From: JOHN W.T.GARDINER

To: HIS MOTHER and JODI BROWN

Date: June 30th 1855

Context: His first letter home from the Fort.

Dear Mother,

Here we are at last snugly established in our new home, after our various wanderings by land and sea.

We had a very ough passage an a small and crowded boat from San Francisco to San Pedro, and Annie suffered much from sea-s ickness. From San Pedro here we got on very well making the journey in eight days and lying by, Sunday. Annie enjoyed the camping out very much. We 1o1ished that you and Etta could havesketched some of the fine mountain scenery we saw; at this season of the year the whole country is burnt brown and but for the mountains it would be insupportedly monotonous. The time to see California is in the winter when everything is green. No rain falls for many months in summer, and a more dreary expanse than the parched plains you cannot well imagine. I have got to understand the ac=ounts we read of the vast grazing lains in South America and the most Eastern parts of.Europe . At the few scattered places wnere water is to befound a scanty shelter of canvass or reeds is

built and there the herdsmen live until the return of the rainy season enables them to move heir charge. In riding over r.ese plair.s: was sur rized to 7i d the stock in such good order. The

different kinds of clover and grass have all seeds which are very nutritive, and I am now keeping my horses in a canon Ckan yonel

where! should have that they would starve. I expect that in a few

weeks they will be in fine order. Poor animals they have just come in from Utah, and are sadly in need of rest and refresh ment.

We were much interested in the San Fernando Mission, which we passed about twenty five miles from Los Angeles. It was established in 1805 by some Spanish monks, who in a few years, without money and withoutarms succeeded in civilizing and subduing

the Indians around them. All the buildings, which are very extensive, were erected by Indians , who were taughtvarious trades. At one time there were fifteen hundred Indians connected with this mission alone, and it was by nomeans the largest in California. At the time Mexico became a republic the government took charge of the temporalaffairs of these missions, and since then they . have gradually gone to ruin. The old Spanish priests were a very

different set of men from the Mexican, and seem to have done a vast deal for the Indians.

But I ought to tell you something about ourselves. We are 1 iving in an unfinished adobe <a-do-be) house, the ceilings supplied by canvas stretched across, and the walls as yet

unplastered.

The thick walls make it cool even under this

cloudless sky. quite grand.

We have a parlor, and a bed room , so that we feel Only think four whole rooms At the back I have

had a yard made of slabs where we have our hen house, not quite so

magnificent as the one at the Cove, but which does very well for our purposes. We live pretty well, getting excellent beef, hams, rice, dried fruit, etc., from the Commissary, and occasionally we

have a present of antelope or kid, or have an opportunity to buy them. I have been too busy to hunt yet, buthope to begin in a month or two. Antelope, bear, and deer with quail, and ducks and geese in their season ,are found in abundance within a few miles. I have one hundred and twenty seven men most of them recruits,

so that you may imagine I am pretty busy, especially as I have only one officer with me. Fortunately he is CaJ most excellent young man both as an officer and personally. He is a Virginian named Pegram. Our Colonel leaves tomorrow, so that I shall be commanding offi cer, for a few weeks certainly and perhaps per manently.

I think that on the whole I have the best among the posts at which my regiment is stationed, so that I ought to be contented particularly if I remain in command.

I wanted to tell you about our flowers but I have not left myself room on this sheet, and I do not know if I shall have time to write another. If not, goodbye. Love to all at home.Your son Tudor

P.S. The express rider has been detained a day, so that I shall have time to add a little more. Our season for flowers is almost

past, only a few still brave the burning Spanish bayonet which you may have seen.

sun. Among them is the rrom a thick bunch of

shar p, hard, printed leaves about a foot long, a stem haif as thick as your wrist shoots up from six to ten feet, the upper part for a couple of feet covered with beautiful white flower bells. (Editorial note: he is describing a yucca plant.) It grows only

in the most barren places, particularly on the mountain sides. Another beautiful flower looks very much like the horse chestnut but is fragrant, and the tree is more graceful, indeed it is generally rather an overgrown bush than a tree. It is too late for us to attempt a flower ga r den this season, particularly as we are

told the soil must be made, but I am working a vegetable garden for my company, and hope by imagination to succeed pretty well. You can' t imagine how tiresome ·this perpetual sunshine is. A few clouds would be such a rel ie f, and a thunderstorm a luxury too great to be described . But we must not hope for such things for

months to come; as for thunder it is almost unknown in California. We are so anxious to hear all about the 25thof June, and hope that full descriptions are on the way. We thought so much of you all ; and longed so much to have been with you to have kept the

Golden Wedding. My birthday came while we were on the steamboat, but in spite of seasickness Annie had prepared a surprize for me. When I went into the state room to dress, I found on the berth a nice stand for holding pens, and a most beautifully carved wooden box for wipers. We shall try not to let any more mails go without at least one letter for home, but we have been very busy indeed thus far. I shall get through my quarterly papers in a few days and then I shall have more time. Dinner is announced and after dinner till the mail closes I shall be most busy with muster rolls

and so I must leave this letter to Annie to finish . the dear ones,

Your son, Tudor