It is not quite three weeks since I first reached the valley: five days afterwards I returned to San Francisco, and while there received yours of the 18th Septr forwarded from here. I stayed only two days at San Francisco, but this with the travel made a week. The distance to Stockton by the most commonly used roads is 85 miles, too much to do in a day. We killed a horse to accomplish it when we came up, although a relay had been arranged. I therefore took two days for it, and a somewhat longer road both ways. You will see that I have been in the valley less than a fortnight. It seems to me very much less. A great deal of business has been postponed for my arrival, some of it of great importance and with very serious loss to the estate, nearly six months. Indeed since the negociations commenced—more than a year ago—everything not of a purely routine character has been neglected, and many matters even of routine have been suffered to fall into disuse. I have had to take a great many important questions in hand, therefore, at once, and a fair consideration of them has made it necessary for me to keep in the saddle all I could. This has been the more necessary because it is very desireable to accomplish certain things before the rainy season, which is from day to day, now, expected to set in.

The estate is in very bad condition, and is paying so poorly—yielding so little gold—that the suspicion could not be avoided that deception had been practiced upon the company purchasing it. On the whole, I conclude that it was not so, but that the sellers were very lucky in being able to make so good a show as they did at the time Mr. Hoy visited the estate and the arrangment was perfected. If I should be equally lucky in finding ore, it must take me the best part of a year to recover the [120]

advantages for getting it out which were then had, and which are wanting now through neglect. It is as if I had got to construct roads to the ore in the mines, which roads should have been begun at least a year ago. Whether, when the roads are made, the ore will be of as much value as formerly is questionable. I think it probable that it will. This wholly relates to the Princeton mine, which has been the most profitable and is now the only profitable mine on the estate. I think it likely that I can reduce the cost of mining and milling it and so increase its current profit, if the ore holds out as good as it has been, and I think it likely that I can make some of the other mines profitable which are now being worked at a loss. But I don’t think a large interest on the capital of the company can be got from these mines.

The question then is whether there are other resources of value. I have examined several other veins and some of them appear to me worth working—promising quite as well as the Princeton. I think it probable that I shall be able to open a copper-mine, and there are some agricultural resources to be considered. My impression is that the true policy is to have a considerable number of enterprises on foot—mining under a variety of circumstances, fostering population and so increasing income from rents and agriculture etc. so that bad luck at any one point will be outweighed by the general average results of all—nothing being undertaken, of course, from which it does not seem reasonable to expect good profits. It seems to be impossible to mine without much hazard. [121]The way of safety then, must be variety of risks. The estate offers plenty of opportunity within itself for this variety. It abounds wonderfully in gold. It actually may be picked up in the street in Bear Valley, but I don’t suppose that picking up gold in the street will pay a man very well for his time and back-ache. There are two hundred China men now, (and when it rained last there were a thousand), who find it profitable enough to pick up the gold (dust) through the various vallies, to be willing to pay $4 a month for the priveledge. There must be two or three score of quartz out-croppings which show gold, and invite mining proper.

The whole affair does not look to me so promising as when I left New York, yet I think that I was right in undertaking its management on the terms I did, situated as I was. If I were to make my terms again I should make them higher, nominally, because I do not now rate the stock of the company at half the value I did then. My profits must be chiefly in this stock, finally. It is impossible to live comfortably—with any comfort—except at great expense, however quietly. The customs of the country are what we should regard as extravagant. The little inn at which our clerks board sets a much more expensive sort of table for the stage passengers than Senators and Major Generals and Contractors get at Willard’s—more expensive and vastly better. I have oftener heard people complain of being charged too little than too much. It is the fashion to be free with money, and it is not in appearance only that it is followed. Sellers seem always ready to give over-measure, in small matters, as well as buyers. In optional payments—to waiters &c.—dollars are given where dimes & quarters would be on the Atlantic, half Eagles where dollars would be. The landlord of the inn has failed four times since he came to California and tells me that one of the discharged employees of the company owes him $6000 for board, but I suppose this includes wine and cigars and horses. The village of thirty houses, shantees and tents, supports—at least possesses—two livery stables, two billiard saloons, a French bakery, a Bath House, a French restaurant, a Café Garabaldi, two public laundries, (charging $4. a dozen) etc., and it has its Sunday horse-races and other amusements. That’s the way the money goes, and this free expenditure establishes the current rates of expense for all sorts of service. Poor men may thrive. The bare necessities of life are generally cheap—comparatively. Beef for instance is cheaper than in New York. The very same men we paid $1.20 to, for a day’s work in New York, here get regularly $3.50 for six hours.

We are very isolated in the valley, though we have a mail every other day, and there is a great deal of teaming; but the desert character of the country between here and Stockton is, after all, a great barricade, and we seem to be a community by ourselves a long way from the rest of the world.

