Eleven children were born to them, and four are now living. One of these, Lillie, now lives in Sacramento with her husband. Another, Paulina, a widow, resides in San Rafael. Bertha and Augusta live with the father at Brighton, Sacramento County. Both these children are hopelessly idiotic. Bertha is twenty-six years of age, and has never uttered an intelligible word. Augusta is fifteen years old, weighs two hundred and five pounds, and possesses only slight traces of intelligence. Teething spasms, occurring when they were about two years old, is the cause of their idiocy. Both are subject to frequent and violent spasms or epileptic fits. They need constant care and attention. Should Bertha's hand fall into the fire, she has not sufficient intelligence to withdraw it from the flames. Both are helpless as children. The State provides for insane, but not for idiots. Keseberg says a bill setting aside a ward in the State Asylum for his two children, passed the Legislature, but received a pocket veto by the Governor. Sacramento County gives them eighteen dollars a month. Their helplessness and violence render it impossible to keep any nurse in charge of them longer than a few days. Keseberg is very poor. He has employment for perhaps three months during the year. While his wife lived, she took care of these children; but now he has personally to watch over them and provide for their necessities. While at work, he is compelled to keep them locked in a room in the same building. They scream so loudly while going into the spasms that he can not dwell near other people. He therefore lives isolated, in a plain little house back of his brewery. Here he lives, the saddest, loneliest, most pitiable creature on the face of the earth. He traces all his misfortunes to that cabin on Donner Lake, and it is little wonder that he says: "I beg of you, insert in your book a fervent prayer to Almighty God that He will forever prevent the recurrence of a similar scene of horror."
Chapter XXI.
Sketch of Gen. John A. Sutter
The Donner Party's Benefactor
The Least and Most that Earth can Bestow
The Survivors' Request
His Birth and Parentage
Efforts to Reach California
New Helvetia
A Puny Army
Uninviting Isolation
Ross and Bodega
Unbounded Generosity
Sutter's Wealth
Effect of the Gold Fever
Wholesale Robbery
The Sobrante Decision
A "Genuine and Meritorious" Grant
Utter Ruin
Hock Farm
Gen. Sutter's Death
Mrs. E. P. Houghton's Tribute.
Zealous in sending supplies and relief to the suffering Donner Party, earnest in providing shelter, clothing, and food to all who were rescued, Captain John A. Sutter merits more than a passing mention in this history. From the arrival of Stanton at Sutter's Fort with the tidings that a destitute emigrant train was en route for California until the return of the fourth relief party with Lewis Keseberg, Captain Sutter's time, wealth, and influence were enlisted in behalf of the party. Actuated only by motives of benevolence and humanity, he gave Stanton and the various relief parties full and free access to whatever he possessed, whether of money, provisions, clothing, mules, cattle, or guides. With all due deference to the generosity of Yerba Buena's citizens, and to the heroic endeavors of the noble men who risked their lives in rescuing the starving emigrants, it is but just and right that this warm-hearted philanthropist should be accorded the honor of being first among the benefactors of the Donner Party. His kindness did not cease with the arrival of the half-starved survivors at Sutter's Fort, but continued until all had found places of employment, and means of subsistence. Pitiful and unworthy is the reward which history can bestow upon such a noble character, yet since he never received any remuneration for his efforts and sacrifices, the reward of a noble name is the least and the most that earth can now bestow. In view of his good deeds, the survivors of the Donner Party have almost unanimously requested that a brief biographical sketch of the man be inserted in these pages.
At midnight on the twenty-eighth of February (or first of March), 1803, John A. Sutter was born in the city of Baden. He was of Swiss parentage, and his father and mother, were of the Canton Berne. Educated in Baden, we find him at the age of thirty a captain in the French army. Filled with enthusiasm, energy, and love of adventure, his eyes turned toward America as his "land of promise," and in July, 1834, he arrived in New York. Again breaking away from the restraints of civilized life, he soon made his way to the then almost unknown regions west of the Mississippi. For some years he lived near St. Charles, in Missouri. At one time he entertained the idea of establishing a Swiss colony at this point, and was only prevented by the sinking of his vessel of supplies in the Mississippi River. During this time he accompanied an exploring party into the sultry, sand-covered wastes of New Mexico. Here he met hunters and trappers from California, and listened to tales of its beauty, fertility, and grandeur which awoke irresistible longings in his breast. In March, 1838, with Captain Tripp, of the American Fur Company, he traveled westward as far as the Rocky Mountains, and thence journeying with a small party of trappers, finally reached Fort Vancouver. Finding no land route to California, he embarked in a vessel belonging to the Hudson Bay Company, which was ready for a voyage to the Sandwich Islands. From Honolulu he thought there would be little difficulty in finding passage in a trading vessel for the Coast of California. Disappointed in this, he remained at the Islands some months, and finally shipped as supercargo of a ship bound for Sitka. In returning, the vessel entered the Bay of San Francisco, but was not allowed to land, and Monterey was reached before Sutter was permitted to set foot upon California soil. From Governor Alvarado he obtained the right of settling in the Sacramento Valley. After exploring the Sacramento, Feather, and American Rivers, finally, on the sixteenth of August, 1839, he landed near the present site of Sacramento City, and determined to permanently locate. Soon afterward he began the construction of the famous Sutter's Fort. He took possession of the surrounding country, naming it New Helvetia. One of the first difficulties to be overcome was the hostility of the Indian tribes who inhabited the Sacramento and San Joaquin valleys. Kindness and humane treatment were generally sufficient to cause these Indians to become his allies, yet in more than one instance he was obliged to resort to arms. Considering the size of his army, there is a sort of grim heroism in the fact that he successfully waged at times a defensive and at times an aggressive warfare. His entire army was composed of six white men, who had been collected from different parts of the world, and eight Kanakas.
