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Memoirs of Theodor Cordua - Pioneer of New Mecklenburg in the Sacramento Valley (December 1933) (25 pages)
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Page: of 25
The Memoirs of
Theodor Cordua
THE PIONEER OF NEW MECKLENBURG IN THE SACRAMENTO VALLEY
Edited and Translated by Erwin G. Gudde
INTRODUCTION
we have only few contemporary sources which give us a glimpse of the history of California during the
period preceding this event. I was therefore rather pleased when I accidentally discovered that the
memoirs of Theodor Cordua, the first settler in the Sacramento Valley north of Sutter’s establishment,
were still in the possession of Cordua’s family in Germany. Through the kind efforts of Frau Laura Cordua, a niece
of the pioneer, I secured the permission of her family to translate and publish the manuscript. The following account
of Cordua’s life and fortunes in California forms the tenth chapter of his highly interesting autobiography which I
hope to publish in the near future.
W ILE there is no dearth of diaries and memoirs written in the hectic years following the discovery of gold,
Theodor Cordua was born on the 23rd of October, 1796, on his father’s estate, “Wardow,” near Laage in
Mecklenburg. His family was probably of Spanish descent, having settled in Northern Germany in the Sixteenth or
Seventeenth Century.
As a boy he showed little inclination for his studies and preferred to roam about the fields, dreaming of ocean
travel and of adventures in foreign lands. At the age of fourteen he decided to become an apprentice to a retail
merchant, for he hoped that the mercantile profession would offer him the best chances to see the world.
After a few dreary years spent as a grocery clerk, Cordua left Germany in November, 1816, and worked his way
via Amsterdam and Capetown to Batavia. There he remained three years, first as a clerk to a German merchant, then
as an official in the Dutch Colonial service. He returned home in 1819, and left in December of the same year for
Paramaribo in Dutch South America. There Cordua established himself as a commission merchant, whose trade
soon extended over the whole of Central America. In due course he became very wealthy, but lost his whole fortune
in 1841.
After having tried in vain to gain a foothold in the United States he embarked for the Hawaiian Islands. In
Honolulu he heard glowing accounts of Sutter’s good fortune in California and decided to settle in this new and little
known region of Mexico.
After his sad experience during the gold rush he resided in Hawaii for several years, and in 1856 returned to his
native land. For some time he entertained the plan of trying his luck in foreign lands a third time by settling on
Vancouver Island. But before the project could be realized the restless pioneer closed his eyes forever. He died in
Gustrow on the 8th of October, 1857.