California Digital Newspaper Collection — Sacramento Daily Union 24 August 1866 — Page 2 Advertisements Column 2

California Digital Newspaper Collection — Sacramento Daily Union 24 August 1866 — Page 2 Advertisements Column 2

dr. henley's ixl bitters - Google Search

dr. henley's ixl bitters - Google Search: "Appendix to the Journals of the Senate and Assembly: Volume 3 - Page 116


 Dr. Henley, of San Francisco, exhibited some fifty cases or more of the preparation invented by him, known as 'Dr. Henley's Wild Grape Boot IXL Bitters, ' compounded from the root of the Oregon wild grape and other ingredients. ...

Report of the California State ... - Google Books

Report of the California State ... - Google Books

A Gold Rush Grouping

From left to right:

Three Line Turner Brothers w/ smooth base

Forest Lawn JVC w/ pontil base

First variant Drakes Plantation without embossing

John T. & William H. Daly New York (Daly's Aromatic Valley Whiskey)

Sutter's Fort

"Riding up to the front gate, I saw two Indian sentinels pacing to and fro before it, and several Americans . . . sitting in the gateway, dressed in buckskin pantaloons and blue sailor shirts, with white stars worked on the collars. I inquired if Captain Sutter was in the fort. A very small man, with a peculiarly sharp red face and most voluble tongue, gave the response. He was probably a corporal. He said, in substance, that perhaps I was not aware of the great changes which had taken place in California, that the fort belonged to the United States, and that Captain Sutter, although he was in the fort, had no control over it."

Thus Edwin Bryant, author of What I Saw in California, learned that a new order was on the land. This was in 1846, just a few days after the Bear Flag Revolt had collapsed at Sonoma.

Inside, Sutter was the unhappy host to a detachment of American soldiers and sailors. He was also in the process of becoming a lieutenant of dragoons at $50 a month with the assignment as second in command of his own fort. In command was Edward M. Kern, 23-year-old topographer for Captain John Fremont's survey party, assigned this new responsibility when Fremont became the kingpin of the revolt.

Both Kern and Sutter were performing another role at that moment, one for which neither had much enthusiasm. When the Bear Flag revolutionists took Sonoma, they captured General Mariano Guadaloupe Vallejo, his brother Salvador, and Victor Prudon. The General's brother-in-law, an American named Jacob Leese, had accompanied them to Sutter's Fort as interpreter-and somehow became the fourth prisoner by the time the party arrived.

The situation was especially uncomfortable for John Sutter. The Vallejos were his friends, even though in recent years they had become suspicious of the military nature of his fort. To them, and especially to Governor Juan Bautista Alvarado, Vallejo's nephew, Sutter owed much of his success.

It was in 1839 that John Sutter arrived in California, armed with a carpetbag full of letters of introduction and the hint that he was a former captain in the French Army. Actually he was a bankrupt shopkeeper who had outrun his European creditors four years previously. The letters he carried had been obtained through his smooth talking meetings with government and commercial leaders-all based upon an initial few letters that he was able to parlay into many.

The Sutter self-confidence and his credentials combined to open the official doors when be arrived in California. He presented to Governor Alvarado a plan to establish a colony in the interior of the state, and asked for permission and land. Alvarado saw several advantages to the proposal. The settlement would push the frontier and authority of the government much deeper inland; an additional barrier would be placed to the incursions of Americans from the east, British from the north, and Russians from the northwest. And a presence inland might divert some Indian raids away from the coastline!

As Sutter said later, "I got a general passport for my small colony and permission to select a territory wherever I could find it convenient, and to come in one year's time to Monterey to get my citizenship and title of the land."

Sutter took his party up the Sacramento river and located his fort site after several mosquito ridden, Indian-surrounded camps. He was able to explain his mission in Spanish to at least one spokesman for each tribe he encountered. His offer of friendship and future hospitality silenced all Indian opposition.

By mid-August, 1839, the Sutter party was ashore with its supplies and equipment. As his ships turned to return to San Francisco, Sutter had his tiny brass cannon fire a nine-gun salute, the first cannon fire beard in the Sacramento Valley and a thing of amazement to both the Indians and animals crowding close to the camp.

With a few Spanish words and the offer of beads, cloth, and other trade goods, Sutter was able to arrange for Indian labor. The Hawaiians in his original party set up two thatched huts for the oncoming winter, but Sutter saw to it that a solid, one-story adobe rancho was built for him. Adobe making continued as Sutter gathered around him everyone who was willing to stay. Within a year he had "about 20 white men working for me in addition to a large number of Indians," be estimated. The white men were mostly drifters, deserters and vagabonds whom Sutter said he kept in line "because I gave them nothing to drink but water."

