The baron was anxious to pitch in at once, and said that all he
needed to start with were salt and barrels. After some inquiries
of his purser, the commodore promised to let him have the barrels
with their salt, as fast as they were emptied by the crew. Then
the baron explained that he could get a nice lot of cattle from Don
Timoteo Murphy, at the Mission of San Rafael, on the north aide of
the bay, but he could not get a boat and crew to handle them.
Under the authority from the Secretary of the Navy, the commodore
then promised him the use of a boat and crew, until he (the baron)
could find and purchase a suitable one for himself. Then the baron
opened the first regular butcher-shop in San Francisco, on the
wharf about the foot of Broadway or Pacific Street, where we could
buy at twenty-five or fifty cents a pound the best roasts, steaks,
and cuts of beef, which had cost him nothing, for he never paid
anybody if he could help it, and he soon cleaned poor Don Timoteo
out. At first, every boat of his, in coming down from the San
Rafael, touched at the Ohio, and left the best beefsteaks and
roasts for the commodore, but soon the baron had enough money to
dispense with the borrowed boat, and set up for himself, and from
this small beginning, step by step, he rose in a few months to be
one of the richest and most influential men in San Francisco; but
in his wild speculations he was at last caught, and became
helplessly bankrupt.
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