Abraham Schell's vineyard at Knight's Ferry, Cal. We quote from it: 'A
characteristic act of Abraham Schell was to give a deed to the entire
place and all of its appurtenances, last summer, to Herrick R. Schell,
his nephew, who had served him faithfully as assistant and business
associate for twenty-six years.' The property conveyed consisted of
three thousand acres, upon which Mr. Schell had expended at the time the
deed was given a quarter of a million of dollars. We see by the same
article that Abraham Schell's landed purchases in that locality, in the
early days, amounted to fifteen thousand five hundred and thirty-five
acres.

"Mr. Schell joined a company formed by Dr. Knower (who made an
investment in it, and was then a resident of Albany), which sailed on
the ship _Tarolinton_ from the port of New York, on the 13th of
January, 1849. The doctor, the following spring, shipped from Albany,
twelve houses around Cape Horn, the freight on which was $5,000, he
going by the way of the Isthmus, arriving in San Francisco on the 25th
of September, 1849. On the steamer going up from Panama was Judge Terry,
of Louisiana, who killed United States Senator Broderick in a duel, and
who was years afterward assassinated.

"In these early days there was a contest between Northern and Southern
pioneers whether California should come in the Union a free or a slave
State. Broderick, a Democrat from the city of New York, represented the
Northern sentiment, and was supported by the Whigs of the State. Common
labor at that time was $16 per day, payable in gold. It was more from
pride than from any thing to do with the moral question of slavery. They
did not want to come in competition with slave labor. The Northern
element predominated, and California came in a free State. Its first
constitution was written by George Washington Sherwood, who was a