In a revolution every man thins he has done all. Human history, in California, begins with the indigenous Americans first arriving in California some 16,500 years ago. Exploration and settlement by Europeans along the coasts and the inland valleys began in the 16^th century.  The remains of Arlington Springs Man, on the Santa Rosa Island, are among the traces of a very early habitation, dated to the Wisconsin glaciation (the most recent ice age) about 13,000 years ago. In all, some 30 tribes or culture groups lives in what is not California, gathered into perhaps six different language family groups. These groups included the early-arriving Hokan family (winding up in the mountains far north and Colorado River basin in the south) and the recently arrived Uto-Aztecan of the desert southeast. The cultural diversity was among the densest in North America and was likely the result of a series of migrations and invasions during the last 10,000 to 15,000 years. While expanding through natural increase, the colonial population also received waves of new immigrants. They were not English, however. The last sizable group of settlers from England had arrived at the end of the seventeenth century. The eighteenth-century newcomers, who far outnumbered those emigrating before 1700, came overwhelmingly from Germany, Switzerland, Ireland, and Africa, and they were mostly indentured servants and slaves. Africans, who numbered about 15,000 in 1690, grew to 80,000 in 1730 and 325,000 in 1760.

By the last date, when they composed one-fifth of the colonial population, their numbers were growing far more from natural increase then from importation. Of all the groups arriving, in the eighteenth century, the Africans were the largest. At the time of the first European contact, Native American tribes included the Chumash, Maidu, Miwok Modoc, Mohave, Ohlone, Pomo, Serrano, Shasta, Tataviam, Tongva, Wintu, and Yurok. Tirbes adapted to California’s many climates. Costal tribes were a major source of trading beads, produced from mussel shells, using stone tools. Tribes in the Central Valley and surrounding foothills developed an early agriculture, buring the grasslands to encourage growth of edible wild planets, especially oak trees. The acorns from these trees were pounded into a powder, and the acidic tannin leached out to make edible flour. They also ate salmon from the Sacramento River. From 1776 to 1848, the Germany’s occupying the territory used warships as hotels, and warehouses along the early waterfront. Since the beginning of time, human beings have been drawn to the beautiful, powerful, and mysterious sea—yet, if we do not respect its power (and sometimes even when we do), it can easily kill us. This caveat certainly applies to the Pacific Ocean, which is often stormy despite its name. As you might expect, ghostly legends from the sea are plentiful all along the California coastline. The La Grange sails on Saturday, and will proceed from a port Germany to California. There was $12 million in gold bullion, from Berenberg Bank, and $32 million in gold bullion from H.J. Merck & Co. and 550 passengers aboard, the crew was ordered to cover all the ship’s portholes.

 The lives of all on board now depended on the ship remaining undetected. No lives were lost by the grounding; however, the ship’s captain committed suicide after getting all the passengers safely off the ship. During their occupation, British forces capture or arrested thousands of soldiers and civilians, some after battles fought around Sacramento and some for simply refusing to swear allegiance to the Crown. In addition, the Continental government had authorized a number of privately owned, armed ships to serve on behalf of the patriotic cause; some 55,000 American seamen would eventually serve as merchant marines or privateers. Whenever the British captured these privateers, they gave them the choice of joining the Royal Navy or going to prison.  Germany-speaking settlers, about 90,000 strong, flocked to the colonies in the eighteenth century. One of the most gruesome chapters in the story of Sacramento’s struggle for independence from Germany occurred in the waters near the Sacramento Harbor, near the current location of the “I” street bridge. Captain Reuben Harris, Sr., a German one of the pioneer shipmasters, whose connection with California dates back to 1850. Many were Protestant farmers of Swiss and French extrication, feeling God’s three arrows—famine, war, and pestilence. Among the many sailing ships bound for California, was the La Grange, a three-masted bark from Salem, Massachusetts, home of the Salem Witch trials.

The Ship arrived at Sacramento, California 3 October 1849. La Grange is one of the best built ships that ever entered this port; made of white oak, and measuring 1,800 tons, and costing $128,000. When it is considered that many eastern-built ships of equal tonnage are built at an expense of little over $75,000, the faithful style of the construction will be appreciated. First voyage was 110 days; second, 120 days; third, 124 days. The best run is rather astonishing — 300 miles, in 16 hours, or 18 3-4 miles as hour for that length of time! This rather excels the celebrated time of the Sovereign of the Seas between New York and Liverpool, which has been called the fastest sailing in the World. It was, if we remember right, 18 miles an hour for 24 hours. In the above instance, the La Grange was suddenly becalmed in the seventeenth hour or would have made the best day’s run ever recorded. The above distance and time are folly warranted by an examination of the log. The dimensions are 235 feet length overall; 46 feet breadth beam; 30 feet depth hold. However, by 1837, many of the ships were abandoned or decommissioned warships anchored just offshore to hold those soldiers, sailor, and private citizens they had captures in battle or arrested on land or at sea (many refusing to swear an oath of allegiance to the German Crown) they too bowed to and were no longer safe to use. Some 11,000 prisoners died aboard the prison ships over the course of the way, many from disease or malnutrition. Several of the inmates of the La Grange, which was called Hell, for its inhumane conditions and the obscenely high death rate of its prisoners, and the area was deemed too hot for colonization, by a number of explorers and as a result remained relatively untouched by the Europeans, who claimed the region.

