Virtual Museum of Art | Virtual Museum of History | Virtual Public Library | Virtual Science Center | Virtual Museum of Natural History | Virtual War Museum
   You are in: Museum of History >> Hall of North and South Americans >> John Augustus Sutter





The Seven Flags of the New Orleans Tri-Centennial 1718-2018

For more information go to New Orleans 300th Birthday

 

Appleton's Cyclopedia of American Biography, edited by James Grant Wilson, John Fiske and Stanley L. Klos. Six volumes, New York: D. Appleton and Company, 1887-1889 and 1999. Virtualology.com warns that these 19th Century biographies contain errors and bias. We rely on volunteers to edit the historic biographies on a continual basis. If you would like to edit this biography please submit a rewritten biography in text form . If acceptable, the new biography will be published above the 19th Century Appleton's Cyclopedia Biography citing the volunteer editor




Virtual American Biographies

Over 30,000 personalities with thousands of 19th Century illustrations, signatures, and exceptional life stories. Virtualology.com welcomes editing and additions to the biographies. To become this site's editor or a contributor Click Here or e-mail Virtualology here.



A B C D E F G H I J K L M N O P Q R S T U V W X Y Z

 





Click on an image to view full-sized

John Augustus Sutter

SUTTER, John Augustus, pioneer, born in Kandern, Baden, 15 February, 1803; died in Washington, D. C., 17 June, 1880. He was of Swiss parentage, and his family name was originally Suter. He was graduated at the military college at Berne in 1828, entered the French service as an officer of the Swiss guard, and served in 1823-'4 through the Spanish campaign. In 1834 he emigrated to this country and settled in St. Louis. Afterward he carried on at Santa Fe a profitable trade with Indians and trappers, whose accounts of California induced him in 1838 to cross the Rocky mountains. He first went to Oregon, descended Columbia river to Fort Vancouver, and thence sailed to the Sandwich islands, where he purchased a vessel and went to Sitka, Alaska. After disposing of his cargo to advantage there, he sailed along the Pacific coast, and on 2 July, 1839, was stranded in the Bay of Yerba Buena (now San Francisco). Penetrating into the interior amid great difficulties, he founded in the same year the earliest white settlement on the site of Sacramento, received a considerable grant of land from the Mexican government, and in 1841 built a fort, calling it New Helvetia, which was afterward the first settlement that was reached by overland emigrants to California. The Mexican government appointed him governor of the northern frontier country, but, as. he favored the annexation of California to the United States, the Mexicans regarded him with suspicion. When Captain Charles Wilkes's exploring expedition reached San Francisco, Sutter gave him aid and information, and he extended a similar welcome to John C. Fremont and his party. When California was ceded to the United States in February, 1848, Sutter was the owner of a large tract of land, many thousands of cattle, and other property, but the discovery of gold on his estate near Coloma El Dorado County, at the same time (see MARSHALL, JAMES WILSON), proved his financial ruin. His laborers deserted him, his lands were overrun by gold-diggers, and the claim he had filed for thirty-three square leagues, which had been allowed by the commissioners, was decided against him on appeal to the supreme court. Despoiled of his property and reduced to want, he was granted by the California legislature a pension of $250 a month. In 1864 his homestead was burned, and in 1873 he removed to Litiz, Lancaster County, Pennsylvania After California had been annexed to this country Sutter was elected first alcalde of his district, and a delegate to the convention to form a state constitution, and he was also an Indian commissioner. The illustration shows the mill on Sutter's property, near which gold was first discovered.

Edited Appletons Encyclopedia, Copyright © 2001 VirtualologyTM

Start your search on John Augustus Sutter.


 

 


 


Unauthorized Site: This site and its contents are not affiliated, connected, associated with or authorized by the individual, family, friends, or trademarked entities utilizing any part or the subject's entire name. Any official or affiliated sites that are related to this subject will be hyper linked below upon submission and Evisum, Inc. review.