Dunbar, in describing Sutter's situation, says: "This portion of upper California, though fair to look upon, was peculiarly solitary and uninviting in its isolation and remoteness from civilization. There was not even one of those cattle ranches, which dotted the coast at long intervals, nearer to Sutter's locality than Suisun and Martinez, below the mouth of the Sacramento. The Indians of the Sacramento were known as 'Diggers.' The efforts of the Jesuit Fathers, so extensive on this continent, and so beneficial to the wild Indians wherever missions were established among them, never reached the wretched aborigines of the Sacramento country. The valley of the Sacramento had not yet become the pathway of emigrants from the East, and no civilized human being lived in this primitive and solitary region, or roamed over it, if we except a few trappers of the Hudson Bay Company."
Out of this solitude and isolation, Sutter, as if with a magician's wand, brought forth wealth and evolved for himself a veritable little kingdom. Near the close of the year 1839, eight white men joined his colony, and in 1840 his numbers were increased by five others. About this time the Mokelumne Indians became troublesome, and were conquered. Other tribes were forced into submission, and Sutter was practically monarch of the Sacramento and San Joaquin. The old pioneers speak with pride of the wonderful power he exerted over these Indians, teaching them the arts of civilization, forming them into military companies, drilling them in the use of firearms, teaching them to till the soil, and making them familiar with the rudiments of husbandry. The vast herds of cattle which in process of time he acquired, were tended and herded principally by these Indians, and the cannon which ultimately came into his possession were mounted upon the Fort, and in many instances were manned by these aborigines. Hides were sent to Yerba Buena, a trade in furs and supplies was established with the Hudson Bay Company, and considerable attention was given to mechanical and agricultural pursuits.
In 1841, Sutter obtained grants from Governor Alvarado of the eleven leagues of land comprised in his New Helvetia, and soon afterwards negotiated a purchase of the Russian possessions known as "Ross and Bodega." By this purchase, Sutter acquired vast real and personal property, the latter including two thousand cattle, one thousand horses, fifty mules, and two thousand five hundred sheep. In 1845 Sutter acquired from Gov. Manuel Micheltorena the grant of the famous Sobrante, which comprised the surplus lands over the first eleven leagues included within the survey accompanying the Alvarado grant.
As early as 1844 a great tide of emigration began flowing from the Eastern States toward California, a tide which, after the discovery of gold, became a deluge. Sutter's Fort became the great terminal point of emigration, and was far-famed for the generosity and open-heartedness of its owner. Relief and assistance were rendered so frequently and so abundantly to distressed emigrants, and aid and succor were so often sent over the Sierra to feeble or disabled trains, that Sutter's charity and generosity became proverbial. In the sunny hillslopes and smiling valleys, amidst the graceful groves and pleasant vineyards of this Golden State, it would be difficult to find localities where pioneers have not taught their children to love and bless the memory of the great benefactor of the pioneer days, John A. Sutter. With his commanding presence, his smiling face, his wealth, his power, and his liberality, he came to be regarded in those days as a very king among men. What he did for the Donner Party is but an instance of his unvarying kindness toward the needy and distressed. During this time he rendered important services to the United States, and notably in 1841, to the exploring expedition of Admiral Wilkes. The Peacock, a vessel belonging to the expedition, was lost on the Columbia bar, and a part of the expedition forces, sent overland in consequence, reached Sutter's Fort in a condition of extreme distress, and were relieved with princely hospitality. Later on he gave equally needed and equally generous relief to Colonel Fremont and his exploring party. When the war with Mexico came on, his aid and sympathy enabled Fremont to form a battalion from among those in Sutter's employ, and General Sherman's testimony is, "that to him (Sutter) more than any single person are we indebted for the conquest of California with all its treasures."