m eighteen
years. Sutter's titles being generally discredited, his vast flocks and
herds having dwindled to a few head, and his resources being all gone,
he was no longer able to hire labor to work the farm; and as a final
catastrophe, the farm mansion was totally destroyed by fire in 1865, and
with it all General Sutter's valuable records of his pioneer life. As
difficulties augmented, Hock farm became incumbered with mortgages, and
ultimately it was swallowed up in the general ruin."

For some years he received a small allowance from the State of
California; but after a time this appropriation expired, and was never
thereafter renewed. The later years of the pioneer's life were passed
at Litiz, Lancaster County, Pennsylvania, and his time was devoted to
endeavoring to obtain from Congress an appropriation of $50,000, as
compensation for the expenditures he made for the relief of the early
settlers of California. His death occurred at Washington, D. C., on
the eighteenth day of June, 1880, and his remains were laid at rest in
Litiz, Pennsylvania. The termination of this grand, heroic life, under
circumstances of abject poverty and destitution, forms as strange and
mournful a story as can be found in the annals of the present age.

In concluding this chapter, it may not be inappropriate to quote from
a private letter written by Mrs. S. O. Houghton, nee Eliza P. Donner,
immediately after the General's death. It aptly illustrates the feeling
entertained toward him by the members of the Donner Party. Writing from
San Jose, she says:

"I have been sad, oh! so sad, since tidings flashed across the continent
telling the friends of General Sutter to mourn his loss. In tender and
loving thought I have followed the remains to his home, have stood by
his bier, touched his icy brow, and brushed back his snowy locks, and
still it is hard for me to realize that he is dead; that he who in my
childhood became my ideal of all that is generous, noble, and good; he
who has ever awakened the warmest gratitude of my nature, is to be laid
away in a distant land! But I must not yield to this mood longer.
God has only harvested the ripe and golden grain. Nor has He left us
comfortless, for recollection, memory's faithful messenger, will bring
from her treasury records of deeds so noble, that the name of General
Sutter will be stamped in the hearts of all people, so long as
California has a history. Yes, his name will be written in letters o