Emigration to California and Oregon in the year 1846.... Savages wife was in a delicate condition and near confinement. And our little party was compelled to lay by a day or two at a small lake in the high of the Sierras, where it was exceedingly cold of nights. Some snow had fallen. There was no grass and mountains of rocks all around. My comrade, A. J. Grayson and I went up on a high ridge and obtained a view of a magnificent lake, in a southerly direction, since called Lake Tahoe, at one time known as Lake Bigler in honor of one of California's early Governors. Grayson, being a great lover of nature wanted to go to the lake. I told him it was too far and I declined to go, but he went and found it nearer ten miles than three as far as he thought. And it was midnight when he got back to the camp. ... Mrs. Jim Savage had given birth to a girl baby and was doing well but undertook to get out of the wagon while she was confined and exposed herself to the cold air and died next day, from the effects of the sudden cold. We had much difficulty in finding a place to dig a grave, it was rocks all around, but finally found up a ___, a small flat where we could dig a shallow grave. And lined it with the bows of the Arhe_intal, a flat leafed Cedar and we carried her remains about a quarter of a mile up rocky ravine through brush and shrub to this grave prepared for them. We had to use the sideboard of a wagon to carry the corpse on, wrapped in a sheet without any coffin. We laid the body in this shallow grave lined with the evergreen boughs of the cypress tree and covered it over with the same material and filled in the dirt and rock on top. .... [Source: Handwritten Letter from William M. Boggs, Napa City, Cal. May 25th, 1908; To the Editor of San Francisco Chronicle; California State Library, Pioneer File, James D. Savage]