JOURNAL EXTRACTS OF HENRY W. BIGLER
93
Wed. 15th. This morning we closed the bargain. He said our animals could run with his band of horses, free of charge and that they would be driven up by his vaquero (horse herder) every evening and corralled. This we take as being very kind in Mr. Sutter. In the afternoon we moved on to the ground where the work is to be done, six miles east of Sutter's Fort, where we have a very good adobie house to quarter in. Friday, 17th. This morning all hands went to work on the ditch, except our cooks, having plows, scrapers and oxen, some of them never having seen a white man, nothing but a greaser Indian. We also had picks, shovels and spades. At evening each man had earned $1.50, our hands being tender, they became very sore. Soon some of the men were taken with chills and fever, and some with scurvy. Mon. 27th. While at dinner to-day a man dressed in buckskins entered our quarters and said Captain Sutter wanted 4 men from our company to go up into the mountains about 30 miles to help build a sawmill on the South fork of the American River. He said he and Sutter were in copartnership in building the mill, and that he had been up there with a few hands and had done some work, but some of the men up there were expecting to leave soon, hence they wanted more help. In the afternoon myself and three others started with the man, whose name we learned is James W. Marshall, also a man by the name of Charles Bennett, late from Oregon. Marshall had an ox team and wagon loaded with provisions and a few tools. Wed. 29th. At dusk we arrived at the mill site, here we find several of our Mormon brethren who had stopped at Sutters at the time we passed there in August. To me the country looks wild and lonesome. We are surrounded by high mountains, more or less covered with a heavy growth of timber, pines, balsam, redwood, pinion pine and oak timber. The place is infested with wolves, grizzly bears and Indians. Marshall and his men had built a double log cabin about one fourth of a mile from where the mill is to be erected. In one part of the house lives a family by the name of Peter L. Weimer, whose wife is to do the cooking for the mill hands. Mon. October 4th. Last night all hands were aroused by the cry of our tame Indians, "Marlohinty, Marlohinty," meaning there were bad Indians around, all was bustle, men began to hunt up their guns, molding bullets and set out a guard, as before we had not thought of danger, but we could see nor hear anything.