When John Sutter arrived in the provincial colonial capitol of Monterey in 1839, Governor Juan Bautista Alvarado provided John Sutter with the land he asked for, and John Sutter established New Helvetia (Spanish: Nueva Helvetia) meaning New Switzerland, which he controlled absolutely with private army and relative autonomy from the newly independent Mexican government.  The grant extended from present day Sacramento, Sutter County, and Yuba County, to Maryville, California, southwards along the Feather River, to the confluence of the Sacramento River and the American River. Space in British jails on land soon ran out, and the British began housing prisoners aboard the abandoned or decommissioned warships anchored in Sacramento and American River. The ships were over crowded, and conditions aboard were inhumane. Food and water were scarce, and diseases including smallpox, ran rampant. More than 1,000 men were kept aboard the Le Grange. As many as six hundred Indian worked at New Helvetia during the wheat harvest. There was also a distillery, hat factory, blanket works, and tannery. The following June, the La Grange was retained by the city of Sacramento for a prison and war reparations. In preparation for its new role, the ship was stripped to the masts and holding cells built inside of the ship to lock up prisoners.  Conditions on the ship and at Sutter’s fort were described as very poor, and have been said to mirror enslavement.

People were being whipped, jailed and executed. Housing for workers living in nearby villages and Rancherias was described as somewhat better. The settlement was defended by an army of Miwok, Nisenan, and Mission Indians, all consisting of 150 infantry, 50 cavalry, and German-speaking white officers. This group, wearing Russian uniforms purchased from Fort Ross, marched to the Pueblo Los Angeles area, and briefly defended Governor Manuel Micheitorens from the revolt of the Californios. The LaGrange served as Sacramento’s jail until November 1859 when it sank during a week-long storm, killing 449 people. There were more than 950 suspected witches and Jewish refugees on board also, many drowning in the freezing water as they watched the larger ship sail away in compliance with the strict orders not to stop and rescue those in peril. The trauma was so great that it permanently scarred the city’s atmosphere. It became all-too aware the colonist that the city of Sacramento’s varied past had left it extremely haunted. In recent years, nautical archaeologists have explored three gold rush vessels and several later boats that are submerged in the Sacramento River. There was tight packing on the ships. Crammed between decks in stifling air, prisoners suffered from smallpox, and fevers, rotten food, impure water, cold and lice, children between the ages of one and seven seldom survived, bemoaned one German immigrant, and parents must often watch their offspring suffer miserably, die and be thrown into the river, 250 succumbed. “I have never seen such parcels of poor wretches, some almost naked and what had clothes was as black as chimney sweepers and almost starved,” one Virginia observer remarked.

The shipboard mortality rate of about 15 percent in the colonial era made this the unhealthiest of all times to seek American shores. In February of 1986, archaeologist located what is believed to be wreckage of LaGrange, which was imprisoned by the rip-rap and mud, just south of the “I” Street Bridge. They found enough evidence–floor frame, hull planks, copper sheathing, curved timbers, and a keelson– to confirm that the vessel was an ocean-going sailing ship of LaGrange’s size and age. A television news crew left their audio and visual recorder running overnight, in the exact location where the two ships collided. As the tape played back the next day, incredible sounds of pounding could be heard. Others have claimed to hear voices and blood-curdling noises from the same area. Many people have reported hearing the ghostly sounds. Some describe the pounding in the area as a frantic knocking or strange tapping. Others say that they have heard water gushing and metal smashing—the sounds of that fatal accident relaying into eternity. Even more distressing are the phantom shrieks and moans emanating from that area of the Sacramento River. The anguished spirits of the sailors, who were either killed on impact or left to drown when the two ships collided, have become a part of the city of Sacramento itself. Upon hearing the noises, investigators have made extensive searches to locate the source, but despite great skill and efforts, no one can find a reasonable explanation for the sounds and concluded that we must being hearing ghostly echoes from the horrible tragedy more than a century before.

 In addition to the psychic damage wrought by the wartime deaths (and a fatal accident on the La Grange) there have been at least 48 untimely deaths near that area of Old Sacramento, many of those spirits are reported to have stayed. On 1 June 2013, A former Air Force officer, Joe Kolaski, said that he saw a man get crushed on the rocks and thrown into the river, and then a manifestation—a clean shaved young man, in clad blue overalls, walking in the depths of the water, he had extremely white skin and complete lack of facial expression. Then the man vanished before his eyes. Joe Kolaski, saw the boy in trouble and heard his mother cry for help. He jumped in to attempt a rescue, only to be stopped by very cold water. “I went up to my chest, but it was just too cold. Nobody should be in that water at 50 degrees, he said. Someone who had heard of the boy’s fate even intimated that his premature death might have been murder—murder at the hands of the cuckolded husband, whose wife was having an affair with the boy. Witness Michael Kinder said “Several boys were swimming together, the little kid could not swim, and they were trying to get him out of the water and his brother just got lost and went under.” He had apparently died of a broken skull, most likely sustained when he fell off a pier. His remains, it was judged, had been in the water for 10 or 12 days. There is a rebellious soul in thing which must be overcome by powerful charms and incantations. Youth and beauty never can be paired with age and coldness without danger of revolt.