Had we invested what little of our capital we had left, with running our credit as far as it would carry us, in real estate, we could have been ready to return home when I did, the following November with all the money necessary for any reasonable company of men, but the argument was that we had started for the diggings where gold could be shoveled up like wheat in the bin. I made an effort with my company to allow me to remain, put up a big cloth house, open a hospital, put out my sign and they go to the mines. I had an interview with Brannon and he advised carrying out the idea by all means, and told me to select my location—that I might have any lot on Jay Street, now the Broadway of the city, for $300, and have six months’ time for payment. I selected two adjoining 25 foot fronts, but I could not prevail upon my company to release me. I was their physician and must be with them. The next October, when we returned for the winter from the mines these lots had been sold for $13,000 each and were occupied by fine three-story buildings.[106]
We arranged to have two of our company, who understood butchering, remain in Sacramento and open a market. Just across the river was a large ranch devoted to raising cattle for their hides. We made a bargain with the owner to sell us cattle as we wanted them to kill at $13 per head and furnish two men to help catch and drive them to the slaughter house. Beef was selling at 75 cents a pound just as fast as it could be cut up. On the morning when we were to start for the mines these two rebelled and thus broke up our arrangements.
After selling what of our outfit we could and throwing away the balance except our trunks, which we stored, we made a bargain with a man from Connecticut whom our captain accidentally met and recognized as formerly a professor in Yale College—his name I cannot recall. He had invested in a pair of oxen and a lumber wagon, and was hauling freight for a living.[107] We paid him one dollar per pound for carrying our kit on to the Middle Fork of the American river, or as near as the team could haul the load. The distance was estimated, I think, as 80 miles from Sacramento.
The party all had to walk, of course, and camp out at night. Except for being disturbed by the howling of wolves—and a big fire would keep them at a proper distance—camping out in the open air was really a luxury after a hard day’s journey in the hot sun. The air, during the dry season of the year—seven to nine months—is devoid of moisture; the regular northwest trade winds are robbed of all moisture while passing over the snow mountains, where it is condensed and falls as snow; there are no dews, but a delicious coolness calling for a pair of woolen blankets to lie under.
Sacramento City is situated at the junction of the American river with the Sacramento. We stopped there a week and decided to go on to the Middle Fork of the American. The American river is made up of three branches—north, middle and south. To reach the middle fork we had to follow up the main river some 40 miles when we struck the mouth of the south fork on which was located the sawmill built by Mr. Sutter, where the first gold was discovered in the tail raceway.[108] Here we exchanged our ox-team mode of travel for a train of mules.[109]
VI.
IN THE GOLD DIGGINGS.
1849.
From Sutter’s mill our route now lay over the steep rocky divide between the South and Middle Forks of the American river with nothing but a mule path to follow. The mountains before us called the Coast Range were from 2,000 to 3,000 feet high, very steep and rocky, covered with several varieties of oak and red cedar; wolves and bear were numerous, and also deer. We encountered no bear, but saw many fresh tracks soon after leaving camp in the morning.