[AUTOGRAPH LETTER, SIGNED, FROM CENTRAL GOLD RUSH FIGURE AND CALIFORNIA PIONEER, JOHANN (JOHN) AUGUSTUS SUTTER, TO JUDGE ORVILLE C. PRATT, SEEKING ASSISTANCE IN SUTTER'S ATTEMPTS TO RETAIN HIS CALIFORNIA LANDS].
Sutter, Johann Augustus:
Sacramento. Feb. 14, 1856. [1]p. manuscript letter on a ruled quarto sheet. Sheet very lightly and expertly backed. A bit of light wear around the edges. Very good. A brief, but evocative letter from California pioneer Johann (John) A. Sutter, made famous by the discovery of gold on his property in January, 1848. The letter was written at a time when Sutter was desperately trying to retain his land holdings. He writes Judge Orville C. Pratt, another California pioneer and an influential jurist, asking Pratt to assist Sutter's trustee, Lewis Sanders, in Sutter's efforts. "Capt." John A. Sutter was born Johann Augustus Sutter in 1803 in Baden, Germany, of Swiss parents. When his early attempts at business in Switzerland failed, he emigrated to the United States, arriving in New York in 1834, and then travelled to the German colony at St. Louis. He became involved in the Santa Fe trade (making two journeys to the Southwest himself) before setting out for California (via Hawaii and Alaska), where he arrived in 1839. Sutter ingratiated himself with the various political leaders of California, and was granted by the Mexican government an estate of nearly 50,000 acres at the confluence of the Sacramento and American rivers. His land was meant to be an outpost guarding the frontier of Alta California against incursions by Indians and Russian fur traders. Sutter named the region "Nueva Helvetia" (New Switzerland), later commonly called "New Helvetia," and presided over the region as nearly an absolute ruler. Sutter constructed a strong fort, worked the land with the labor of some one thousand Indians, and began cultivating the region, also building a mill, raising cattle, and offering help to immigrants to the region. From the early 1840s, Sutter had to defend his land against fur traders, hostile Indians, and squatters. The situation only worsened when Sutter's millwright, James Marshall, discovered gold at Sutter's Mill on Jan. 24, 1848. Soon Sutter's land was overrun by squatters and gold seekers who killed his cattle and used his crops. After California joined the United States in 1850, Sutter served in a variety of state and federal political positions, but he continued to suffer financial setbacks. From 1864 to 1878 he received a monthly $250 stipend from the state, but died destitute in 1880. In order to keep from losing his estate, Sutter deeded much of his land to his son, Johann Augustus Sutter, Jr., who proceeded to set about developing the city of Sacramento. The elder Sutter spent much of the 1850s seeking to recover his property, and this letter is a part of those efforts. The letter is written to Judge Orville C. Pratt, who studied at West Point before leaving to concentrate on the law. Pratt was a rising star in the legal community at an early age, and went to California in 1848, and then to Oregon, where he served as an Associate Justice of the Oregon Supreme and District Courts. In late 1855 he moved to San Francisco and entered into a law partnership, becoming one of the most important lawyers in the city. In this letter, Sutter writes Pratt asking him to assist his trustee, Lewis Sanders: "Col. Sanders requests me to write a few lines to you, he wish [sic] very much to see you, and make an arrangement with you to assist him in my affairs, and so it is my wish, and the wish of my family, as we have an unbounded confidence in you." Letters from Johann Augustus Sutter are rare, and this letter is made even more desirable for being such stark evidence of Sutter's financial straits in the decade after the discovery of gold on his property.
(Item ID: WRCAM39972) $5,000.00