Jared Dixon Sheldon came to California in 1832 and at some point afterward became a Mexican citizen. In 1842, Thomas Larkin, who was then the American Consul to Mexico, was awarded the contract for expansion and improvement of the Customs House in Monterey, which had been built in 1827. Jared Sheldon worked on this project for Thomas Larkin. Based on the size of the land grant he received as payment for services to the Mexican government on this project it could be assumed he was the foreman. He was granted Omochumnes Rancho, nearly 14,000 acres near present day Sloughhouse, in 1843 for his work. It was there that he and friend William Daylor built a grist mill in 1845 to mill wheat for Capt. John Sutter on the Cosumnes River. This display shows how the mill worked and pictures of the remains of the mill. Various parts of the mill are now on display at the Heritage Park.

Sheldon Dam

Jared Dixon Sheldon, pioneer and owner of a land grant in Sloughhouse, originally from Vermont, also owned 300 acres on the Cosumnes River, near present day Rancho Murieta. To supply water to his crops south of the river he built a dam 16-ft high, double-walled of heavy oak, and filled with large stones. On July 12, 1851 he was shot and killed by 40 to 100 angry miners in the river below his dam. Also killed in the shootout were 2 of Sheldon’s 12 friends, James M. Johnson of Iowa and Edward Cody of Illinois. Three men were wounded, including a miner. The prevailing miners destroyed the sluice gate in the dam. They had unrecorded gold mining claims in the river-bottom on Sheldon’s land, which would be flooded by the rising water upstream from the dam. Subsequent floods continued the dam’s destruction, and hydraulic mining in Michigan Bar buried the remnants in silt. Public right of access to California streams was not clarified until 1879.

Site on the Cosumnes River where Jared Sheldon built his dam to water his crops that he planned to sell to the miners. Those same miners ended the lives of Jared Sheldon and two of his friends on 12 July 1851 in a dispute over the dam built on Sheldon's own land.

On 12 July 2008 the Elk Grove Historical Society and the Native Sons of the Golden West, Parlor 41, dedicated a new marker to the memory of Jared Sheldon and those who died helping defend his property 157 years before.

Ellen Rosa, great granddaughter of Jared Sheldon, talks to those attending the dedication of the marker honoring him.

Local author and historian, Naida West, relates to those attending the ceremony the story of the "Riot on the Cosumnes" on 12 July 1851.