Sacramento and the Catholic Church: Shaping a Capital City

1. A Cooperative Community, 1850–1886

The primacy accorded commerce and civic advancement in Sacramento provided the social and cultural framework for the city’s religious communities and institutions. This was underscored in the recollection of a September 1849 Sabbath day in Sacramento by argonaut Peter Decker: “Went to church, no not church but to meeting, for it was not at the call of the church . . . bell. Neither could I see heavenward pointing spire through the trees, but found commerce had preceded the gospel when I looked at the masts of the ships crowding the Sacramento [River].”1 Commerce had indeed preceded the gospel. In fact, commerce was the gospel in Sacramento. religion in sacramento: a struggle to find a place Religious communities did not have an easy time in Sacramento. Located in California’s Central Valley, between two great rivers—the Sacramento and the American—Sacramento was for a time a freewheeling, transitory community with little time for religion. In the pell-mell rush for instant c h a p t e r 1 A Cooperative Community, 1850–1886 “To build up Sacramento and promote its prosperity” 13 wealth that transformed northern California in 1848–1849, hordes of gold seekers from across the country and around the world crowded into Sacramento , coming and going to the Sierra foothills. As was common in most “instant cities” and mining camps of this era, there was a noticeable loosening of moral and social restraints. Merchant Mark Hopkins of Sacramento put a positive spin on the social climate when he wrote to his brother in 1850, “There is a freedom of thought & action that seems to characterize the people of this country.” Others may have compared Sacramento to Sodom and Gomorrah. Religious faith and institutions, usually the products of more settled social conditions, struggled for a foothold in early Sacramento. As one former believer confided to Congregationalist minister William F. Taylor, many Gold Rush–era Californians “hung up their religion with their cloak” when they traveled West.2 Sacramento provides a good case study of the development of religion on mining frontiers of the American West.3 Despite the lack of stable populations and apathy, ministers and preachers tried to preach the gospel in Sacramento. Early church gatherings took place along the riverfront, under stands of oaks, huddled around wagons, or perched atop quickly built levees. Later, church meetings were quartered in stables, shops, and warehouses. No early preacher could count on a regular congregation. Sacramento Congregationalist minister Joseph Augustine Benton wrote in 1849, “The citizens with a few exceptions are here without their families and not expecting to remain long.”4 The temporary locations and their transient congregations were also buffeted by the elements. The heavy rainfall of the winter of 1849–1850 brought floods, delaying the building of one church and sweeping a small Methodist chapel off its moorings. Fires raged that wiped out wide swaths of the city, including a few fledgling churches. The Reverend Benton also noted other recurring features of Sacramento religious life: skepticism and indifference. “There were some in town then . . . who might have done much, who, it was thought would do much, and who, nevertheless, did not do much, if anything, toward establishing a church and maintaining a minister. Whether they thought the proposed preacher a very indifferent sort of a man, or suspected him of a desire to make money out of them, by going into a sort of pious speculation , or whether they were pretty indifferent characters themselves, it is 14 s a c r a m e n t o a n d t h e c at h o l i c c h u r c h a c o o p e r at i v e c o m m u n i t y 15 not necessary now to inquire.” Methodist pastor Isaac Owen, writing in March 1850, could not escape the hard reality of the place: “With shame and confusion we are constrained to say that many that left their friends and homes acceptable members of the church and doubtless made fair promises to maintain their Christian character have not only failed to report themselves here as members of the church, but have fallen into the common vices of the country.”5 Even those who came with deep religious beliefs sometimes modified or abandoned them under the new circumstances in Sacramento.6 Church founder and local Catholic physician Gregory J. Phelan...