Sometime prior to 1867 Carpentier had several talks with Leland Stanford, and endeavored to persuade him to build north from Niles across the Ravenswood cut-off. In the fall of 1867, Carpentier and Stanford talked again, and Stanford came to entertain the idea as a matter of reasonable negotiation. John P. Felton was engaged by the city of Oakland to look into its rights. Carpentier says that he offered the railroad one-half of his water-front if it would make his property its terminus. He says that this mode of adjustment was acquiesced in by Mayor Merritt and Mr. Felton, and that about the end of the year (1867), it came to be understood between them and Governor Stanford and himself that something should be done on approximately this basis.[133] Judge E. B. Crocker, however, attorney for the Central Pacific, asked that outstanding disputes regarding the water-front be first settled. The legislature was soon to be in session, and it was urged that all should act together in trying to get an authorization for the settlement of difficulties. This was done.[134] On the 27th of March, 1868, as a part of a series of compromise arrangements, the Oakland Water Front Company was incorporated. The subscribers and original directors were H. W. Carpentier, president; Samuel Merritt, vice-president; Lloyd Tevis, secretary; Leland Stanford, treasurer; E. R. Carpentier and J. B. Felton. Mr. Tevis and H. W. Carpentier were in the same year directors of the Southern Pacific Railroad Company. The Oakland Water Front Company was capitalized for $5,000,000, and the stock was divided into 50,000 shares. Of these shares H. W. Carpentier subscribed for 23,000, or 46 per cent; Stanford for 17,500, or 35 per cent; and Felton for 4,999, or 10 per cent. Lloyd Tevis took 2,500 shares, E. R. Carpentier 2,000 shares, and Samuel Merritt 1 share. On March 31, Mr. Carpentier deeded to the new corporation all the water-front of the city of Oakland, that is to say, all the lands, and the lands covered with water lying between high tide and ship channel, being the water-front lands described in and granted in the act of incorporation of May 4, 1852. He excepted from this deed only that water-front lying between the middle of Washington Street and the middle of Franklin Street and extending southerly to a line parallel with First Street. By Section 2 of an agreement made the following day, the Oakland Water Front Company agreed to deed this last-named area to the city of Oakland.[135] Cession of Land by Water Front Company On April 1, 1868, two further agreements were signed. One, styled an indenture, was between the Oakland Water Front Company, the Western Pacific Railroad Company, Carpentier, Felton, and Stanford. Under this indenture, and in consideration of the deed of March 31, the Oakland Water Front Company declared that it held the property conveyed to it subject to covenants which were particularly set forth as follows: