PAGE 20 C h a p t e r 03 Foothills of the Sierra Nevada. This landscape, once the lands of the Nisenan Maidu and Miwuk, resembles the grassy plains that the settlers found in Brighton Township (courtesy of Chris Aschenbrener).
PAG E 21 C h a p t e r 03 C H A P T E R 3 Spanish and Mexican Influences According to Chapman s 1921 History of California: the Spanish Period, the most numerous element in Spanish California were the Indians. Estimates of the indigenous population of the entire state at the time tallied 133,000 (Kroeber 1925). In 1806 there were 20,355 indigenous people in Spanish missions established from San Diego to what is now San Francisco. In contrast, the total number of Spanish in the state never exceeded 3,300. lthough we hear much about the California missions and the mission period, the Spaniards of Alta California, or Upper California, were, in fact, not very successful in attracting more colonists despite many attempts. Even so, they ventured and adventured throughout much of the land, including along the American River, and had an influence far exceeding their numbers. The first European explorer of the Sacramento Valley was Spanish Army officer Gabriel Moraga, who claimed 48 California military expeditions during his life, many of these the first such adventures into inland California. Purportedly he came to the Sacramento Valley to locate sites for new missions, but records show that the primary goal was to hunt down and punish Native Americans who had escaped inland from coastal missions. In the course of Moraga s Sacramento area explorations, he is likely to have been the first newcomer to visit the Brighton area before ending his explorations along the American River near Auburn. Moraga s foray initiated a 30-year naming and renaming frenzy for the American River. The Nisenan had known it as kum sayo (Roundhouse River), named for the large roundhouse at the river s mouth near the Sacramento River. In 1808 Moraga dubbed it Rio de las Llagas (River of Sorrows) after which no newcomer, it seemed, could resist the urge to rename it. Jedediah Smith, the first white man to traverse the Overland Trail from west to east in 1827, observed the wildness of the Nisenans and named it the Wild River after the Indians. That name survived until 1833 when Captain John Cooper petitioned the Mexican governor for a land grant along the river and renamed it the Rio Ojotska, a phonetic rendering of the Russian spelling for the word hunter. Four years later the next to last title Rio de los Americanos was chosen by Mexican Governor Alvarado in honor of the American trappers who frequented it. This last evolved into the English version the American River when Sutter established the first nonindigenous settlement in Sacramento. During the era of Spanish rule in California, there were essentially four types of settlements missions, presidios, pueblos, and ranchos. The missions were the richest institutions, being the sole manufacturers or traders of many items the rest of the Spanish colonies and foreign traders required blankets, pottery, tanned hides, flour, wine, and liquor. Although the latter were not legal, they provided a brisk trade. According to Chapman, the presidios were the social and political centers for Alta California, because not only the soldiers were present but also many of their families. Presidios were places where the high society of the new world enjoyed the culture, customs, and finer amenities of life. Some presidios eventually became towns as more people arrived from Spain. The pueblos, on the other hand, were a definite social step down from the presidios and numbered only three by the end of the 1700s Los Angeles, San Jose, and Branciforte, which has since disappeared entirely, absorbed by today s Santa Cruz. These were inhabited by lower elements, including those released to Alta California from prison. The least important settlement type to Spain was the rancho, bequeathed in the form of land grants from Spanish and Mexican governors to favored loyalists. These were typically 11 leagues in size over 48,000 acres.
PAGE 22 C h a p t e r 03 Sacramento Valley land grants including Sutter and Leidesdorff lands (courtesy of Bancroft Library, UC Berkeley).
