1833 01149 0577
GENEALOGV
^79. ^OE
SA519H
A HISTORY
CITY OF SAN FRANCISCO
AND INCIDENTALLY OP THE
STATE OF CALIFORNIA.
BY
JOHN S. HITTELL,
Historian of the Society of California Pioneers ; Author of " The Resources of
California," "A Brief History of Culture," tic, etc.
SAN FRANCISCO:
A. L. BANCROFT & COMPANY.
1878.
Entered according to Act of Congress, in the year 1878,
By JOHN S. HITTELL,
In the Office of the Librarian of Congress, at Washington.
1195088
VOLUME IS DEDICATED
SOCIETY OF CALIFORNIA PIONEERS
HISTORIAN.
PREFACE.
Tms book was written at the request of the committee ap-
pointed to manage the celebration in San Francisco of the
Centennial Anniversary of the Declaration of our National
Independence, in accordance with a resolution adopted by Con-
gress on the thirteenth of March, 1876, recommending that in
every town the delivery of a historical sketch of the place from
its foundation should be part of the local celebration. It was
considered better that, instead of a brief sketch to be read pub-
licly in an hour, the metropolis on the American coast of the
North Pacii&c should have a book of several hundred pages.
The city furnishes material enough for a history which could
never be prepared on a more appropriate occasion than in com-
memoration of the National Centennial year, especially since
it happens to coincide with the completion of the first century
in the existence of our city. Such a double epoch demanded
some special mark of recognition.
There are urgent reasons why works of this kind should be
written by pioneers, and while there are still hundreds of
pioneers living to furnish information from their personal
reminiscences and from papers that will be lost when they die.
No record, however brilliant in its composition or comprehen-
sive and careful in its statements, could ever be accepted as
satisfactory, as to many of the great events that have occurred
here on a comparatively small stage of action within the last
thirty years, unless based on the authority of the actors them-
selves — who, with highly-wrought feelings, often played for the
great stake of fortune, and sometimes for the still greater one
of life, running through a succession of rapid and startling
6 PREFACE.
vicissitudes. Whatever misfortunes liave overtaken tlie indi-
vidual citizens, they have the consolation of seeing that Cali-
fornia has advanced with a swift and grand prosperity, and that
they have participated in one of the most imposing pageants
ever enacted on the stage of universal history.
The scenes which I must try to depict for the reader will
show a multitude of figures and many phases of passion. A
host of adventurers flocking from the centers of civilization on
the shores of the Atlantic, half across the world, to a remote
corner on the coast of what was then the semi-barbarous Pacific,
coming to make a brief stay in the rude search for gold, brought
a high culture with them, and suddenly lifted their new home
to an equal place among the most enlightened communities.
The early American settlers in California, instead of being, as
many persons at a distance supposed they would be, the mere
offscourings of a low rabble, were, in a large proportion, men
of knowledge and capacity; and if generally inexperienced in
high station and serious responsibility, yet not incompetent for
them. At brief notice they organized a state, complete in all
its parts. As if by magic, their touch or their influence created
magnificent cities; clipper ships, that cast the boasted India-
men of England into disrepute; two railroads, connecting the
Atlantic with the Pacific; a line of ocean steamers, connecting
Asia with America, and a telegraph line from the Golden Gate
to the Mississippi.
By their helff, a village so insignificant that it had scarcely
a mention on the map, grew till it became a leading center of
population, commerce, industry, wealth, luxury, and of intel-
lectual, political, and financial activity. They saw the in-
digenous chaparral give way to tents, these to cloth-lined
wooden buildings, and these to public and private palaces that
rival the homes of European princes. Unable to find suitable
room upon the land, they built a thousand houses and miles of
street upon piles, rivaling the exploits of Venice and Amster-
dam in encroaching upon the sea. But since this work, when
first done in haste, lacked the character of permanence, the
PREFACE. 7
solid earth was moved out to give an everlasting foundation to
tlie structures erected upon places once occupied by the bay.
