The Mariposa Company, having purchased the Store, Stock and good will of the business in Mariposa of Messrs. Sullivan & Company, of San Francisco, the business will be continued under the charge of Mr. King, well and favorably known as the late managing clerk of Messrs. Sullivan & Company.

The Mariposa Company is under the necessity of making large wholesale purchases for the supply of its own mines and mills, while through the residence of its principal officers in New York, it also possesses peculiar facilities for buying imported and manufactured goods at first hand, which its large capital enables it to do under the most favorable circumstances of the markets.

The Manager understands that it is reported—and the suggestion is a natural one—that the Mariposa Company, in buying out Messrs. Sullivan & Company, at Mariposa, and Mr. Davis, at Princeton, and in otherwise enlarging its mercantile operations, is aiming to monopolize the trade of this part of the country. As such a presumption, if generally entertained, is likely to be unfavorable to its prosperity, he thinks it his duty to frankly explain the policy in this respect by which the Company will be governed.

Both the agricultural and the mineral advantages of this part of the State have hitherto been undervalued and neglected. This is partly owing to old difficulties growing out of disputed titles, but principally to the want of water or railroad communication with a sea port market, and the consequent delay and expense of transportation. To this is to be added the circumstance that it is not upon the road to any of the districts [233]which are made the subject of mining excitements, and consequently its advantages are less generally known, and it receives no benefit from supplying the wants of travellers. The market for local produce, and for the sale of merchandise, is thus limited, and less capital is used both in agriculture and in trade than in any other part of the State which can be compared with it in natural resources of wealth.

As the Company’s property consists chiefly of lands and mines in this part of the State, it must necessarily desire, so far and so fast as its means permit, to remove or diminish the importance of these unfavorable circumstances in every way it can. For the improvement of its property it is more than anything else necessary that an industrious, orderly and thrifty population should be living on and about it. There are two classes of inducements which must be expected to encourage and maintain the settlement of such a population: 1st, Steady employment for workmen, with a steady market for producers. 2d, The convenience and cheapness with which such a population can supply its wants.

In the long run the competition of trade will undoubtedly best secure the latter. Whatever permanently interferes with a general competition in trade will therefore be unfavorable to the interests of the Company.

The Company would prefer, therefore, to adopt the course which experience has induced almost every large corporation in the Eastern States to adopt, by making no purchases out of the district except such as were required for the supply of its mines and mills, (and these only where it was impossible to obtain the desired articles at fair prices in the district), were it not alleged by its employees, and apparently with reason, that if it did so their wants would be inadequately supplied, or, if adequately supplied, only so at prices which would be felt as a hardship for which they must find a compensation in higher wages than they would expect to be paid in other mining districts of the State. It is alleged that the supply of many sorts of goods in this part of the State has not of late increased at all in proportion with the increase of its population; that competition has been lessening and prices have unnecessarily advanced. If there is any just ground for these allegations it is evident that the capital employed in trade within the district is less than it is desirable that it should be, and the competition of trade less active.

Assuming this to be the case the Company has taken three stores, each several miles distant from the others, and most conveniently situated for supplying the wants of the men employed in its several mines, but for each of which a general trade has been already established under its former proprietorship. It makes as little change as possible in the existing arrangements, but will simply increase the stock of goods at these stores, and see that it is held for sale at prices of which no just complaint can be made. It will thus employ a small part of its capital to enlarge the trading [234] facilities of the district and to invigorate competition, without for that purpose removing or injuring in the least any man now engaged in its trade. It does not propose to sell goods except at a fair profit, but if its purchasing advantages should justify it in selling goods at retail at lower rates than others are able to, so far from attempting to crowd them out it is intended that all goods in which the Company deals shall be sold at wholesale to other traders, at a discount from the usual retail prices large enough to enable them to present increased advantages to their customers with a fair profit to themselves. For this purpose a large stock is being purchased by the officers of the Company in New York and it is expected that when arrangements now making are complete many articles may be procured by wholesale purchasers at the Company’s stores at considerably lower rates than they can be bought and transported from San Francisco, and that the community will be correspondingly benefitted. This result, and the indirect advantage which will accrue from it to its property, rather than the direct profit of its stores, is the object had in view by the Company.

The large expenditure which the Company has been making within the district during the last year, and is still continuing to make, from which it receives no present profit, and this, while it is harassed by unexpected legal proceedings, and other disappointments, offer to the public the best possible assurance of the sincerity with which the policy thus indicated has been undertaken, and the confidence with which it will be pursued.

