He intended settling in Philadelphia, and rented a house on Eighth Street, near Arch, but soon abandoned his purpose, probably because the business outlook was not hopeful, and returned to Buenos Ayres to sell pianos. From the east side of South America he went to the west side, and remained in Valparaiso, Chili, for four years. He spent eleven years in Peru, making and selling pianos. Once, when his workmen left him suddenly to go to Mexico, rather than break a contract he did all the work himself, and accomplished it in two years.
In 1847 he went to San Francisco, which had only one thousand inhabitants. He was then about fifty years old, and took with him over $30,000, which, foreseeing California's wonderful prospects, he invested in land in San Francisco, and farther south in Santa Clara Valley.
JAMES LICK.
(Used by courtesy of "The Overland Monthly.")
In 1854, to the surprise of everybody, the quiet, parsimonious James Lick built a magnificent flour-mill six miles from San José. He tore down an old structure, and erected in its place a mill, finished within in solid mahogany highly polished, and furnished it with the best machinery possible. It was called "The Mahogany Mill," or more frequently "Lick's Folly." He made the grounds about the mill very attractive. "Upon it," says the San José Daily Mercury, June 28, 1888, "he began early to set out trees of various kinds, both for fruit and ornament. He held some curious theories of tree-planting, and believed in the efficiency of a bone deposit about the roots of every young tree. Many are the stories told by old residents of James Lick going along the highway in an old rattletrap, rope-tied wagon, with a bearskin robe for a seat cushion, and stopping every now and then to gather in the bones of some dead beast. People used to think him crazy until they saw him among his beloved trees, planting some new and rare variety, and carefully mingling about its young roots the finest of loams with the bones he had gathered during his lonely rides.
"There is a story extant, and probably well-founded, which illustrates the odd means he employed to secure hired help at once trustworthy and obedient. One day while he was planting his orchard a man applied to him for work. Mr. Lick directed him to take the trees he indicated to a certain part of the grounds, and then to plant them with the tops in the earth and the roots in the air. The man obeyed the directions to the letter, and reported in the evening for further orders. Mr. Lick went out, viewed his work with apparent satisfaction, and then ordered him to plant the trees the proper way and thereafter to continue in his employ." Nineteen years after Mr. Lick built his mill, Jan. 16, 1873, he surprised the people of San José again, by giving it to the Paine Memorial Society of Boston, half the proceeds of sale to be used for a Memorial Hall, and half to sustain a lecture course. He had always been an admirer of Thomas Paine's writings. The mill was annually inundated by the floods from the Guadalupe River, spoiling his orchards and his roads, so that he tired of the property.
An agent of the Boston Society went to California, sold the mill for $18,000 cash, and carried the money back to Boston. Mr. Lick was displeased that the property which had cost him $200,000 should be sold at such a low price, and without his knowledge, as he would willingly have bought it in at $50,000.
It is said by some that Mr. Lick built his mill as a protest against the cheap and flimsy style of building on the Pacific Coast, but it is much more probable that he built it for another reason. In early life it is believed that young Lick fell in love with the daughter of a well-to-do miller for whom he worked. When the young man made known his love, which was reciprocated by the girl, the miller was angry, and is said to have replied, "Out, you beggar! Dare you cast your eyes upon my daughter, who will inherit my riches? Have you a mill like this? Have you a single penny in your purse?"
To this Lick replied "that he had nothing as yet, but one day he would have a mill beside which this one would be a pigsty."