angeles, the 
 first encounter we had with the enemy was at 
 Buena ventura, where we attacked him and drove 
 them out of their comfortable quarters. While 
 at and near Santa Barbara, a great many of soldiers 
 of my Division Deserted; over 50 men of the 
 Mounted Rifles, the detachment of California 
 Cavalry deserted and joined their Countrymen, 
 the ribells, likewise a good number of the Mexi- 
 can Dragoons. 
 
 "Near San Fernando (Mission) the enemy oc- 
 cupied a fine position, and appeared in full 
 strength, joined by a company of American Trad- 
 ers coming from Sonora, and another company 
 of the same consisting of traders and trappers; 
 and the whole force of enemy was over 1,000 
 
76 THE UFE AND TIMES OF 
 
 Men, well provided with everything, and our 
 force has been no more as about 350 or 375 
 men, and during the battle of Cavenga, near San 
 fernando; the balance of the Mounted Riflemen 
 in the artillery deserted, and myself fell in the 
 hands of the enemy, and was taken prisoner, and 
 transported to Los Angeles. 
 
 "A few days after this the General, surrounded 
 by the enemy, so that he could nothing more get 
 to eat, capitulated; and after the necessary docu- 
 ments was signed by both parties, the General 
 was allowed to march, with Music and flying col- 
 ors, to San Pedro, where some vessels were 
 ready to take him and troops aboard; and after 
 having delivered their arms, etc., proceeded up 
 to Monterey to take the remaining garrison, the 
 family of the General, and his privat property, 
 likewise the family of some of the officers. This 
 was the End of the reign of General- Governor 
 Manuel Micheltorena. 
 
 "The new government, under Governor Pio 
 Pico and General Castro, etc., had the intention 
 to shoot me; they were of the opinion that I had 
 joined General Micheltorena voluntarily, but so 
 soon as I could get my baggage and my papers, 
 I could prove and show by the orders of my 
 
 I 
 
GEN. JOHN A. SUTTER. 77 
 
 ^i>'eneral that I have obeyed his orders and done 
 iny duty to the leo^al government. And so I was 
 acquitted with all honors, and confirmed in my 
 former offices as military commander of the 
 northern frontier, * ^- ^ with the expressed wish 
 that I might be so faithful to the new govern- 
 ment as I had to General Micheltorena." 
 
 The foregoing extract may direct the reader to 
 the conclusion that the fame of our hero does not 
 rest exclusively upon his ability as a linguist. It 
 shows the action of a great mind struggling with 
 a language he could not manage. Evidently, 
 unlike Burret or Cushing^, the torce of his genius 
 did not flow in the channel of tongues. 
 
 The reader will incline to palliate Sutter's im- 
 perfect English when he bears in mind the fact 
 that he was upwards of thirty years old when he 
 came to the United States, and that much of his 
 time after his arrival here was spent among 
 Kanakas, Diggers and Missourians. 
 
78 THE WFE AND TIMES OF 
 
 BLACK EAGLE. 
 
 About the last of April, 1846, Lieutenant Gil- 
 lespie, of the United States Marine Corps, ar- 
 rived with dispatches for Captain Fremont, who 
 was in California in command of an exploring 
 expedition, and who, having been opposed in his 
 field of observation by the jealous and narrow- 
 minded Castro, had set out from Sutter's fort on 
 a journey to Oregon a day or two before Gilles- 
 pie's arrival. Sutter furnished the latter with 
 animals and a guide to conduct him to Peter 
 Lassen's place, whence the animals were to be 
 returned by the guide to the fort. 
 
 Here Gillespie purchased some horses and 
 hired a few brave mountaineers and pushed out 
 on Fremont's trail in hot haste, hoping to over- 
 take him before he reached the mountains. But 
 the "Pathfinder," through intuition and experi- 
 ence, had become expert in traversing roadless 
 countries, and moved so rapidly it was doubtful 
 whether he could be overtaken by the party ere 
 he penetrated far into Oregon. 
 
 Gillespie encountered a party ot Indians belong- 
 ing to the Klamath tribe who were encamped on a 
 river bank and engaged in salmon fishing. These 
 
GEN. JOHN A. SUTTER. 
 
 79 
 
 Indians were theiving and treacherous, and espe- 
 cially hostile to the whites, whom they called "Bos- 
 tfn men." They had strong bows, which in their 
 dextrous hands would send one of their large 
 steel-headed arrows over lOO yards and penetrate 
 
 Black Eagle. 
 
 three inches into a tree. They shot very 
 rapidly and with remarkable accuracy. Some of 
 the arrow-heads were made of obsidian. Those 
 made of steel had been purchased of the Hudson 
 Bay Company at Fort Vancouver. 
 
 On this occasion the Indians showed no signs 
 
8o The life and timks of / 
 
 of hostility, but behaved quite to the contrary.! 
 The chief (Black Eagle), with a smile and a 
 "hovv-dy," assisted the party in crossing tl/e 
 stream. Gillespie's horses, from having beei 
 almost constantly admonished by whip and spu-\ 
 to a higher rate of speed, began to resemble a 
 structure in an unfinished condition. 
 
 Believing it to be his only chance to succeed, 
 he dispatched Sam Neal, an expert mountaineer 
 of great daring, on one of his fleetest horses 
 under orders to overtake Fremont if possible. 
 None but a strong and courageous man could 
 have made the ride. His passage through a nar- 
 row defile in the hills was disputed by a party of 
 Indians. With the bridle reins in his teeth and 
 a pistol in each hand he dashed at full speed 
 through a shower of arrows, and firing to the 
 right and left, escaped his pursuers, and reaching 
 Fremont's camp, fell from his horse exhausted. 
 Fremont ordered for him a cup of warm cofifee. 
 On learning the perilous situation of Gillespie 
 and the location of his camp, Fremont, taking 
 with him Kit Carson and five or six of his Dela- 
 ware Indians, every one of whom in bravery and 
 a knowledge of Indian warfare was the peer of 
 anv man that ever lived, started on the back 
 
GKN. JOHN A. SUTTER. 8l 
 
 trail to the relief of Gillespie, whose camp he 
 reached in the early twilight. 
 
 After supper the party talked by the campfire 
 till a late hour, and then imprudently went to 
 sleep without establishing a sentinel. The first 
 sleep of the night, which is said to be the sweet- 
 est, was of short duration. Carson's quick ear 
 caught a thud-Hke sound, which instantly brought 
 him to his feet, when he saw the camp alive with 
 Indians, and that the sound that awoke him was 
 produced by a tomahawk crashing into the brain 
 of a brave and trusty Delewarean. 
 
 The Indians immediately raised the war-whoop, 
 which was returned by Carson and the remaining 
 Delawares. The Klamaths, after being severely 
 punished, all sought refuge in flight, except Black 
 Eagle, who fought with a spirit of desperation, 
 dodging from side to side under cover of night, 
 and screaming like a panther to elude the vigi- 
 lance of his enemy as to numbers and location, 
 and at the same time hurling his shafts with the 
 rapidity of thought. 
 
 One of Fremont's men went to the light of the 
 fire to examine the lock of his gun, when Carson 
 
 coolly remarked to Fremont: "See that 
 
 fool." 
 
82 THE I^IFE AND TIMES OF 
 
 Black Eagle finally '"bit the dust," and was 
 found to be the same chief who assisted Gillespie 
 in crossing the stream two da3^s before. 
 
 Two of the Delawares who mourned the loss of 
 their brave comrade, obtained permission of Fre- 
 mont to remain in camp awhile after the party 
 had set out for Sutter's fort. 
 
 After Fremont was well out of sight of camp 
 he halted that he might be overtaken by the men 
 whom he had left with Neal the day before, and 
 also by the Delawares, who remained concealed 
 near the scene of the night attack. 
 
 On hearing a few rifle reports in the direction 
 of the camp, the party started back only to meet 
 the two Delawares on a brisk pace, each with a 
 warm scalp of a Klamath warrior. 
 
 In relating this circumstance, Fremont said it 
 was the second instance in his official career in 
 the west that he had encamped without the pro- 
 tection of a sentinel. On that night, he said, 
 just before spreading his blanket he went to a 
 meadow near at hand where his mules were graz- 
 ing, as was his custom, to see the condition of 
 the animals, and especially to see if they were 
 quiet and inclined to rest, or if they showed signs 
 of uneasiness with their attention frequently ar- 
 
GEN. JOHN A. SUTTER. 83 
 
 rested and attracted in a particular direction for 
 mules, he said, were natural and expert detect- 
 ives. He left them quietly feeding and returned 
 to his camp, and all, being very tired, went to 
 sleep without the protection that prudence, at 
 such a time and place, would have dictated. 
 After punishing the tribe for their behavior, by 
 burning their village, they returned to the fort. 
 Black Eagle was tall and well-proportioned, and 
 classed with the higher grade of California Indi- 
 ans. He was strong, athletic, and a fast runner, 
 and could run and jump nearly twenty feet. 
 
