Supreme court of the United States. No. 135. The United States, appellants, vs. John A. Sutter. Appeal from the District court U.S. for the Northern district of California.

The United States vs. Sutter. 779
objects the position of the southern boundary. Assuming,
1085 then, that early settlement, extensive improvements, and the
designation of New Helvetia by name, must be taken to have
fixed the location of the grant, so far at least as that New HIelvetia
must be included in it, we proceed to ascertain its boundaries.
The place called New Helvetia before the grant was made appears
to have had no definite limits. The fort, which was its headquarters,
and the land in its vicinity, are stated by Capt. to have been understood to embrace all of New Helvetia. The designation, therefor, of
"New Helvetia" in the grant, in no respect assists us in fixing the
southern and eastern boundaries, which are disputed. In the official
survey a southern boundary has been adopted, which corresponds
neither with the line of latitude marked "lindero" on the map, nor
with the line run by Vioget, nor even with the green map which was
placed in the hands of the surveyor. The location of the line has
been fixed in accordance with a statement of Vioget that he in1086 tended to measure exactly two leagues below the American, and
that he included a larger quantity because he erroneously
reckoned the Spanish league as equal to three terrestrial miles. The
line of the survey has, therefore, been made to correspond with that
of Vioget for only a portion of its extent, and it leaves it at a point
from which, when extended to the American river, it will embrace
exactly two leagues. But this location is open to insuperable objections. There is no proof whatever that the governor had any knowledge of Vioget's alleged intentions with respect to the quantity of
land to be located in the vicinity of the fort, or that he adopted the
boundary described in the grant and delineated on the diseiio under
the impression that it would include two Spanish leagues and no
more. Nor does Sutter himself appear to have at any time supposed
that he was confined within a boundary which should include that
precise quantity. In the year 1841 he states that he broke the
ground for a vineyard and planted vines at a spot which is to the
eastward of the line the official survey. And in 1847 he con1087 structed a flour mill near the same place, at an expense of.$24,000. The race for this mill commenced near an oak tree,
which by almost all the witnesses who were early residents of the
county, is stated to have been well known as the eastern landmark
of New Helvetia. Hall, Buzzell, Bidwell, and many other witnesses,
identify this "blazed oak tree on the southern bank of the American
river, about 50 yardsa bove Sutter's old mill-dam, or where the millrace commences."
This tree is stated, by Von Schmidt, the surveyor, to be four miles
to the eastward of the line run by him as the eastern boundary.
It is shown that among the earliest colonists whom Sutter established on his land were Atkinson, Montgomery, Perry, McCoon, Wyman, and others, who seem to have been settled on the land south of
the American river and near the eastern boundary, which has been
excluded from the official survey.
The oak tree referred to by the witnesses is situated at or
1088 near the spot where, as Vioget states, the line ran by him