(John Sutter) 1803-1880

The man who owned the first goldfields of California died more or less a pauper; few people can have experienced the turn of fortune’s wheel more than John Sutter.

He was born in Germany of Swiss parents, but left his homeland as a result of debts, and wandered round north America (travelling on a French passport) before arriving in California from Russian-owned Alaska in 1839 and taking Mexican citizenship – a necessary condition for being granted land in the then Mexican-owned territory.

He built a settlement and called it New Switzerland. His own compound was known as Sutter’s fort. At first he prospered and New Switzerland was the pole of attraction for most California-bound immigrants at that time.

In 1847, Mexico handed California over to the United States. The following year gold was discovered by Sutter’s workmen near the mill he was having built. Despite Sutter’s attempts to keep the find quiet, word got out and hordes of gold diggers descended on the area to try their luck.

Sutter’s business was ruined as his workers left their jobs to start digging, and incomers flooded in, “some very bad ones among them,” as Sutter put it.

His plight was compounded when squatters challenged his original land grant, and in 1858 the US Supreme Court found in their favour. Sutter moved to Pennsylvania, and spent the rest of his life petitioning for reimbursement of his losses arising from the gold rush. The government was on the point of granting this, when he died, having received nothing.