The Ottawa Free Trader

Interesting Letter from California.

We are indebted to Capt. Pratt, for permission to publish the subjoined letter from S. B. Gridley, formerly of this place, and now in California. It will be found deeply interesting:

San Francisco, June 17, 1849.

Dear Oscar—At last I have reached this great city so much talked about, and where so many would like to be but cannot come. It is just four months since I left home, and long months, too. It is with any but unpleasant feelings that I now sit down on this pleasant day, and in San Francisco, too, to write to my friends at home. I wrote from Panama, which place we left on the 23d of May. Our vessel was crowded: some came on board sick: many without a dollar: but all felt in good spirits when the wheels moved and our vessel left that graveyard Panama. Nearly all on board were sea sick for two or three days. We had no very rough sea, but the bilge water in the ship was dreadful. The drinking water was the most sickening stuff I ever drank. Old sailors said they had drunk what was called poor water, but never such stuff as that. You have no idea what poor water is in a hot climate, at sea, the thermometer at 110. At the same time there was good water on board, and enough to last to this place, but no one of the passengers knew it, or I think we should have had it. But Capt. Parsons wished to sell his miserable ale at $1 a bottle, and he knew very well that no one would drink it unless he gave them worse than bilge water to drink. He is no more fit for Captain of a passenger steamer, than he is to associate with respectable people.

We reached Acapulco on the 30th. Here the steerage passengers provided themselves with provisions, as the stuff which was served up to them on the boat was not fit for a hog to eat. I never was on a boat where there was such general dissatisfaction as on the Oregon. At Acapulco we found several vessels which had been from 25 to 40 days from Panama. They were all crowded with passengers, and many came and begged hard to come on board the Oregon, but we were full. They had paid $200 for their passage, and would give any price to get on board the steamer. I pitied them, poor fellows, but could not help them. We stopped at Acapulco but a few hours, and then left for San Blas, which place we reached June 2. Here we stopped three days to take on coal. This is a miserable place, and is only the landing for goods which go into the interior. We were glad to leave as all were in a hurry to get to the gold diggings.

When the Oregon left San Francisco two months ago for Panama, mules were worth $500 each. So the Captain, thinking he could make a speculation, bought at San Blas six mules, 500 bushels of onions, and 300 or four hundred squashes, at the same time refusing to take on board men who had been there for weeks, and were actually suffering, and would have given almost any price to have got aboard. When we arrived here, the Captain found that mules were down to $60 to $100, which would hardly pay cost.

We stopped a short time at Monterey and San Diego. I will not give you much of a description of our voyage, nor the many little incidents with which it was attended. When I get home I shall have much to tell you. Suffice it for the present that I am in San Francisco, California, and in better health than I have had for years. We were 20 days from Panama, which is quite long to be at sea on a steamer with 350 passengers. Any one who comes to California ought to get rich. But I fear that many will be disappointed. We anchored about a mile from shore, and soon the whale boats were round taking passengers ashore for $1 each, which is 20 or 30 dollars less than they charged a month ago. I was astonished at the appearance of the town. There are nearly 100 vessels in the harbor, and the town is built with canvas. In the morning stakes are driven into the ground, then covered with drilling, and let for $150 per month. I thought of Chicago in 1834. San Francisco is just as Chicago was then, only the excitement is on a grander scale. I should judge that there were 300 buildings, one story and covered with boards, and there are at least 400 tents, pitched in and about the town. Lumber is worth $500 per thousand feet. Carpenters get $15 a day; common laborers $5 to $10. I saw a tent sold yesterday at auction for $255, which the man who owned it told me paid him a profit of $200. The day after we arrived, a man bought a lot and a frame shanty, covered with canvas, for which he paid $14,000; and the next day he rented for twelve thousand six hundred dollars a year, with the understanding that the man who leased it will purchase the property at the end of the year for twenty-one thousand dollars, over and above the rent. One building here, rents for $150,000 per annum. Such a