The Indians were controlled with ruthless but fair methods although on one occasion he nipped a mutiny at the last moment by attacking the plotters' camp, killing six. He gave the Indians at least token payment for their work, usually beads or credit to buy items in his store. His pride was a mounted guard of 12 to 15 braves under "the command of a very intelligent sergeant." Sutter outfitted them in "blue drill pantaloons, white cotton shirts, and real handkerchiefs tied around their heads."

These personal bodyguards were quartered near Sutter's bedroom, had special privileges, maintained a semblance of military atmosphere at the post, and were turned out to drill every Sunday and whenever there were visitors worthy of impressing.

A year after his arrival, Sutter was granted Mexican citizenship and, with it, title to his lands. A week later he was also appointed the official representative of the government in the Sacramento River region. This made him the interpreter and enforcer of law in a vast area and, as be said, "From that time on I had the power of life and death over both Indians and whites in my district."

With his ownership of the land confirmed, Sutter then "built a large house near the first adobe building," he wrote later. "This I surrounded with walls 18 feet high, enclosing altogether 75,000 square feet. The walls were made of adobe bricks and were two and a half feet thick. At two corners I built bastions; under these bastions were the prisons . . ."

After Sutter bought Fort Ross in 1841, his headquarters began to assume an especially military appearance, complete with bristling guns and the designation of "fort." The Mexicans began to lose faith in Sutter. By boasting of his Indian army, his ammunition stock that at times exceeded more "than the whole California government possessed," and his 10 mounted cannon and two field pieces, Sutter aggravated the government.

Sutter's activities were wide-ranging. He started most of his enterprises on credit, winning confidence and support by maintaining friendships with the authorities and actively assisting his newly adopted country. His fictitious captaincy became official when the Mexican government commissioned him to recruit a militia force to oppose the 1844 insurrection. He served in the field with his command, but ended his active military career as a prisoner.

By 1846, his worries had shifted to meeting the demands of creditors. He had patched up most of the political rivalries so it was ironic when Vallejo, with whom he had frequently disagreed, became his prisoner.

"I placed my best rooms at their disposal and treated them with every consideration," he wrote later. "The gentlemen took their meals at my table and walked with me in the evening. Never did I place a guard before the door of the room . . ."

When Fremont heard about the liberal treatment of the prisoners, be ordered that Sutter's assistant, John Bidwell, take charge of them. A future governor of California, Bidwell was Sutter's trusted foreman and had served with Fremont. His treatment of the prisoners was just as liberal until they were finally released upon the direct orders of Commodore Stockton in August 1846.

By this time the American flag was flying over Sutter's post, Kern in nominal command, 30 men from Company C, New York Volunteers, in garrison, and Sutter's power in an eclipse. The deluge of more emigrants and mustered-out soldiers presented him with a squatter problem bard to fight. His cattle began to disappear for the same reason.

Then came the discovery of gold at his saw mill. Overnight, his agricultural and trading enterprises collapsed, especially when the new and more convenient town of Sacramento diverted settlement and business. By 1849, Sutter lost ownership of his fort. Within 10 years, little more than the central building was left of what once bad been described as "the largest and best fortified fort in California."

By the mid 1880s, a interest in restoring the once grand Fort began and by 1891 had become reality. Funding from the Native Sons Of The Golden West started the effort and various moneys kept it going until the work was completed in 1898. This restoration resulted in the Fort we have today, since 1947 a proud part of the California State Parks system.

The "Fort Sutter, 1849, lithograph was one of many that were issued in John M. Lett's A Pictorial View of California, which claimed to have "Information and Advice Interesting To All, Particularly Those Who Intend To Visit The Golden Region." The artist, G.V. Cooper, was a painter, cameo cutter and sculptor who went to California with Letts in 1849, making sketches of many of the major sites. These prints provided some of the earliest accurate, first-hand images that those on the East Coast would have had of California during the Gold Rush, and they wonderfully capture this brief yet seminal moment in American history. Some of the prints are of the larger settlements in California, but most are scenes of the gold camps and of prospectors at work. The lithographs were drawn by J. Cameron, better known for his work with Currier & Ives, and Brown & Severin. Given their immediacy and accuracy these are historical artifacts of some note.

Sacramento 1849

In the Spring of 1849, Bayard Taylor was in California as a correspondent for Horace Greeley's New York Tribune. He sketched the new community of Sacramento City before any brick buildings were constructed and the site was merely a collection of frame buildings along the river front. In less than two years, the burgeoning city would stretch outward from the Sacramento River to a point some two miles east. Centrally located, the city soon became a hub of activity, with a developed waterfront, and steam and sail boats loaded with commerce bringing needed supplies to the city's merchants, as well as to those of the mining camps to the east. California received statehood the following year and Sacramento became the official State Capitol in 1854. The rest, as they say, is history.

