Hands On History event to highlight area’s agricultural history

In a tribute to the area’s past, an educational Hands on History event, called “Harvest: The Real Gold in California ,” will be held at Sutter’s Fort on Sept. 17.

The event, which will be open to the public from 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. , features docents in period clothing demonstrating historical farming implements and techniques and sharing insights into the lives of pioneers who developed the rich agricultural heritage of the Sacramento Valley .

The Hands on History event, “Harvest: The Real Gold in California,” will be held at Sutter’s Fort on Sept. 17. The event will include many artisans demonstrating historical techniques of making tools. / Photo courtesy, Sutter’s Fort SHP

Guests of the event will have the opportunity to participate in many hands-on activities, including grain grinding, corn husking and other agricultural endeavors.

The event will also include sheep and goat petting, goat milking and many artisans demonstrating historical techniques of making tools and how they were used in the 19th century, including a blacksmith showing many different types of horseshoes of the era.

Woodland resident Mike Carson, a professional blacksmith, commented regarding the opportunity that the public will have to view demonstrations of the many types of tools that were made at the fort forge.

“We’ll be showing examples of horse and oxen shoes, scythes and sickles and all the other iron and steel implements,” Carson said. “Come in and see what a denglestock is.”

Carson and a variety of experts in other fields will be available at the event to answer technical questions about the manufacturing aspects of 19^th century California .

In describing Captain John Sutter’s August 1839 landing on the American River , William Heath Davis, who was the guide who brought Sutter into the Sacramento Valley , noted “it was the first echo of civilization in the primitive wilderness so soon to become populated and developed into a great agricultural and commercial center.”

Steve Beck, Hands on History program lead, said that there is often a misconception about California ’s early agricultural history.

“Few people are aware of the great diversity of agricultural production that was taking place before the Gold Rush,” Beck said. “It’s often believed that the hide and tallow trade was California ’s only agricultural industry. And while Sutter did own over 10,000 cows, 15,000 sheep and 2,500 horses, he was also harvesting thousands of bushels of wheat and peas and growing a wide variety of fruits and vegetables. Sutter’s farm extended from the American River to the Feather River and included grapes and citrus trees and he even developed a peach that commercially bore his name.”

Beck added that many of the earliest visitors to the fort later commented on the unique agricultural methods that were used by Sutter in adapting his farming techniques to the wilderness environment.

Heinrich Lienhard, Sutter’s Swiss gardener, recorded in his book, “A Pioneer at Sutter’s Fort: 1848-1850,” the unique way in which wheat was threshed at the fort.

“[Unlike other places] here a number of wild horses were brought in and driven into a corral in which the grain had been placed and a thick layer of sheaves spread out on the hard ground. Indians armed with flails were stationed nearby, and more natives formed a circle outside. When they yelled at the top of their lungs, the bewildered horses began to gallop, and as the shrieks increased, the animals ran at top speed around the corral. After these wheat stocks have been thoroughly threshed, the horses were stopped, the straw and grain removed, another layer placed in the enclosure; and the race began again.”

Lienhard added that manure was naturally mixed with the wheat, but “this as well as any foreign matter could be removed by a strong wind.”

Beck said that this process was called winnowing and mentioned that although the event will not include wild horses, there will be actual flails available for guests to view.

Later in John Sutter’s life in California , he sought refuge from the madness of the Gold Rush by retreating into the agricultural world of his plantation on the Feather River known as Hock Farm.

While gold fever gripped much of the rest of California , Sutter found solace in his devotion to the fertile soil.

A docent in period clothing provides details regarding 19th century California at Sutter’s Fort. The Sept. 17 event will also include such docents, hands-on activities and other attractions. / Photo courtesy, Sutter’s Fort SHP

In 1939, Sutter’s biographer, Peter Zollinger, wrote: “Sutter became the pioneer of California ’s fruit industry. As he had proved to the skeptical Mexicans that it was possible to live in the interior and grow wheat there, so now he took singular pride in demonstrating to a gold-crazed world that, with proper care, it was possible to grow almost every species of fruit and vegetable. He laid out a large-scale, experimental plantation and had seeds and cuttings, particularly fruit and vine cuttings, sent him, irrespective of cost, from all over the world.”

Continuing, Zollinger described the beauty of Sutter’s Hock Farm.

“The English garden between the residence and the river was lush with a rich variety of green shrubs and flower borders,” Zollinger wrote. “Farthest up the river was the famous peach orchard, Sutter’s pride, covering three acres and inspiring the improvident, old lover of things good and beautiful to talk of planting another 20,000 young trees. On the south side of the houses there was an avenue of vigorously growing peach trees, 300 yards in length, dividing the acres of vineyard to the right from the strawberry to the left. Two entire acres of gardens were given over to every kind of rose, which it had been possible to obtain.”

Beck said that Hock Farm would have been paradise had Sutter not had to worry about the hordes of gold seekers trampling across his beautiful lands.

And in encouraging the public to attend the Sept. 17 event, Beck added that visitors are invited to enjoy an educational and entertaining day at Sutter’s Fort.

“Please visit us for a day of fun, historical hands-on activities and an educational experience that will transport you back to 19th century California,” Beck said.

Admission for this event is $6/adults, $4/youth, 6 to 17 years old and free/5 years old and younger.

For additional information regarding this event, call (916) 445-4422 or visit www.parks.ca.gov/suttersfort.

editor 1 September 2011 Inside Our Newspapers agriculture, California, events, Lance Armstrong, Lance Armstrong writer, Lance Armstrong's History Features, Mike Carson, Peter Zollinger, Steve Beck, Sutter's Fort, William Heath Davis No Comments

Traders’ Fair highlights Sutter’s Fort’s past as ‘California’s first mall’

Sutter’s Fort, which has a long tradition of interpreting history from 1839 to the early days of the Gold Rush, will be holding a special, family-oriented event on April 15-17. The California State Indian Museum is also participating in the event through its own crafts fair.