Under their labor, a hundred hills were cut down and trans-
ported to fill as many valleys, and thus a spacious, level and
solid site was made by costly art where nature had but little
save steep ridge, unsightly ravine, swamp, mud-flat and deep
bay.
The pioneers saw nearly the whole business part of the city
swept away by several great conflagrations. They saw the
Sydney convicts threaten to become masters of the place in
1851, and the political ruffians obtain a powerful influence in
the municipal government in 1856; and in both cases, as the
law was insufficient to j)rovide a remedy, the people organized
their vigilance committees which executed justice with a
promptness, prudence, vigor and exactness that excited the
envy of learned and honest judges.
They saw in much of the state the savage retire before the
cow-herd, who again retired before the wheat farmer. They
saw the rise of a new horticulture w^hich combines the energy
of New England with the scientific training of Europe on a soil
as fertile as that of Egypt, and in a climate as genial as that of
Italy. They saw the development of a new mining industry,
which lifted rivers from their beds, washed away the eternal
hills, followed up and cleaned out the channels of the immense
streams of an ancient geological era, and made topographical
changes in the natural levels of the earth's surface so great that
they may claim to exceed all that has ever been done elsewhere.
"When the auriferous deposits of the western slope of the Sierra
Nevada had yielded the best of their treasures, the miners
crossed the mountain ridge, and astonished the world by their
new metallurgy, their improved applications of machinery to
deep mining, and a production of silver from the Comstock
lode surpassing the aggregate yield of all the mines of Mexico
and Peru when they were at their best under the dominion of
Spain, and when they exported nothing worthy of note save
precious metal.
8 PREFACE.
The men who took part in most of these wonderful changes,
and witnessed all of them, feel that California, and especially
San Francisco, has an interest for them such as no other coun-
try or city could have acquired, in our age at least, nor do they
lament that they did not live in some better time in the remote
past. No golden era of romance or chivalry, no heroic period
of Greece or Kome provokes their envy, or, in their conception,
outshines the brilliancy of the scenes in which they have been
actors. This is the very home of their souls.
It is impossible for one to live long in San Francisco, and
become familiar with its business and business men, without
becoming attached to the city and state. However much he
may see to dislike, he will also find much that commands his
attention and fastens on his sympathies. The rapidity of
growth, the energy in industry and traffic, the competition of
commercial talents, the fever of speculation, the vast accumula-
tion of wealth, the fierce fluctuations of fortune, the frequent
visits of celebrities from all parts of the civilized world, and
the magnitude of events occurring in swift succession on a
comparatively small stage, never allow our interest to flag or
permit us to forget that we are in an exceptional land, among
a population who, though nearly all immigrants from many
different parts of America and Europe, yet, by long training
under singular and impressive circumstances, have taken the
general character of Californians and have come to regard
themselves as a peculiar people. There is probably nothing
that serves to distinguish them more than their pride in their
state, their attachment to it, and their profound conviction that
the more people elsewhere know of the country and its inhab-
itants, the better they will like them. The Californians, esj)e-
cially the pioneers, are proud of the large influence exercised
by their state in the commerce and industry of the world. The
discovery of the gold deposits of the Sierra Nevada was an im-
portant event of peaceful progress, a notable fact in the history
of commerce and industry. It was the beginning, or great
stimulus of important changes, the like of which never were
PREFACE. 9
before attacliecl to so small a community -within so brief a
period.
It would be a mistake, bowever, to ascribe the pride of the
pioneers exclusively to their opinion of the imj^ortance of their
enterprise, in its direct or indirect influence on themselves or
on the world at large. Their feelings are partly the result of
an ardent attachment to the soil and climate of the state, and
the most unbounded confidence, that, on account of the
natural advantages, it must become one of the chief centers of
the highest culture. Notwithstanding the vast accumulations
of financial wealth, artistic treasure and interesting historical
association in older and more popluous communities, the impres-
sion prevails generally here, that this is a more desirable coun-
try for the home of most of its j)eople than any other under
sun. We envy neither France, Tuscany, Naples, nor Pal-
estine. The soil of our state is not sacred to us, in the sense
in which the Ganges and Nile valleys, Jerusalem, Rome, and
Nauvoo have been sacred, but our attachment to it is intense.
