Sacramento River

“ This stampede jaded both horses and cattle more than crossing the sixty-mile desert, hard as that was.
After a day's rest we pulled on and passed through the mining district of Weaver Creek and American River, and reached Sacramento River at Sacramento City, crossed the river on a ferry and camped for the night on the farther bank. No guard out that night—the first in four months—and the boys went up to see the sights of the town. Human tongue can hardly tell the relief I felt when I could lie down and sleep without fear of Indians or wolves or stampedes. ”

“ The country bordering the Upper Sacramento for two hundred miles from the Californian capital is level and comparatively tame, so that no artistic advantage would have resulted from following the bank on horseback. From the little steamer the view became a perpetual pleasure. About twenty miles above Sacramento we passed the mouth of Feather River, disgorging coffee-colored mud from the innumerable gold-diggings along its course, and came into lovely blue water, pure as the cradling snow-ridges between which it issued. ”

“ The city of Sutter is beautifully located on the eastern bank of the Sacramento River, adjoining Sacramento City, and is perhaps the most eligible site for a commercial town in all Northern California. It is situated on the highest and healthiest ground on the whole river, the banks at this point not being subject to the annual overflow. The largest class of steamboats and all vessels navigating the Sacramento River, can lie and discharge their cargoes directly at its banks. ”

“ We saw during this morning some boats with people and some houses empty of people, because at the noise of the launches they cleared out. At six leagues we reached another opening to the starboard, running northeast. Either the latter or the one previously mentioned is that which forms the main Sacramento River. We passed by the latter and kept along the same one we had been navigating. The whole river is made a great grove by the number and luxuriance of the trees, although only with difficulty can one get to shore. ”

“ A few days later they were in the Sacramento Valley camped near the walls of Sutter's Fort. The plain, clad with a drab grass, stretched to where the low-lying Sacramento slipped between oozy banks. Here were the beginnings of a town, shacks and tents dumped down in a helter skelter of slovenly hurry. Beyond, the American river crept from the mountains and threaded the parched land. Between the valley and the white sky-line of the Sierra, the foot hills swelled, indented with ravines and swathed in the matted robe of the chaparral. ”

“ In front, looking down the river, and towards the sunsetting, was the sleepy little village, with its scattering suburbs of tents, peeping out among the hills, and now and then, a heavy baggage-wagon, attended by a party of impatient miners, slowly creeping down the Sacramento road beyond—the river more to the right winding round the rocky island, swarming with men like a great ant-hill—and, far beyond all, and forming a fitting back-ground to the picture, a hill of surpassing beauty, rising in successive terraces, as sharp and regular as if formed by art, to a height of several hundred feet. ”

“ Reaching the overflowed country, I have to take to the trestle-work and begin the tedious process of trundling along that aggravating roadway, where, to the music of rushing waters, I have to step from tie to tie, and bump, bump, bump, my machine along for six weary miles. The Sacramento River is the outlet for the tremendous volumes of water caused every spring by the melting snows on the Sierra Nevada Mountains, and these long stretches of open trestle have been found necessary to allow the water to pass beneath. ”

“ Taking the streams from San Joaquin river north, that come out of the Sierra Nevada, up to the northern end of the valley where the Sacramento river enters it, every important stream comes into the valley within a deep gorge. The beds of several of the northern streams are so filled up with mining debris that diversion from them would be comparatively easy, but in their natural state there is not an important stream north of the San Joaquin which could be utilized for irrigation by any other means than through the agency of capital in large amount. ”

“ The region traversed this afternoon is the mouth of the San Joaquin, and it must be crossed at high tide because it contains a shoal on which boats run aground. The difference noticed between the Sacramento River and the San Joaquin is that the latter carries a smaller volume of water, although in some places it is wider. All that we have passed is nothing but pure tule swamp, without a tree under which the wanderer will find shade or a stick of wood with which to warm himself. ”

“ Ten thousand acres should be acquired on the west side of the Sacramento Valley, near Colusa, and 10,000 Homecroft Reservists located thereon, who would work on a great system to control the flood waters of the Sacramento River, and to save and utilize the silt for fertilization by building a series of large settling basins. ”

“ Nature may be seen in its wildest grandeur where civilization and art have neither added to its usefulness nor retrenched its beauty.
The full distance traveled from Independence, Mo., to the Sacramento River, at Lassen’s Ranch, as kept by me, is as follows:
In May, 73 miles; in June, 429 miles; in July, 436 miles; in August, 471 miles; in September, 523 miles; in October, 198 miles. This makes it 2,130 miles to Sacramento River. ”

“ But in May a Mormon, coming from the settlement of Coloma to San Francisco, walked down the main street waving a bottle filled with gold-dust and shouting "Gold! Gold! Gold from the American River!"
His words, and the sight of the glittering bottle, [183] caused tremendous excitement in San Francisco, and in the twinkling of an eye men took possession of sailboats, sloops, launches, any kind of craft, and started up the Sacramento River. Those who could not get boats to take the quicker course hurried off on horses or mules, in wagons or on foot. ”

“ Then, coming down among the orchards and vineyards, it enters the wide and fertile Sacramento Valley, and almost at sea-level comes to the capital of California, the city of Sacramento, built on the eastern bank of Sacramento River just below the mouth of the American River. It is a busy city with thirty thousand people, and has a large and handsome State Capitol. ”