 SOCIETY. 
 
 At the time of Sutter's advent into the Sacra- 
 mento valley, the society in the more settled por- 
 tions of the country, where the frequency of 
 rancheros and neighbors could be regarded as a 
 society, was less formal on points of etiquette 
 than New England society is to day, or probably 
 was at that time. 
 
 Tiie social pleasures consisted in neighborhood 
 visits, on which occasions the visiting party were 
 sometimes treated to songs, accompanied by the 
 guitar, and sometimes to feats of horsemanship 
 
84 THE LIFE AND TIMES OF 
 
 displayed by young^ men who were, undoubtedly, 
 the cleverest horseback riders in the world, the 
 Cossack and Mameluke not excepted, A cava- 
 lier who could not pick a silver dollar from the 
 ground, when riding at high speed, was by no 
 means accounted an expert equestrian. The 
 rider was not so fond of his horse as he was of 
 the pleasure he derived from his use; for, in fact, 
 a horse was soon worn out and broken down un- 
 der his reg^ime. But when one of those noble 
 animals survived his usefulness he was turned out 
 to grass, like a broken-down politician, with some 
 exceptions as to reputation, and another was se- 
 lected from the goodly number his owner con- 
 trolled to take his place. 
 
 A representative Calilornian of riper years, 
 whom the spirit of froHc had deserted for a more 
 suitable abode, unlike the ambitious youth, was 
 more attached to his horse than to equestrian 
 exploits, treating him not only with kind care but 
 with caresses of fondness. 
 
 His horse came in for the lion's share of his 
 affections, and the residue was divided between 
 his dogs and his wife; a custom which time, with 
 its endless changes, has not yet consigned to the 
 past. 
 
GEN. JOHN A, SUTTER. 85 
 
 Why these men were such excellent riders will 
 be readily understood on a little reflection. The 
 most of them were either owners of cattle, for 
 which they must care, or were often employed by 
 those who were in cattle husbandry. Under no 
 circumstances was it safe for a footman to venture 
 near a band of cattle, either on a range or in a 
 corral. The picture is scarcely overdrawn to say 
 when a band of wild cattle attack a footman on a 
 plain, where deep ravines, precipitous rocks or 
 trees offer him no shelter, they become an enemy 
 little less formidable than the same number of 
 tigers would be in a Bengal jungle. 
 
 Business pursuits called boys into the saddle 
 at an early age and kept them there a great deal 
 of the time; and, as experience is the mother of 
 skill, they became expert horsemen as a direct 
 and natural consequence. It may be well to 
 observe that the primitive Californian was organ- 
 ized for enduring a vast amount of rest. He 
 seldom relished self-created locomotion; it sav- 
 ored too much of toil. 
 
 But the chief pleasure in which the women 
 participated was found at the dancing party. 
 Some of the young women were both attractive 
 and beautiful, and as blithe as a skylark, gliding 
 
86 THK IvIFE AND TIMES OF 
 
 through the dance like a celestial vision, stepping 
 the sweet measures with extraordinary adroitness 
 as the musician swept them from his guitar or 
 mandolin. They were modestly attired, and yet 
 so sparingly upholstered as to display an outline 
 that Venus might have envied. The complexion 
 of the girls of "sweet sixteen," which in a sunny 
 clime is so generally inconsonant to beauty, was, 
 in some instances, a happy blending of olive and 
 rose tints. Their eyes were dark and well orna- 
 mented with long black lashes, which formed a 
 beautiful contrast with the soft bloom of the 
 cheek. The lips were full and pinken, and when 
 parted showed a system of pearly teeth set with 
 unsurpassed regularity. 
 
 It was a rare treat to witness a spirited conver- 
 sation in the Spanish language between two of 
 those musically-voiced women. 
 
 Sometimes they rode to the party on a favorite 
 pony, and as frequently went on foot, walking 
 sometimes a distance of five or six miles, and 
 usually with bare feet, carrying in their hands a 
 pair of slippers, which they adjusted to their feet 
 by the wayside before arriving at the scene of 
 festivity. No hose worn. When one of them 
 accepted from a cavalier an invitation to attend a 
 
GEN. JOHN A. SUTTKR. 87 
 
 party she considered him obHgated to bestow 
 upon her so much of his attention as she might 
 require (and the reader who has any knowledge 
 of womankind is left to estimate that amount) 
 during the life of that occasion, and she would 
 insist, then and there, that her social rights be 
 observed and respected. Her assumed jurisdic- 
 tion over the deportment of her beau ceased, 
 however, with the passing of the festival, leaving 
 him to his own discretion respecting the future. 
 If one man stole another's wife and was after- 
 ward discovered he was sometimes flogged, pro- 
 vided the man whose wife was stolen considered 
 himself injured; but if a horse were stolen and 
 the thief was apprehended he died with his boots 
 on; the penalty attached by law to horse stealing 
 being death; to wife stealing, flogging. 
 
 THE BEAR FLAG REVOLUTION. 
 
 The word war, when applied to nations, strikes 
 the ear with unsubdued harshness. It is but a 
 conventional term, used to awaken ideas of 
 desolation, calamity and death; of feeding mother 
 earth on the choicest globules of patriotic blood. 
 
88 THK LIFE AND TIMES OF 
 
 and of feasting- wolves and vultures on human 
 flesh. 
 
 The Bear Flag war was rather a humane war 
 in which the possible good it may have induced 
 is not counterpoised by the sorrow and misery it 
 entailed. 
 
 Reserving a more complete history of this war 
 for the carefully prepared work, entitled "The 
 Life and Times of Gen. John A. Sutter" (illus- 
 trated), complete in one volume, by the author of 
 this work, and which will soon be given to the 
 public, I will notice, with much brevity, some of 
 the issues involved, actions taken, and points 
 scored in the so-called Bear Flag revolution, 
 
 Where hero's brave marched too and fro, 
 But nowhere did the crimson flow. 
 
 Pico and Castro were hostile to the American 
 immigrants, and neglected no opportunity to so 
 expresss themselves. 
 
 The Indians were so troublesome that Mexico 
 had offered lands to any foreigner who would 
 settle upon them and naturalize to her govern- 
 ment. These lands they had refused to grant, 
 according to promise. Instead of a republican 
 government, which had been promised them, 
 
GEN. JOHN A. SUTTER. 89 
 
 they were imposed upon by arbitrary and 
 unprincipled rulers, who sought their appoint- 
 ment through a desire for aggrandizement and 
 plunder. 
 
 Pio Pico, in an address to the Junta, declared 
 that these self-invited guests, with their great 
 prairie schooners, had scaled the Sierras and were 
 occupying the most fertile valley lands in the 
 State. With their long guns they would kill an 
 antelope at almost any distance, and that it was 
 doubtful whether California, at that time, was 
 able to drive them back over the mountains 
 whence they came. He said it was hard to tell 
 what they would undertake next, but whatever it 
 might be, they would be likely to succeed. 
 
 There were a great many foreigners in Cali- 
 fornia, but the Americans outnumbered all the 
 rest, and upon them, the displeasure of the 
 dominant power was brought to bear. 
 
 Castro, whose adroitness was best displayed in 
 his efforts to keep out of danger, declared, by 
 proclamation, that all foreigners must leave Cali- 
 fornia within forty days, or their property would 
 be confiscated and they would be put to death. 
 
 As he was commander-in-chief of the army in 
 California, this proclamation could not pass 
 
90 THE I<IFE AND TIMES OF 
 
 unnoticed. The Americans, being; recognized 
 as foreigners, began to look about them, and to 
 inquire whether Castro was laboring under a 
 mistake. 
 
 A train of overland immigrants was expected 
 soon to reach Carson Valley, en route for Califor- 
 nia. The valorous Castro conceived a plan to 
 intercept this train, kill all the live stock, destroy 
 the goods and send the party back across the 
 plains. 
 