Bounded by Shasta on the north, and San Bernardino on the
south, Yosemite on the east, and the Golden Gate on the west,
we have a territory that is blest by Nature beyond all the world.
Why should we not be proud of it ? The commerce, the
wealth, the literature and the art of San Francisco; the hy-
draulic washings and quartz mines of the Sierra Nevada; the
quicksilver furnaces of the coast range; the borax deposits of
tlie enclosed basin east of the snowy mountains; the wheat
fields of the Sacramento and San Joaquin valleys; the orchards
of Santa Clara and Alameda; the orange and olive groves of
the southern coast; the sub-tropical valleys, the semi-frigid
Californian Alps, the ever cool clime of our middle coast, a
thousand precious mineral springs of various qualities, adapted
to cure a hundred different phases of disease; an exemption
from the influence that lead to the sjiread of many of the most
formidable epidemics elsewhere, and the possession of remarka-
ble advantages for sanitaiy purposes by large districts; these
form an aggregate sufficient to breed, nourish and stimulate
10 PREFACE.
local pride as great as that which fills the breasts, not only of
the pioneers, but of most of the other residents of our city.
The old Californians want a book to revive their recollections
and to recall associations, which, vivid as they are in some re-
spects, still need to be kindled anew, and connected with the
present, as if proof were wanted that the wonders of their past
lives are, after all, not mere dreams. Their experiences and
impressions are part of the most valuable information of an age
that must ever preserve a prominent place in the history of our
state, though we liojoe the time may never come when enlight-
ened readers elsewhere will look back to the first quarter cen-
tury of American dominion in California, and read of that with
interest, caring little for its later history, as now we read
about the ages of Pericles in Athens, and of the Spanish con-
querors in Mexico and Peru.
As the most brilliant center of civilization in the basin of the
North Pacific and the metropolis of the western slope of the
United States, San Francisco and its history should have an in-
terest for many readers beyond its borders. Its population has
a representative character — a flavor of universal brotherhood.
Every country of Europe and every state in the American
Union has many natives among its population. A million homes
between Maine and Texas, between Glasgow and Constanti-
nople are interested in some son, daughter, brother or sister in
the golden metropolis. The Teuton, the Latin, the Slav, the
Celt, the Jew, the Magyar, and the Chinaman, show their signs
and use their tongues in our streets. No other city has in pro-
portion to its size so many heart-strings running out through
all civilized nations.
It is not possible, nor is it desirable to entirely separate the
history of San Francisco from that of California. The former,
though not Avithout a large productive industry of its own, has
depended upon the latter for its growth and prosperity. The
city with its suburbs has now more than a third of the inhabit-
ants and wealth of the state, and has from the first had more
than any other metropolis as compared with its tributary popu-
PREFACE. 11
lation. "Whatever lias added to the wealth of any town, or
mining or agricultural district within ten degrees, has aided to
enrich the " chrysopolis," the golden city, as it has been styled.
Here, most of the railroads and silver mines, and many of the
gold mines, ranchos, canals, orchards and vineyards of the
state are owned; here their revenues are invested, and are or
will be enjoyed. San Francisco is the center and focus of the
Pacific Slope of the United States, and its progress reflects
and has been dependent on that of a wide area.
So much it seemed proper to say by way of prefatory remark
upon the subject and the book.
J. S. H.
San Francisco,
October 1, 1878.
CONTENTS,
CHAPTER I.
INDIAN ERA.
Section. Page.
1. Aborigines • 19
2. Discovery of California 25
3. Drake 26
4. Vizcaino 29
5. Missions Projected 30
6. Franciscan Order 33
Section. Page.
