Two of my partners in the work, L.J.  Hanchett, and Jas. Clark ran out of funds at the end of the first year, and I took as much of the expense as I could upon my own shoulders.

About this time learning by a letter from her father that Mrs. Bennett was lying at the point of death at Mr. L.C.  Bostic’s in San Jose, I left H. Hanchett in charge of my business, and in four days I stood beside the bedside of my friend, endeared through the trials when death by thirst, starvation and the desert sands, stared us in the face with all its ghastliness.

She reached out her arms and drew me down to her, and embraced me and said in a faint whisper—­“God bless you:—­you saved us all till now, and I hope you will always be happy and live long.”  She would have said more, but her voice was so weak she could not be heard.  She was very low with consumption, and easily exhausted.  I sat with her much of the time at her request and though for her sake I would have kept back the tears I could not always do it.  Two doctors came, one of them Dr. Spencer, and as I sat with my face partly turned away I over heard Dr. S. say to his assistant—­“He is a manly man.”

This presence and the circumstances brought back the trying Death Valley struggles, when this woman and her companions, and the poor children, so nearly starved they could not stand alone, were only prevented from sitting down to die in sheer despair by the encouraging words of Rogers and myself who had passed over the road, and used every way to sustain their courage.

She died the following day; with Mr. Bennett, I followed her remains to Oak Hill cemetery, where she was buried near the foot of the hill, and a board marked in large letters, “S.B.” (Sarah Bennett) placed to mark the mound.  The grave cannot now be found, and no records being then kept it is probably lost.

I went home with Mr. Bennett to his home near Watsonville, and spent several days, meeting several of our old Death Valley party, and Mr. D.J.  Dilley, Mrs. Bennett’s father.  Mrs. Bennett left surviving her a young babe.

I returned to Moore’s Flat, and soon sold out my store, taking up the business of purchasing gold dust direct from the miners, which I followed for about two years, and in the fall of 1859 sold out the business to Marks & Powers.  I looked about through Napa and Sonoma Counties, and finally came to San Jose, where I purchased the farm I now own, near Hillsdale, of Bodley & McCabe, for which I paid $4,000.

In the fall of the same year my old friend W.M.  Stockton of Los Angeles Co. persuaded me to come down and pay him a visit.  His wife had died and he felt very lonely.  I had been there but a few days when my old friend A. Bennett and his children also came to Stockton’s.  The children had grown so much I hardly knew them, but I was glad indeed to meet them.

I found Mr. Bennett to be a poor man.  He had been persuaded to go to Utah, being told that a fortune awaited his coming there, or could be accumulated in a short time.  He gave away the little babe left by his wife to Mrs. Scott, of Scott’s Valley, in Santa Cruz Co. and sold his farm near the mouth of the Salinas River.  With what money he had accumulated he loaded two 4 mule teams with dry goods, put his four children into his wagon, and went to Cedar City, Utah.