Folsom's
Unique History
A brief look at Folsom's history might explain some of its success. It seems
there was always something happening in the area, each new decade bringing with
it, new industry, and people to the booming economy.
The Nisenan Maidu
For thousands of years the Nisenan Maidu Indians lived a peaceful hunting and
gathering existence along the Yuba, Consumnes, Mokelumne, Sacramento and Natomon
(American) Rivers. The Nisenan were a southern linguistic group of the Maidu
tribe. The word "Nisenan" (meaning from among us, on our side) was used as a
self-designation by the Maidu who lived near the Yuba and the American Rivers.
The largest group of Maidu lived along the north side of the American River.
Their temporary summer homes were small conical shaped shelters made from thick
rectangular slabs of tree bark. The shelters provided protection against the
long and hot valley summers.
Volimhu, a permanent village, was located about a mile downstream, on the
south side of the American River, where modern Natoma is located. In a permanent
village, a meetinghouse or "Kum" (coom) was usually the center of community
life. The "Kum" was where ceremonies were held and visiting guests were housed.
It was conical and approximately fifty feet across, four feet deep, with a
framework of poles, crossbeams and layers of bark, sticks, twigs and dirt placed
over the framework. The thickness of the walls made it comfortable all year
around.
Food was plentiful for the Nisenan Maidu people. They ate both large and
small game, roots, berries, seeds, salmon and acorns. The women harvested fresh
acorns using long sticks to knock them out of the oak trees, gathering them in
large burden baskets and storing them in granaries until the acorns were needed
for food. To prepare the acorns, the women split the shell off the acorn with an
elongated, cylindrical rock pestle, using the same tool to grind the acorn
kernels into flour. This grinding was done using one of the many holes that had
been worked into a massive slab of bedrock next to the river. You can still see
evidence of their labor in the grinding rocks located below the Folsom Power
House.
Clothing was minimal for the Maidu in the moderate climate of the Sacramento
Valley. In the summer the adults wore shredded grass or tule skirts. During the
winter, they added blankets or capes made of woven rabbit fur for warmth.
Known as excellent basket weavers, the Maidu women gathered tule, milkweed,
sedge grass and wild grape vines to create their baskets. The baskets were used
to gather food, catch fish, cook acorn mush, and carry their babies, and store
tools and supplies.
Maidu communities began disappearing very early in the Gold Rush Era when
many miners arrived and began extensive mining operations along the river bars
and surrounding hills. Peaceful hunting and gathering cultures were almost
immediately overwhelmed as traditional forage areas and ancient milling sites
became the scene of mining and commercial activities.
Folsom prior to the Gold Rush
In 1827, Jedediah Smith led a group of trappers through the area. His search
for a pass over the Sierra Nevada's opened up the land to trappers and traders
drawing the attention of John Sutter and William A. Leidesdorff. In 1842, the
latter was granted 35,000 acres along the American River called "The Rancho Rio
de los Americanos."
Jedediah Strong Smith (1798-1831)
In the fall of 1826, Jedediah Smith and his men arrived at Mission San
Gabriel in Southern California via the Mojave Desert. They were the first group
of American trappers to reach California overland. They were well treated by the
mission padres, but the Mexican governor in San Diego had instructed them to
leave at once by the route they had entered. (They were illegal immigrants!)
Smith was determined to continue his trapping and explorations. He quietly led
his men into the San Joaquin Valley and headed north trapping and taking furs as
they went. His plan was to scout the new territory and then return home via a
mountain route.
April 30, 1827 his small band of men traveled east across the Sacramento
Valley toward the Sierra foothills looking for a place to cross the Sierra
Nevada Mountains. They carried with them skins of beaver and river otter. Along
the banks of the river they saw many Maidu Indian villages.
This marks the beginning of the history of Folsom. He and his men were the
first recorded white people to come here. The spot Smith had chosen for a
campsite was later to become part of the City of Folsom. After their stopover
here, his group journeyed north and east where they joined a traders and
trappers rendezvous in Utah.
Smith, was one of the most exciting and picturesque "mountain men" of the old
west. He was known for his endurance, integrity, and leadership. Smith was tall,
thin man in buckskin, whose brown hair hung long and straight about his ears to
hide scars caused by an encounter with a bear. On one of his earlier
expeditions, a bear attacked his group; Smith was almost scalped tearing one ear
severely. He calmly directed one of his companions to sew up his wounds and
stitch the ear back in place. Despite his thin physique, he was exceptionally
strong. He never wore a beard and was known for his habit of carrying a
well-used Bible with him at all times.
Smith was not all seriousness and often displayed a sense of humor and an
ever-present desire to try new and adventuresome things. When he and his men
were making their way back down the American River from the rendezvous in Utah,
he apparently decided to mark the occasion with special daring. They made a
small craft and rode the last two miles down the river. Spring floods filled the
river to its fullest, and Smith and his men had a wild ride. They passed and
Indian lodge along the way, and they watch as the terror-stricken natives fled
in panic.
Even though he left California soon after this wild ride, Smith had led the
way. Word spread of the excellent fur trapping along California's inland rivers,
and American trappers started appearing in increasing numbers. Smith's
explorations of the far west lasted only nine years, but in that time he covered
between 8,000 and 9,000 miles. Indians near Santa Fe killed him in 1831. Some
writers claim he traveled farther than any other mountain men.
The Sacramento County Historical Society marked Smith's role in the history
of Folsom on April 30, 1960. A bronze marker was dedicated on that day in his
honor at Folsom City Park.