 Preparations were commenced for carrying this 
 work of barbarism into effect. The provincial 
 government had a band of horses pasturing near 
 San Rafael. Castro sent a lieutenant and some 
 privates to gather them up and bring them to 
 San Jos , to be used as cavalry in the expedition 
 against the immigrant train referred to. 
 
 The ofticer and his men crossed the Sacra- 
 mento river with the horses, at Knight's Landing 
 and were overtaken on the following evening by 
 a party of Americans, who captured the horses, 
 leaving one for the lieutenant and one for each of 
 his men, and after instructing the officer to tell 
 Castro if he wanted the horses to come and get 
 them, ,they returned, with their prize, to the 
 settlement. 
 
GKN. JOHN A. SUTTER. 9I 
 
 "Tlie pear was ripe." On the I4tli clay of 
 June, 1846, a parly of Americans, mostly from 
 Napa valley, without a leader, gathered and 
 took Sonoma, a fortified town on the north side 
 of San Francisco bay. 
 
 This place was occupied by Mexican citizens, 
 and was the residence of General Vallejo, who 
 was commandant-general of the northern district 
 of California; his brother, Don Salvador Vallejo, 
 who was captain in the Mexican service. Colonel 
 Victor Prudeshon and Jacob P. Leese (an Ameri- 
 can). 
 
 These officers were surprised in bed at break 
 of day, and were transported as prisoners of war, 
 or hostages, to Fremont's camp, where they were 
 kept a few daj^s and then removed to Sutter's 
 fort, where they were strictly guarded by several 
 Americans, who were detailed for that purpose, 
 and one Mr. Kern, a private in Fremont's com- 
 mand, was made a captain of the guard. The 
 prisoners were kept at this place until released 
 on parol. 
 
 Some of the Americans, who were members of 
 the guard, and who were unacquainted with the 
 kind feeling General Vallejo entertained for them, 
 censured Sutter for the courtesy with which he 
 
92 THE LIFE AND TIMES OF 
 
 treated the prisoners, and even went so far as to 
 threaten his hfe if he did not desist. Sutter in- 
 formed them that the fort was his own private 
 property, and that whoever remained in it, while 
 it was subject to his control, should suffer no 
 abuse. He informed the guard that General 
 Vallejo and his brother officers thought well of 
 them, and respected the American flag. He told 
 them, in conclusion, if it were their intention to 
 treat tlie prisoners any way but kindly, they must 
 delay doing so until they were removed from the 
 fort. 
 
 I have said that the party to whom the garri- 
 son at Sonoma surrendered acted without a 
 leader. Rumors are, or have been, current that 
 Ezekiel Merritt, Esq., acted, at some stage of the 
 proceedings, either before or after the surrender 
 of Sonoma, as captain of the company. Cer- 
 tainly he could have been in command but a 
 short time, and there is a well founded doubt 
 about his having acted in that capacity at any 
 time. The statement is well authenticated that 
 Merritt headed the party on their ride to Sonoma; 
 and it is quite as evident that on reaching the 
 place his authority over the men, whatever it was, 
 ceased by agreement or by common consent. 
 
GEN. JOHN A. SUTTER. 93 
 
 Dr. Semple, who was duly appointed a mem- 
 ber of a committee to gather material for a history 
 of the Bear Flag revolution, published a series 
 of articles on this subject, the first of which ap- 
 peared in his paper two months after the flag was 
 raised and the movement inaugurated. He was 
 an active participant, and was in a position to 
 know as much about the movement as any one. 
 I think much importance should attach to his 
 statement. He says; "On the 14th day of June, 
 1846, a party of Americans, without a leader, 
 gathered and took possession of the fortified town 
 of Sonoma," etc. But Dr. Semple says Merritt 
 was a member of the Bear Flag party. 
 
 General Vallejo's wife, an amiable and accom- 
 plished lady, who was present when her husband 
 was commanded to surrender, said to the Amer- 
 icans, "To whom are we to surrender?" In after 
 years she frequently related the circumstances, 
 and amused herself with the idea that an armed 
 force undertook so grave a task without a leader. 
 
 Merritt, the reputed captain, was an old moun- 
 taineer, bear hunter and trapper. He lived with 
 a squaw, and attired like a Rocky Mountain 
 chief, wearing buckskin breeches heavily fringed 
 along the wide seam on the outer side of the legs. 
 
94 THK LIFE AND TIMES OF 
 
 He was addicted to a generous use of ardent 
 spirits and navy plug tobacco. He did but little 
 spitting, but either swallowed the tobacco juice 
 or let it flow at random adown his chin. In his 
 own estimation he was as brave as "Captain 
 Kidd" was bold. 
 
 He was a skillful bear trapper, and, according 
 to his own report, he had slaughtered Indians 
 enough to people an extensive burying ground. 
 Every time he killed one he cut a notch in his 
 tomahawk handle, which was notched, of course, 
 from one end to the other. As he could neither 
 read nor write, this was his only method of mak- 
 ing a memorandum. It is doubtful whether he 
 could have even counted the notches in his toma- 
 hawk handle. 
 
 When the revolutionary party captured this 
 "Ticonderoga" they surrounded the fort and 
 sent some men with an interpreter (Spanish being 
 spoken) into the commander's apartments to 
 demand the surrender. Vallejo assured them he 
 was willing to make common cause with them 
 and head the forces at his command against the 
 enemies of the country. 
 
 His generosity, for which he was distinguished, 
 becoming excited, he brought forward some 
 
GEN. JOHN A. SUTTER. 95 
 
 choice wines, which the party, after a night's 
 ride, sampled with a greed that controlled their 
 judgment. 
 
 After remaining in their saddles two or more 
 hours guarding the premises, during which time 
 they had received no tidings from the men who 
 entered the house, one of the party suggested 
 that they elect a captain and let him enter and 
 explore the situation within and in due time 
 report to them. The man was accordingly 
 elected and sent in. 
 
 The company in the house was enjoying a high 
 jinks. Merritt was sitting with his head down and 
 was totally indifferent in regard to all passing 
 events, to say nothing of future prospects, and 
 the delegated interpreter was too "mellow" to 
 discharge his official duty. 
 
 After waiting an hour for the return of the 
 captain, the party elected another man and sent 
 him in with the same instructions they had given 
 the other, saying to him: " Now, you go in that 
 
 house, and by you come out again." The 
 
 author does not vouch for the truth of the fore- 
 going story. 
 
 The Bear party left a garrison of 40 at Sonoma, 
 where they found nine pieces of artillery and 250 
 
96 THE I.IFE AND TIMES OF 
 
 Stand of arms. The prisoners, as I have said, 
 were sent under an escort to Captain Fremont's 
 headquarters. After they had ridden a few hours, 
 one of the Americans, recog^nizing Salvador Val- 
 lejo.as the man who had once treated him to an 
 exhibition of brutahty, rode up to him and in a 
 determined voice said to him: "When I was in 
 your power, sir, you struck me with your sword; 
 now you are in my power and I will not strike 
 you." 
 
 The first night after leaving Sonoma the party 
 having the prisoners in charge encamped and 
 went to sleep without being sentineled. 
 
 After Morpheus had folded them in his gentle 
 embrace the sleepers were approached by a band 
 of desperadoes, under the leadership of Juan de 
 Padilla, an outlaw, who cautiously crept to where 
 they lay, and informed General Vallejo that he 
 had a strong force of well armed rancheros who 
 could surprise and kill I he Americans before they 
 could fly to arms. 
 
 Vallejo, outranking Padilla, instructed him to 
 banish from his mind so foul a plot, which, if car- 
 ried into execution, would imperil the lives of 
 their families and strengthen the cause of the for- 
 eigners. He told Padilla he should go with his 
 
GEN. JOHN A. SUTTER. 97 
 
 captors, and hoped for good treatment. Valor 
 and magnanimity, he said, go hand in hand, and 
 no people who are as brave as the Americans are 
 can fail to be generous. 
 
 The prompt action of the patriots, which event- 
 uated in the capture of Sonoma, is entitled to the 
 commendation of humane, loyal and brave men. 
 Their determination to protect themselves, their 
 homes and their friends against unprovoked and 
 brutal violence was cool in its inception, mild in 
 its execution and beneficent in its tendency. A 
 plan had been matured by the enemy to visit an 
 immigrant train with robbery, hardship and dis- 
 tress. Had the Americans acted with indifference 
 or inerdy pending this plan to pillage a helpless 
 train of their countrymen, their friends and their 
 kindred, they would have sullied the record of 
 American courage and patriotism. Besides this 
 threat, those in position to grant passports to 
 those wishing to travel through the province had 
 refused to do so. The commander-in-chief, as 
 we have noticed, had ordered every foreigner out 
 of the country, under pain of death should the 
 order be disregarded. These insults the Ameri- 
 cans were neither prepared nor disposed to 
 endure. 
 
