I was admitted in February, 1865. In March, 1865, I went to Idaho Territory with my new profession to "try it on the dog," as it were. I was unlearned and very raw, with no knowledge of making my way, and no backing. I was not a good mixer. At first I was very sick and maybe would have died but for the care of my brother Theodore. Well, when I got up I had little money, no books and no acquaintances. I got a job then as office deputy with Mr. Stanford, the sheriff (cousin of the Railroad Stanford). It did not seem feasible at all to get business. It was a poor camp anyway, so I held on with Stanford.

I had a good many adventures, mostly amusing, but some almost tragic, and in the fall of 1866 I came home to San Leandro where my people then lived. I was over twenty-three years old. I had lived an easy, careless life, as country boys are apt to do if they can, and as I could by reason that my parents were indulgent. My technical education was deficient, though in general reading I was well up, and somewhat in law, but I had saved nothing, was not established, and my way was to make. I was afraid to attempt to practice and wait for work, so I took position with Mr. Amerman, who in our system was county clerk, clerk of the courts, auditor and recorder. I began as a copyist. Things ran on so I was making good wages and spending them, and then something happened.

As I sat on a horse rack in front of my boarding house one evening there passed by a young lady. Children, it was your mother. She is getting old now, yes, old and gray, too, but then-well, in a book like

this that will meet other eyes than yours, I will only say I viewed her with instant approval, and I do yet.

Her family had met misfortune bravely. Born of parents comfortably situated on a plantation near Shreveport, but in Texas, the parents in her early childhood had moved to this State, with all the comforts then obtainable. The father had left valuable land unsold in Texas, and was a man of means, owning valuable land in Santa Clara County, and herds of stock near Paso Robles. His daughters were sent to school in the Female Institute at Santa Clara. While all seemed well he sickened and after a long illness died about 1860, leaving a widow and young children. That year or the next came a drought and the cattle died. The oldest son, going to Arizona on a mining venture, was accidentally killed. The mother, without business training or competent advice, soon through defective title and otherwise lost the rem

nant.

At that point my wife and her older sister Margaret took up the burden. Mrs. Moore graduated at fourteen and the sisters sought schools to teach, and thus kept the family together. They were plucky girls, thus to take the burden unexpected and unanticipated. Well, when I met Mrs. Moore she had just begun teaching at San Leandro, where I lived. Her family then lived in San Francisco, where she soon got a teacher's position, so she was in San Leandro but short time. In October, 1868, came an earthquake in which the courthouse was destroyed. I was late that morning, but Mr. Josselyn, the head deputy,

was on hand and was killed. I took his place and served to November, 1870.

In November, 1870, I resigned my position, moved to Oakland, and opened a law office. In June following she also resigned and we were married. In the following January (1872) I took office as district attorney of Alameda County, which I held four years. Since then I have not held or sought any office of any kind.

We first lived in a little house still standing on Sixth Street near Brush, where Ethel was born. Then under compulsion to live at the county seat we lived in San Leandro a short time, in the Harlan house (still standing) just across the creek from the town. Then we moved to a house on the southwest corner of Fifth Avenue and East Eleventh Street, Oakland, where we lived ten years. There my children, A. A. Moore, Jr., Carmen and Stanley were born. In 1880 we built the home we still live in, Jacqueline and Margaret being born there, and Carmen's son Walter and Jacqueline's daughter Jacqueline were born there, too.

Since our marriage I have continuously practiced in Oakland and San Francisco, moving my office to the latter place in 1898, where it still is, and where as Moore and Moore, my son Stanley and I pursue our labors.

I have said nothing of my professional life of fortyfive years' continuous professional work, in which I am still engaged, though not as actively as formerly. My business has been mainly in litigated cases-trials

and courtroom work. One could write a volume upon an active career of forty-five years at the bar, yet while it has been my life work, full of ever-shifting incident, dull, intensely exciting, prosaic, tragic by turns, I doubt if the recital would interest. The names of most of my brethren with whom I began have "been carved full many a year on the tomb." Still a goodly number of the old fellows close ranks, touch elbows and go our way full of cheer and with such philosophy as we can. Lawyers of the old time, before the profession became so strongly commercialized, were and they still are among themselves, almost always companionable. Many of my best friends. and most cheery companions have been of my brethren with whom I conflicted often. I believe that a good lawyer is the best citizen. However, it is a hard life at best and as things are now I would not advise any young man to be a lawyer. The handicap is too heavy. This closes my remarks.

APPENDIX I

NARRATIVE OF WILLIAM BIGGS*

In the year 1788, March 28th, I was going from Bellfontain to Cahokia, in company with a young man named John Vallis, from the State of Maryland; he was born and raised near Baltimore. About 7 o'clock in the morning I heard two guns fired; by the report I thought they were to the right; I thought they were white men hunting; both shot at the same time. I looked but could not see any body; in a moment after I looked to the left and saw sixteen Indians, all upon their feet with their guns presented, about forty yards distant from me, just ready to draw trigger. I was riding between Vallis and the Indians in a slow trot, at the moment I saw them. I whipped my horse and leaned my breast on the horse's withers, and told Vallis to whip his horse, that they were Indians. That moment they all fired their guns in one platoon; you could scarcely distinguish the report of their guns one from another. They shot four bullets into my horse, one high up in his withers, one in the bulge of the ribs near my thigh, and two in his rump, and shot four or five through my great coat. The moment they fired their guns they ran towards us and yelled so frightfully, that the wounds and the yelling of the Indians scared my horse so that he jumped so suddenly to one side of the road, that my gun fell off my shoulder, and

*Wm. Biggs was a brother of the wife of Captain James Moore. Printed for the Author, June, 1826. See Review in Romance of Western History, by Jas. Hale, Cincinnati, Robt. Clarke & Co., 1885, pp. 274-284. †Belle Fontaine is the name of a magnificent spring of water near the town of Waterloo, Ill., situated on what was originally the homestead of the pioneer hero, Captain James Moore, and now owned by his greatgrandchildren.