CHAPTER IV
MANAGING THE MARIPOSA ESTATE

In the first three months of 1864, Olmsted carefully observed the population of the Mariposa Estate and attempted to mold his employees into a more effective work force. The letters to his father dated January 1 and February 11 are full of vivid details about the Chinese, Italians, and Indians on the Estate, as well as the business of gold mining on the frontier. Olmsted’s three letters to the officers of the Mariposa Company report the strike that resulted from his reduction of wages on March 1.

During these months, Olmsted reconciled himself to several disappointments. The Mariposa Company trustees vetoed his plans for a canal, and he decided that he could not afford to build a house for his family until the mines showed a profit. When he went to San Francisco to meet his family arriving from the East, a doctor told him that his heart was enlarged and that he must resign himself to the life of an invalid.

Two letters from Vaux, and Olmsted’s response, are included here. Olmsted repudiates the position of superiority that Vaux yielded to him in his letter of January 18, but both agree that they were co-workers in Central Park—a work of the arts of architecture, landscape gardening, and administration combined. Vaux, who was defending their joint interests in New York, urges Olmsted to write a report to the public about Central Park. Olmsted refuses, but does suggest a plan of response to Egbert Viele, the former chief engineer of Central Park who claimed that the plan for the park by Olmsted and Vaux was simply a copy of his own earlier design.

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