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the heart of the territory, and sending its
waters direct into the great grand harbor of all
the Coast – was "New Helvetia" – a
Settlement on a land-grant, of wide pro-
-portions, whose Chief proprietor was
John A. Sutter, a naturalized citizen
of the Great Republic, who had reached Cal-
-ifornia by the way of Missouri, Oregon,
and the Sandwich Islands, in 1839 ~ He
selected a site for his proposed settlement
far from any other abode of Civilized
people – Yount in the Napa Valley the nearest – the Vacas and Wolfskills, later on,
were distant 30 or 40 miles – and in the midst
of about a dozen small tribes of nearly