I yesterday received yours of July 31st. Yours of 22d July and Vaux’s letter to which you refer have not reached me. I am anxious to receive them that I may know what the Central Park proposition is. I have just received a telegraphic dispatch, delayed more than a month, from the Freedmen’s Aid Union, offering me a salary of $7000. I shall wait a few days in hopes of getting a letter on the subject, giving me better information, but I have no intention of accepting it. I am not fit for any duty requiring much writing or exciting labor.

I did not write you by the last steamer because during the previous week, I was travelling and was ill. Since I last wrote, I have been to the Yo Semite with the Colfax party. Bolles of Springfield & Allen who were part of it I enjoyed very much. There were also Bross of Illinois, and some other Eastern men, and a dozen Friskans. Mary and the family moved up at the same time and are now living at our old camp. We had also a meeting of our Yo Semite Commission, of which I am Chairman, and adopted an elaborate report to the legislature which I had prepared. I left there a fortnight ago, and stopping a day at Bear Valley, came on here. Travelling the greater part of two nights, (getting some sleep under a haystack) and taking ranch fare, I fell into a very severe illness on the boat, and had to keep my bed, closely watched by the doctor for several days. I am pretty well now, and shall go to work tomorrow upon the College park. I hear nothing from the Company and wrote by last steamer [436]

The Colfax Party in Yosemite Valley, August 1865
Top row, far left, Samuel Bowles. Middle row, third from left, Schuyler Colfax; third from right, William Bross. Front row, second from left, Olmsted; third from left, Mary Perkins Olmsted; fourth from left, William Ashburner; fifth from left, Albert Richardson.

[437]

We have had one short spurt of overland telegraph news—the principal item being Ketchum & Co’s “robbery” of $5,000,000 and flight, so the dispatch has it. I assume it to be an exaggeration, as all the wording of it indicates a malicious disposition. I had the night before telegraphic advice of the payment of my $6000, & felt as if I had just come out from a cold bath. I suppose that I lose 100 shares Mariposa, worth about $1200, as I have had no advices of its sale, though I requested that it should be sold some months since. Sold or not, no doubt the money is sunk with the general wreck.

August 31st

I continue pretty well. Have heard nothing this week from Mary.

Vaux’s letter, a short note stating that he had heard that the Park Commission had passed a resolution reappointing us, without full particulars, reached me last night. I have telegraphed to know if it will do for me to wait till October before coming home. I propose to accept it, but cannot until I am finally relieved of Mariposa. My plan is, if possible, to take the Nicaragua Steamer of the 13th Octr.