Sutter, the Romance of the California Pioneer.—The romance of American colonization contains no chapter more absorbing than that of the winning of the West. A poetic veil has been cast about the California gold excitement and the rugged pioneers of the gulch, by Bret Harte, Joaquin Miller and Mark Twain; but few historians have thought it worth their pain to uncover the romance of the original pioneer of California on whose land was found the first gold that formed the lodestone of attraction for the millions that swept westward on the tide of empire.

Against the historic background of the settlement of the Pacific Coast stands out in luminous outlines the figure of Capt. John August Sutter. Where another German, John Jacob Astor, had failed—that of founding an American colony on the Pacific—he succeeded, even before California, taken from Mexico as a result of the war of1846, became a State of the Union in1850. His career is an inspiration to his fellow racials wherever German veins tingle to the thrill of American achievement.

Born 1803 at Kandern, in the Grand Duchy of Baden, Sutter received an excellent education, graduated from the cadet school at Thun and, after serving as an officer in the Swiss army and acquiring Swiss citizenship, he came to the United States in1834. He first wandered to St. Louis, then the outfitting point for the Santa Fe trail and center of the fur trade. Here Sutter joined an expedition to SantaFe and returned to St.Louis with a substantial profit. His next trip was undertaken with an American fur expedition and, crossing the Rocky Mountains, he reached Vancouver, the headquarters of the Hudson Bay Fur Company on the Pacific, in September, 1838. After a visit to the Sandwich Islands and to Sitka, Alaska, he arrived in Monterey, California, in1839, and determined to put into execution a long-cherished plan of founding a colony on the Sacramento River. Selecting a spot 120miles northeast of San Francisco, which had been highly recommended to him by trappers, he formed the settlement, New Switzerland, upon a strip of land which he had acquired on favorable terms from the Spanish governor, Alvarado. Here, of strong walls and bastions, he built Fort Sutter and armed it with twelve cannon. He then offered inducements to settlers to join him, broke several hundred acres of land, built a tannery, a mill and a distillery, fenced in a large area of grazing land between the Sacramento and Feather rivers, employed Indians as herders and laborers and placed them under Mexican, American and German overseers. About 1840 his livestock consisted of 20,000 head of horses, cattle and sheep.

Fort Sutter soon attracted a desirable class of settlers, many of them mechanics, who found ready employment here, as well as hunters and trappers, who came to exchange furs for supplies of food, of clothes and of powder and lead. Having complied with the terms of his agreement, he was given title to the Alvarado grant and was appointed by the governor the official representative of the Mexican government for the northern part of California.

In the Mexican civil war between Santa Anna and the constitutional president, Bustamento, he cast his lot with Santa Anna’s governor, Manuel Micheltorena, and in1845 received from the latter for his services the Sobranta grant. There was almost a daily increase of his land and pastures. His fort became too small. In1844 he laid out the town of Sutterville on the Sacramento River, which latterly took the name of Sacramento. In1848 he established vineyards on his property, the first north of Sonoma. His wheat crop is estimated at 40,000 bushels for various years, while his large commercial and industrial enterprises promised him a steady increase of a fortune, even then estimated at millions. His fortune seems to have reached its apex in1846.

Immigration into California was steadily increasing; the old antipathy of the Spaniards and Indians against Mexico was stimulated into new life; Major Fremont, the Pathfinder, visited Fort Sutter, and encouraged by him, Sutter in the spring of1846 declared his independence and on July11 of that year hoisted the Stars and Stripes over hisfort.

Once before the flag had been raised by a German on the Pacific Coast, at Astoria by Astor in1811. It was not suffered to remain there permanently, but this time it was destined not to be hauled down again. The war between Mexico and the United States broke out. Commodore Stockton appeared with an American squadron, soldiers of the Union began their invasion (see “Quitman,” elsewhere), and California became a territory of the United States. Sutter was now destined to experience that life is uncertain and fortune is fickle.

In January, 1848, Sutter was about to build a mill on the American River, a tributary of the Sacramento, and, in digging the foundation, J.W. Marshall, an agent of Sutter’s, discovered gold. Despite the efforts of Sutter to keep the discovery secret for a while until his mill was completed and his fields were put in order, the news circulated with the speed of the wind. The magic word had been spoken, and thence on no man thought of anything but gold. The irresistible rush was on; a tide of humanity swept on to wash gold and dig up the mountain sides farther up. Wages rose beyond all reason, so that it was impossible to continue farming and industry, since there were no hands to do the work. Titles were worthless. Thousands of adventurers squatted on Sutter’s land. Countless law suits had to be instituted, and Sutter’s property was soon covered with mortgages. In the end the supreme court confirmed his title to the Alvarado grant while declaring null and void that of the much larger grant from Micheltorena. Other misfortunes came apace and presently Sutter saw his great fortune swept away. The State of California granted him an annuity of $3,000 for seven years in lieu of taxes paid by him on American federal-owned property which was immune fromtax.

In the year 1865 Sutter turned his back upon California and went to Pennsylvania, where he died poor at Litiz. But he was not forgotten. His name was given to rivers, towns and counties and the room of the legislative assembly was decorated with his portrait. He had been elected major general of the State militia and in1849 he was made a member of the convention to adopt a constitution. In this capacity he was active in securing the passage of measures declaring for the abolition of slavery.

Sutter was naturally generous, hospitable and broad-minded, with a strong adjunct of courage, shrewdness and enterprise in great conceptions. A memorial speech delivered by Edward J.Kewen on the occasion of a banquet of the Society of California Pioneers, September9, 1854, concludes with the following tribute:

In the cycle of the coming years historians will write of the founding and settlement of this western State, and when they shall dwell upon the virtues, the hardships, the sufferings and courage, the fearlessness which has brought all this about; when they describe the mighty impulse which this commonwealth has exercised upon the progress of free government and the development of the principles of liberty, and when they shall adorn the annals with the name of the founders of its fame, no name will illuminate their records with more brilliant light than that of the immortal Sutter—the noble example of the California pioneers.