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Recollections of pioneer work in California
Recollections of pioneer work in California Author:James Woods Purchase of this book includes free trial access to www.million-books.com where you can read more than a million books for free. This is an OCR edition with typos. Excerpt from book: CHAPTER III. The New Home—expense Op Living In Winter Of '49-'50—Efforts For Church Erection— Volunteer Treasurer—Generous Gift—Cost Of Church—Wages—Church De... more »dication— My WoFxK In The Summer Of '50—Church OrGanization—Steamboat Explosion—the Three W's—Bible Agent. The house in Stockton into which we removed from the hotel, was 18x24. It was a very slight frame, with shingle roof, and undressed plank floor. The balance of the house was cotton domestic, so that with a pair of scissors, a person couM cut his way into the house or out of it. The rent was one hundred dollars per month. I do not know that we ever had more comfort, or enjoyed life better than during the two months of sojourn in this house. At the end of that time, by the aid of friends, we had a house of our own. From that time on, we have never suffered for the comforts or conveniences of life. Everything was h'igli, but money was plenty. For six Windsor chairs, now worth a dollar a piece, I paid five dollarseach. For a hundred feet of lumber, of which to make some book shelves, I paid thirty dollars. Pork, fifty-six cents a pound. Mutton, fifty cents a pound. Beef, twenty-five cents. Onions. one dollar per pound. Potatoes, twenty- five cents per pound. Butter, one dollar and a quarter. Bread, fifty cents a loaf. Yet it was as easy to live then as now. Money was very abundant. We had in early times fifty dollar gold pieces. They were octagon form, of proportionate size, and thickness of the twenty dollar pieces. They were called slugs and adobes. They were not regular United States coin, but contained fifty dollars' worth of gold. 1 have carried two of these in each vest pocket and thought no more of it than I do now of having two silver dollars in each pocket. In about three weeks after my arrival in Stockton....« less