“One day Mr. Woods shot a deer.  He tied some of the deer meat up in a tree near the cabin.  A grizzly bear smelled the meat.  He wanted it.  He cam up to the cabin.  The door was open.  Mrs. Woods saw the bear.  What should she do? He was coming up to the cabin.  He would get her children.  He might kill her.  She thought of her children first.

Quick as a wink she lifted her two boys and put them up on the cross beams in the top of the cabin.  Then she turned to meet the bear.  He had never seen a white woman before.  He was as frightened as she was.  He ran before the woman would get him.

“In a few years the Woods built a new home.  The lumber for it came all the way from back east around Cape Horn.

“Mr. Woods had a ferry.  It crossed the river near where the bridge now is.  The place was known as Wood’s Ferry.  Mr. Woods built a toll bridge across the river.  That meant that people had to pay to use it.  Mr. Woods charged a man with a wagon and two horses one dollar to cross it.  The first year he took in $9,900.  His bridge had cost him only $1,000.  The town was divided into lots.  It was named Woodbridge.  Before the bridge was built steamers had gone up the river as far a Lockeford.  After the bridge was built, steamers 110 feet long came up the river as far as Woodbridge.  Some people thought that Woodbridge might be a bigger town than Stockton.  Woods tried to make it larger than Stockton.  He hoped to have steamers run between it and San Francisco.”