I then made a contract with the builders, Keyser, & Brown, to erect a three-story brick building, with finished basement, for about fifty thousand dollars.

This made eighty-two thousand instead of fifty thousand dollars, but I thought Mr.Lucas could stand it and would approve, which he did, though it resulted in loss to him.

After the civil war, he told me he had sold the building for forty thousand dollars, about half its cost, but luckily gold was then at 250, so that he could use the forty thousand dollars gold as the equivalent of one hundred thousand dollars currency.

The building was erected; I gave it my personal supervision, and it was strongly and thoroughly built, for I saw it two years ago, when several earthquakes had made no impression on it; still, the choice of site was unfortunate, for the city drifted in the opposite direction, viz., toward Market Street.

I then thought that all the heavy business would remain toward the foot of Broadway and Jackson Street, because there were the deepest water and best wharves, but in this I made a mistake.