CA -- Sacramento -- Sutter's Fort SHP -- Exhibits:
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SUTTX_140719_004.JPG: Why Is Sutter's Fort Important?
SUTTX_140719_013.JPG: Why Was the Fort Built Here?
SUTTX_140719_021.JPG: Did Mexico Want the Fort Here?
SUTTX_140719_024.JPG: Governor Juan B. Alvarado approved Sutter's land grant on June 18, 1841
SUTTX_140719_026.JPG: Sutter hired Jean Jacques Vioget to survey and map New Helvetia. The land grant started below the American River and extended north to the "Sutter Buttes".
SUTTX_140719_031.JPG: Who Was John Sutter?
SUTTX_140719_038.JPG: Sutter was 36 years old when he arrived in California
SUTTX_140719_041.JPG: Who Built Sutter's Fort?
SUTTX_140719_043.JPG: The Russian-American Fur Company left California in 1841. They sold Fort Ross to Sutter. Sutter's workers moved everything they could to New Helvetia, including buildings, tools, livestock, fruit trees, uniforms, and weapons. Sutter struggled to pay off this debt.
SUTTX_140719_045.JPG: The first structures built at the new colony were Hawaiian style grass houses like this one, covered with tule.
SUTTX_140719_048.JPG: Who Lives at Sutter's Fort?
SUTTX_140719_055.JPG: A Nisenan village near Yuba City
SUTTX_140719_084.JPG: Why Did the Indians Work for Sutter?
SUTTX_140719_090.JPG: What Did People Do Here?
SUTTX_140719_100.JPG: What Happened Here before 1839?
SUTTX_140719_113.JPG: Why Did Immigrants Come to the Fort?
SUTTX_140719_120.JPG: Sextant:
Fremont's team used this sextant to take measurements to map the Oregon Trail and California. Their maps guided many immigrants to the West Coast.
Many veterans of the Mexican American War decided to settle in California. This sword and flintlock pistol were used in the war and came to California with their owners.
US Model 1832 Artillery Short Sword:
The M1832 sword was standard issue for artillery soldiers from the 1830s until the Civil War. This sword was made in 1835.
US Model 1836 Flintlock Pistol:
This was the primary handgun carried by "dragoons" (soldiers on horseback) during the war.
SUTTX_140719_126.JPG: John C. Fremont
SUTTX_140719_132.JPG: Franklin Bonney
SUTTX_140719_140.JPG: Eliza Marshall Gregson
SUTTX_140719_146.JPG: Was Gold Discovered at Sutter's Fort?
SUTTX_140719_150.JPG: Vintage illustration of the discovery of gold at Sutter's Mill
SUTTX_140719_153.JPG: James Wilson Marshall, painted about 1849
SUTTX_140719_159.JPG: Gold Scales:
Small handheld scales were part of the equipment of many miners.
SUTTX_140719_163.JPG: Magnifying Glass
Whale Oil Lamp
According to legend, Sutter used this small lamp and magnifying glass to examine the gold that James Marshall brought to his office in January, 1848.
SUTTX_140719_168.JPG: What Was the Fort's Role as the United States Took Over?
SUTTX_140719_171.JPG: The muster roll for Fort Sacramento, from November 1846 to March 1847. The garrison was mostly California Indians who had worked for Sutter. Edward Kern was in charge; John Sutter served as Lieutenant.
Edward Kern wrote this letter to his brother in July 1846. He included a sketch of some of the "Bear Flaggers" which is the only known image of the inside of the Fort.
SUTTX_140719_179.JPG: Patty Reed's Doll
SUTTX_140719_189.JPG: How Did the Fort Help the Donner Party?
SUTTX_140719_193.JPG: Title page of Lansford Hastings' Emigrants Guide to Oregon and California, 1845.
Bill listing the amount owed to John Sutter for mules and supplies used in the rescue.
SUTTX_140719_197.JPG: James Reed, Patty's father, was forced to leave the group after he killed another man during a fight. He made this map of his journey from the Humboldt Sink in Nevada to Sutter's Fort. Reed used the map as a guide during the rescue missions.
SUTTX_140719_199.JPG: Patty Reed as a teenager in San Jose. The Reed family did well in California.
SUTTX_140719_202.JPG: What Happened to the Fort?
SUTTX_140719_210.JPG: The walls of the Fort were in ruins by 1855
SUTTX_140719_213.JPG: Sacramento grew from "Sutter's Embarcadero" into a busy city by December 1849.
SUTTX_140719_216.JPG: Sutter's estate at Hock Farm, near Marysville
SUTTX_140719_219.JPG: John Augustus Sutter Jr., 1826-1897, founder of Sacramento City.
SUTTX_140719_225.JPG: Forty-niners and California Indians work at the diggings, about 1850
SUTTX_140719_235.JPG: Is This the Real Fort?
SUTTX_140719_242.JPG: A group of women sketching the ruins of the central building, circa 1887
SUTTX_140719_245.JPG: Painting of the Fort by Charles Grunsky, 1884
SUTTX_140719_248.JPG: Old Fort Sutter as it stood in 1867
SUTTX_140719_253.JPG: The central building shortly before restoration, circa 1890
SUTTX_140719_257.JPG: circa 1900
SUTTX_140719_271.JPG: Original plans for the reconstruction of the Fort, circa 1889. The planners did not calculate the size of the fort correctly. The reconstruction is smaller than the original.