“ At six o’clock we stopped opposite a slough which is said to lead to the village of the Ylamnes. We went during the entire day no more than four leagues, because the river flows with a strong current. The direction today has been northwest, north, and northeast.25
18th day. After having said Mass, since it was Sunday, we set out in the same direction upstream, northeast. At the end of a league (which cost us much labor to cover on account of the great force of the current) we entered the main Sacramento River which runs from north to south. ”

“ So far as is known, not a white man lived in all California west of the Coast Range and north of Fort Ross.
Here is, generally speaking, a mountainous region heavily timbered along the coast, diversified with river valleys and rolling hills. A marked peculiarity is its sharp slope toward the northwest for its entire length. East of the Coast Range the Sacramento River flows due south, while to the west of the broken mountains all the streams flow northwesterly—more northerly than westerly. ”

“ There was never a snake that could contort himself into so fantastic an outline as presented by that lazily meandering branch of the Sacramento. So crooked is it, that one entertains a constant dread of running ashore; the bank is always dead ahead and unpleasantly near.
This serpentine river traverses a perfectly level plain throughout the navigable part of its course, its banks being flanked by tule beds which extend farther than the eye can see. Indeed, the valley of the San Joaquin is one vast bed of tules, extending fully one hundred and fifty miles. ”

“ The Ne Plus Ultra does its best on comparatively high, well-drained soils, adjacent to the larger streams in the Sacramento Valley, such as the lands along the Sacramento River, Putah Creek, Cache Creek, etc., though it also grows and produces well in the Banning district and in many of the foothill sections where conditions are favorable. ”

“ The natural roads down the valley to Sacramento City became so very soft and muddy that pack mules could not travel them with packs, and provisions were boated up the river as far as possible, and then carried upon the miners’ backs. ”

“ Improvements are constantly being made to the appearance of the city and the comfort of its inhabitants. A levee is in course of construction, which, it is thought, will effectually protect the city from being flooded during the season of the rise of the river. The overland emigration of which Sacramento is the goal, contributes to swell the population rapidly ”

“ From Cow Creek the trappers traveled south along the banks of the Sacramento River to the Sutter Buttes where there was a campsite already well known from previous visits to the region. From the Buttes the men attempted to proceed farther south along the slopes of the Sierra foothills to the eastward but were prevented by torrential rains and high water. ”

“ On either side of the river we beheld range upon range of wooded hills stretching away to the blue haze of the horizon, the rugged wall of the Sierras looming dimly in the far distance. From our point of vantage, we could see the broad vale of the Sacramento to the westward, and, nearer at hand, the foothills intersected by the pleasant valleys with orchards and cultivated fields, dotted here and there with white ranch houses. ”

“ But at that period, a considerable portion of the gold-diggers made Sacramento and the other towns in the neighborhood of the mines, their resort, to escape the severity of spending the season at the open and exposed valleys of the gold region. The city is regularly laid out, but its appearance evidences the rapidity of its erection. The greater number of the houses and stores in the neighborhood of the river are constructed of wood, while the outskirts, particularly upon the south, are occupied by the tents of the constantly-arriving overland emigrants. ”

“ Sacramento City is next in size and importance to San Francisco. Many large commercial houses had there established their headquarters, and imported direct from the Atlantic States. The river is navigable so far by vessels of six or eight hundred tons, and{105} in the early days of California, many ships cleared directly for Sacramento from the different ports on the Atlantic ”

“ There the waters of the San Joaquin will be arrested at Friant, where they would take leave of the mountains, and will be diverted north and south through a system of canals and sold to irrigate more than a million acres of land, some as far as 160 miles away. A cost of refreshing this great expanse of semiarid land is that, except for occasional spills, only a dry river bed will cross the plain below the dam. Here, however, surplus waters from the north are utilized, for through a 150-mile canal Sacramento water is to be pumped to the cultivated lands formerly dependent on the San Joaquin. ”

“ The valley of the Sacramento has many localities of great fertility; but few of them, as yet, have been subjected to the plough and harrow; their adaptation to agriculture is inferred from their vigorous vegetation. The same evidences of productive force cover several tracts north of San Francisco, on the Russian river, and in the vicinity of Sonoma. ”

“ Next morning the river was booming, its surface covered with all sorts of mining outfit such as flume timber, rockers, various qualities of lumber, pieces of trees as well as whole ones, water wheels and other traps. The river between Downieville and here must have been swept clean of all material that would float, including "long Toms." The water continued to rise till it covered the Plaza, and in two days a steamer came up and sailed across the public square. This looked like a wet season to me, and when the boat was ready to go down the river I went on board, bound for Sacramento. ”

“ At ten-thirty o’clock in the morning we left the main stream of the Sacramento, which makes a turn here and runs to the northwest, and took a branch which here cuts off from the big river and runs southward. After having sailed along this branch for five miles, we suddenly came upon a village of the heathen, situated on the east bank of the branch, or slough. All the Indians ran away, hiding themselves in the brush and tule swamps. It was possible to gather up only a few women and children of both sexes and nine buck Indians. ”

“ It only remained to go to bed and sleep which everybody did—while the train sped on across the State of California.
The country between San Francisco and Sacramento is not very hilly. The Central Pacific, taking Sacramento for its starting-point, extends eastward to meet the road from Omaha. The line from San Francisco to Sacramento runs in a north-easterly direction, along the American River, which empties into San Pablo Bay. The one hundred and twenty miles between these cities were accomplished in six hours, and towards midnight, while fast asleep, the travellers passed through Sacramento ”

“ On Pitt River, the principal affluent of the Upper Sacramento, a hill of pure carbonate of magnesia, 100 feet high, has been discovered. Large masses are easily detached, and thousands of wagons could be loaded with very little labor. ”