Oranges,[1] which helped us along a little. The country is so full of people wanting employment that it is hard for any to get any thing to do, and wages have fallen a conciderable since we came. Flour is now worth $15 pr hundred pounds, and potatos $2.50 pr bushel. Ann & the girls take in washing and make pies to sell, we get 25 cts for washing large things 121/2 cts for small, we have done about $.50 worth this week. It has rained a most every day since we have been here, and in consequence of that and the want of the dimes, I have not been to look at the country.
Mr. Whitcomb the man that started this place is about starting a town on Shole Water Bay north of the mouth of the Columbia, and he wants me to go there and make my claim. But I am more inclined to go up this river, or out east of Oregon Citty, to the Indian Reserve. This is a rich fertile part, and is said to be a splendid stock country, and Wheat also. I have a little work at the old trade to do, and when I get that done, if I have any money to use in traveling, I intend to start out.
I wish Emma was here with about 10 or 12 cows, she could make more money than any two farmers in La Salle County. I have heard of a number of women clearing 6 and 8 hundred dollars a year. Butter is worth one dollar pr pound, and Cheese 50 cts ...
Affectionately Yours
Milwaukie 27th Dec. 1852
Brother Levi & Sister Emma
...... We are yet in Milwaukie and have not yet determined on any place to settle, but now think we shall go to Pugets
- ↑ Mrs. Harriet Nesmith McArthur recalls that as children in the 1850s they sometimes had oranges as a special treat when they were brought in on some of the boats. Mrs. McArthur especially remembers the quantities of oranges brought to the ship at Panama when they were on their way east in 1861, when her father, J. W. Nesmith, was on his way to Washington to assume his duties as senator from Oregon. At this time (1853) the steamer Columbia was running regularly from Portland to San Francisco, connecting with steamers to Panama. (Advertisements in Oregonian, December, 1852).