Mary has written you pretty regularly, once a week and has I believe replied to all your letters. I am better now than when I wrote you last—better than I have been since January. Perhaps Jenkins and Van Buren are right and Ayres wrong but Ayres made a careful exploration and the conjecture of Jenkins that my trouble was due to excessive tea drinking is certainly wrong as I have drank no tea since I left New York, having before that entirely lost my relish for it, and my health has improved without any change of regimen but by avoiding study and writing and making up my mind to be more careless about my business than I have been accustomed to be. Giving myself less to do, I go to bed earlier and rise with more regularity. If I was going to try to do as much as I have been used to do, or if I took as much interest in my business as I have done till lately since I went on the park, I should return to my old habit of working at night—sure that I could do the same amount of work in that way with much greater efficiency, ease to myself and saving of wear and tear than by attempting to do it subject to the inevitable frictions of day-light.

We are now living in much ease and comfort—purchased at a frightful rate of cost, to be sure, but for the present, I don’t allow myself to be worried about that—and we are all I think gaining health for it. John is the only one who is not distinctly better, and he is growing rapidly. Mary and Charlotte have improved most markedly—Mary has gained quite wonderfully in courage and patience and Charlotte is growing to be a nice young woman, simple, straight-forward and self-possessed. She is John’s master in everything, and makes nothing of mounting an unbroken donkey, taking Owen on behind and cantering off three or four miles. Mary who turned ill and threatened to faint the first time she followed me over a mountain trail, now gallops over the worst places faster than I want to go, and dashes up the steepest declivities, where I a little prefer not to follow. She generally overdoes it, and is half crazy with nervousness for a while afterwards, but these turns are getting less frequent and less protracted and severe. Owen is a perfect cub—the climate seems only to make him more clumsy, imperterbable, ravenous and prone to fall anywhere [236]

The Olmsted Children
Left to right:Marion, Charlotte, John Charles, Owen.

We have been exceedingly favored in the season. Having missed the usual winter’s rains, we had more than the usual number of late spring showers, and though, now, it is intensely dry, we have had not hot weather. While Doctor Bellows was here we kept up our parlor fire at night. It is sad to see the trees wilting—the buckeye leaves were brown & withered before the blossoms dropped—and the dust is dreadful, but we care for it less very much than I supposed we should.

I wanted to reconnoiter the most distant part of the estate last week—where we have no works and no tenants but a few Chinamen—and took Mary with me. We went in a carriage with a servant on horseback, camped at night, put saddles on the horses in the morning and rode through the gulches and over the hills where a waggon couldn’t approach, the greater part of the next day. It was very rough-riding & the weather [237]pretty warm, but we both enjoyed it and collected a heavy pack-load of quartz samples for closer examination & assay at home. Came into camp with a good appetite for a good dinner, and only suffered from the twenty miles of dusty driving in the evening which brought us home. Mary is getting a quick eye for quartz, and the children are all becoming experts with the “pan.” If California does nothing else for them it will educate them to be clever observers in geology & botany.

I am useing yet, a good deal more gold than I get, but the mines I think promise better than they did six months ago, and I expect to turn the corner in August. The stock-investments which I made several months since have not turned badly so far, for while California (Mining) Stocks have recently fallen about 50 prct on an average, the four which I chose have all but one advanced, and on an average, I could now sell out at a profit of over 3 pr ct a month. The operations of our Company have caused some increase of population and advance of property as well as demand for money, here. Two or three good, thrifty men have asked me if I could not borrow for them at 2 pct a month, offering good first mortgage security on property with which I am familiar.

I have lately bought out the branch business of a large San Francisco mercantile house, at Mariposa, for $40,000. It adds about $400 a day to our trade, with satisfactory rate of profit.

I was a little surprised at the Company’s printing my January Report. I hope you will have seen it. I hear almost nothing from them. If you have not received the Report—Manager’s General Report—January 1st 1864—ask Mr Farley for it, as well as for Profr Silliman’s Report—which I presume they will print, as it is very favorable—too favorable.

We enjoyed Silliman’s visit as well as Dr Bellows’ very much.

You asked me some time ago what I thought of Fremont. I would as soon select a candidate for the Presidency by lot from among the New York aldermen as take him. I enclose the most respectful and careful comment I have seen or heard in California upon his nomination. As far as his California reputation is concerned it is every word true and patiently measured. He is a bad man and not by any means a wise or clever one.