John Sutter

John Augustus Sutter left Switzerland, which is in Europe, in 1834 for New York City in the United States. There he decided that California offered him the best opportunity for success. He moved to Missouri, in the central part of the United States, where for three years he worked as a trader on the Santa Fe Trail, one of the many trails that went to California

In 1838 he set off along the Oregon Trail to Portland, Oregon. He did not go directly to California. First he went to Alaska, then Hawaii, then California in 1839. Sutter met with the governor and got permission to establish a settlement along the Sacramento River, an area occupied only by Indians. Sutter was granted nearly fifty thousand acres (50,000 acres).

Sutter chose a building site where the American River and the Sacramento River join and near the site of present-day Sacramento. It was called Sutter’s Fort.

In nine years Sutter built a large farm and ranch and became very successful.

In 1848 Sutter and a carpenter named James Marshall became partners to build a saw mill on the American River to make lumber.

James Marshall

Marshall was born in 1810 in New Jersey and took up his father's trade as a skilled carpenter. At age eighteen he decided to head west and in 1845 reached California. He went to work for John Sutter as a carpenter. James Marshall joined with John C. Fremont as part of the Bear Revolt to make California independent. James Marshall went back to Sutter’s Fort and went into a partnership with John Sutter to make a saw mill and sell lumber.

In January of 1848 James Marshall discovered gold at the saw mill. The California Gold Rush of 1849 changed history.

Both John Sutter and James Marshall lost everything and died poor. Very few of the thousands of gold seeks ever became rich by mining for gold. However, the discovery of gold changed the history of California and the United States.