7. Junipero Serra 33
8. First Expedition 39
9. First Missions 39
10. Discovery of Bay 41
11. Privations 42
CHAPTER II.
12. Visiting Expeditions 45
13. First Settlement 47
14. Mission Authority 49
15. Indian Women 51
16. Indian Men 53
17. Savage Life 54
18. Convert Life 55
19. Indian Work 55
MISSION ERA.
20. No Education 56
21. Number of Indians 58
22. Great Mortality 59
23. Friars 62
24. Mission Buildings 64
25. Mission Income 66
26. Decay of Missions 68
CHAPTER III.
27. Secularization
28. Land Grants
29. Pueblo 76
30. Leese 79
31. YerbaBuena 82
32. First House 84
33. First Survey 86
THE VILLAGE ERA
... 70
... 72
34. Hudson Bay 88
35. Predictions 91
36. Morrell 93
37. Beechey 93
38. Wilkes, etc 95
39. American Longing 98
40. Larkin 99
14
CONTENTS.
CHAPTER III
Page.
41. Fremont's Blunder 100
42. Bear Flag 102
43. American Flag 103
44. Effect of Conquest 106
45. Mormons 107
46. Change of Name 110
47. Stevenson's Regiment 112
■Continued.
Section. Page.
48. O'Farrell's Survey 114
49. Sale of Lots 116
50. Census of 1847 117
51. Leading Town 118
52. Shipping in 1847 118
53. Puff for California 120
54. Peace 121
CHAPTER IV.
THE GOLDEN ERA.
55. Gold 124
56. Trade Stimulated 126
57. Excitement in the East 129
58. 1849 132
59. First Great Fire 133
60. Telegraph Hill 134
61. Edward Everett 135
62. First Steamer 136
63. Lnmigration by Sea 139
64. Call for Convention 140
65. Ayuntamiento 141
66. City Government 143
67. Constitution 144
68. Summer of 1849 146
69. Hounds 148
70. Auctions 149
71. More Lot Sales 150
72. Inland Steamboats 150
73. Plank Road 151
74. Winter of 1849 154
75. 1850 155
76. Second Great Fire 156
77. Legislative Work 157
78. Admission 159
79. Rejoicing 160
80. Clipper Ships 162
81. Pioneer Society 164
82. Wharf Contracts 164
83. 1851 166
84. Fourth and Fifth Fires 168
85. Vigilance Committee, 1851 . . 172
86. Coroner's Verdict 174
87. Execution of Stuart 175
88. Whittakerand McKenzie... 176
89. Land Commission 178
90. 1852 183
91. French Immigration 185
92. Raousset 189
63. Fighting in Sonora 189
94. Obstacles 192
95. End of Raousset 195
99. 1853 196
97. City SUp Sale 199
98. Filibuster Walker 200
99. Six Year's Work 206
CHAPTER V.
THE GOLDEN ERA IN DECLINE.
100. 1854 208
101. Dillon and Del Valle 209
102. Mercantile Business 210
103. Staple Imports 214
104. Commercial Panic 215
105. Meiggs 218
CONTENTS.
15
CHAPTER 'Y .^Continued.
SEcnoN. Page.
106. Forged Warrants 219
107. Other Frauds 222
108. Meiggs's Flight 223
109. 1855 226
110. Adams & Co 227
111. Panama Railroad 233
112. Gambling 235
113. Walker in Nicaragua 237
114. 1856 239
115. Political Corruption 241
116. Murder of King 243
117. Vigilance Committee, 1856. 245
118. Swift Organization 247
119. Casey and Cora Executed.. 249
120. Ballot-box Staffers 251
121. Law and Order Party 253
122. Arrest of Terry 254
123. McGowan 257
124. Hetherington and Brace .... 257
125. Disbandment 258
126. Work of the Committee.... 260
127. People's Party 262
128. 1857 266
129. Crabb 268
130. 1858 269
131. Mining Excitements 271
132. Fraser Fever 273
133. 1859 278
134. Early PoUtics 279
135. Broderick 281
Section. Page.
136. Hostility to Slavery 283
137. Campaign of 1853 284
138. Hammond Denoimced 286
139. Grab for Senatorship 287
140. Chivalry Triumph 289
141. Know-Nothing Triumph . . . 292
142. H. S. Foote 293
143. Chivalry in Discredit 294
144. Vigilantes and Broderick. .. 295
145. Senator at Last 296
146. Sale of Second Senatorship. 297
147. Offer to Sell it Again 299
148. PteceptionofGwin's Letter. 300
149. No Patronage to Broderick . 301
150. Insult to Buchanan 302
151. Campaign of 1859 305
152. Deadly Duel 307
153. Conversion into a Hero 309
154. Trading Capital 310
155. Reward for Service 312
156. Veracity 316
157. Chase for Senatorship 318
158. 1860 319
159. Prosperity 321
160. Bulkhead 323
161. Pony Express 324
162. Election of 1860 325
163. Baker's Oration 327
164. Seven Years 329
CHAPTER VI.
THE SILVER ERA.
165. 1861 331
166. 1862 332
167. Sanitary Fund 335
168. 1863 339
169. Silver Panic 339
170. Conness 343
171. 1864 346
172. Gold Currency 348
173. Lincoln Re-elected 349
174. 1865 351
175. Fire Telegraph 352
176. Railroad Purchase 353
16
CONTENTS.
CHAPTER Nl.— Continued.
Page.
177. Earthquake of 1865 354
178. City SUp Debt 354
179. 1866 357
180. Subsidies 358
181. Paid Fire Department 359
182. Kearny Street Widened 360
183. Outside Lands 362
184. 1867 364
185. Railroad Progress 366
186. Democratic Victory 367
187. 1868 369
189. San Joaquin Valley 371
190. 1869 372
191. Pacific Railroad 373
192. Vallejo Raib-oad 375
193. Silver Mines 376
194. Changes 378
195. 1870 381
196. Census of 1870 383
197. French-German War 384
198. 1871 385
199. Hawes 388
200. 1872 389
201. Goat Island 389
202. Belcher Bonanza 392
Section. Page.
203. Diamond Fraud 393
204. 1873 396
205. Oakland Harbor 397
206. Dolly Varden 398
207. 1874 399
208. Large Immigration 399
209. Con. Virginia Bonanza 400
210. Flood & O'Brien 401
211. James Lick 403
212. 1875 404
213. Calaveras Water Scheme... 405
214. Bank of California 406
215. Ralston 409
216. Eulogy 412
217. Bank Reorganized 414
218. Virginia Fire 415
219. Lick's Trustees Changed... 416
220. 1876 417
221. Lick's Death 418
222. Centennial Celebration 419
223. 1877 421
224. Hard Times 422
225. Workingmen 424
226. 1878 426
227. Eighteen Years 427
CHAPTER VII.
GENERALITIES.
228. Natural Site 432
229. Grades 435
230. Amount of Grading 437
231. Sources of Buildings 438
232. The Press 441
233. Amusements 442
234. Churches 444
235. Charities 446
236. Home Life 447
237. Hotels 449
238. Millionaires 450
239. Extravagance 454
240. Social Spirit 458
241. Swarming Out 462
242. Governmental Defects 463
243. Literature and Art 466
244. Condition in 1878 475
245. Conclusion 477
CONTENTS.
17
APPENDIX.
Authorities .
References. .
Statistics . . .
Page.
. 483
. 486
Index
Subscribers ,
Page.
. 493
. 499
HISTORY OF SAN FRANCISCO.
CHAPTER I.
THE INDIAN ERA.
