Page:Oregon Historical Quarterly volume 16.djvu/60



52 WILLIAM H. PACKWOOD

making fortunes in the mines. Eight dollars a day as much as we had a month was low pay. Some got as high as $16 a day. I saw one old German who came with us as a teamster. He was full of scurvy, so much so that we came near leaving him at the springs at Salt Lake to be cured. He stood on a stump driving a team to a horsepower saw, cutting shingles, and he was paid $14 per day. I also met Mr. Taylor, a butcher from Springfield, 111. He had a six- mule team and wagon. He reached the mines in August, and began freighting to the mines. He was paid as high as 35 cents a pound for freighting 40 to 50 miles. He planned to sell his team as soon as rains set in. He would have a good stake to go home with. Sailors left their ships crewless. When I saw San Francisco harbor early in 1850, it looked like a burned forest. On all sides were the naked masts of vessels, many of which had only caretakers. No effort was made to bring back deserting sailors or soldiers. There will never be another '49 again. I saw it all and felt the full force of the temptation to join the crowd ; but I resisted the temptation, and I am glad now that I served out my enlistment.

"Our company left Sacramento and crossed the valley. I remember seeing only one or two small cabins on the road to Suisin, where there was a Mexican ranch, and none from there to Benicia.

"We found great cracks in the earth from drought. There were wild oats as far as you could see, and cattle and horses in immense herds. Wild geese and brants were to be seen in countless numbers feeding on the wild oats. The winter rains had just begun to fall and traveling was difficult. At Sonoma we found a few members of the second dragoons who had come in from Mexico with Major Graham's com- mand. Captain A. J. Smith came in with some first dragoons. Our soldiers' quarters was located in an adobe building be- longing to General Vallejo who, with his wife, daughter and son resided in a part of the same building. The building fronted on the plaza. It was two stories high, had a drive- way between the corner stories and was enclosed by an adobe