98 THE I.IFE AND TIMES OF 
 
 They had been allured to California by the 
 promise of land and the promise of protection. 
 The land had been withheld, and instead of being 
 protected the government was directing its arms 
 against them. They, as well as all other Califor- 
 nians by adoption, had grown tired of such injus- 
 tice. This fact appeared evident from the unset- 
 tled state of affairs which had existed more than 
 twenty years prior to the Bear Flag war. 
 
 While the spirit of revolution was known to be 
 spreading throughout the province, many were 
 apprehensive of results prejudicial to the interest 
 of foreigners from premature and indiscreet action. 
 The ignorant and narrow-minded class of native 
 Californians were jealous of the Americans, who, 
 they claimed, were steadily encroaching upon 
 their domain, and who, through habits of push 
 and economy, were increasing their riches. 
 
 Immediately after the fall of Sonoma the Bear 
 party proceeded to organize an independent gov- 
 ernment. William B. Ide was elected governor 
 and commander-in-chief of the independent 
 forces, and John H. Nash was elected chief jus- 
 tice. 
 
 As all civilized nations have a flag and a motto, 
 this embryonic republic must assume the digni- 
 
GEN. JOHN A. SUTTER. 99 
 
 ties of sovereignty and add her molto to the le- 
 pubHc of banners. 
 
 Dr. Semple, to whom I have referred on an- 
 other page, and who was present when the flag 
 was made, says: "A flag was made of a piece of 
 white cotton cloth, with one red stripe on the bot- 
 tom, and on the white a grizzly bear with a single 
 star in front of him. It was painted, or rather 
 stained, with lampblack and pokeberries. Along 
 the top was written Republic o( California." 
 
 It is quite probable that William Todd, a 
 young man who was a kin to the wife of Abra- 
 ham Lincoln, assisted by old Peter Storm, painted 
 the bear flag. There are as many conflicting re- 
 ports respecting this flag, as to how and by whom 
 it was made, as there are about the color of a cha- 
 meleon. Each of these reports seems to be well 
 authenticated and highly creditable. They can- 
 not, all of them, be true. 
 
 The idea of having a grizzly bear for a motto 
 was suggested by Captain Ford. Most of the 
 party being hunters, the suggestion was thought 
 to be a good one and the bear was adopted. The 
 painting, viewed from an artistic standpoint, was 
 not a success, as those who saw it, and not know- 
 
lOO THE I.IFE AND TIMES OF 
 
 ing what it was intended to represent, supposed 
 it to be a wild boar. 
 
 The "Giotto" who painted the bear flag-, and 
 whom without doubt was young Todd, is entitled 
 to lasting credit, poor as the execution may have 
 been. It was an impromptu performance to meet 
 the demand of a real or supposed necessity. The 
 artist did not know how long the new banner 
 would wave in heaven. The revolution might be 
 a success or it might be a failure. The young 
 painter might long enjoy the empire his valor 
 helped to create, or he might die the next day as 
 a rebel, ignominously and on the scaffold. Time 
 for deliberation was not at his disposal. He could 
 not, like Raphael, repair to his studio and there, 
 undisturbed by contending influences, with his 
 mind as calm as a summer's sea, and with the 
 choicest paints and brushes at his command, out- 
 line and re-outline, sketch and re-sketch, limn 
 and re-limn, and blend and re- blend for days, 
 weeks, and months before offering for public in- 
 spection the offspring of his imagination. 
 
 In due time Governor Ide issued a proclama- 
 tion and arranged articles of agreement and treaty 
 stipulations. He promised protection to women 
 and children, and to all who would not take up 
 
GEN. JOHN A. SUTTER. lOI 
 
 arms against the revolutionists. This address 
 had a far-reaching and a most salutary effect. 
 
 Meanwhile, Castro sent out a proclamation 
 calling on all good Californians to unite, and in 
 one bold effort fall on and kill the bears of 
 Sonoma, and then return and kill the whelps 
 afterwards. This murderous proclamation aided 
 greatly in increasing the garrison. 
 
 Incensed by the barbarous threat of Castro, 
 the foreigners who had hitherto been neutral or 
 conservative took on bolder conditions, and 
 resolved to stand by the Americans, and on the 
 19th of June, the garrison of Sonoma was 
 reinforced. 
 
 At that time California was, what it has been 
 ever since, the general dumping ground of all 
 nations. Whatever may have brought the 
 foreigners to the country, they were brave men 
 and were loyal to the home of their adoption. 
 By the 4th of July the patriots had taken Yerba 
 Buena (San Francisco), spiked the cannon there, 
 and held all of California north and east of San 
 Juan river. 
 
 At the solicitation of the revolutionists, Fre- 
 mont took command of them on the 5th day of 
 July, 1846, which virtually terminated the Bear 
 
I02 THK LIFE AND TIMES OF 
 
 Flag revolution by merging it into the character 
 of a national war, congress having declared war 
 against Mexico May 13th, just one month and 
 one day before the fall of Sonoma. 
 
 California was settled and conquered by 
 American immigrants, and the enterprise was fol- 
 lowed up by the American government. 
 
 On the nth day of July, 1846, General Sutter 
 raised the American flag over his fort. Under 
 this flag, men are transformed into heroes. 
 
 How impressive must have been the scene 
 when, on that beautiful morning, the aromatic 
 breath of heaven, which ever touches the west- 
 ern shore in this latitude with unprecedented 
 loveliness, kissed the glorious flag of our country; 
 when, for the first time, the Swiss humanitarian, 
 in whose soul the fires of patriotism were ever 
 aglow, gave the starry emblem of freedom to the 
 breeze that fanned the citadel of New Helvetia. 
 
 The subsequent military operations in Cali- 
 fornia, directing to the treaty of Guadaloupe 
 Hidalgo, are so well known, and our space in 
 this volume is so limited, no allusion can be 
 made to them here. 
 
GEN. JOHN A. SUTTER. IO3 
 
 THE MURDER OF COWEY AND FOWLER. 
 
 At the beginning- of the Bear Flag revolution, 
 two young men, Thomas Cowey and George 
 Fowler, who lived in the neighborhood of So- 
 noma, started to go to Bodega. When on their 
 way they were discovered by a small party of 
 Californians, under command of one Padilla, 
 taken prisoners, kept a day and a half, and then 
 they were tied to a tree and cut to pieces in the 
 most brutal manner. 
 
 A Californian, known as Three- Fingered Jack, 
 a noted outlaw, who was afterwards captured, 
 gave the following account of the horrible scene: 
 The party, after keeping the prisoners a day or 
 two, tied them to trees, then stoned them. One 
 of them had his jaw broken. A riata (rope) was 
 made fast to the broken bone and the jaw dragged 
 out. They were then cut up, a small piece at a 
 time, and the pieces thrown at them or crammed 
 in their throats, and they were eventually dis- 
 patched by cutting out their bowels. 
 
 The tragedy of Cowey and Fowler shows the 
 first and almost the only bloodshed in the Bear 
 Flag revolution. The shedding of this did not 
 occur in battle, nor even in a skirmish sanctioned 
 
I04 THE I.IFE AND TIMES OF 
 
 by color of war, but was a cold-blooded murder, 
 committed under the assumed license of a side 
 show. 
 
 The following is a list of the members of the 
 Bear Flag party, as furnished by Dr. Semple: 
 Sacramento Valley, Ezekiel Merritt, Robert 
 Semple, William Fallon, William B. Ide, Henry 
 L. Ford, Granville P. Smith, Samuel Neal, Wil- 
 liam Potter, Samuel Gibson, W. M. Scott, James 
 Gibbs, Horace Sanders, Peter Storm; Napa, 
 Samuel Kelsey, Benjamin Kelsey, John Grigsby, 
 David Hudson, William Hargrave, Harrison 
 Pierce, William Porterfield, Patrick McChristian, 
 Silas Barrett, C. C. Griffith, William L. Todd, 
 Nathan Coombs, Lucien Maxwell; Sonoma, 
 Franklin Bidwell, Thomas Cowey, George Fow- 
 ler, William B. Elliott, Benjamin Duel), John 
 Sears, "Old Red." Others were connected with 
 the movement, but it cannot be ascertained if 
 they were present at the capture of Sonoma. 
 