itaum would rent for $10 or $12,000. Lots on the principal streets, one hundred feet deep, sell for eighty dollars per foot. The levee is crowded, and goods of all kinds, flour, beef, pork, and every thing else is piled up in any quantity, and cannot be stored. Goods are offered for sale in front of tents and in tents, at very low prices for a new country. Only four or five vessels have arrived from the States that left last winter. What the state of things will be when the three hundred vessels arrive which have left the States, you can imagine as well as I. It costs to unload a vessel $20 per ton, which is something of an item. Beef was sold at auction a few days ago for $3 per bbl., and pork $1. It was not in first rate order however. Flour sells by the barrel for $7. Pork retails at 25c. per lb., but can be bought by the barrel from the levee for about $12 or $15. I have no doubt but pork can be bought here in two months for $10 per bbl. Flour $4 or $5. Beef $5—and every thing else in the provision line for about the same proportion. Beef cattle can be bought for $100 or $150, and meat for 15c. Loaves of bread worth 1c. or 5c. at home, sell here for 25c. Sugar 15c. It is the labor that makes the prices. Board is $1 per week. I cannot see that the merchants here are doing much, nearly all who come here are provided with clothing and almost every thing else they want. There are about 3,000 persons in town, and perhaps 25,000 in California. Now what is to be done with all the goods on the way here? How merchants pay such rents is a mystery; but the fact is they have large stocks of goods on the way and they must have ground and a shelter for them. I have no doubt that many goods will be sent back to the United States, and some cargoes will be sold at auction to pay the freight. I have no doubt but that a man with a few thousand dollars could purchase goods at auction in San Francisco, and in a short time make a fortune. There will be a tremendous crashing here in a short time. Hundreds will rue the day they left for California. Town property will not be worth half what it sells for now, in one year I don't believe. This will never be a pleasant place to reside. The winds blow from the north-west, eight months in the year, and the sand in the streets is enough to put a man's eyes out. I would not live here could I be assured of a fortune in a few years. It is the most disagreeable place I ever was in. In the forenoon it is warm and pleasant, about noon it begins to blow a perfect gale, and about 5 o'clock you want an over coat, for it is as cold as with us in November. I am told that in the winter the wind blows from the south, and that it is as warm as in the summer. Twenty or thirty miles back in the country is warm and pleasant. I do not think that this is to be the great city of the Pacific. There is a town building on Suisun Bay, about thirty miles from here, where the largest vessels can anchor close to the shore. It is called Benicia, and from all accounts, I judge that to be the place in preference to this, but I cannot tell, nor any one else, all is excitement and men appear to be perfectly crazy. It is my opinion that those who are doing well at home had better stay there. Like speculators at west in 1834,5, and 6, they may think themselves worth $100,000 and in one year not be worth one cent. One thing is certain, that this will be no place for a man to bring his family, or at least for some years. Some are here with families, who live in a small tent, and sleep on the ground, cold enough to chill them almost to death. Many who are here and who own property, will write to the papers urging all to come out, and describe this place as a paradise: but when you see such accounts, you may know that self interest is the motive. These are my first impressions. It will do for a man who has no particular business at home, and who wishes to make a permanent residence in California, to come as soon as he can. It costs a small fortune to get here, especially if he is detained at Panama, and I think that the route across the Isthmus is the only practical route at present. I have no doubt but that eventually this country will be thickly settled, provided the dust continues to be found. I am speaking of things as they exist at present—of the country I will write when I have seen and examined it.

On board the Oregon, I formed the acquaintance of three gentlemen from Syracuse, who were provided with tents, tools and every thing that is needed in the mines: they have all the conveniences for operating, and as I am alone, I have joined them. We pitched our tent as soon as we landed, and have all our baggage together. We live well; in fact, I enjoy it much. We have beef, pork, and bread. I never had a better appetite, nor slept better, than on the ground under our tent. We are packing over our baggage, and hope to leave for the mines in a few days. I hardly know where we shall go—whether to the Sacramento, or up the San Joaquin river. Many are going to the Stanislaus, a stream which runs into the San Joaquin. On the streams running into the San Joaquin, gold is found in placers or spots, and is coarser than on the Sacramento, but is not so certain as the Sacramento, where the dust is found wherever a man chooses to dig. We may go to the Stanislaus, and then follow up the mountains. The streams on the Sacramento are now high, and it is difficult obtaining gold. September will be the best time to dig, as the streams will then be down. Many are coming from the mines discouraged, and say that they cannot make anything, while others are lucky and are in good spirits. It is impossible to obtain any correct information about the mines: it will not do for a man to believe any thing that he hears in San Francisco. From all accounts, that man who goes to the mines and sticks to them, who works hard early and late, can average about one ounce per day—may dig much more, perhaps two or three ounces per day; and then again he will only dig 1/2 oz. or 1/4 oz. It is very hard work, and requires a strong constitution to obtain gold by digging. I am here, and it has cost me a great deal to get here: and I do not mean to return until I obtain something, at least as much as I took from home. I shall never think of this country as a residence. It was a sacrifice for me to leave home, and I hope and expect that I shall be well paid for it. Indians find from $5 to $10 worth of gold per day in the streets—some say that it is washed from the hills, but there is no doubt in my mind but that it is dropped from the gold bugs of the mines. I have seen large quantities of the dust in town. Every merchant has his scales for weighing gold: and you ask the price of an article, they will tell you one ounce, or half ounce. It is all ounces with the miners. Gold dust is worth $15 per oz, cash, or $16 in trade.

I am yet unable to give any advice as regards coming here. I can say this much, it is a great risk. It will cost, or rather, no one should leave with less than $500 or $1,000, and should they get sick they would need a much greater amount. One thousand dollars is considered here, as just nothing at all. You would have to work harder than you ever did before. Thousands will be here this fall, they are pouring in from all quarters— Mexicans, Chilians, English, and from the Sandwich Islands. Before another year the country will be overrun. You will hear of many making those thousands and tens of thousands in a few months: but you will not hear of, or if you do, will not think of the thousands who come here and work hard month after month and do not save a dollar. All cannot get rich, and as I said before, those who are doing well at home had better stay there.

It is very difficult to obtain correct information here as to what a man may or can do in the mines: but probably in my next letter I can give you some pretty correct ideas of the mines and country, generally. By that time they will be coming in from the overland route, and I will endeavor to give you a full account of matters and things in general. I am very anxious to hear from home. Recollect one thing, what I now write about the mines, is all hearsay. What I say about San Francisco, is just as it is, and no mistake. " Mr. Mickles is just in and says that he was just introduced to a man from the mines, who says that he is satisfied and is going back to the States, and that he told him that he would insure him 1 oz. per day the year round. Now these are the stories that are told. An old sailor handed me a paper, yesterday, to read for him. It was a receipt for 12 oz's. troy, of gold dust, on deposit. He had been 7 months in the mines—probably he had dug as much more and spent it. I have written any and every thing just as it came to my mind, and without any regularity, but you must digest it as you find it.

SAM.