" 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, n?e 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.
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