SUTTX_140719_272.JPG: The Fort during reconstruction, circa 1894
SUTTX_140719_279.JPG: Early museum displays in the central building, approximately 1920
SUTTX_140719_285.JPG: Why Does Sutter's Fort Matter?
SUTTX_140719_292.JPG: John Sutter: The Dream, the Reality
SUTTX_140719_299.JPG: Seeds of the Dream
SUTTX_140719_308.JPG: Sutter was born in the German village of Kandem
SUTTX_140719_316.JPG: "I had the power of life and death over both Indians and white people..."
SUTTX_140719_327.JPG: Charles Wilkes' United States Expedition made camp in the Sacramental Valley during an August 1841 survey. They also stopped at New Helvetia and met with Sutter.
SUTTX_140719_331.JPG: Sutter's arrival in the Sacramento Valley meant a new way of life to the Indian tribes that lived near the fort. Sutter did not propose to convert them to his religion as the mission padres had tried to do. Sutter allied himself with various tribes, often promising them protection from their tradition enemies.
SUTTX_140719_332.JPG: Sutter's Fortress
SUTTX_140719_343.JPG: John C. Fremont, explorer and US Army officer, allied himself with the Bear Flag ... He ordered Sutter to jail Gen. Mariano Vallejo and other Mexican prisoners. Sutter thought that was "wholly unnecessary" and treated them as guests, prompting Fremont to take custody of both the prisoners and the fort.
SUTTX_140719_346.JPG: Haven in a Hostile Wilderness
SUTTX_140719_349.JPG: The Donner Party
SUTTX_140719_363.JPG: His World Turned Upside Down
SUTTX_140719_367.JPG: Henry Bigler was a young Mormon worker at Sutter's mill. He kept a diary of his experiences and on January 24, 1848, recorded, "some kind of mettle was found in the tail race that looks like goald..."
SUTTX_140719_372.JPG: This cartoon was a whimsical look at the chaotic Gold Rush, but there was nothing amusing about it for John Sutter: it was his land that the miners overran in their rush to the gold fields. A few years later, Sutter would say: "The gold mining is a lottery. Among hundreds only one or two get rich. Most people prefer secure jobs. Agriculture is best."
SUTTX_140719_377.JPG: Retreat and Reunion
SUTTX_140719_383.JPG: "I was so foolish. I understood so little about business. I gave men powers of attorney to sign deeds and they swindled me on every side.... I was the victim of every swindler that came along. These swindlers made the cornerstone of my ruin."
-- John Sutter, 1876
SUTTX_140719_396.JPG: Petitioner Unto Death
SUTTX_140719_410.JPG: Mades' Hotel in Washington was Sutter's headquarters during Congressional sessions.
AAA "Gem": AAA considers this location to be a "must see" point of interest. To see pictures of other areas that AAA considers to be Gems, click here.
Wikipedia Description: Sutter's Fort
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Sutter's Fort State Historic Park is a California State Historic Park in Sacramento, California.
Location
The compound was built near the junction of the American and Sacramento Rivers and is located at what is now the intersection of 27th and L Streets in the Midtown neighborhood of the city of Sacramento, California.
History
Sutter's Fort was begun in 1839 and originally called "New Helvetia" (New Switzerland) by its builder, John Sutter. The fort was a 19th-century agricultural and trade colony in the Mexican Alta California Province. The fort was the first non-Native American community in the California Central Valley. The fort is famous for its association with the Donner Party, the California Gold Rush and the formation of Sacramento. It is notable for its proximity to the end of the California Trail and Siskiyou Trails for which it served as a waystation.
After gold was discovered at Sutter's Mill (also owned by Sutter) in Coloma, the fort was abandoned. The adobe structure has been restored to its original condition and is now administered by California Department of Parks and Recreation, although threatened with closure. It was designated a National Historic Landmark in 1961.
Description
The Main Building of the fort is a two story adobe structure built between 1841 and 1843. This building is the only original surviving structure at the reconstructed Sutter's Fort State Historic Park. It was in here on January 28, 1848 that James Marshall met privately with Sutter in order to show Sutter the gold that Marshall had found during the construction of Sutter's sawmill along the American River only four days earlier. Sutter built the original fort with walls 2.5 feet (0.76 m) thick and 15 to 18 feet (5.5 m) high.
Following word of the Gold Rush, the fort was largely deserted by the 1850s and fell into disrepair.
In 1891, the Native Sons of the Golden West, who sought to safeguard m ...More...
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2014_CA_Sutters_Fort: CA -- Sacramento -- Sutter's Fort SHP (112 photos from 2014)
2014 photos: Equipment this year: I mostly used my Fuji XS-1 camera but, depending on the event, I also used a Nikon D7000.
Trips this year:
three Civil War Trust conferences (Winchester, VA, Nashville, TN, and Atlanta, GA),
Michigan to visit mom in the hospice before she died and then a return trip after she died, and
my 9th consecutive San Diego Comic-Con trip (including Las Vegas, Reno, Carson City, Sacramento, Oakland, and Los Angeles).
Ego strokes: Paul Dickson used one of my photos as the author photo in his book "Aphorisms: Words Wrought by Writers".
Number of photos taken this year: just over 470,000.
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