If things could go thus well out in the country with scores of Americans, why couldn’t men in the little village on the creek do well? They tried it and many of them succeeded.

Squatters were not the only people in possession of this land. Most of it was bought and sold then as it is today.

Vincente Peralta, a son of old Don Luis. sold a section of land around what is now called Temescal, for $100,000. His brother. Jose, disposed of a tract farther north for $82,000.

Moon. Adams, Carpentier and their associates employed a surveyor named Kellersberger to make a map for them. The map became famous and was used in many suits over titles.

There is, also, the classic story of how a man named Colonel Henry S. Fitch found Oakland in its virgin state, by accident. He saw its possibilities and determined to buy a section of it from Senor Peralta.

Fitch, a free-born soul, had started from San Francisco with a party of fellow adventurers headed for Marin County. Through some error in navigation their sailboat finally came to anchor in the Oakland estuary.

The party was amazed and delighted. They had supposed, from long distance observations in San Francisco, that the mountains back of Oakland extended down to the bay. On discovering their error and finding the plateau covered with oak trees through which ran many streams of water, they were more than well pleased.

Senor Peralta was found, and was persuaded to sell about 2,400 acres bounded by what is now known as Lake Merritt and running to the nearest tideland in a westerly direction.

The money was to be paid in fifteen days. Peralta refused to sign "option" papers, feeling, no doubt, that " his word" was sufficient. Fitch then began the job of getting the $8,000 which he, himself, did not possess. He found a Colonel Whitney in San Francisco and persuaded him to advance the money. Fitch’s remuneration was to be half of whatever might be realized as profit in the sale of the land in the next three years.

At once these two men visited Oakland. Whitney seemed delighted with what he found. Only one thing disturbed him. The two men found a small shanty near the point of debarkation. The occupant was a squatter. He told them he didn’t know who owned the land, but if they wanted him out, he’d get out.

Whitney weakened, as many a real estate buyer has weakened, at the critical moment. He doubted if there was any real title to the property. Six times they set out on the trail to Senor Peralta’s home, with Fitch arguing eloquently. When finally they came within sight of the Peralta home, Whitney balked. He wouldn’t buy. Fitch told Whitney that the latter would in time regret his decision, and, as the story goes, would die tearing his hair because of the blunder. Fitch’s prediction was literally fulfilled. Whitney did die, bewailing in an insane fit of rage his failure to "buy Oakland" for $8,000.

Governor Pico’s predictions were soon on their way to fulfillment. The hamlet became a village and the populace was much more interested in commerce than in the bull fight. the bearbait or the fandango.