from
the Sacramento Mr. Sutter selected a little hill on which to establish
a residence. This residence was to be not merely a house; it was to be
a fort.
By
negotiating with a tribal chieftain he was guaranteed an unlimited
supply of workmen. He paid them definite wages, that is, he agreed to
supply them with suitable food and to pay them in materials and
hardware. These were the men who dug the trenches for Fort Sutter, made
the bricks and erected the walls. After the fort was built, Sutter
recognized the need for a garrison. This garrison was recruited among
the natives. Fifty Indians were given uniforms, disciplined and
instructed in military tactics. They guarded the fort with the same
fidelity and certainly more alertly than European troops could have
done.
This
fort was made the pretext for a small city called from the name of its
founder, Sutterville. In 1848 this city, or rather the nucleus of this
city, consisted of a dozen houses. Sutterville lies approximately two
miles from the fort. Mr. Sutter brought into California nearly all our
European fruit-trees, and devoted several hectares of land to their
cultivation.* Vines grew especially well and yielded extra fine fruit.
But the basic wealth of Mr. Sutter in the days prior to the gold
discovery came from raising grain and livestock. In 1848, Mr. Sutter
harvested 40,000 bushels of wheat. But in store for him was another
extensive source of wealth.
Now
the mines of Potosi were discovered by an Indian who went up into the
mountains in pursuit of some cattle who had escaped from the main herd.
This discovery of the mines along the Sacramento was also the result of
a coincidence. Mr. Sutter was in need of planks for construction work;
approximately 1,000 feet above the Sacramento Valley grew a remarkably
vigorous kind of pine that Mr. Sutter believed would be suitable to
supply him with what planks he needed. By a mechanic named Marshall, he
arranged to have constructed to handle the pines, a saw-mill turned by
a water wheel.** The saw-mill was constructed according to the
agreement, and at the designated locality, but when the water was
released and passed over the wheel, the sluice-chamber of this wheel
proved to be too narrow
*
The seeds of fruits and vegetables were brought into California mainly
by the mission Fathers, and by La Perouse, an early French traveller.
The hectare is 2.47 acres.
* * James W. Marshall, a workman at Sutter's Fort.
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