For about 20 years, I have driven past a state historic marker on Hwy 99 just south of Yuba City. In its bronze lettering and brown background, it notes to drive east two miles to Sutter’s Hock Farm. Once I made the drive. It didn’t shed much light on what a hock was.
I just love the stories of history in the Sacramento Valley. On its surface, the small towns and out of the way back roads between Interstate 5 and Hwy 70 to the east there look like anywhere else in rural California – quaint, worn and picturesque. Scratch beneath the surface and you will almost always find great history deep in family ties and rich in the stuff that made early California the melting pot of cultures from around the world.
A bit of research on Sutter’s Hock Farm yielded just that – great layered history and wonderful stories. The Sutter was of course John Sutter who made Sacramento and really California the place to be in 1849. Sutter was a Swiss immigrant, who had secured a land grant of some 48,000 acres (225 square miles) from then Governor Juan Bautista Alvarado. (In future postings, I’ll talk more about this interesting early settler of Northern California.)
As for the Hock farm, it was his summer home and farm. It was, in fact, the first non-Indian settlement in Sutter County and the first large–scale agricultural settlement in Northern California. He eventually lost the farm following the downturn of his personal finances following the Gold Rush. The original mansion built on the property was lost to fire in 1865. Today, a set of original steel doors from the farm resides in front of Sierra Gold Nurseries. The nursery sits on a corner of Sutter’s original farm.
As to the name, a number of theories are offered from a close spelling of the name of a nearby Native American village to a misspelling of the German word for high – meaning above Sacramento or perhaps referring to the farm as high ground.
Here is a great link to the local Marysville Appeal-Democrat on the marker and the history of the site.
Tim Johnson, CRC President & CEO
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