GKN. JOHN A. SUTTER. I05 
 
 THE CARNIVAL OF GOLD. 
 
 When, by incident, the book of fate was sud- 
 denly opened at a page that dazzled with fairy 
 promises, the admiration of mankind, wild, novel 
 and romantic were the scenes in California society 
 that followed. Stories of extracting- the precious 
 metal at Coloma were well rounded out in their pro- 
 portions before they left the mining^ camp, and, as 
 they fell on good ground, they frequently pro- 
 duced five hundredfold. Strange as it may appear, 
 the stories of the gold find of '48 lost neither 
 flavor nor matter in the rapid and endless trans- 
 fer from man to man all over the world. Good 
 as the stories were, no one took toll of them, 
 syndics, trustees and corporation chairmen being 
 less plentiful than they are now. Each tale 
 received from its vendor the fertilizing support of 
 his genius until it grew like Jonah's gourd. A 
 grain of gold taken from the mine became a 
 pennyweight at Panama, an ounce in New York 
 and Boston, and a pound nugget at London. 
 Companies in New York and Liverpool owning 
 steamships lost little time in establishing trans- 
 portation lines by both Panama and Cape Horn 
 routes to the great gold fields of the Sierras. 
 
to6 THE I.IEE ANi) I^IMES of 
 
 These navigation companies liad scraps of iron 
 and copper of various shapes and sizes, some 
 being as large as a man could lift, washed in imi- 
 tation of gold, and labeled "From California." 
 These nuggets of base metal were artfully ar- 
 ranged in windows and showcases to catch the 
 passer's eye. They caught it. Excitement rose 
 to a fever heat, the traveling masses in search of 
 the "aurum's nest" were willing to take some 
 chances. They evidently took many. 
 
 Within six months from the time gold was dis- 
 covered, at Sutter's mill, a great carnival was 
 established, outrunning in its magnitude the 
 liveliest imagination and the wildest deductions of 
 fancy. The tale was told and the influence was 
 felt wherever on the planet civilization claimed 
 a home. This was at a time, too, when tele- 
 graphy was in its infancy. The rage so exciting, 
 so contagious and so far reaching, gave rise to a 
 voluntary commotion, which, in the extent of its 
 range, shadows the record of all times. The 
 great commercial thoroughfares of the world 
 were soon thronged with the curious, the 
 venturesome and the determined. Upon the 
 furrowed bosom of the dark ocean were wafted 
 toward an uncertain destiny souls who had 
 
GEN. JOHN A. SUTTER. I07 
 
 hiiherto recoiled at the thought of hazarding the 
 perils of the deep. Plains unconquered, and 
 until now unknown, were peopled by a moving 
 mass of fortune seekers, all headed for the land o 
 gold. All nations were soon represented in Cali- 
 fornia. A babel of confusion ensued. Tented 
 hamlets, villages and cities sprang up as if waved 
 into existence by a fairy's wand. The necessities 
 of life were much wanting. Flour, eighty dollars 
 per hundred; beans, seventy-five dollars per 
 hundred; potatoes, fifty dollars per hundred, and 
 other domestic articles correspondingly scarce 
 and expensive; whisky, especially, soared up 
 like the price of fuel in mid-winter. 
 
 Thousands of men, unhoused and untented, 
 rolled themselves in blankets, took shelter 
 under a star and lay down to dream of home and 
 loved ones and the probable treasures in store for 
 -them in the land of strangers. The long, weary, 
 and uncertain transit of the "post" added gloom 
 to distance and fanned the fiame of anxiety. The 
 hope of restoring to a healthy condition a dis- 
 ordered finance battled bravely with the ever 
 lurking forces of despondency. Some men were 
 successful to the fullest expectation. Others, 
 less favorably starred, and being sore over mis- 
 
io8 
 
 THE I.IFE AND TIMES OF 
 
GEN. JOHN A. SUTTER. IO9 
 
 fortune, pined for the loved and dear ones at 
 home, finally sank beneath a load of caie and 
 sorrow, and now sleep, in unknown graves all 
 over the gold-bearing region of the Pacific shore. 
 
 California was peopled by no select or special 
 class or classes of society. Every grade of 
 human kind, from the learned, the wise and the 
 humane down through each and every inter- 
 mediate caste to the contemptible scum of God's 
 creation, was found here. Desperate characters, 
 unhung in the land of their birth, sought to lose 
 their identity amidst this commingling of nation- 
 alities. 
 
 A man was nowhere safe, except he were cau- 
 tious and on his guard. But the better classes of 
 men came to the front, as circumstances induced 
 improved conditions in society from time to time, 
 and scoundrels of both high and low grade were 
 summarily dealt with. It became fashionable for 
 such men to die with their boots on, erect and 
 without touching bottom. Rather an awkward 
 manner of going out. As men die but once, 
 this style cannot be safely attributed to force of 
 habit. The style was adopted to gratify the de- 
 sire of "Judge Lynch." 
 
 Wives, daughters, sisters and sweethearts were 
 
no THE WFE AND TIMES OF 
 
 left at home; the journey being too long, 
 fatiguing and hazardous, and the comforts and 
 sunshine of life at the journey's end too uncer- 
 tain to encourage the thought of embarking- 
 them in the enterprise. As a consequence, a 
 dearth of women in California prevailed. 
 
 In 1850, a fair looking, well upholstered young 
 woman, who was an average performer on an 
 organ, piano, or guitar, could command one 
 hundred dollars per month, just to stop at a 
 hotel to draw custom. 
 
 Some years ago I was informed by a woman 
 that she had refused the above offer. She said, 
 however, that she was acquainted with the land- 
 lord and his family, and that she visited the family 
 often, staying weeks at a time. Freight teamsters 
 put up early at the hotel, while she was there, 
 and started out late, sometimes staying till their 
 bill was one hundred dollars, which was paid in 
 gold dust. 
 
 The woman, too, who related this to me is as 
 innocent of beauty as an e^g is of moss. Women 
 were at a premium, and a man would walk five 
 miles, on crutches, just to hear a baby cry. To- 
 day he will walk twice that distance, if necessary, 
 to get out of hearing; and a man unless he owes 
 
GEN. JOHN A. SUTTER. Ill 
 
 1 is neighbor a grudge will not board a musician 
 a^ any price. 
 
 Ten dollars, or an ounce of gold dust per day, 
 \;fas the average wages for roustabout labor. An 
 Italian stevedore could command almost any 
 price he might ask to load and unload a vessel. 
 That day is past. Water seeks its level. Prices 
 have gradually settled down to a normal condi- 
 tion. The gold fever has been neutralized by 
 experience, hardship, and disappointment. The 
 jud2:e does not nowadays go to the room where 
 his jury have retired to arrange a verdict and say: 
 "Gentlemen, I do not wish to hurry you, but I 
 must have this room cleared by one o'clock so 
 the sheriff can hang this man." The "hounds" 
 have been vanquished, and vigilance committees 
 in general have ceased to be a necessity. Fancy 
 has given way to fact, and men have long since 
 settled down to peaceful industries, encouraged 
 by honest gains and gradual prosperity. 
 
 The varied constituents forming the mass of 
 human beings who, by incident, precipitated to 
 the gold fields had a large preponderance of well- 
 principled and law-abiding men. 
 
 If a crime were committed the perpetrator was 
 apprehended and speedily brought to trial. A 
 
112 THE LIFK AND TIMES OF 
 
 judge or jury was selected on the spot, if a suffi- 
 cient number were present, and from the verdict 
 rendered there was no appeal. When the offense 
 was not an aggravated one the miscreant was 
 sometimes sentenced to get out of camp never to 
 return. He "got." There prevailed among the 
 miners a friendship and hospitality such as have 
 been seldom met with elsewhere. Men would sit 
 by the evening fire of a neighbor and relate the 
 experiences of the day, and not infrequently allude 
 to their own ingleside in their far away home. 
 
 The cabin and its "grub" (victuals) were free, 
 and always at a weary man's disposal. It was 
 customary and strictly allowable for a hungry 
 man, when from home, to call at a cabin for cheer, 
 and, if the proprietor were absent, to enter and 
 help himself to such as he found. If the larder 
 were depleted, he cooked and prepared such a 
 meal as circumstances would allow, ate and 
 passed on. 
 
GEN. JOHN A. SUTTKR. 113 
 
 FREIGHTING. 
 