Forest City Pack Mules

Bill Liddle, Kate the Mule and Alcalde John Spruce

In Sierra County are still to be found – though not on the main traveled routes – a few of those terrifying mountain roads on one side of which rises a perpendicular wall of stone while on the other yawns a precipitous, sheer descent of perhaps a thousand feet. On one of these that which leads to Forest City, I believe, the classic episode of Bill Liddle, Kate the Mule and Alcalde John Spruce occurred.

Bill Liddle drove a pack train of eight large American mules, and the leader was Kate, an animal of such extraordinary intelligence that Bill used to talk to her as he did to humans. He believed her to be the reincarnation of that wild and invincible women, Catherine the Great.

In the spring Bill drove his pack train, heavily loaded and led by Kate, up a mountain trail barely broad enough for the animals with their wide overhang. He rode, as usual, at the end. They had proceeded about a quarter of a mile when a loud, warning bray from Kate caused him to look up, and he perceived that the road was disputed by another and larger pack train bound in the opposite direction. Bill shouted to the driver to stop, which he did.

“Ye’ll have to unload and turn ‘round,” yelled the other driver. “It’s two miles back t’other end and ye’ve only a few hundred yards.”
“That’s true.” Said Bill, who recognized the justice of this argument. “But I cain’t do it, stranger. Them animiles o” mine is loaded to heavy to turn and there ain’t no room to unload. I’m downright sorry, stranger, but ye’ll have to unload yer own and turn back.”
“I’ll be damned if I do,” said the second driver. “I’m too infernal tired to unload, and I’m two thirds of the way or more. Look out fer yerself, stranger. I’m a-goin’ through!”
He cracked a whip over his leader. “Giddap, yo’ mule,” he yelled. “An’ keep the inside. It’s your’n. Crowd ‘em off if they won’t give over.”
His leader hesitated, but under a furious cursing and lashing finally advanced. Kate, however, was not to be crowded into the abyss. Leaning close to the wall she fell on her knees, and the other mule, trying to struggle past her, was forced over the edge.

“Stand fast, Kate! That’s the girl!” Bill cried admiringly. The other driver cracked his whip and bellowed, trying to stampede his pack into the kneeling mule, which, with her broad, heavy pack, made an insurmountable obstacle. Four times more he drove his mules against her, and four additional animals from his train went hurtling over the edge. Then he gave in. “all right, I’ll unpack,” he said with an oath. “I’ll go back. But when we get of this damned trail, you and me’ll settle things.”
“I’m willing,” Bill said quietly.

So the lighter packed, smaller mules were unloaded, and the second train faced about, followed by Kate and Bill. At the end of the narrow ledge Bill, who had examined his revolver and bowie knife en route and found them ready for business, announced that he was willing to settle matters in any fashion that suited his opponent. But the latter, after sizing Bill up, suggested that they submit their differences to the nearest Alcalde. Bill agreed, and they rode on, amiably conversing while their mules grazed contentedly in a mountain meadow
Alcalde John Spruce was a rather famous lawgiver in these parts. He had been for some years on the Sacramento River, where legends of his homespun and direct justice still lingered. And at present he was sinking a shaft on his claim near the Meyer’s store. The two men found the shaft after some difficulty and hallooed to the Alcalde.
“Hey, come up, yer ‘onner,” Bill yelled down the shaft. He could just make out the old man working furiously, filling a bucket attached to a windlass which his partner would presently haul to the surface and empty before letting down again.
“I hain’t got time, boys.” Said Alcalde Spruce. “Besides, there ain’t no call to do it. This yere’s just as good as any place. You lay down on yer bellies and I’ll set yere on my bucket while ye state yer case.”
“Joe!” he shouted to his partner. “Go an’ git my Bible and give these fellers the oath.”

So Liddle and the other driver “kissed the book” and lay, face downward, shouting the details of their case to “The Court.” The other man spoke first. He declared that Bill had declined to “give over,” though he (the plaintiff) was “all but a step of the way” and Bill was “jest startin’.” He asked damages of six hundred dollars- a hundred for each mule forced over the cliff and an extra hundred for the five pack saddles.

It looked like a winning argument until Bill explained the situation. The Alcalde nodded and spat. “I know that cussed road,” he said. “I know it well. I find fer the defendant and dismiss the case. You,” he pointed at the plaintiff, “lost yer mules on account of yer own pig-headedness. I fine ye the costs, which is an ounce of gold dust. Ye can weigh it out an’ leave it as ye pass by Meyer’s store.”

He rose and began to fill his bucket, while the two litigant’s proceeded to Meyer’s. There the plaintiff left an ounce of dust for the court; and the defendant, after standing the drinks, bought a bottle of Meyer’s best whiskey for the Alcalde. Then the two drivers rejoined their mules, shook hands, and went their ways.