Copyright© 2000 by Evisum Inc.TM. All rights reserved.
Evisum Inc.TM Privacy Policy

Search:

About Us

 

 

Image Use

Please join us in our mission to incorporate The Congressional Evolution of the United States of America discovery-based curriculum into the classroom of every primary and secondary school in the United States of America by July 2, 2026, the nation’s 250th birthday. , the United States of America: We The People Click Here

 

Historic Documents

Articles of Association

Articles of Confederation 1775

Articles of Confederation

Article the First

Coin Act

Declaration of Independence

Declaration of Independence

Emancipation Proclamation

Gettysburg Address

Monroe Doctrine

Northwest Ordinance

No Taxation Without Representation

Thanksgiving Proclamations

Mayflower Compact

Treaty of Paris 1763

Treaty of Paris 1783

Treaty of Versailles

United Nations Charter

United States In Congress Assembled

US Bill of Rights

United States Constitution

US Continental Congress

US Constitution of 1777

US Constitution of 1787

Virginia Declaration of Rights

 

Historic Events

Battle of New Orleans

Battle of Yorktown

Cabinet Room

Civil Rights Movement

Federalist Papers

Fort Duquesne

Fort Necessity

Fort Pitt

French and Indian War

Jumonville Glen

Manhattan Project

Stamp Act Congress

Underground Railroad

US Hospitality

US Presidency

Vietnam War

War of 1812

West Virginia Statehood

Woman Suffrage

World War I

World War II

 

Is it Real?



Declaration of
Independence

Digital Authentication
Click Here

 

America’s Four Republics
The More or Less United States

 
Continental Congress
U.C. Presidents

Peyton Randolph

Henry Middleton

Peyton Randolph

John Hancock

  

Continental Congress
U.S. Presidents

John Hancock

Henry Laurens

John Jay

Samuel Huntington

  

Constitution of 1777
U.S. Presidents

Samuel Huntington

Samuel Johnston
Elected but declined the office

Thomas McKean

John Hanson

Elias Boudinot

Thomas Mifflin

Richard Henry Lee

John Hancock
[
Chairman David Ramsay]

Nathaniel Gorham

Arthur St. Clair

Cyrus Griffin

  

Constitution of 1787
U.S. Presidents

George Washington 

John Adams
Federalist Party


Thomas Jefferson
Republican* Party

James Madison 
Republican* Party

James Monroe
Republican* Party

John Quincy Adams
Republican* Party
Whig Party

Andrew Jackson
Republican* Party
Democratic Party


Martin Van Buren
Democratic Party

William H. Harrison
Whig Party

John Tyler
Whig Party

James K. Polk
Democratic Party

David Atchison**
Democratic Party

Zachary Taylor
Whig Party

Millard Fillmore
Whig Party

Franklin Pierce
Democratic Party

James Buchanan
Democratic Party


Abraham Lincoln 
Republican Party

Jefferson Davis***
Democratic Party

Andrew Johnson
Republican Party

Ulysses S. Grant 
Republican Party

Rutherford B. Hayes
Republican Party

James A. Garfield
Republican Party

Chester Arthur 
Republican Party

Grover Cleveland
Democratic Party

Benjamin Harrison
Republican Party

Grover Cleveland 
Democratic Party

William McKinley
Republican Party

Theodore Roosevelt
Republican Party

William H. Taft 
Republican Party

Woodrow Wilson
Democratic Party

Warren G. Harding 
Republican Party

Calvin Coolidge
Republican Party

Herbert C. Hoover
Republican Party

Franklin D. Roosevelt
Democratic Party

Harry S. Truman
Democratic Party

Dwight D. Eisenhower
Republican Party

John F. Kennedy
Democratic Party

Lyndon B. Johnson 
Democratic Party 

Richard M. Nixon 
Republican Party

Gerald R. Ford 
Republican Party

James Earl Carter, Jr. 
Democratic Party

Ronald Wilson Reagan 
Republican Party

George H. W. Bush
Republican Party 

William Jefferson Clinton
Democratic Party

George W. Bush 
Republican Party

Barack H. Obama
Democratic Party

Please Visit

Forgotten Founders
Norwich, CT

Annapolis Continental
Congress Society


U.S. Presidency
& Hospitality

© Stan Klos

 

 

 

 


Virtual Museum of Art | Virtual Museum of History | Virtual Public Library | Virtual Science Center | Virtual Museum of Natural History | Virtual War Museum