 When Marshall picked the first gold nugget 
 from the tail-race of Sutter's mill Northern Cali- 
 fornia was almost in a state of nature. There 
 were a few settlements, but they were small and, 
 like angel's visits, far between. A man could 
 ride all day on horseback over as grand a coun- 
 try as the sun has ever warmed or a garden 
 beautified and not see a civilized man. 
 
 Before the close of the memorable '49 the ter- 
 ritory was ready to come into the Union. Ham- 
 lets began to dot the great basins of the San 
 Joaquin and Sacramento rivers, and the fertile 
 valleys were checked with grain fields. 
 
 Freighting had grown to colossal proportions, 
 Sacramento being the commercial center. On 
 the first day of September, '49, which was only one 
 year and six months subsequent to the gold dis- 
 covery, the following vessels were lying at Sacra- 
 mento: Barques — Joven, Praxatiles, Harriet 
 Newell, Whiton, Eliza, Elvira, Wm. Jay, Isabel, 
 and Croton. Brigs — John Ender, Salito, Jackin, 
 Viola, Sterling, North Star, Charlotte, Emily, 
 Bourne, Almina, Cordelia, and George Emery. 
 
114 
 
 THE LIFE AND TIMES OF 
 
GEN. JOHN A. SUTTER. II5 
 
 Schooners — Odd Fellow, Lola, Gazelle, Gen. 
 Lane, Pomona, Anthem, and Catherine. 
 
 Througli the courtesy of Judge J. H, McKune, 
 an honored member of the Sacramento bar. and 
 a member also of the Society of Pioneers of 
 Sacramento, the author is enabled to give the 
 foregoing list. 
 
 Soon after the discovery of the Comstock lode, 
 in Nevada, and before the transcontinental rail- 
 way was intersected by a road through Carson 
 valley, the carting became immense. Five hun- 
 dred teams, heavily loaded with quartz mill 
 appliances and all kinds of mining implements 
 and general supplies, left Sacramento daily. As 
 the word "team" conveys to a New England 
 reader but a vague idea of a freight team in Cali- 
 fornia in Sutter's time, it may be well to give a 
 general description of one here. An average 
 team used in freighting early in the fifties con- 
 sisted of twelve animals; sometimes horses, but 
 more frequently mules. The leaders wore, in an 
 overhanging arch, which was secured to the 
 hames, a collection of bells, most beautiful in 
 appearance and exquisitely chimed. These bells 
 were not used so much for the music they dis- 
 coursed as they were for their tendency to avert 
 
Il6 THE I.IFE; AND TIMKS OF 
 
 the difficulties to which the unexpected near ap- 
 proach of other teams might give rise. 
 
 The driver rode one of the wheel horses, which 
 was saddled for his convenience, drove with a 
 jerk line, and manipulated the brake by means 
 of a strong leathern strap, one end of which was 
 attached to the brake lever and the other end so 
 secured to the hames of his liorse that he could 
 command it at pleasure. 
 
 The train was usually made up of the team 
 and two wagons. Wagon No. 2 was attached to 
 the rear of Wagon No. i by means of a short 
 pole made for that purpose. Wagon No. i had 
 a capacity to carry 20,000 pounds anywhere over 
 a good road. No. 2 had a less capacity. A 
 man standing in one of these wagons found the 
 box to be nearly as high as his head. A rock as 
 large as a goose's egg was granulated under one 
 of these wheels on a bedrock road. 
 
 When seen on a light down grade, with one 
 arm reaching ahead at full length in the act of 
 controlling the leaders with the jerk line, and the 
 other extending far to the rear with his hand 
 "froze" to the brake strap, and reeling fore and 
 aft as he issued upon the sunburnt air a volume 
 of anathemc^s, and with his animals wading and 
 
GKN. JOHN A. vSUTTER. II7 
 
 his wagons rolling through four or five inches of 
 El Dorado's best dust, 1 repeat, when seen un- 
 der such circumstances, an observer not accus- 
 tomed to the spectacle might have thought the 
 driver was a mysterious being, on a mysterious 
 mission to a mysterious place — without reference 
 to his Satanic majesty or the infernal regions. 
 After the team was hitched up in the morning 
 it was not fed until the day's work was done. 
 
 The boxes in which merchandise was shipped 
 from distant lands to Sacramento were carefully 
 taken to pieces, stocked up and called a lumber 
 yard. This lumber sold at the rate of one hun- 
 dred dollars per thousand, with nails and knot- 
 holes thrown in. 
 
 In freighting to and over the mountains these 
 great teams and ponderous wagons could visit 
 only the way stations and terminal points of the 
 main thoroughfare. The trip was made practical 
 by a system of natural ridges and facilitated by 
 some artificial grading. 
 
 To the right and left of the main road were 
 trails leading down the deep canon side to the 
 camps of placer miners by the stream below. 
 Such camps were not located with a view to con- 
 venience. Gold is not like army bacon; it will 
 
Il8 THE LIFE AND TIMES OF 
 
 not come at your call. Whoever takes it from 
 its bed must go where it hes. For supplying 
 camps tlnis situated a "miner's brig" (pack 
 animal) is very useful. For this business a mule 
 is unsurpassed, being strong, sure-footed and 
 patient. 
 
 A miner once told me when he was mining in 
 the foothills of the Sierras in '49, he hired a horse 
 and pack saddle and went to Sacramento after 
 "grub." He had never stowed a cargo on a 
 "miner's brig," and to make his venture a suc- 
 cess he gave an expert a dollar and seventy- five 
 cents to superintend the loading. Not being able 
 to reach home the first day with his supplies, he 
 encamped at night on the trail. Fearing he 
 might not be able to reload in the morning, he 
 left the load on the horse all night and reached 
 home the following day. 
 
 A gentleman in Humboldt county owned a 
 large sheep ranch, to which a wagon road had not 
 been constructed. The only means of getting a 
 grand square piano to his house without great 
 expense was by packing it on mules, which he 
 did. 
 
GEN. JOHN A. SUTTER. II9 
 
 BULL FIGHTS. 
 
 In 1850 an amphitheater, with an arena one 
 hundred feet in diameter, was built in Sacramento 
 for the purpose of entertaining^ spectators with 
 gladiatorial contests. A man sometimes entered 
 the arena to contend with a Spanish bull; but, as 
 on Wall street, in New York city, the principal 
 contests were between the "bulls and the bears." 
 A donkey sometimes put in an appearance to 
 have his mettle tested. This brute, notwithstand- 
 ing his seeming stupidity, fights a desperate bat- 
 tle, being able to match the bear in an even 
 contest. One donkey of medium size entered 
 this arena on several occasions to measure 
 prowess with a bear. He came off victorious 
 every time, leaving his antagonist dead upon the 
 field. 
 
 The manager of those entertainments kept 
 mounted vaqueros in attendance to save the life 
 of a vanquished foe, and to avert any calamity to 
 which an accident or unexpected occurrence 
 might tend. 
 
 A Spanish bull being championed against a 
 bear once entered the arena to dispute the bear's 
 title to the championship, when a portion of the 
 
I20 THE LIFE AND TIMES OF 
 
 wall between the pit and the arena gave way, 
 exposing the audience to the mercy of the infuri- 
 ated animals. 
 
 Within an interval of ten seconds from this 
 occurrence three vaqueros formed a triangle in 
 the arena, and with their lariats had the bull pin- 
 ioned in the center. But these barbarous exhibi- 
 tions, which, like cock-fights, under Spanish 
 rule, were looked upon as a high order of enter- 
 tainment, early waned under the influx of Ameri- 
 cans. 
 
 There was a rough-and-ready air about the 
 forty-niners and other early mimigrants in Califor- 
 nia, and society at that time did not always display 
 the refinement common to a New England draw- 
 ing room, but there was at all times a strong 
 undercurrent of grand and noble manhood, and 
 a golden cord — a silken string permeated the 
 breast that was inclosed in a rough exterior, and 
 from this string tones of sympathy were easily 
 swept. When an unfortunate and hungry stran- 
 ger entered a camp some one would accost him 
 
 thusly: "G d it, come in and stuff your 
 
 shirt. How much money do ye want?" How 
 about the society with which I have contrasted 
 
GEN. JOHN A. SUTTER. 121 
 
 this? God bless you, brother; I wish it were in 
 my power to assist you. 
 
 But I must finish the bull tight. This enter- 
 prise was a failure financially in Sacramento. 
 After experimenting about eighteen months the 
 edifice was sold under an execution issued in 
 favor of Mr. Drew, the mechanic who built it, 
 and was bid off and torn down by him, piled on 
 the ground where it stood, was washed away by 
 a flood, carried to the foot of L street, where it 
 was fished from the flood by Mr. Drew, who sold 
 it as second-hand lumber for the low price of 
 seventy- five dollars per thousand feet. 
 
