[AUTOGRAPH LETTER, SIGNED, FROM CENTRAL GOLD RUSH FIGURE AND CALIFORNIA PIONEER JOHANN (JOHN) AUGUSTUS SUTTER TO COMMERCIAL MERCHANTS, SIMMONS HUTCHINSON & CO., INTRODUCING MAJOR LANSFORD HASTINGS AND AUTHORIZING HIM TO PURCHASE FURNITURE FROM THEM ON SUTTER'S ACCOUNT]

San Francisco, January 7, 1850 [corrected by Sutter after initially writing the year as “1849”].. [1]p. on a quarto sheet. Old folds and wrinkles. Three small holes in right edge of sheet, not affecting text; mostly-closed tear in upper left edge of sheet, not affecting text. Very good overall. A brief but compelling John A. Sutter letter, uniting Sutter with one of the most famous (and criticized) of western guides, Lansford Hastings. Best known for his EMIGRANTS GUIDE TO OREGON AND CALIFORNIA, first published in 1845, Hastings' guide achieved infamy for being the one used by the ill-fated Donner Party, which inadvisably took Hastings' "cutoff" route to California. Sutter delivered crucial goods and assistance to the stranded Donner Party in the winter of 1846- 47, helping to relieve their suffering.

It was not only the tragedy of the Donner Party that united Sutter and Hastings. The two were involved in mutually-beneficial promotion of immigration to California for several years, and when Hastings visited Sutter in 1845, he brought a few copies of his newly-published EMIGRANTS GUIDE. When Sutter decided to build a settlement on a bluff overlooking the Sacramento River, to be called Sutterville, Hastings and fellow California pioneer, John Bidwell, laid out the town and both received a share of the town lots from Sutter. Not long after, Sutter and Hastings partnered in a mercantile business in Coloma, and the two were delegates from Sacramento to the California Constitutional Convention in late 1849.

"Captain" John A. Sutter was born Johann Augustus Sutter in 1803 in Baden, Germany, of Swiss parents. Early in life he worked in a printing, publishing, and bookselling firm in Basel, before marrying in 1826 and opening his own dry goods and drapery store. He also served in the Berne militia for a time. When his business failed he emigrated to the United States, arriving in New York in 1834, and then travelled to the German colony at St. Louis. He became involved in the Santa Fe trade (making two journeys to the Southwest himself) before setting out for California (via Hawaii and Alaska), where he arrived in 1839. Sutter ingratiated himself with the various political leaders of California, and was granted by the Mexican government an estate of nearly 50,000 acres at the confluence of the Sacramento and American rivers. His land was meant to be an outpost guarding the frontier of Alta California against incursions by Indians and Russian fur traders. Sutter named the region "Nueva Helvetia" (New Switzerland), later commonly called "New Helvetia," and presided over the region as nearly an absolute ruler. Sutter constructed a strong fort, worked the land with the labor of some one thousand Indians, and began cultivating the region, also building a mill, raising cattle, and offering help to immigrants to the region.

From the early 1840s, Sutter had to defend his land against fur traders, hostile Indians, and squatters. Paradoxically, the situation only worsened when Sutter's millwright, James Marshall, discovered gold at Sutter's Mill on January 24, 1848. Soon Sutter's land was overrun by squatters and gold seekers who killed his cattle and used his crops. After California joined the United States in 1850, Sutter served in a variety of state and federal political positions, but he continued to suffer financial setbacks. From 1864 to 1878 he received a monthly $250 stipend from the state, but died destitute in 1880.

In this letter to Sacramento commission merchants, Simmons Hutchinston & Co., Sutter writes, in full: "Messrs Simons [i.e. Simmons] Hutchisson [i.e. Hutchinson] & Co, Gentlemen Allow me to introduce to your acquaintance Major Hastings the bearer of this, the Major wish [sic] to get some furniture for a few hundred Dollars worth. Please to let him have it and charge the same to my account. By so doing you will oblige me very much." The letter is signed "J.A. Sutter," with Sutter's characteristic pen flourish below and surrounding his signature. It is dated at San Francisco January 7th, 1850. Sutter (making the common mistake of mis-dating the year at the beginning of a new year) had originally dated the letter 1849, but has corrected the "4" to a "5", and has overwritten the circle in the "9" to emphasize that it is a zero, thus correcting the error of 1849 and making the date 1850.

Lansford Hastings (1819-70), an Ohio-born lawyer, first led a westward overland expedition in 1842, to Oregon. He went to California, still under Mexican control, for the first time in 1843, and harbored some ambition to bring it under American control through his own leadership. An early promoter of emigration to California, his propagandistic work played on the hopes and ambitions of emigrants, who were lured by the promise of "as much land as you want" in California. Seeking to deflect emigrants from Oregon to California, he proposed a "cutoff" route, of which he had heard from Fremont but had not travelled himself. The first edition of Hastings' EMIGRANTS GUIDE TO OREGON AND CALIFORNIA was published in 1845, and many emigrant groups followed his route, the Donner Party experiencing the most tragic results. Hastings later served as an agent for Mormon businesses, and took part in California's 1849 Constitutional Convention (at which Sutter was also a delegate). Later, he moved to Arizona, practiced law, and during the Civil War advocated for the Confederacy, eventually looking for a place in Mexico or Brazil where unreconstructed southerners could settle. At the time Sutter wrote this letter, Hastings was involved with Sam Brannan in planning a Mormon colony on the shores of Suisun Bay. The furniture he was seeking to acquire from Simmons & Hutchinson was almost certainly for the adobe home Hastings was building in Solano County, which still stands today and is one of the oldest buildings in the county.

Simmons, Hutchinson & Company was a California firm involved in a variety of ventures early in the Gold Rush, including banking, mercantile commissions, real estate, and steamboat transportation on the Sacramento River. Bezer Simmons (who was partnered with Titus Hutchinson, Jr.) was brother-in-law to Montana and California pioneer, Frederick Billings, and also heavily involved in Sacramento real estate. The firm was only in business from 1849 to 1850, folding in September of that year, shortly before the death of Bezer Simmons, reinforcing our dating of this letter.

Sutter letters, especially from such an early point in the Gold Rush, are quite uncommon in the market. The fact that the present letter connects Sutter to as important a Gold Rush figure as Lansford Hastings makes it very desirable. Albert L. Hurtado, JOHN SUTTER A LIFE ON THE NORTH AMERICAN FRONTIER, (Norman, Ok., 2006), pp.166, 175, 240, 258. Robin W. Winks, FREDERICK BILLINGS A LIFE (Berkeley, 1991), pp.37-38. Thomas F. Andrews, "The Ambitions of Lansford W. Hastings: A Study in Western Myth-Making" in PACIFIC HISTORICAL REVIEW, Volume 39, No. 4 (November 1970), p.490.