After learning that we could not procure passage aboard the boat, we thought we would construct a raft on which we could float to Sacramento at our leisure.
However, we could not find any suitable timber with which to build a raft, and further, Mr. Burch said he was well acquainted with the river between here and Sacramento, and that he should advise no person to attempt to make the passage on a raft—that by doing so they most probably would lose their lives, unless they were good swimmers. He had known of two or three parties that had attempted it, but all were shipwrecked and lost all they had with them. He said the river was full of snags and sand bars, and that it was as much as he could do to pilot a good boat through safely.
His graphic account of the river below exploded our calculations in regard to attempting a passage by raft to the city. At this time it was almost impossible to travel to Sacramento by land, the road being very muddy with numerous slough crossings, which were full of water with neither bridges nor ferries. At some places the Sacramento had already overflowed its low bottom lands.
Burch was an old Californian who came to Oregon by way of the overland route in 1842 or 1843. He remained in that territory two or three years, when he came to California, then Mexico, and had since resided here, where he was in the army of Col. John C. Fremont in the Mexican war, 1847. He was formerly from Maryland and has no family. He was rough in his address and extremely profane.
He had taken a claim on the bank of Feather River, upon which he was intending to construct a house the following winter. He made a proposition to give us employment until he should complete his house at a salary of $4.50 each per day and board.
This, considering the high prices of provisions, and the large proportion of wet weather, was as well as we would be likely to do at that time, and consequently we agreed to work for him until such time as we could do better, or as long a time as we all should be satisfied.
Mr. Burch contemplated the construction of a house by putting hewn posts into the ground and nailing on to them weather boards which were riven from oak logs.
A house of this kind would not answer a very good purpose in a cold climate, but was tight enough to be free from leakage and would be a very good shelter for California.
This point was about twenty miles above the junction of the Feather and Yuba rivers, and 80 or 90 miles above the mouth of the Feather, where it intersects the Sacramento River. The surrounding country was nearly level, and was covered with a growth of large, scattering, branching oak trees. The soil was of a sandy nature, and was not as fertile as it was in some other localities. Some of the oak trees were very large but were low and branching.
I measured one that was eleven feet in diameter near the ground—“a sturdy old oak” surely, that had stood the storms, the winds and the fires of many centuries.