 GENERAL SUTTER's LOSSES. 
 
 Omitting many of the lesser wrongs Sutter 
 sustained, I shall endeavor to notice with much 
 brevity some of the greater calamities which 
 shadowed the pathway of his declining years. 
 
 Some State in the Union, Missouri, I believe, 
 had the good fortune to vomit five free-booters, 
 who landed in California and domiciled near 
 Marysville in the winter of '49-50, and who, 
 armed with rifles and equipped with a good boat, 
 some helpers and a butcher's outfit, carried on an 
 
122 THE I.IFE AND TIMES OF 
 
 extensive business in the slaughtering of animals 
 and the selling of meats, their principal market 
 being Sacramento city. In the spring they had 
 a net dividend of $60,000, and every animal 
 slaughtered was the property of General Sutter. 
 
 While this work was going on the Sheriff and 
 his posse went to arrest the offenders; but as 
 their rendezvous was on an island, and they were 
 desperate men and all well armed, the officer, 
 believing that to encounter them would be fatal 
 to him or some of his men, with little promise of 
 success, very prudently withdrew from the field 
 and abandoned the undertaking. 
 
 One hundred horses and two thousand dollars' 
 worth of swine were stolen from him during the 
 same winter. The horses were driven to Oregon 
 and the swine slaughtered and sold in the mar- 
 ket. 
 
 Lawless and unprincipled men made appro- 
 priations of his property as if by civil and divine 
 right. 
 
 This brings us to the discussion of the Sutter 
 land case, which is so little understood by the 
 public generally, and which terminated in the 
 financial ruin of the great pioneer. Only a few 
 
GEN. JOHN A. SUTTER. 1 23 
 
 of the prominent leatures of the case can be pre- 
 sented here. 
 
 In harnion}' witli the Mexican government, the 
 provincial governors granted, from time to time, 
 larg-e tracts of land to such foreigners as might 
 desire them, and who, in turn, as a considera- 
 tion, agreed to naturalize to the Mexican govern- 
 ment and settle upon the land so granted and 
 improve it, which was all the land was worth in 
 the unoccupied districts where it could be so 
 obtained. 
 
 The soil was excellent and the climate desir- 
 able, but these grants at the time Sutter reached 
 California must be obtained to lands remote from 
 commercial points and in sections of the country 
 that were infested by warlike, thieving and treach- 
 erous tribes of Indians. These lands were not 
 measured by the acre, but by the square league, 
 about ten of them being an average grant. Nor 
 were the boundaries as well established as they 
 are where more importance attaches to the own- 
 ership of th^ land. 
 
 But the discovery of gold at Coloma and the 
 pouring in of an interminable stream of immi- 
 grants immediately changed the valuation of land 
 in California from nominal to real and intrinsic. 
 
124 'I^HE I.IFE AND TIMES OF 
 
 Large and numerous were the tracts claimed 
 under color of Mexican grants. 
 
 In 1 85 1 congress created a board of commis- 
 sioners, whose duty it was to inquire into the 
 validity of the grants in New Mexico and Cali- 
 fornia and to adjust disputed claims. 
 
 If a grant was conferred by Mexico prior to 
 the treaty of Guadaloupe Hidalgo, and such 
 grant was in keeping with the laws of that 
 government, such title should be respected by 
 the United States thereafter. Puffendorf, lib. 8, 
 ch. 6. — "The conqueror acquires over those 
 whom he subdues a despotic power with respect 
 to their lives, but not with respect to their 
 possessions." 
 
 Vattel. — "The conqueror lays hands upon the 
 possessions of the state, on what belongs to the 
 public, while private persons are permitted to re- 
 tain theirs. To them the result is, they only 
 change masters." 
 
 United States Supreme Court. — "It is a prin- 
 ciple of the common law, which has been recog- 
 nized as well in this as in other courts, that the 
 division of an empire works no forfeiture of 
 previously vested rights of property, and this 
 maxim is generally consonant with the common 
 
 i 
 
GEN. JOHN A. SUTTER. 125 
 
 sense of mankind, and the maxims ot eternal jus- 
 tice." — (5 Wharton— Chief Justice Marshall). 
 
 If a grant were issued by Mexico and the 
 record shows such transaction to be according to 
 the law governing such cases, it is a question 
 whether any tribunal on earth could annul that 
 contract so long as the parties to it complied 
 with its stipulations. 
 
 But the difficulties involved in these land cases 
 were not confined to questions respecting the 
 legality of original grants. Some of the claim- 
 ants held possession as the last grantor in a claim 
 of successors. Cases of this kind evidently 
 extended the chances for fraud and multiplied 
 the difficulties of adjudication. Whether the 
 claimants were more corrupt than the commis- 
 sioners the public is left to determine. 
 
 The board of commissioners constituted a 
 court of inquiry, with full power to summon 
 whomsoever it would and the power to enforce 
 attendance. To this august body claims were 
 presented for adjudication; the business being- 
 transacted in a language of which many of the 
 claimants knew not the first rudiments, an 
 interpreter was employed. They (the claimants), 
 
126 THE I.IFE AND TIMES OF 
 
 naturally enough, conceived the idea that the 
 field was open to bribery and swindle. 
 
 The connnissioners are unknown to me. It is 
 but little venture to assume that they were men 
 with men's frailties. Claimants who had all con- 
 fidence in the validity of their claim under Mexi- 
 can rule entertained doubt as to the issue under 
 the changed condition. 
 
 When Louisiana was purchased by the United 
 States portions of her land had been granted to 
 private individuals in a manner very similar to 
 the granting of these lands under consideration; 
 and commissioners were appointed to inquire into 
 said grants. Some of those claims, to the dis- 
 grace of our government, were in litigation more 
 than forty years, and until the honest claimant 
 had slumbered for years in the grave. The Cali- 
 fornia claimants anticipated similar results from 
 an effort of investigation. They felt that they 
 were a conquered people, and must go before a 
 board created by their conquerors who, in a 
 tongue unkown to them, would investigate at con- 
 venience and report at leisure. 
 
 These conclusions were not the work of imag- 
 ination. The light of the past shines over the 
 present. Some of these land cases ran through 
 
GEN. JOHN A. SUTTER. 1 27 
 
 ten or twelve years at an expense of $150,000 
 and upwards, and taking from the owner in the 
 end the accumulations of a lifetime. 
 
 Sutter's grants were among the claims whose 
 validity was questioned, and consequently were 
 presented, in 1852, to the board of commission- 
 ers for adjustment. By this time the pretended 
 settlers had preempted all of his available land, 
 and destroyed nearly all of his personal property. 
 The commissioners found his land grants to be 
 perfect ; not a flaw nor a defect was found in either 
 of them, and the board confirmed them under 
 the provisions of the treaty of Guadaloupe 
 Hidalgo. The squatters then appealed to the 
 United States District Court for the northern dis- 
 trict of California, when the decision of the com- 
 missioners was confirmed. The counsel for the 
 squatters' interest then appealed both cases to the 
 Supreme Court of the United States, at Washing- 
 ton. This court, in 1864, confirmed the eleven 
 league grant, and decided the twenty-two league 
 grant in favor of the squatters. 
 
 Whether this decision harmonizes with the 
 maxims of eternal justice is debatable ground. If 
 the instrument executed by Governor Michelto- 
 rena, established in Sutter an ownership of twenty- 
 
128 THE I.IFE AND TIMES OF 
 
 two leagues of land beyond the reach of revoca- 
 tion under the laws of Mexico, for the United 
 States to destroy that right, or rather disregard 
 it, for only the decree of God could destroy it, 
 would be a violation of her treaty, a violation of 
 the law of nations, and a violation of natural 
 law. 
 
 The Supreme Court, in its decision, claims that 
 the difficulties in which the Sutter cases were in- 
 volved were increased by the presence of settlers 
 on his grants. There should have been no such 
 findings in the case. The trial was brought, and 
 proceedings had, to determine whether Sutter's 
 claim was valid or not. The presence of setders, 
 except such as acquired a right under Sutter to 
 settle upon the land, should not and could not 
 by any means have vitiated his vested rights. 
 