PAGE 23 C h a p t e r 03 Of the 600 so-called Spanish Land Grants, only 20 to 30 actually originated during the period that Spain ruled Alta California; the remaining properties were granted by the Mexican government after Mexico gained its independence from Spain. This was true for the two land grants that encompassed all of the Brighton area, John Sutter s New Helvetia and William Leidesdorff s Rancho de los Rios Americanos. Sutter received his land grant of nearly 50,000 acres from Mexico in 1839. One portion of that, shown as Tract No. 1 on later maps, extended from today s Pocket Area along the east side of the Sacramento River up to the south side of the American, then out through the Brighton area to Bradshaw Road. Bradshaw evolved as a road because it formed the boundary line between Sutter s and Liedesdorff s properties. New Helvetia began as a flourishing agricultural empire. Within a few years, acres of grain, an orchard, and thousands of head of cattle were present. Early maps show areas designated Wild Cattle through what is now Del Paso Heights and Arden-Arcade. In a land with no fences, many of the animals were probably Sutter s. In 1847 Sutter was the first to bring large numbers of fruit trees to the region (2,000), but he recorded in his journal that few of this first batch survived because those who had claimed status as gardeners had ignored them and allowed them to perish (sacramentohistory.org 2008). William Alexander Leidesdorff became Sutter s neighbor in 1844 when he acquired the 35,000-acre land grant that extended from Bradshaw Road and Sutter s boundary eastward to the present city of Folsom. Leidesdorff, a native of St. Croix, obtained his land grant after taking Mexican citizenship and converting to Catholicism. An oak tree and a shared boundary sign with Sutter on one side and Leidesdorff on the other marked the border between their properties where Bradshaw Road joins the American River. The men were friends and neighbors who communicated often and enjoyed each other s company socially, although Sutter eventually ended up financially indebted to Leidesdorff. At one point when Leidesdorff s hired men bungled the wheat harvest on the Rancho (very possibly near Bradshaw Road), Sutter salvaged the job with his Nisenan laborers. Leidesdorff also owned land in Yerba Buena which was claimed for the United States in 1846 and renamed San Francisco the next year. Leidesdorff served as city treasurer as well as a member of the new City Council and School Board. He also owned one of the most prestigious hotels in the up-and-coming city and organized the first formal horse racing in the area. He continued buying lots in San Francisco and had recently built an adobe on his Rancho near Bradshaw when Marshall discovered gold in February 1848 while constructing a tailrace at Coloma for Sutter. Leidesdorff learned of the discovery in a letter from John Sutter in March 1848: My sawmill in the Mountains is now completed. She cuts 2000 feet of planks in 12 hour s [sic]. The Grist mill is advancing. We intend to form a company for working the Gold mines, which prove to be very rich. Would you not take a share in it? So soon as if it would not pay well, we could stop it at any time (Lewis 1993).
PAGE 24 C h a p t e r 03 Lithograph of downtown Sacramento from the Sacramento River in 1849.
PAGE 25 C h a p t e r 03 This letter was followed by another in April apprising Leidesdorff that gold washing on the upper part of his (Leidesdorff s) ranch looked very promising. Indeed, in years to follow the Argonauts blasted millions of dollars of gold out of Rancho de los Rios Americanos lands with hydraulic mining. But before Leidesdorff could be involved he became ill suddenly and died of either brain fever or pneumonia (two different accounts of his death are recorded) at the age of only 38. He was the wealthiest man in California, but his entire estate including Rancho de los Americanos and all of his San Francisco holdings sold for only $75,000 to Joseph Libby Folsom. Leidesdorff died intestate with his property encumbered by a $50,000 debt, but the discovery of gold that same year increased its value to $1 million. Folsom traveled all the way to the Virgin Islands to make the purchase from Leidesdorff s mother, Anna Marie Spark. Folsom s purchase was a coup talked about among early business men long after the case played out in court, but ironically, Folsom died 6 years later at the same age as Leidesdorff. By that time, the Gold Rush had brought thousands to California, and Sacramento and Brighton Township were off and running. Fortune did not shine on Sutter as it had on Leidesdorff. Rather than making him wealthy, the discovery of gold hastened his financial demise. He had never been a good businessman to start with, but along with the rush for gold came the abandonment of his work projects by laborers rushing to the mines, and this was followed by a rush for his property both land and belongings. In 1847, Sutter was in the process of building a large flour mill on the American River near what would become the town of Brighton and a lumber mill to supply wood for the flour mill and other endeavours. In August of that year, Captain Hart of the Mormon Battalion purchased horses for the military from Sutter (for which he was never paid). Subsequently, Sutter employed 80 men from the battalion as laborers to build the mills. When gold was discovered the next year, Sutter feared that the soldiers and others would leave for gold, and he plotted to keep the discovery secret for six weeks, enough time to allow for the completion of the Brighton mill and other business endeavors. As excerpts from Sutter s journal show, it was not to be the men abandoned his projects to mine on the American River near Folsom in an area now called Mormon Bar in their honor: March 7th 1848. The first party of Mormons, employed by me left for washing and digging Gold and very soon all followed, and left me only the sick and the lame behind. And at this time I could say that every body left me from the Clerk to the Cook. What for great damages I had to suffer in my tannery which was just doing a profitable and extensive business, and the Vatts was left filled and a quantity of half finished leather was spoiled likewise a large quantity of raw hides collected by the farmers and of my own killing. The same thing was in every branch of business which I carried on at the time. I began to harvest my wheat, while others was digging and washing Gold, but even the Indians could not be kept longer at work, they were impatient to run to the mines, and other Indians had informed them of the Gold and its value and so I hadto leave more of my harvest in the fields (Thompson and West 1880).
