led him to trust all who had a kind word on their lips, and made him
the victim of every sharper in the country. He was a native of
Switzerland and was an officer in the Swiss Guards, in the service of
the King of France, in 1823, and for some years afterwards. In 1834,
he emigrated to America, and had varied and strange adventures among
the Indians at the West; in the Sandwich Islands, at Fort Vancouver,
in Alaska, and along the Pacific Coast. In July, 1839, the vessel
which he was aboard of, was stranded in the harbor of San Francisco.
He then penetrated into the interior of California and founded the
first white settlement in the valley of the Sacramento, on the river
of that name, at the mouth of the American River, which settlement he
named Helvetia. He built a fort there and gathered around it a large
number of native Indians and some white settlers. In 1841, the
Mexican government granted to him a tract of land eleven square
leagues in extent; and, subsequently, a still larger concession was
made to him by the Governor of the Department. But the Governor being
afterwards expelled from the country, the concession was held to be
invalid. The emigrants arriving in the country after the discovery of
gold proved the ruin of his fortunes. They squatted upon his land,
denied the validity of his title, cut down his timber, and drove away
his cattle. Sharpers robbed him of what the squatters did not take,
until at last he was stripped of everything; and, finally, he left
the State, and for some years has been living with relatives in
Pennsylvania. Even the stipend of $2,500, which the State of
California for some years allowed him, has been withdrawn, and now in
his advanced years, he is almost destitute. Yet, in his days of
prosperity, he was always ready to assist others. His fort was always
open to the stranger, and food, to the value of many thousand
dollars, was, every year, so long as he had the means, sent out by
him for the relief of emigrants crossing the plains. It is a reproach