Sutter owned twelve thousand cattle, two thousand horses and mules, from one thousand to fifteen hundred sheep, and two thousand hogs.
This unique Fort was "the capital of the vast interior valley, pregnant with approaching importance."
In 1846, Sutter staked out the town of Sutterville, three miles below the Fort on the Sacramento, and built the first house there. His example was shortly followed by a man named Zims, who erected the first real brick structure in the State.
The Fort and town kept up regular communication with San Francisco by means of a twenty-ton sloop owned by Sutter, and manned by a few savages in his employ.
There was a ferry at the Fort, which consisted of a single canoe handled by an Indian.
The strangest of populations gathered about the settlement. Emigrants were there, many Mormons among them. Native Californians were there, wearing sombreros, sashes, and jingling spurs. Half-subdued Indians abounded, wrapped in their blankets, and decked with beads and feathers. While here and there appeared a shrewd Yankee, come across mountains of snow and rocks to seek his fortune.
The climate of Sacramento is charming, the average temperature in winter being 45°; that in summer 69°. The thermometer does not vary ten degrees between night and day. The sea breezes are constant, leaving rarely an uncooled night. Rainfall is a tenth less than on the Atlantic Coast. Early autumn finds this region dry and arid; its small streams dried up, the green fields sere, the weeds snapping like glass.
The winter rain begins in November, after six months of clear weather, and under its grateful ministry the region "buds and blossoms like the rose."
John A. Sutter, potentate of the region, in 1847, needed lumber, and therefore needed a saw-mill. His neighbors wanted lumber, too, and there would be a good market for it in San Francisco. Therefore a saw-mill would be profitable; but no trees suitable for this purpose could be found short of the foot-hills. Consequently the foot-hills were selected as the spot upon which he would build.
He engaged a motley company of all nationalities to erect his mill, appointing James Wilson Marshall, a native of New Jersey, as superintendent of the venture.