The value of men, leads to one very clever contrivance in transportation. [122]Waggons are made of great capacity, very strong and loaded heavily. Three are hooked together in train and a team of sixteen horses put before them. One man takes charge of the whole. When he comes to a hill or a slough too much for his team, he drops off one or two of the waggons, gets a part of his load over the difficulty and then brings up the rest, in detail, then makes his train again. One man thus ordinarily conveys twenty tons. All our goods come this way from Stocton—a week en route in the best of the year—and our quartz hauling is so done at $1. a ton, for a mile. Forty men would be employed in New York where one is here, with our ordinary dirt carts going the same distance.

Now that I understand the dryness of the country and its effect on all vegetable-life at this season, I enjoy the scenery. There is a sad want of variety of foliage, but the variety of the surface—hill and dale—is very interesting. I have given one of the Assistant Superintendents a letter to you and he will take also a collection of photographs which I received from Mr. Park in San Francisco, which show nearly all parts of the estate in near or distant views. The collection belongs to the estate, and is the only one belonging here, so it must be returned. I am sorry it is not possible to get one to give you. Mr Williams, who brings it, is the son of the oldest and best Superintendent on the estate—in charge of Princeton Mine and Mill. He is himself on leave of absence for the winter. He is highly valued here, and I shall be glad if you can make him stay a day or two, pleasantly, in Hartford. He has friends in New Haven, Worcester and Vermont—whither he goes. I have hardly made his acquaintance, but he seemed to me, a modest intelligent, upright and downright sort of young man, and his father, of whom I have seen a good deal, is a well-read, shrewd, resolute respectable man.

People here generally seem to like Park, pretty well, and to have the worst possible opinion of Fremont. There are few exceptions. He (Fremont) seems to have worn out the patience, after draining the purses, of all his friends in California. Whether he is more knave or fool is the only question. I am over-run with visits from his creditors who all hope to get something from the new owners of the estate.

November 1st While on the journey to San Francisco, your very welcome letter of the 18th Septr reached me, and this morning I receive that of the 27th Septr & Oct 4th with much satisfaction. I have also received one from Mary. I should willingly consent to leave Owen with you for a year, but I don’t think Mary could be brought to it. One feels the distance we are apart more here than there—at home. I am glad to have been able to make arrangments already for a telegraph line which will connect us with Stockton and bring us in communication with you. We advance $2500 to the company for it, and it is to be completed before winter if wire can be got—a ship-load being daily expected: otherwise not till spring. Except for the dust, I should say that the weather had [123]been delightful since I arrived in California. It is a little warmer at noon and a little colder at midnight than in our finest October weather at Hartford. It grows gradually colder. The peaks of the Sierra are now snow-capped, and yesterday I had a stove put up in my office. A little squall from the Sierras drifted across the lower part of the valley yesterday, throwing a few big drops of rain—the feeblest possible skirmishing of the rains for the oncoming of which everybody is eagerly expectant, the dust is so deep and unpleasant.

As to what you say of Chase—I think that we owe a great deal to his being willing to take good advice in the management of the Treasury, but I don’t like him for President. He is really a much more vulgar man than Lincoln. I am for Lincoln. We have a great many Southerners here. A majority of our supervisors are Southerners and Secessionists—not merely Copperheads but Secessionists outright & avowed. [. . .] and one of our Mill Superintendents was elected County Judge. He is a Unionist, but the Copperheads elected a Virginian District Judge. The Southerners are mostly Arkansians—“Pikes”, squatters of the meanest sort.

I borrowed $2000 of you. I can return it at once, or I can keep it and pay you ten per cent on it which I should prefer, as I can turn a sure profit on it here. The best small investments seem to be loans to traders with security on store and goods. The chief demand for money in small amounts is from Placer Miners who want to construct small dams, sluice-ways and aqueducts—to pay for labor, lumber, nails, hose &c. 1 pr ct a month corresponds to legal interests at the East. 1½ to 2½ is common. We do a sort of banking business and the common currency of this country is checks on balances with the Mariposa Company—these balances being undrawn wages and dues for materials & contract service—such as wood and timber supply, which amounts to 25 to 50. thousand dollars a year. We get up about $10,000 a month of coin from San Francisco for small disbursements, but pay mostly in checks on our bank in San Francisco, when not in goods. Our store at Bear Valley is one of the best I ever saw, and cleverly managed. The variety of goods is very great. I am adding $25000 of purchases in San Francisco, and we have as much more arriving from New York. I am going to establish a new store before winter at Princeton, and shall probably move my office there in the spring. I am quite well & think the climate very healthful [. . .]