Section 1. Aborigines. The origin of the Amer-
ican Indian is a subject of conjecture and dispute
among ethnologists, and when these disagree upon a
point in their special domain, it would be presump-
tuous for others to make a decision in a magisterial
tone. Some theorists think that the red men were in-
digenous to this continent ; others that they emigrated
from north-eastern Asia. The main hope for addi-
tional light upon the question in the future is in the
study of the Indian languages, which have hitherto
been neglected, because they contained no literature
and were not rendered valuable by important his-
torical associations.
Numerous late discoveries of fossil human bones
and works of rude art, in strata of gravel and sand
which had not been disturbed for thousands of years,
prove conclusively that California had been inhabited
by men for many ages before its discovery by Cabrillo
in 1542. The Indians of this coast have no records,
nor have any of their early traditions been preserved,
20 HISTORY OF SAN FRANCISCO.
SO that we do not know anything of them previous to
the first visits of the Spanish navigators, save by
inference from their condition, and that of their rela-
tives in Lower California since then, and the examina-
tion of exhumed implements. Of these latter the
most important are rude mortars for grinding grass
seeds — rough, hard stones, from a foot to two feet in
diameter, with a shallow or deep concavity, in which
the seeds were pounded with a pestle. The material
is usually granite or basaltic rock. Besides the mor-
tars, miners have dug up arrow-heads, made of flint
and obsidian, similar to those made and used of late
years. Nothing has been found among the fossils, or
elsewhere, to indicate that the ancient inhabitants
of the country were ever above a very low stage of
savagism. There are no pieces of pottery, no metallic
tools or ornaments, no cut stone, no remains of stone
or brick buildings, nor signs of fortifications. The
failure to find these things, or anything equally high
in character, either on the surface of the earth or un-
derground, in a country where so much of the deep
alluvium has been turned up, and where so many mor-
tars and arrow-heads have been found, implies that
they never were here. All the archaeological evidence
goes to show that the natives of California were as
savage in a. d. 542 as they were a thousand years
later ; and this inference is supported by the historical
principle that savage tribes, unless disturbed by con-
tact with a more advanced race, usually remain in the
same condition for centuries upon centuries. The
THE INDIAN ERA. 21
earliest accounts that we have of the Indians about
San Francisco bay, show them to us — as most of them
remained until long after the Missions were established
— far below the red inhabitants of any other part
of the continent; and so low, indeed, in the scale of
humanity, that we must go down to the aboriginal
Australians and the most degraded of Papuans to find
their equals. They had no metals, no woven cloth, no
pottery; no arms save the bow and arrow; no cultivated
lands of any kind; no domestic animals save dogs; no
houses, but only rude huts made by putting sticks
over a hole in the ground, and covering them with
dirt, or by thatching a frame of brush with flags or
tules; and no boats or canoes for the navigation of San
Francisco bay or any of its tributary waters.
Their mechanical industry consisted mainly of weav-
ing baskets, and making bows, arrows and spears.
The baskets, woven of wire grass, were water-tight,
and were used for cooking and for carrying burdens.
The bows were made of young trees, perhaps the west-
ern yew, and were covered on the back with deer
sinews. The arrows had heads of obsidian, sharp-
ened by striking it and chipping it off until an edge
was obtained; it then cut like broken glass. Knives
and spoar-heads were made in the same manner.
Spears for fish had a little point of bone, which came
out of the socket the moment after the game was
struck, and then, being fastened to the spear handle
by a cord, turned cross-wise in the flesh.
The men went naked in the summer, and in the
22 HISTORY OF SAN FRANCISCO.
winter wore a deer-skin over the back. The women
covered themselves from the hips to the knees, with
an apron made by tying" pieces of flag" or bark to a
girdle. Neither sex had any covering for the head
or feet. Their food consisted mainly of grass seeds,
acorns, buckeyes, berries, fish, grasshoppers, clover
and edible roots or tubers, with, occasionally, birds, rab-
bits, and deer. Those living- near the rivers, caught
great quantities of salmon in their season, but they
had not skill in preparing any flesh to keep. They
were poor hunters and rarely killed large game, not-
withstanding its abundance. Acorns were mashed,
and after being mixed with water, the dough was
cooked by burying it Avith red-hot stones under and
above. The buckeyes were mashed and made with
water into a thin gruel, which was boiled by throwing
red-hot stones into it. Summer brought an abundance
of provisions, and the Indians got fat; in the winter
their food became scarce and they grew lean. It was
observed that, like some wild beasts, their offspring
were generally born in the spring.
