dollars pr day, day labourers get $2.50 to $3. pr day, and $2 for choping cord wood.
Boarding is a very good business and we have a chance of going into that if Ann get well enough to go to Milwaukie to keep it, and I can get the means to fit it up. Our intention now is, to work at this, (that is boarding and all other business that we can do) this winter, and in the time look at the country, and get me a place and in the spring, go on to it. Portland is as large or larger than La Salle, and has more welth in one corner of it than La Salle ever will have.
I have seen more gold, yes I do not think I should say too much if I should say that I have seen double the weight of gold every day since we have been here than I ever saw in any day in silver and copper together in the states. Every thing is very high. For instance Flour is $12 pr hundred, Potatoes $2. and $2.50 pr bush. Beef from 10 to 16 cts pr pound, fresh pork 20 cts pickeled hams 35 cts, Butter 75 cts pr pound Onions 10 cts pr pound, Eggs 75 cts pr doz. and $1.00. Large Wash Tubs $5.00. Zink.
Milwaukie Oregon Teritory 9th Nov /52
Dear Mother
... It was very late when we crossed the Missouri River being the 22 & 23 of days of May, and it was the 24 before we left for the plains. We passed Fort Laramie at the time I sent your letter. We were then about 975 miles from Princeton, and about 525 from the Missouri River, and we were 298 miles from the South Pass, yet we were nearly as long in going from Fort Laramie as we were in going from the Missouri to the Fort. There had been a great many teams along the road, and they had eaten up nearly all of the little feed there was, and we were compelled to go from a few rods to two or three miles for feed, and we were obliged to rest our teams two and three days at a time, for a number of times. In passing up the platt and Sweetwater we pass a great deal of beautiful scenery. The necked Granite Rocks thrown up in lofty ridges upon each side, and especially the Devils Gap, is one of the great wonders in nature. Here the Sweet Water runs through the end of a mountain of Granite and the walls on each side are something like four