 They were not parties to the negotiation that 
 vested the title in Sutter, and were not known, 
 and should not have been known to the proceed- 
 ings. The land was Sutter's or it was not, and 
 whether it was his or not could not have been a 
 question growing out of any relation the squat- 
 ters sustained to the premises. To define more 
 clearly my position, I will say if the grant of 
 twenty-two square leagues ol land by the Mexican 
 
GEN. JOHN A. SUTTER. I29 
 
 government, through its provincial governor, 
 Micheltorena, was an act performed in harmony 
 with the laws of Mexico, and all the conditions 
 and requirements set forth in the instrument con- 
 veying said land, had been duly performed and 
 complied with by the parties thereto, no squatter 
 could have held a claim on the land under color 
 of title not acquired froni Sutter or founded in 
 easement. 
 
 But the Supreme Court questioned Michel- 
 torena' s authority to issue the twenty-two league 
 grant. There appears to have been an insurrec- 
 tion in California, in which the insurgents suc- 
 ceeded in driving the governor from the capital. 
 It was while he was thus away from the capital 
 that the grant in question was issued, and he 
 never resumed his function as governor of Cali- 
 fornia thereafter. 
 
 This was the strongest point scored by the 
 United States as against Sutter. This finding, 
 however, was technical and at war with the princi- 
 ples of justice and equity. If Mexico accepted 
 the transactions of Micheltorena as valid up to 
 and including the date of the grant, and it appears 
 that she did, I fail to discover where, under the 
 
130 THE LIFE AND TIMES OF 
 
 treaty of Guadaloupe Hidalgo, the United States 
 derived authority to set the transaction aside. 
 
 At the trial the fact was put in evidence that 
 when Sutter asked for the grant of twenty-two 
 leagues Governor Micheltorena sent his request 
 on to Mexico, and that government, in reply, 
 instructed him to issue the grant as solicited. 
 
 For want of space I shall pursue this topic no 
 further. Besides, any treatise that savors of writ- 
 ten law is poor literary fodder for the average 
 reader. 
 
 The Sutter land case, as before stated, was 
 presented to the board of commissioners for 
 adjudication in 1852 and the final decision was 
 rendered in 1864, thus running through a term 
 of twelve years, at an expense, including witness 
 fees, mileage and fees for eminent counsel, of one 
 hundred and seventy-five thousand dollars. 
 
 The printed evidence in this case alone will fill 
 a thousand 16- mo. pages. 
 
 Sutter had conveyed away more land than he 
 owned, according to the land decision, and it 
 cost him more than one hundred thousand dollars 
 to make his covenants good. This completed 
 his financial ruin. 
 
GEN. JOHN A. SU'TTKR. 13I 
 
 He was still in the quiet and peaceful pos- 
 sesion of the large and desirable Hock estate on 
 the Rio de los Plumas (Feather river), which he 
 had selected and set apart for a home in his old 
 age; especially designing to appropriate it to the 
 use of his family, who had joined him after 
 an absence of eighteen years. 
 
 This house and his most valuable records of 
 travels, adventures and pioneer life, were de- 
 stroyed by fire. 
 
 Being despoiled of his estates once so princely, 
 and his flocks once so extensive, and becoming 
 financially involved in his land suits, his credit 
 became impaired and his trouble and embarass- 
 ment increased until he finally, as the sad act of 
 his life, mortgaged away his Hock farm. 
 
 The reader's attention is directed to the fact 
 that Roger B. Taney, of Dred Scott fame, was 
 on the bench when the Sutter land case came 
 before the Supreme Court of the United States, 
 and that any decision would not have been 
 a surprise. 
 
 The bold explorer, the brave and humane gen- 
 eral and the generous pioneer was stripped of 
 his possessions in his old age with nowhere to 
 lay his head. 
 
132 THE I.IFH AND TIMES OE 
 
 He was very popular with the pioneers, some 
 of whom praised him but to decoy — dealt with 
 him but to plunder. 
 
 This sad event in a useful, noble and grand 
 life, will awaken emotions of regret and sorrow 
 till kind and generous sentiments are lost to the 
 hearts of the fair and the brave. 
 
 He died at Litiz, Lancaster county, Pennsyl- 
 vania, on the 17th day of June, in the year 1880. 
 In stature General Sutter was about five feet and 
 nine inches, and well proportioned. 
 
 He was a man of noble bearing, a large heart 
 and singleness of purpose. 
 
 PRIVATE APARTMENTS. 
 
 Sutter was very sociable with those about him, 
 and yet the dignity of his bearing commanded 
 their respect. He had a private kitchen to which 
 none had access except himself and his private 
 cook. This kitchen was ever found tidy, and 
 such dishes as found their way to his table were 
 seasonably prepared and always consonant to 
 his wishes. Delmonico's table in New York city 
 undoubtedly surpassed his in the glitter of table- 
 ware and in the diversity of dishes. 
 
G^N. JOHN A. SU'TTER. 13^ 
 
 Trout from mountain brooks, grouse, moun- 
 tain and valley quail, tenderloin of the antelope 
 and haunches of venison were among the com- 
 forts of his table. He usually ate alone, except 
 when extending his hospitality to distinguished 
 visitors. This was natural enough. His 
 employes did not resemble a French coterie at 
 the salon of Madam de Stael. Some of his 
 trappers, who rarely performed ablution, and 
 never collided with a new shirt except to remain 
 telescoped till the garment lost its identity, were 
 not always as sweet as the rose of Allendale. We 
 can scarcely wonder that Sutter barred them 
 from the sanctity of his table although many of 
 them actually out "ranked" him. 
 
 He had, likewise, a private bed-room which 
 was comfortably furnished and well upholstered. 
 Although for a while in New Helvetia, he lived 
 in a state of social isolation, he did not take on the 
 conditions of a squalid recluse, but lived like 
 the gentleman he was. 
 
 He had a private room, also, for his body 
 guard. This guard at first was composed of the 
 Kanakas presented him by the king of the 
 Sandwich Islands; but subsequently, of stalwart 
 
134 THE IvIFE AND TIMES OF 
 
 Indians who had learned to speak Spanish and 
 dip their finger tips in holy water at the mission 
 in San Jos6. These men were duly instructed 
 in the duties of a body guard and that such 
 duties must be performed without failure or 
 delay. 
 
 The language of the California Indians was 
 sterile and suited to the discussion of but few 
 subjects. In his primitive condition, that is, 
 before he associated with christianized races, he 
 had to forego even the luxury of profanity. 
 
 SUTTER RELIEF FUND. 
 
 At the convening of the California legislature 
 in 1864 Hon. J. P. Buckley introduced a bill in 
 the senate providing for the relief of General 
 John A. Sutter. The bill became a law, having 
 immediate effect, and provided for the appropria- 
 tion of $15,000 out of any money in the treasury 
 of the State not otherwise appropriated, and to 
 be drawn in monthly installments of $250 each 
 for five years, for the benefit of Sutter and his 
 heirs; and in the event of his death, his heirs 
 were to receive the same monthly installment 
 until such appropriation be exhausted. 
 
GEN. JOHN A. SUTTER. I35 
 
 In the winter of 1869-70 Hon. W. E. Eichel- 
 roth introduced a bill in the assembly providing 
 urther relief for Sutter. This bill, providing an 
 appropriation of $250 per month for two years, 
 also passed and became a law. 
 
 In the winter of 1872 a similar bill was intro- 
 duced in the senate by Hon. J. A. Duffy; and 
 another in the assembly by Hon. B. C. Northup, 
 in 1874, both of which were passed and approved 
 and went into immediate effect. 
 
 It is with peculiar pleasure that the names ot 
 the honorable gentlemen who distinguished them- 
 selves by coming to the relief of this kind and 
 good man are recorded here. 
 
 He had been despoiled of possessions that 
 would have classed him at that time with Astor 
 and Vanderbilt. He had founded on the Pacific 
 shore an extensive settlement of brave, good and 
 useful men, and had aided materially in bringing 
 California under American rule. He had extended 
 to American immigrants the protection of a sov- 
 ereign, the blessings of his wealth, and the treas- 
 ure of his fidelity. 
 
 Forever honored be the legislatures that so far 
 reciprocated his princely benefactions. Nor 
 
136 THE I^IFE AND TIMES OF 
 
 should the great State of Cahfornia cease her 
 demonstrations of gratitude till the statue of him 
 whose name will be associated long with her his- 
 tory adorns the rotunda of her capitol and his 
 ashes are laid to rest in the shade of the New Hel- 
 vetia he loved, where the unmeasured strains of 
 the beautiful river, as it flows on, may mingle with 
 his benedictions forever.