PAGE 26 C h a p t e r 03 General Riley s Map of Sacramento and the American River area in 1849 (courtesy of SACRM). Sutter had been generous to a fault to visitors, always a good host, always entertaining at the Fort and Hock Farm, his place north of Sacramento. In recalling those early days of the Gold Rush, Sutter revealed his losses and his shock over the behavior of people towards his property and himself, when eventually even the millstones for the unfinished Brighton Mill were stolen: One thing is certain that the people looked on my property as their own, and in the Winter of 1849 to 1850. A great Number of horses has been stolen from me, whole Manadas of Mares driven away and taken to Oregon, etc. Nearly my whole Stock of Cattle has been Killed, several thousands and left me only a very small Quantity. The same has been done with my large stock of Hogs, which was running like ever under nobodies care and so it was easy to steal them, I had not an Idea that people could be so mean, and that they would do a Wholesale business in Stealing (Thompson and West 1880).
PAGE 27 C h a p t e r 03 The Gold Rush Boom Eleven months after gold was discovered, the plot for the city of Sacramento was surveyed and laid out. People were suddenly arriving by the hundreds. Downtown Sacramento became a tent city, and merchants quickly followed, realizing there were more ways to wealth than mining. Providing supplies and services to miners became an industry. In April of 1849 the population was estimated to be 150. By October it was 6,000 and mostly made up of men (Wiegand 1998). At that point there were 45 wood buildings, 300 cloth houses and tents, and about 300 campfires in the open air under trees. One miner, a Mr. Shufelt from New York, wrote home to a cousin describing the scene in the gold fields and the cost of living by 1850 (Holliday 1999). A pound of cheese sold for $1.50. Accounting for inflation, 1 penny in 1849 would be worth 28 cents today. That pound of cheese was gold in itself, selling for the equivalent of about $42 today. A pound of potatoes cost $1.25 ($35 today), molasses $10 per gallon ($280) and a barrel of lard or butter a whopping $200 ($5,600). Brighton Sacramento s First Lively Little Suburb The town of Brighton was started in the same year as Sacramento by a group of speculators. Lots were staked off, a race track built, and the Pavilion Hotel erected. The hotel was on the south bank of the American River about a mile north of the town of Brighton. One main road led out from Sacramento to the gold fields the River Road that paralleled the American and travelled through Brighton. Parts of this road later became Folsom Boulevard and other local streets. Daylor Ranch Road, which eventually became part of Jackson Road, split off the River Road about a mile east of Brighton. Brighton found itself in a prime spot for 49ers heading to the gold fields. With its racetrack and the Pavilion Hotel and Bar, Brighton had become something of a sin city, but was described more modestly at the time in print as a lively place. The Sacramento Jockey Club formed in 1850 and ran the racetrack at Brighton, but probably one of the most interesting events in the community that came off at Brighton Race Course, at 3 p.m., September 13, 1850, was not a race, and was witnessed by over two thousand persons (Thompson and West 1880). A grizzly bear was brought to the track by vaqueros who had lassoed the bear, thrown him on his back, and caged him. They opened the cage, tied a bull s forefoot to the hind leg of the prostrate bear by a rope and chain. Then they turned the bear loose. Apparently, there was not a lot of fight in this particular grizzly. He charged the bull, took a large bite out of its side and not much else happened for a minute or two until the bull bent his head and with one mighty effort, tossed the bear from him with such violence that the grizzly did not seem to desire another encounter. The bear fled to hide under a building and no one could dislodge him. But the crowd was not to be disappointed. It seems the vaqueros had thought about this possibility and had another grizzly and a fresh bull on hand. Although more aggressive than the first bear, this one was again tossed, this time with enough force to break the chain tethering the two. Again the bear fled. This time up a tree, much to the momentary consternation of people who had climbed the adjacent tree for a better view of the fight; for a moment no one, including the bear, seemed sure which tree he would climb. The vaqueros eventually roped the bear and brought him back to the bull. The two tussled until exhausted, and the bull was declared winner.
