A Pioneer at Sutter's Fort, 1846-1850; the Adventures of Heinrich Lienhard
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A pioneer at Sutter's fort, 1846-1850; the adventures of Heinrich Lienhard. Translated and edited by Marguerite Eyer Wilbur from the original German manuscript LIENHARD AS A YOUNG MAN. FROM A FAMILY PHOTOGRAPH. Courtesy of Miss Mary Lienhard. This Book is Number Three of the Calafía Series. The legend of Calafía is intimately associated with the nomenclature of California. This fanciful tale occurs in the fifth book of a popular Portuguese-Spanish cycle of the late fifteenth and early sixteenth centuries, a romance in which the knightly and heroic deeds of Prince Esplandian, son of King Amadis, who rallied to the support of the Christian faith when it was threatened by the pagan forces before the walls of Constantinople, are depicted in the elaborate manner of the period. As the battle between the Crescent and the Cross reached its zenith, the opposing armies were thrown into turmoil when Esplandian fell suddenly in love with one of the allies of the pagan King Armato, a beautiful queen who lived on an island called California, “very close to that part of the terrestial paradise, which was inhabited by black women without a single man among them, who lived in the manner of Amazons.” The name of this queen was Calafía. COPYRIGHT 1941 BY MARGUERITE EYER WILBUR PRINTED IN U.S.A. A pioneer at Sutter's fort, 1846-1850; the adventures of Heinrich Lienhard. Translated and edited by Marguerite Eyer Wilbur from the original German manuscript http://www.loc.gov/resource/calbk.078 A PIONEER AT SUTTER's FORT A TYPICAL PAGE FROM LIENHARD's MANUSCRIPT. A Pioneer at Sutter's Fort, 1846-1850 THE ADVENTURES OF HEINRICH LIENHARD NO. 3 OF THE CALAFíA SERIES Translated, Edited, and Annotated by Marguerite Eyer Wilbur From the original German Manuscript THE CALAFíA SOCIETY LOS ANGELES, 1941 i INTRODUCTION The custom's inspector on the Swiss-French border looked at the sturdy young man quizzically. He threw open the lid of his chest, checked a huge sixty-pound cheese, a feather bed, a copper frying pan, two sturdy woolen suits, a neat pile of socks and handkerchiefs, several guns and pistols, then made out the lad's clearance papers. A pioneer at Sutter's fort, 1846-1850; the adventures of Heinrich Lienhard. Translated and edited by Marguerite Eyer Wilbur from the original German manuscript http://www.loc.gov/resource/calbk.078 “Your name?” he inquired. “Heinrich Lienhard.” “Date and place of birth?” “January 19, 1822, Ussbuhl, near Bilten, Canton Glaurus, Switzerland.” “Father's occupation?” “Farmer.” “Destination?” He smiled sympathetically at the eager brown eyes watching him. “America.” Heinrich Lienhard had embarked on the great adventure, one he had dreamed of since childhood. All through the long trip across France by stage to the port of Havre he had ample time to ponder over his past life, dream and plan for the future. As far back as he could recall, life had been dreary on the parental farm. Pleasures had been few and far between. His father had been harsh, stern, and unsympathetic toward him, his sister, and his two brothers. He had been sent out to herd cattle at the age of six. Since then he had known little but work. Brief periods of schooling had been interrupted, time and again, by pressure of work on his father's farm. To wrest a living from a Swiss farm sapped the strength of the Lienhard clan. Yet ownership of the soil was traditional with its men. Bleibe im Lande und naehre dich redlich —remain ii at home and make your living honestly—was the paternal dictum, handed down from father to son. Heinrich's father, like his forebears, had scrimped and saved to buy land, more and more land for his three sturdy sons. His purchases plunged the family into debt; the financial burden weighed A pioneer at Sutter's fort, 1846-1850; the adventures of Heinrich Lienhard. Translated and edited by Marguerite Eyer Wilbur from the original German manuscript http://www.loc.gov/resource/calbk.078 heavily on his honest shoulders, and, as the years passed, he had grown morose, sullen, and bitter. These traits his eldest son inherited and became so taciturn and moody that Heinrich and the younger Lienhard children suffered keenly from the depressing home atmosphere. To the sensitive Heinrich, refuge from the misery this caused him was imperative. Even in childhood he loved the fine things of life—music, art, books, and nature—with an absorbing passion. One of his boyish ambitions was to become an artist and create pictures; a talent for drawing was obvious during his spasmodic periods of schooling, but his father did nothing to foster it and definitely