LIFE- SKETCHES OP A JAYHAWKER 55 



we didn't see fit to fight the title, and gave up our two thousand acres that 

 we had taken up as State land. What makes me know that Fremont's title 

 was fraudulent, was that In a course of time, General Naglee of San Jose 

 !)ecame the possessor of the grant, and then the S. P. R. R- laid claim to it, 

 and rather than have the title tested Naglee divided it in half, gave the R. 

 R. Co. the upper half, and kept the lower half. It has been selling within 

 the last year for one hundred and fifty to two hundred dollars an acre. 



I remained but a short time in San Francisco, and then went down to 

 Santa Clara, where I had some friends living, and one of them, my old part- 

 ner of former times, was on the eve of going over into Santa Cruz County 

 to take up land in the redwoods and persuaded me to go along. It didn't 

 take much persuasion for I was foot-loose at this time and ready for any- 

 thing that happened to turn up. 



We were just a week going over there, owing to constant rain and high 

 water. Judge Wilson, the man I was with, had already been there, and had 

 his claim selected. I helped him to build his house and get comfortably 

 fixed and then looked around for a claim for myself and was successful in 

 finding a good one, with fine timber. In the meantime there was another 

 young man, who came over from Santa Clara and found a good claim ad- 

 joining mine and we built a cabin together and lived together for a couple 

 of years. The next spring and summer peeled tan bark which seemed to be 

 the most available thing to make ready money, which, when we sold, netted 

 us about $1800.00 for our first year in the redwoods. I peeled bark the next 

 two succeeding years, with very satisfactory results. 



In the meantime I came to the conclusion that here was good money 

 in timber land, if I could only get enough of it. I had by this time proved 

 up on my claim and had entered another fifty acres adjoining my claim as 

 State School land, which gave me two hundred acres, all of the finest of 

 timber land. At that time the Southern Pacific R. R. Co. claimed every 

 alternate section. I had been with the surveyors off and on, when they 

 were surveying there and I knew all the choice sections and quarter sec- 

 tion. With this information I went to San Francisco to the R. R. office and 

 filed on twelve quarter sections and paid them the one-fourth down on the 

 purchase price, which was a $1.25 per acre. They raised the price after- 

 wards to $2.50 per acre on their land. Several months passed and in the 

 meantime the R. R. Co. had their exterior lines surveyed, and the line just 

 came to the edge of the land I had entered, and didn't take in a solitary 

 quarter section of it, and of course, I was very much disappointed, for I had 

 a fortune sure in the land if I could only procure title to it. I went to San 

 Francisco to see what they were going to do about it. Lloyd Tevis was 

 president of the company at that time and he said that I could go anywhere 

 I wished and where they had land and take it In lieu of that, and there is 

 where I made a mistake again, but I was so disappointed in not getting 

 what I had filed on that I would not take other land. In lieu then, he said, 

 he would refund the money with interest, which he did and acted very nice 

 about it, and told me I was making a mistake. I didn't take other land, and 

 to my sorrow, I found out the mistake that land I had entered from them 

 has been worth $200 per acre for several years past. 



As the saying goes, "It never rains, but it pours," about this time there 

 was an enterprise gotten up to put in a flume to float lumber down as far 