PAGE 28 C h a p t e r 03 Original cabin on the Davis Ranch.
PAGE 29 C h a p t e r 03 Courtesy of Bancroft Library, UC Berkeley. And so went life in Brighton. It was the place to go for entertainment bars, bull and bear fights, horse racing until a more serious battle began, culminating with the Squatters Riots of 1850. With the huge increase in population from the rush for gold there came discontent among newcomers aimed at those who had received vast tracts through the land grant system. Many felt it unfair and un-american that so few should claim to own so much prime acreage. By the time California became the 31st state in the Union on September 9, 1850, the battles for land were raging between squatters and landowners in Sacramento and surrounds. Brighton continued to represent rough-and-tumble frontier life with a local sheriff killed in a gunfight with squatters near the Pavilion Hotel. The Gold Rush had greatly inflated land prices. Some accounts state that lots sold early in 1849 for several hundred dollars were suddenly worth up to $30,000. Rather than buy land, many individuals squatted with the intent of acquiring property rights through a process known as pre-emption. Pre-emption was a Congressional plan that gave heads of households, widows, and single men over 21 the right to purchase up to 160 acres of surveyed public lands for a very low price (not less than $1.25 per acre). They had to have lived on the property for 14 months and be U.S. citizens. Locals in Brighton and surrounding areas were claiming pre-emption rights on lands that had not been surveyed and were, in fact, land grants to Sutter, Leidesdorff, and others. Another key distinction was that pre-emptive rights were not extended to California until 1853 but squatters were attempting to claim them anyway. In 1851 Congress finally passed the California Land Act. This Act established the Board of Land Commissioners to hear claims to determine the validity of land grants and their boundaries in California. The Commission was authorized to issue subpoenas, administer oaths, take testimony, and decide as to the validity of claims. Thus, we begin to see maps titled Plat of the New Helvetia Rancho finally confirmed to John A. Sutter, many years after the grantees received lands from Mexico. After extensive surveying was conducted and maps and evidence presented to the courts, it was decided if owners land grant boundaries were legitimate or if they had been stretched a bit to encompass more than the grantee was entitled. Sutter lost relatively little land in this process. Most of Leidesdorff s grant lands outside the city of Folsom that were not purchased from Captain Folsom by the Natoma Mining and Water Company were squatted and parceled out eventually to those squatters. A good half of the Brighton Township and other townships south of the American were eventually surveyed as public lands. Many of the first pioneering ranch families in Brighton obtained their land quite legitimately through squatter s rights under the Preemption Act, rather than through the conflicts that culminated in the Squatters Riots. Among those was Asahel B. Davis (known as A.B.) who purchased 160 acres in 1860 under privileges granted by the Act. The Davis Ranch can still be found along Jackson and Florin-Perkins Roads, a rarity in a landscape that has changed immensely since A.B. began purchasing property. The original cabin still exists on the ranch.
