Heartbroken, Leidesdorff sold all his property and ships, and left New Orleans forever. He sailed the Pacific, trading and moving on, until he arrived in Yerba Buena. He traded with both the Mexicans and the Russians. By 1844, trade in wheat, tallow and hides earned him enough money to purchase a lot at Clay and Kearny Streets. He also had a warehouse built at California and Leidesdorff Streets.
He became a naturalized Mexican citizen and received a land grant of eight Spanish leagues, or more than 35,000 acres. The grant, called the Rancho Rio de los Americanos, began at about the point where Bradshaw Road connects with the river. A sign was posted there, one side faced west and was lettered Sutter while the east facing side said Leidesdorff. The grant extended upriver to where Folsom Prison is today. Two years later Leidesdorff had an adobe home built at the western end of his property, but he never lived there.
Meanwhile, Leidesdorff's career in San Francisco was spectacular. He became the contract agent to furnish supplies to the Russians and collect Sutter's debt. He built the City Hotel, the finest in San Francisco. He was a treasurer of San Francisco. He served on its first City Council and the first school Board. He was a close friend of Commodore Robert Stockton and was appointed Vice Consul by Thomas Larkin.
He brought the first steamboat to San Francisco Bay, the double side-wheeler SITKK. In 1847, the year after he had the adobe built, he took the SITKK to Sacramento. Little is recorded about the trip except that he raced an ox cart on the downstream trip to Benicia and lost.
The plans he had for the Rancho de los Americanos will never be known. On May 18, 1848, as the first reports of rich gold strikes on the banks of the American River came filtering into San Francisco, William Alexander Leidesdorff died of pneumonia or typhus (two different accounts list different causes of death).
The Gold Rush (1848-1850)
When gold was discovered in 1848, mining camps sprang up along the rivers. Folsom might have faded away with the other camps had it not been for two pivotal events in 1856. First, was the completion of Joseph Folsom's dream of a "Granite City", surveyed and laid out by Theodore Judah. Lots were sold and the town was renamed in honor of Joseph Folsom, who sadly passed away a year earlier.
Joseph Libby Folsom (1817-1855)
Joseph Libby Folsom was born in New Hampshire in 1817 and he was an 1840 graduate of West Point. Captain Folsom, U.S. Army quartermaster department, arrived in California in 1847 with the Stevenson Regiment. After the Mexican War, he remained in San Francisco. By 1848, Folsom was collector of the Port. The following year he became interested in capitalizing on the future potential of California. He purchased several lots in San Francisco and became interested in the estate of William A. Leidesdorff.
In June of 1849, Folsom left San Francisco for the Danish West Indies to locate Leidesdorff's heirs. There he found Anna Maria Spark, who had never married Leidesdorff's father, but had been granted an act legitimizing her children. Folsom contracted with her to purchase title to Leidesdorff's San Francisco holdings and Rancho Rio de los Americanos for $75,000 dollars to be paid in three installments. Anna Spark, knowing nothing of land values in California, was only too happy to accept Folsom's offer.
When Folsom returned to San Francisco, he found land values to be skyrocketing, and his newly purchased title to the Leidesdorff estate already in question. The government was claiming right to the property purchased by Folsom. The claim was brought because under old Mexican law foreigners could not inherit property. The dispute was brought to the courts, where legal entanglements over the conflicts of Mexican, American and Danish laws kept it for over ten years.
Meanwhile, as the value of his holdings increased, Folsom was faced with the near-impossible battle to finance his legal defense to their title. He was forced to borrow repeatedly, sometimes paying interest as high as 3% per month for short-term notes. His troubles were further complicated by Anna Spark's refusal to accept the second installment payment on her son's estate.
By 1855, Folsom's health as well as his cash had begun to give out. He hired Theodore Judah to survey and lay out a town site near the mining camp of Negro Bar to be called Granite City. There had been talk since 1852 of a railroad, the first in the West, to be built from Sacramento at least as far as Negro Bar. In February 1855, Folsom accepted the post of president of the fledgling railroad.
Joseph Libby Folsom died at the age of 38 on July 19, 1855, of renal failure or pneumonia at Mission San Jose. (Different sources give different causes of his death). Like Leidesdorff, he died too soon to see the development of Rancho Rio de Los Americans, part of which was to become the town of Folsom. Only three weeks after Folsom's death, the first rail was laid on the new Sacramento Valley Railroad; and the first train completed the trip to Folsom in February 1856. In the same month, town lots in Granite City, which was renamed Folsom in his honor, were placed on the auction block, with most of the 2,048 lots sold the first day.
