Haunted Sacramento: The Ghosts and Spirits of Sac-town

Introduction

Sacramento is a city built on broken dreams, a small metropolis spawned from a slew of crudely-pitched tents and decrepit wooden shacks that sprang up along the banks of the Sacramento and American rivers. A city that in some respects, was never meant to be a permanent settlement at all. The watershed event that arguably established the state of California ironically proved the ruination of the three men responsible for the phenomenon that brought hundreds of thousands to seek their fortunes in the stream beds, hills and fields of the Sacramento Valley and beyond. John Sutter, the Swiss-German immigrant who was looking forward to decades of prosperity on his land grant from the Mexican government, finally lost the battle to keep the hordes of fortune-seekers from overrunning and plundering his estate. Towards the end of his life, a despondent Sutter noted in his autobiography, “Without the discovery of gold, I would now be the richest man on the shores of the Pacific. (Gudde: 231).” James Marshall, the carpenter who noticed the first few chunks of a shiny yellow metal at Sutter’s sawmill in Coloma in 1848, also died destitute. For the remainder of his days, he was frequently hounded by greedy individuals who were certain that he still had a nose for sniffing out a fortune. Merchant Sam Brannan saw a golden opportunity, and marched up and down San Francisco’s Market Street with a bottle of water swirling with yellow flakes. “Gold! Gold! Gold from the American River!” he proclaimed. A shrewd if not scrupulous businessman, Brannan began selling shovels and similar accoutrements to would-be prospectors, at ten to 15 times the normal value of the items. Although he did strike it rich peddling to panhandlers, in the end a bitter divorce and numerous other ill-fated legal proceedings left him penniless, as well.