PAGE 30 C h a p t e r 03 Sacramento Valley Railroad Transportation, particularly in winter, had always been a problem in the area. During the rainy winter months, the roads leading out of the city became rivers of mud. Early mass transportation was limited to stage lines. There were station stops for both the Pony Express and the stage at Perkins and Walsh Station. Walsh Station was named for the postmaster, J. Walsh, and was situated near the corner of today s Jackson and Bradshaw Roads. Each facility was outfitted with a high awning that enabled the entire stage coach to pull in and get out of the heat or rain. By 1855, miners and the industry supporting the mines and miners were shipping over 160,000 tons of supplies annually and better transportation was a must. Most people think of the Transcontinental Railroad as being the first railroad in the West, but the very first railroad in California opened on February 22, 1856, running from downtown Sacramento to Folsom. As early as 1852 a group of businessmen had begun work on putting together a railroad to resolve the dilemma. This was the Sacramento Valley Railroad (S.V.R.R.). Theodore Judah, who became famous for engineering the Transcontinental Railroad s path through the Sierras, was hired to plan this first railroad. He planned a route that took the tracks down R Street and out to American Fork House, also known as Patterson s, about 10 miles out of the city near today s Routier Road. From there, he eventually routed the tracks to Folsom. Above: One of the early SVRR engines (courtesy of California State Railroad Museum). Below: Sacramento Valley Railroad train crossing the American River near Folsom (courtesy of SAMCC). In an era when all labor was accomplished by hand, horse, or mule, building the track bed was no simple task. We don t think twice about the topography of the roadway as we drive from R Street down Folsom Boulevard nowadays but Robert Briggs (1957) described a small portion of the work it took to lay flat track across the rolling landscape: The contracting firm of Robinson, Seymour and Company sub- contracted the road grading. Colonel A. Kipp, Beckley and Company and Hartford Anderson respectively, undertook the work of preparing the twenty and a half miles of roadbed. Colonel Kipp s area, just outside the city limits, ran to the vicinity of Patterson s Station near current Routier Road. The Colonel s area called for relatively simple effort. Three miles east of the Sacramento levee, an embankment a thousand feet long and seventeen feet high was constructed across some low land, and on the Widow Hopper s land a cut was carved five hundred feet long and eight feet deep. In the re ar of the old Brighton Pavilion, an embankment a thousand feet long and seven feet high was thrown up. The third and last embankment was on the Fitch and Hawley Ranch, some seven miles out of town; it stretched a distance of five hundred feet and was ten feet high. The next section was handled by Mr. Beckley and his partner, whose area extended to the Eighteen Mile House. Mr. Beckley was faced with the necessity of making a cut some seven hundred feet long through a hill about six miles from the Eighteen Mile House. At Buffalo Creek sixty feet of trestle work was necessary. At Alder Creek a massive trestle four hundred and fifty feet long and forty feet in height was constructed.
PAGE 31 C h a p t e r 03 Drawing of the Great Flood of 1862 (courtesy of SACRM). Once the 22 miles of track were laid, the S.V.R.R. began running in 1856. The 1887 map in the introduction to this book shows multiple stations along the new railroad including Brighton, Perkins, Freeport (a different Freeport than that on the Sacramento River), Mayhews, Routier, Mills and Cornell. Some misinformed accounts state that stations were named for stationmasters, but they were typically named after nearby ranches or farms that were already common landmarks to locals. With the railroad in place, investments from gold flowing in, 160-acre ranches being established all over the Brighton community and surrounding areas, it would appear that life was good. The reality was that life was hard. It took long days of hard physical labor to build the community. And the Sacramento climate and environment made achieving success all the more challenging. Catastrophes Along with the gold rush, incoming hordes, and battles for land, the community was confronted with horrendous flooding exacerbated by the sedimentation of the rivers from hydraulic gold mining. During November 1849 over 12 inches of rain fell, followed by 15 inches in December, filling all the rivers and sloughs to capacity. In January violent storms struck and by the 9th, four-fifths of the city was under water. By April 1850, the Sacramento area had received 42 inches of rain. Floods were followed by cholera and flu epidemics that devastated the town s population. The city lost an average of 20 people a day to the cholera epidemic including its mayor, Hardin Bigelow. About 800 perished before the epidemic faded. Monies were set aside by the new city council to build and reinforce levees from downtown to the highlands of Brighton. Crews worked extensively and the levees were built, but Sacramento was under water again the following year. And a decade later, winter rains would bring the worst flooding of the state s history. In the three months between November 1861 and January 1862, 72 inches of rain fell in Sonora more than would typically be seen in two years. Rain combined with snow in the mountains to wreak havoc throughout California s entire Central Valley. Brighton Township suffered along with the rest of the valley. William Brewer was a young Yale-educated natural science teacher who went to work for Josiah Whitney (for whom Mt. Whitney was named) conducting the first geological survey of the state of California. He traveled over 14,000 miles within California during the four years he was here, and he wrote prolifically to his brother back East. Much of what we know of the Great Flood comes from his writing. The great central valley of this state is under water. In the Sacramento Valley for some distance the tops of the telegraph poles are under water. Nearly every house and farm over this immense region is gone. There was such a body of water 250 to 300 miles long and 20 to 60 miles wide, the water ice cold and muddy that the winds made high waves which beat the farm homes in pieces. Thousands of farms are entirely under water cattle starving and drowning. All the roads in the middle of the state are impassable; so all mails are cut off. We have had no Overland for some weeks, so I can report no new arrivals. The telegraph also does not work clear through. The entire valley was a lake extending from the mountains on one side to the coast range hills on the other. Steamers ran back over the ranches fourteen miles from the river, carrying stock, etc., to the hills (Brewer et al 2003).