William Alexander Leidesdorff (1810-1848)
IN 1841, the schooner Julie Ann sailed into the San Francisco harbor and
dropped anchor by the village of Yerba Buena. The owner of the Julie Ann was
William Alexander Leidesdorff, who would become one of California's leading
citizens and the owner of the land on which Folsom is now located.
A year earlier he had been a successful trader in New Orleans. Leidesdorff
owned 12 ships and a prosperous business. He was engaged to be married and was
head over heels in love with his fiancée. Then, without warning, he was refused
admission to her home and the engagement ring was returned. Her parents informed
him that she was no longer interested in seeing him. Though there is no proof,
it seems that her proud Creole family had learned his West Indian mother had
Negro and Carib blood in her veins thus making him unacceptable as a son-in-law.
Heartbroken, Leidesdorff sold all his property and ships, and left New
Orleans forever. He sailed the Pacific, trading and moving on, until he arrived
in Yerba Buena. He traded with both the Mexicans and the Russians. By 1844,
trade in wheat, tallow and hides earned him enough money to purchase a lot at
Clay and Kearny Streets. He also had a warehouse built at California and
Leidesdorff Streets.
He became a naturalized Mexican citizen and received a land grant of eight
Spanish leagues, or more than 35,000 acres. The grant, called the Rancho Rio de
los Americanos, began at about the point where Bradshaw Road connects with the
river. A sign was posted there, one side faced west and was lettered Sutter
while the east facing side said Leidesdorff. The grant extended upriver to where
Folsom Prison is today. Two years later Leidesdorff had an adobe home built at
the western end of his property, but he never lived there.
Meanwhile, Leidesdorff's career in San Francisco was spectacular. He became
the contract agent to furnish supplies to the Russians and collect Sutter's
debt. He built the City Hotel, the finest in San Francisco. He was a treasurer
of San Francisco. He served on its first City Council and the first school
Board. He was a close friend of Commodore Robert Stockton and was appointed Vice
Consul by Thomas Larkin.
He brought the first steamboat to San Francisco Bay, the double side-wheeler
SITKK. In 1847, the year after he had the adobe built, he took the SITKK to
Sacramento. Little is recorded about the trip except that he raced an ox cart on
the downstream trip to Benicia and lost.
The plans he had for the Rancho de los Americanos will never be known. On May
18, 1848, as the first reports of rich gold strikes on the banks of the American
River came filtering into San Francisco, William Alexander Leidesdorff died of
pneumonia or typhus (two different accounts list different causes of death).
The Gold Rush (1848-1850)
When gold was discovered in 1848, mining camps sprang
up along the rivers. Folsom might have faded away with the other camps
had it not been for two pivotal events in 1856. First, was the
completion of Joseph Folsom's dream of a "Granite City", surveyed and
laid out by Theodore Judah. Lots were sold and the town was renamed in
honor of Joseph Folsom, who sadly passed away a year earlier.
Joseph Libby Folsom (1817-1855)
Joseph Libby Folsom was born in New Hampshire in 1817 and he was an
1840 graduate of West Point. Captain Folsom, U.S. Army quartermaster
department, arrived in California in 1847 with the Stevenson Regiment.
After the Mexican War, he remained in San Francisco. By 1848, Folsom was
collector of the Port. The following year he became interested in
capitalizing on the future potential of California. He purchased several
lots in San Francisco and became interested in the estate of William A.
Leidesdorff.
In June of 1849, Folsom left San Francisco for the Danish West Indies
to locate Leidesdorff's heirs. There he found Anna Maria Spark, who had
never married Leidesdorff's father, but had been granted an act
legitimizing her children. Folsom contracted with her to purchase title
to Leidesdorff's San Francisco holdings and Rancho Rio de los Americanos
for $75,000 dollars to be paid in three installments. Anna Spark,
knowing nothing of land values in California, was only too happy to
accept Folsom's offer.
When Folsom returned to San Francisco, he found land values to be
skyrocketing, and his newly purchased title to the Leidesdorff estate
already in question. The government was claiming right to the property
purchased by Folsom. The claim was brought because under old Mexican law
foreigners could not inherit property. The dispute was brought to the
courts, where legal entanglements over the conflicts of Mexican,
American and Danish laws kept it for over ten years.
Meanwhile, as the value of his holdings increased, Folsom was faced
with the near-impossible battle to finance his legal defense to their
title. He was forced to borrow repeatedly, sometimes paying interest as
high as 3% per month for short-term notes. His troubles were further
complicated by Anna Spark's refusal to accept the second installment
payment on her son's estate.
By 1855, Folsom's health as well as his cash had begun to give out.
He hired Theodore Judah to survey and lay out a town site near the
mining camp of Negro Bar to be called Granite City. There had been talk
since 1852 of a railroad, the first in the West, to be built from
Sacramento at least as far as Negro Bar. In February 1855, Folsom
accepted the post of president of the fledgling railroad.
Joseph Libby Folsom died at the age of 38 on July 19, 1855, of renal
failure or pneumonia at Mission San Jose. (Different sources give
different causes of his death). Like Leidesdorff, he died too soon to
see the development of Rancho Rio de Los Americans, part of which was to
become the town of Folsom. Only three weeks after Folsom's death, the
first rail was laid on the new Sacramento Valley Railroad; and the first
train completed the trip to Folsom in February 1856. In the same month,
town lots in Granite City, which was renamed Folsom in his honor, were
placed on the auction block, with most of the 2,048 lots sold the first
day.
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