Transcription:
Original letter in possession of David Gilrye Muir Yosemite, May, 1870 You say that you have some thoughts of retiring
from the dry goods business. I think you had better not be discouraged by these hard times. So great a number of depressing
influences do not often occur at the same time. After learning your business stay with it, as Californians say, until you
make a competence. If, however, you have come to dislike your business in itself, apart from the accidental losses and depressions
of hard times, then by all means leave it as soon as possible. You are still a young man, and it is well worth your while
to battle with the vexations and inconveniences which attend the labor of making a new home, if by so doing you can make yourself
and family permanently more happy. If business is overdone in Portage, seek another market for your goods, and if you decide
to move at all, give a serious thought to California and to the Pacific Coast in general. Money is much more abundant here
than in the Atlantic states. Still there is a good deal of competition in the dry goods business, but you may find a place
where you can establish yourselves. I am not qualified to give advice about the matter in anything like particular terms,
but I am sure that in a new country, rapidly developing - and which abounds in the essential elements of natural wealth success
is sooner or later sure to the talented and enterprizing. If you resolve to spend your life in agricultural pursuits do not
choose California for a home. But I will likely see you ere you are found following the plow to your old song of success to
the jolly old farmer. Farming was a grim, material, debasing pursuit under father's generalship, but I think much more favorably
of it now. The sawmill I have been at work upon belongs to Mr. Hutchings. It is in full operation now and runs extremely
well, so you perceive I am of some practical benefit to humanity as well as the strictly useful people. Mr. Hutchings claims
a quarter section of land in the Valley, because he settled upon it under the preemption laws, before it was donated by Congress
to the State for a pleasure ground, etc. But his claims are contested, and he is in Washington at present seeking satisfaction
from government. I am not annoyed with overmuch gold at present. I will have about a thousand dollars in the fall. I may
need one or two hundred doll ar s myself, and I promised to let Mary have enough to keep her at Madison a year or so, if she
wishes it, and you may have the rest. Dan or the girls may want some of it, and if in the course of human events I be overtaken
with calamities such as sickness or marriage I shall need it myself. I fear that so small a sum with so many indeterminate
conditions dangling about it will be of little use to you. I do not know how soon I may escape from Yosemite. I am under
a spell in this place. Here is a cluster of flower cups from the curious manzanita bush (Arctostapholos glauca). I found it
this morning in the rocks. The manzanita is for Katie. You, of course, cannot look at flowers amid the ill-natured distractions
of hard times. Most cordially yours. Remember me to Mr. Parry and warmly to your own family. J. M. John Muir Place, Yosemite,
supplied, as Muir states the sawmill is in operation. Year 1870 supplied, as Muir refers to completion of sawmill, and month
May supplied, as this letter seems to follow closely upon Muir's letter to his brother David of April 10th,(1870) .