PAGE 32 C h a p t e r 03 A drawing from Thompson & West's Illustrated History of Sacramento County (1880) showing the Pugh business and residence at the junction of today's Folsom Boulevard (parallel to railroad track) and Jackson Road (crossing the track). Vegetation along the American River is visible to the north (courtesy of sharinghistory.com).
PAGE 33 C h a p t e r 03 On January 12th the Daily Union reported that they had received information from around the county and were convinced that the late flood spread over a much greater area of territory, and was far more destructive than any which occurred since the county was settled. It also stated that the waters from the American did great injury at Brighton. On that same date, the steamer Defiance was able to sail all the way up the American River to Patterson (near where Folsom Boulevard and Routier Road meet today), seven miles further than any large boat had ever progressed before. Soon, ferries were being used within Sacramento to shuttle food and people. The tops of telegraph poles running along what became Folsom Boulevard were used as guideposts for boats ferrying supplies. On January 21, 1862, the New York Times reported: The North Fork of the American River at Auburn rose thirty-five feet. On the 9th the flood reached the low land of the Sacramento Valley. Sacramento City was the chief sufferer. The scene presented is one of confusion and desolation. Some of the houses are turned partially around; some are broken and shattered, and all are covered inside and outside up to the high-water mark with mud mud of the worst kind of a soft, slippery, greasy character, which it requires a great deal of labor to get rid of. The streets are strewn with fences, doors, shutters, lumber, cord-wood, broken furniture, dead horses, and lifeless cows and hogs. Fruit-trees and shrubbery are greatly injured, if not utterly destroyed. Boats of various sizes are still actively engaged in the water, picking up whatever is worth taking possession of. The catastrophe also brought out the stamina and spirit of these American pioneers. Brewer wrote of the benevolent response of San Franciscans: A week ago today news came down by steamer of a worse condition at Sacramento than was anticipated. The news came at nine o clock at night. Men went to work, and before daylight tons of provisions were ready eleven thousand pounds of ham were cooked. Before night two steamers with over thirty tons of cooked and prepared provisions, twenty-two tons of clothing, several thousand dollars in money, and boats with crews, etc. were under way for the devastated city. In downtown Sacramento, the American River had risen 55 feet. The levee out to Brighton and the raised railroad bed had an effect no one had imagined they funneled the floods into the city. Levees were purposely breached to lower floodwaters throughout town to only 3 4 feet. The railroad was inoperable. All bridges were washed out. On March 6 Brewer wrote that Sacramento had been under water for 3 months. Even as floodwaters receded, travel was greatly impeded horses sank to their bellies in mud and passengers riding in stagecoaches were required to climb out and put shoulders to wheels to free stuck coaches. There was one population, however, that was completely prepared for the flooding and actually tried to warn others of the impending waters. The Sacramento Daily Union reported that the Nisenan left their villages a week prior to the flooding and moved to the foothills, predicting very high waters. They told the newcomers, as they called them, that the water would be higher than it had for 30 years and pointed high up on trees and houses to show where it would come. According to the paper, the information was ignored. Historians in the 1800s wrote of Sacramento s floods, insurrections and plagues stating that the very stars seemed to fight against Sacramento in her infancy, but that the foundation of her latter prosperity was laid upon the ashes of her pioneers (Thompson & West 1880). Nowhere in the Sacramento area could this be truer than in Brighton Township. Abandoned by the end of 1852 due to land trouble including what was termed defective titles, Brighton had a very short first life as a wild and wooly frontier town. The surrounding area, however, continued to grow and farmers and ranchers moved to the highlands to establish what would become, unbeknownst to them, an agricultural legacy. The town was reborn in 1862, and although battered by floods, cholera, and squatter s riots, Brighton would go on to become the agricultural capital of the state. Those early pioneers settled in and, despite hardships, tilled the land, planted the orchards, and produced the crops that would soon become world-renowned.