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Letter From Mr. Bridges

              The following extract from a private letter to the editor of the TRIBUNE under date of Los Angeles, Cal., March 23rd, will be of interest to the many friends of Mr. Bridges and family here.

             We all arrived in California safe and sound. Mrs. Bridges had a very bad cold after we arrived, but she is better now and we are all very comfortable in our new home. I have purchased a very nice place in East Los Angeles for $2,500. Willie and I have just got through our potato planting. We have a fine lot of trees on the place. Our orange trees have fruit on them and blossoms as well, and our flower garden is fine. Those lilies and geraniums that we had so much trouble with at home bloom here out of doors all winter. We have a large tree of paradise that has flowers the year round. The city is lighted with electric light. There is one mast near us 150 feet high; it lights our garden like moonlight, so that we could see to make garden at night. On Friday last I went to De Turks, hired a pair of ponies and a covered carriage for the day (for which I paid $5) and drove Mrs. B., Rosa and Willie to Pasadena, a beautiful place. It has improved very much since I was there, two years ago. Land sells there from $800 to $1200 per acre. We then drove to Sierra Madre Villa, which they tell me is one of the finest places in the world for invalids. Then we drove to Old San Gabriel, a very old Spanish village, where they have an old mission church, 112 years old. From there we returned home, a little tired and very well satisfied with our day’s trip. I have not been to see my friend’s yet, Oscar Griffith, R. Larter or Mr. Beckett, on account of the rains washing away the track, and I don’t like to ford the rivers between here and Santa Anna.

Welland Tribune

4 April 1884

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