Traders’ Faire guests can purchase replica 19th century cultural items and curiosities, Native American goods and other items sold by vendors from throughout the western United States. / Photo courtesy, Sutter’s Fort State Historic Park

Visitors of the fort during this particular weekend will be able to step back in time to observe and participate in a Traders’ Faire through free, hands-on activities led by costumed docents. The free activities of this all-ages event include making bead necklaces, corn husk dolls and hanks of rope and hammering square nails.

Guests will also have the opportunity to observe musket demonstrations and purchase a wide variety of replica 19th century cultural items and curiosities sold by vendors from throughout the western United States. The items for sale include clothing, toys, Native American goods, house wares and beads.

The Traders’ Faire has become an anticipated annual event at the fort, since Sutter’s Fort docents Yvonne and Ken Falletti founded the faire in 1992 for the purpose of introducing people in the Sacramento area to the type of craftsmen usually only seen at esoteric events such as at mountain men rendezvous.

Steve Beck, historic guide and lead to hands-on activities at Sutter’s Fort, emphasized that one of the things that makes the Traders’ Faire so interesting is that it highlights the fort’s past as “California’s first mall.”

“While most of us know that Sutter’s Fort was the beginning of Sacramento, few of us know of the importance the fort served as a commercial center in the early days of the Gold Rush,” Beck said. “It was the only trading center on the way to the goldfields and thousands of Argonauts passed through the fort to purchase supplies from a variety of vendors hawking a plethora of goods, thus making the fort California’s first shopping mall.”

The central building at Sutter’s Fort once housed a hotel and a 24 hours per day bar and gambling parlor. / Valley Community Newspapers photo, Lance Armstrong

Beck’s description of Sutter’s Fort is undoubtedly accurate, as the Second College Edition of the American Heritage Dictionary defines a mall as a “complex of buildings containing various shops, businesses and restaurants usually accessible by common passageways.”

Originally, the fort was filled with Captain John A. Sutter’s manufactories, which churned out the implements of his agricultural empire and supplied the bare essentials of the community of New Helvetia (New Switzerland), which was what Sutter named his Mexican land grant.

But with the discovery of gold at Sutter’s Mill at Coloma by James Marshall on Jan. 24, 1848, Sutter’s world was turned upside down.

As documented in James Peter Zollinger’s book, “Sutter: The Man and His Empire,” the beginning of this “mall” in July 1848 was “dramatic and radical.”

Zollinger wrote: “First, all hands struck for higher wages, but soon no wages were enough to tie a man to his post….The hatters, coopers, carpenters, the blacksmiths and gunsmiths, the clerks and cartwrights, saddlers and shoemakers, the ship builders and supervisors – all were gone like water through a sieve.”

Zollinger added that the fort “degenerated into a wayside station for transient miners and a trading post for miners’ supplies.”

Further describing this “mall,” which was in operation for about one year, as Sutter’s Fort’s shifted from a center of bustling commercial activity to a footnote on the frontier, Zollinger wrote: “A score of merchants operated at the fort, paying $100 rent a month for a single room. (The two-story central building) was turned into a hotel with a monthly rent of $500 for the entire hotel paid to Sutter.”

In his 1872 narrative, William Grimshaw, who worked as a clerk in one of the stores at the fort, reported that staying in the hotel cost an individual $40 per week and meals were $2 each.

Merchants at the fort included: Brannan and Co. general store, Hensley, Reading and Co. hardware store, Priest, Lee and Co. mining equipment, Peter Burnett, lawyer and real estate firm, Joseph Wadleigh, tinsmith, restaurants, drinking establishments and even a newspaper, the Placer Times.

The basement of the central building was turned into a bar and gambling parlor. And Grimshaw reported in his narrative that “this bar was crowded with customers, night and day, and never closed from one month’s end to the other.”

In addition to its high prices for boarding and meals, the fort was also a place where one could purchase many items and services at inflated Gold Rush era prices.

The 19th annual Traders’ Fair will be held at Sutter’s Fort on April 15-17. The event also includes a crafts fair at the neighboring California State Indian Museum. / Valley Community Newspapers photo, Lance Armstrong

Included among these prices were: 20 pounds of saleratus (baking soda) for $400, Boston crackers for $16 per tin, a pick or a shovel for $16 and $64 for a horse or mule to be “shod all around” or in other words, have horseshoes placed on all four hooves of a horse or mule.

In addition to commenting about the inflated prices for merchandise and services at the fort during this era, Grimshaw noted that a blacksmith’s assistant at the fort was earning $16 per day – compared to a wage of $10 per month for labor performed in the same position prior to the Gold Rush.

For those who decide to attend any of the three days of the Traders’ Faire at Sutter’s Fort, Beck will be available to answer history-related questions and he said that he promises “prices will be less than what Gold Rush patrons paid.”

Daily admission for this event, which will be held each day from 10 a.m. to 5 p.m., will be $7/adults, $5/ages 6-17 and free/children, 5 years old and younger. Admission prices for the event include entry to both Sutter’s Fort at 2701 L St. and the California State Indian Museum at 2618 K St.

For more information regarding this event, visit the Web site www.parks.ca.gov/suttersfort or call Sutter’s Fort at (916) 445-4422 or the Indian Museum at (916) 324-0971.

lance@valcomnews.com