The rest of Sutter's history is soon told. In 1848, when Mexico ceded California to the United States, he was the owner of a vast domain, over which thousands of head of cattle wandered. A few years later, he was practically a ruined man--ruined by gold. On the eighteenth day of January, 1848, one of his men named Marshall, brought to Sutter a lump of yellow metal which he had uncovered while digging a mill-race. There could be no doubt of it--it was gold! News of the great discovery soon got about; there was a great rush for this new Eldorado; Sutter's land was overrun with gold-seekers, who cared nothing for his rights, and when he attempted to defend his titles in the courts, they were declared invalid, and his land was taken from him. To crown his disasters, his homestead was destroyed by fire; finding himself ruined, without land and without money, he gave up the struggle in despair and returned east, passing his last years in poverty in a little town in Pennsylvania.

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