Mr. Hanson and a Mr. Bayliss, who kept a hotel at Yuba City, owned the ferry across Feather River at that place. Pinney informed me that Mr. Hanson desired to let him the contract to excavate a road from the boat landing on either side of the river up through the banks so as to permit of teams passing to better advantage. If I would contract with him for doing the work, he thought we might do well.
We looked the situation over and found the cut on the Yuba City side would be light, but that on the Marysville side was quite deep. I suggested to Mr. Pinney that the better plan would be that Mr. Hanson should set his stakes so that we could know just what would be expected from us to complete the work. Mr. Hanson proposed that the road should be at a true grade from the shore to a certain point, about 150 feet distant, and should be of sufficient width to permit the passage of two teams when meeting, the banks to be properly sloped.
After considerable discussion relative to the depth of the cut, which I claimed would be twelve feet, he replied that he knew it could not be more than nine feet deep, and made the following expression in his western dialect: “You needn’t for to dig it more than nine feet anyhow.”
We made the contract to do the work with the understanding that we would not be required to excavate over nine feet in the deepest place, but it was not written out. We bought some shovels and the next day we commenced the work. The material to be removed was all fine sand and was good shoveling. We began at the waters edge and threw it into the river and it was washed away by the current. We made the sand fly fast and we made a large showing on the first day.
After we had worked away from the river so that we could no longer throw the sand into the water, we used wheelbarrows. This was a very much slower process.
We made the cut nine feet deep at the deepest point and finished it in width so that two teams could easily pass each other, but Mr. Hanson then claimed that it must be on a true grade. This would at least add one-third to the amount of work. But as we had no written contract, we concluded that the better way out of it was to make the cut as he proposed.
Another matter that came into controversy later was about the width. At the time the contract was made, when Mr. Hanson said the cut must be of sufficient width for two teams to pass, I made the remark that that was very indefinite, and made the request that he should give the number of feet required at the bottom of the cut, and he did so.
About this time Mr. Pinney received a letter from Pelham, N. H., which I suppose was from a Miss Young, with whom he had formerly been somewhat intimate, and whom he married later. This letter seemed to have such an effect upon him that he lost all interest in the work, and a few days later proposed to me that I should pay him for his share of the work completed. He said he had concluded to start for home at once. I pleaded in vain that he should remain until our contract was finished.
I paid him for his interest and he started for San Francisco. We supposed the contract to be nearly finished. I had met Mr. Elder and he informed me that he had met the surveyor-general of Oregon, John B. Preston of Illinois, in San Francisco. Mr. Preston was not the first man appointed, the other having declined to accept the office.
Mr. Elder had been employed as assistant engineer on the Michigan and Illinois canal in Illinois by the new surveyor-general. He said Mr. Preston had promised him work on the government survey. He intended to go to Oregon a little later and desired me to go with him. I agreed to go.