John Augustus Sutter
Johann Augustus Sutter was born on February 23, 1803 in Kanden, a small town in Switzerland. In 1834, Johann left Switzerland to avoid prison for the debts he had accumulated. He arranged passage to America on a small ship, landed in New York, and began calling himself "John". John got a job with a wagon train that made its way west to Santa Fe, located in what is now the state of New Mexico. While John Sutter lived in Santa Fe, he was involved in a business buying and selling merchandise. John heard many stories and some first-hand reports about places to the West, like California, and all the wonderful things about it. The news from California was of fertile soils and grazing land, beautiful scenery, perfect climate, and land of opportunity.
In 1838, Sutter made his way to Fort Vancouver in the Oregon Territory, in his quest to get to California. He eventually found passage on a large sailing ship, but had to first sail to Hawaii and back to Alaska before reaching San Francisco Bay in California. By this time, he had begun to call himself "Captain Sutter," falsely claiming that this was a rank he held in his native Switzerland. He presented an illusion of grandeur to everyone he met in California. John Sutter was granted a large area of land in the Sacramento Valley by Governor Avarado because of the illusion he maintained. His fertile area in the interior of California was mostly unexplored with very few settlements. Sutter then began to fulfil his dream of establishing his own fort and settlement. The colony of "New Helvetia" & Sutter's Fort grew quickly, and prospered. The first American migrants didn't arrive until 1841.
In 1848, one of John Sutter's most trustfed employees in charge of building a new saw mill on the American River, James Marshall, reported an important find in the river .... Gold! As word leaked out, the California Gold Rush of 1848 and 1849 began. Even though John Sutter's empire was the gateway to gold country, and he initially profited from sales of goods to the thousands of prospectors, the windfall for him turned sour. His own employees could not resist the "gold fever" and many left the valley for the hills of gold to find their fortune. This left John with no one to work the fields, orchards, mills, or tend animals. He had tried his hand at mining for a short time but his employees kept all the gold for themselves. He became the victim of unscrupulous miners, thieves, and swindlers. Eventually, Captain Sutter went deeply into debt, and the fort and other land holdings had to be sold or were lost to squatters. The city of Sacramento then became the new center for the Central Valley of California and all of gold country, instead of Sutter's Fort.
He left California in 1865 to live in Pennsylvania, and was still fighting the government in Washington D.C. on claims of the terrible losses he experienced as a result of the Gold Rush. He died on June 19, 1880 in a hotel room in Washington D.C. at 77 years of age. Ironically, if gold had not been discovered, John Sutter would probably have become the richest man in all the West.
Read about other people associated with the Gold Rush:
Blacks
Chinese
Indians
James Marshall
People