I would have made $18,000 profit, but I was selling them for a good deal less than they would have brought if they had been there.  Lumber was selling as high as from three to four hundred dollars per thousand feet in San Francisco at that time.  But I was making certain of a good profit and running no risk of what might happen in the future.

I had another offer of a number of lots on Stockton street, the next street above the plaza in the heart of the city, for six of the smaller ones, which, if I had consummated, would have made my fortune.  “There is a tide in the affairs of men, which, if taken at the flood tide, leads on to fortune, or, if not seized, are forever lost.” (Shakespeare.)

The ideas of the people there at that time was, that a railroad across the continent, connecting California with the East, was entirely impracticable.  That there were one thousand miles of desert to cross, where there was no water, and the Sierra Nevada mountains presented an impassable barrier, and they thought how could it ever be an agricultural country, when there was no rain for more than seven months in the year.  The idea of irrigation was not thought of then.  How different every thing has turned out since, I have nothing to do with.  I must be true to my subject, the days of the Forty-niners.

As it would be, at least, three months before the ship could come in with my houses, and my health had improved, I was anxious to get up to the mines.  I was informed that there was a party from Albany at the Dutch bar, on the south fork of the American river, about eight miles from Coloma, where gold was first discovered, with whom I was acquainted.  I found a sloop about to sail for Sacramento (there were no steamers then) the starting point to the northern mine.  I took passage on board with all the passengers the boat could accommodate.  I noticed on the passage up that the mosquitoes were very large, with penetrating bills.  It was as much as we could do to protect our faces.

The only important event on the passage was that a Jew had potatoes that he was taking up on speculation, and that he was going to treat his fellow passengers to some, one day at dinner.  We were a little disappointed when we found they were sweet ones, but still they were a treat.  Vegetables were scarce, potatoes selling from forty to sixty cents per pound.  After a few days we arrived at Sacramento, it being about one hundred miles from San Francisco by water.  There were no hacks at the landing, nobody that wanted a job to carry your baggage.  Governor Shannon, of Ohio, was among the passengers.  He had been minister to Mexico, yet he had to carry his own baggage, and make several trips to do it.  One of the passengers assisted him.  He was president of a mining company organized in Ohio.