frame-house on Stockton Street, near Green, buying of him his
furniture, and we removed to it about December 1,1853. Close by,
around on Green Street, a man named Dickey was building two small
brick-houses, on ground which he had leased of Nicholson. I bought
one of these houses, subject to the ground-rent, and moved into it
as soon as finished. Lieutenant T. H. Stevens, of the United
States Navy, with his family, rented the other; we lived in this
house throughout the year 1854, and up to April 17, 1855.




CHAPTER V.

CALIFORNIA

1855-1857


During the winter of 1854-'55, I received frequent intimations in
my letters from the St. Louis house, that the bank of Page, Bacon &
Co. was in trouble, growing out of their relations to the Ohio &
Mississippi Railroad, to the contractors for building which they
had made large advances, to secure which they had been compelled to
take, as it were, an assignment of the contract itself, and finally
to assume all the liabilities of the contractors. Then they had to
borrow money in New York, and raise other money from time to time,
in the purchase of iron and materials for the road, and to pay the
hands. The firm in St. Louis and that in San Francisco were
different, having different partners, and the St. Louis house