Sutter's fort settlement, Captain John Sutter, an immigrant from Switzerland,was born on February 15 of 1803 in Kandern, Baden, a few miles from the Swiss border. As an apprentice to a firm of printers and booksellers, Sutter found the paper business was not for him.
He met his future wife, Annette D'beld, while clerking in a draper's shop, and the two were married in Burgdorf on October 24 of 1826.
Business failures prompted Sutter's decision to seek his fortune in America. At the age of thirty-one, he left his wife and four children in Germany and started his long trip. After arriving in America, Sutter headed west for Missouri where he worked as a merchant and innkeeper for several years. All the while he dreamed of establishing his own agricultural empire somewhere out west. In April of 1838, he joined a trapping party on their way to the Pacific Coast. The traders reached Fort Vancouver in October, the Pacific headquarters of the Hudson's Bay Company. Unable to leave for California immediately, Sutter sailed on the ship "Columbia" for the Sandwich Islands, where he landed at Honolulu on December 9 of 1838.
While in Hawaii, Sutter presented himself as a successful former Captain in the Swiss Guards. Even though he was broke, Sutter became very popular with some influential Hawaiian business people. Sutter interested them in his project to establish a mercantile base in the Sacramento valley. Before leaving Honolulu in April of 1839, Sutter had borrowed supplies, money and had made a contract to take nine Hawaiians with him to California. He sailed to California by way of Sitka, Alaska.
At Monterey in 1839, Sutter met with Governor Alvarado to discuss the possibility of establishing himself in the country. In reach of his dream, Sutter then chartered the schooner "Isabella" from the firm of Spear and Hinckley, and two smaller vessels. Loaded with provisions he had bought on credit, Sutter led his fleet up the Sacramento River on August 1 of 1839.