discouraged his youthful aspirations in the realm of art. Reading, writing, and arithmetic—these were ample education for a farmer. A solitary tie, his intense love for his mother and his sympathy for her unhappy life with his stern father, kept him from running away from home. Yet at times he became so despondent that he considered taking his own life, and only visions of the grief and pain his death would cause his delicate mother prevented this drastic act. He found some solace in introspection, in dreaming of what lay beyond the massive peaks of the neighboring Alps. As he grew older fascinating tales of America, the enthralling adventures of trappers, fur traders, and explorers, reached his ears. They gave him a new interest in life. Several cousins, who had crossed the Atlantic and settled in the United States, also wrote glowing accounts of their experiences to relatives in Switzerland. The older he grew the more stories of the New World diverted Heinrich; farm chores seemed trivial by contrast. Night after night as he herded cattle he lay iii on his back on a soft haymound looking up at the starlit sky framed by the sharp outline of the Alps, and dreamed of emigrating to America. These dreams he kept to himself until they became an integral part of his being. One of the happiest memories of his life were his two years of compulsory military training. He made so excellent a record that he was invited to enter an officers' training school; but this much- coveted opportunity was denied him by his father, and he was forced to return home and work. A pioneer at Sutter's fort, 1846-1850; the adventures of Heinrich Lienhard. Translated and edited by Marguerite Eyer Wilbur from the original German manuscript http://www.loc.gov/resource/calbk.078 Then came the great storm of 1841. All over Switzerland houses were shattered, barns destroyed, trees uprooted, farms demolished. Rehabilitating his father's lands afforded Heinrich an invaluable lesson in agriculture. It was followed by his mother's fatal illness; for weeks he nursed her with the utmost tenderness, and was inconsolable when the end came. As he was twenty-one he inherited his share of the maternal estate and by selling some of this property, funds for a journey could be raised. He discussed the matter with his father, but the elder Lienhard bitterly opposed his son's desire to go to America, however, and the young man hesitated to leave without his consent. An uncle interceded in his behalf and the Swiss farmer, after a stormy scene, was finally reconciled to his departure. Heinrich Lienhard sailed for America on the three-masted schooner, Narragansett, from Havre on September 18, 1843. Disembarking at New Orleans, he took a river boat to St. Louis where he sold his feather mattress “without difficulty for five cents at an auction” and started out to look for work. Many Swiss emigrants had settled on fertile farms at Highland, in southern Illinois, a rich dairy country, often called New Helvetia; Lienhard joined them and found employment. The work was hard, the hours long, and the compensation meager; he found the life extremely irksome. In 1845, when he heard that government land was being thrown open to settlers at $1.25 an acre, he traveled up the Mississippi as far as St. Paul, and traded with iv the Indians, while he searched for desirable land to file a claim on, but, much to his disappointment, all the fertile areas were already occupied. Returning to Highland, he secured work with another Swiss farmer, Jacob Schutz, who proved to be a kindly, sympathetic man and his fatherly attitude was one of the few bright spots in Lienhard's early life in Illinois. But farming was not his goal; he wanted to be independent, to be his own master, to make a place for himself in America. Within a few months he moved to St. Louis where he worked in a butcher shop during the day and studied English in the evening; from there he went to Galena, Illinois, where he cut wood, worked in a lead mine, and in a gun factory, for brief periods. Then he felt the magnetic urge to move west. In those days St. Louis was one of the connecting links with the Pacific Coast, and it was there that Lienhard met two old Galena acquaintances, Heinrich Thomen and Jacob Rippstein, who had A pioneer at Sutter's fort, 1846-1850; the adventures of Heinrich Lienhard. Translated and edited by Marguerite Eyer Wilbur from the original German manuscript http://www.loc.gov/resource/calbk.078 just returned from visiting the rich lands of Oregon and California. During a friendly reunion they talked enthusiastically about the famous Swiss emigrant, Captain Sutter, and described the great fort he was building on the fertile banks of the Sacramento River.