In the city a large portion of its population were living in tents. There were not buildings enough. Vessels were constantly arriving loaded with people from all parts of the world. As my health permitted I investigated matters there. I took a walk out. I met what looked like a laboring man. I asked him how long he had been there? He said two months. I said to him: "And not gone up to the mines yet?" He said to me he was in no particular hurry. He said he had a row-boat and made $20 a day rowing passengers to and from the vessels (there was then no dock). He had his boy with him, who gathered mussels and sold them. Between the two they averaged $30 per day, which explained why he was in no hurry to go to the gold diggings.
Lumber was bringing fabulous prices. It looked very favorable for my house ventures. Mr. G., the Englishman, had been very anxious to buy them. He had seen the specifications of the carpenter on the steamer coming up. On Saturday P.M. I called at his office. He asked me if I had made up my mind to sell him the houses. I said to him: "If I should put a price on them you would not take me up." He said "try me." I named a price. He said he would take them and go to my lawyer to draw up the contract. I said I would just as soon go to his (which was a fatal mistake). I knew his was a State senator from Florida, and had come up on the steamer with us. We found the lawyer in his office, and he commenced drawing up the contract. I made my statement that I sold the houses from my carpenter's specifications (not from any representations I made myself), and from the bills of lading and from my insurance policy, which ranked the ship Prince de Joinville, formerly a Havre packet, classed A, No. 1. He was to deposit bills of lading of the ship St. George from Liverpool, consigned to him, in value to the amount of $50,000, with a third party, as collateral security, that on the arrival of the Prince de Joinville, and the delivery of the houses, he was to pay me the sum agreed upon.
The lawyer, after writing a little, complained of a headache, and asked if it made any difference if he put it off until Monday morning. I said, Mr. G. had been very anxious to buy the houses, and I had not cared about selling them to arrive, preferring to take my chances when the vessel got here, but since I had consented to sell them, I preferred to have it on the solid. I said, I supposed the transaction was not of great importance to Mr. G., but I had all that I was worth in the world at stake on the venture, and would prefer to have it closed now. He commenced writing, and again complained of the headache. I then consented to put it off until Monday morning at 10 o'clock. We both pledged our honor to meet there at that time and consummate it. I was there on Monday morning at the time designated. Mr. G. came in at 11 o'clock and said he had changed his mind and would not take the houses. I said all right, but his word of pledge of honor would have no value with me hereafter.
I would have made $18,000 profit, but I was selling them for a good deal less than they would have brought if they had been there. Lumber was selling as high as from three to four hundred dollars per thousand feet in San Francisco at that time. But I was making certain of a good profit and running no risk of what might happen in the future.
I had another offer of a number of lots on Stockton street, the next street above the plaza in the heart of the city, for six of the smaller ones, which, if I had consummated, would have made my fortune. "There is a tide in the affairs of men, which, if taken at the flood tide, leads on to fortune, or, if not seized, are forever lost." (Shakespeare.)
The ideas of the people there at that time was, that a railroad across the continent, connecting California with the East, was entirely impracticable. That there were one thousand miles of desert to cross, where there was no water, and the Sierra Nevada mountains presented an impassable barrier, and they thought how could it ever be an agricultural country, when there was no rain for more than seven months in the year. The idea of irrigation was not thought of then. How different every thing has turned out since, I have nothing to do with. I must be true to my subject, the days of the Forty-niners.
As it would be, at least, three months before the ship could come in with my houses, and my health had improved, I was anxious to get up to the mines. I was informed that there was a party from Albany at the Dutch bar, on the south fork of the American river, about eight miles from Coloma, where gold was first discovered, with whom I was acquainted. I found a sloop about to sail for Sacramento (there were no steamers then) the starting point to the northern mine. I took passage on board with all the passengers the boat could accommodate. I noticed on the passage up that the mosquitoes were very large, with penetrating bills. It was as much as we could do to protect our faces.
The only important event on the passage was that a Jew had potatoes that he was taking up on speculation, and that he was going to treat his fellow passengers to some, one day at dinner. We were a little disappointed when we found they were sweet ones, but still they were a treat. Vegetables were scarce, potatoes selling from forty to sixty cents per pound. After a few days we arrived at Sacramento, it being about one hundred miles from San Francisco by water. There were no hacks at the landing, nobody that wanted a job to carry your baggage. Governor Shannon, of Ohio, was among the passengers. He had been minister to Mexico, yet he had to carry his own baggage, and make several trips to do it. One of the passengers assisted him. He was president of a mining company organized in Ohio.
It was evening. We stopped at a hotel, and I slept in my Mackinaw blanket that I carried with me, on the dining-room floor. The next morning after breakfast, about 9 o'clock, I went out on the front portico to take observations of the place. The landlord was there. There was a loaferish-looking fellow going by on the opposite side of the street. The landlord cries out to him: "Bill, what will you charge to chop wood for me from now until night?" He cries back, "What will you give?" He replies, "$10." Bill answers back, "Can't chop for less than an ounce," which was $16, and walked right on. It was evident that common labor was not suffering there for want of employment. I was there some days, and could find no one to post me how to get to Coloma. All was excitement and bustle. While there, Sam. Brannan—who had built a new hotel there (just finished), called the City Hotel—gave a free entertainment for one day to the public. He must have expended $1,000 for refreshments. He had been a Mormon preacher, and was a captain in Colonel Stevenson's regiment. He was very enterprising and generous, a prominent figure with the "Forty-niners."
I saw an article in the paper a few years ago from a California correspondent, giving a biography of him; that he was, at one time, worth several millions, and went into some big enterprise—which I cannot now recall—and was unfortunate and lost all his wealth, and that he was, at that time, in San Francisco at a twenty-five-cent lodging-house, and that he told him that he passed two men that day who had crossed the street to avoid him, to whom he had furnished the money from which they had made their fortunes. Well, I finally found an Oregon man with a yoke of oxen, who was freighting goods up to Coloma. He said he had seven hundred and fifty acres of land in Oregon, but no cattle on it. He thought he would come to California and get gold enough to buy them, and his wife was keeping a cake and pie stand on the streets of that city. I never saw him after that trip, but coming with so modest expectations, I have no doubt he was successful.