They had no religion, no conception of a deity or
a future life, no idols, no form of worship, no priests,
no philosophical conceptions, no historical traditions,
no proverbs, no mode of recording thought. Their
domestic and social polity was of the simplest nature;
polygamy was common, and slavery not rare; the
husband had absolute power over the persons and lives
of his wives, the parent over his children, the master
over his slaves. Woman was treated as an inferior.
THE INDIAN ERA. 23
It was her duty to perform all the labor of carrying
burdens, collecting vegetable food, grinding grass
seed and doing such miscellaneous work as would have
been in their opinion a disgrace to the men, who did
little more than to hunt, fish, go to war, make a few
arms, and lounge about. The chief support of the
family came from the wife; and the man was consid-
ered to be well situated in life, in proportion to the
number of nominal wives, but real slaves, whom he
had to wait upon him. Women were the chief article of
wealth; there was no public ceremony to mark the
beginning of the relation of husband and wife, and no
sacredness in the relation after it had commenced.
They had no political organization; there was no
king, no prince, no hereditary authority, no political
bond on which command could be based. Some man
distinguished by more courage, bravery or good luck
than his fellows, mio^ht be recoo^nized as a leader for a
time, but there was no permanence to his power; there
were no orderly public councils, nor any tribunals to
administer public justice. The tribes were small, and,
in the coast valleys, were usually at war, or at least
not at peace with the tribes in the adjacent valleys.
It was dangerous for a man to venture alone across the
mountains which bounded the home of his tribe; they
had not the courage and spirit to be warlike, nor the
friendliness and good faith to have firm peace. War
was made in the rudest, most cruel, and most cow-
ardly manner; ambushes, midnight surprises, and
fiorhting under cover, and at long distances,, were
24 EISTORY OF SAN FRANCISCO.
always preferred to fair encounter upon the open field in
daylight. Their only ceremonies were cremations and
dances; they burned their dead amidst the concourse
of the whole tribe, usually at night; and w^hile the
body was broiling in the flames, the women howled
and wailed, and men marched round the funeral pyre.
There was one main dance every year, in the spring,
and that, too, was held at night. A party of a half
a dozen or more men placed themselves in a row, while
a monotonous chant was sung by women sitting around.
In some tribes the infant left by the deceased mother
was burned with her, not as a religious sacrifice, but
as a simple mode of getting rid of a child for which
nobody would care.
The Aztecs built up a great empire, remarkable for
its military power, its architectural monuments, its
astronomical discoveries, its general industry, and
skill in many of the mechanic arts. The Indians of
the upper Mississippi valley were distinguished for
their manliness, bravery, constancy, and warlike skill;
and the remains of extensive fortifications and great
mounds show that a large and industrious population
once dwelt there. In the Hawaiian Islands, the na-
tives, when discovered by Cook, were the most amiable
children of nature — full of friendliness, afiection, volup-
tuousness and grace in time of peace, and capable of
extensive combinations and sturdy courage in war.
Heligious dogmas, professional priests, extensive po-
litical organizations, hereditary chiefs, open councils for
the discussion of public affairs, and systematic agricul-
THE INDIAN ERA. 25
til re; all these were found among the tribes living in
the eastern and southern parts of the continent and
the nearest islands, but none of them existed in the
central basin of California, or the valleys opening into
San Francisco bay. The only sparks of industry and
spirit were found in the deserts of the Colorado and
the Mojave, in the bleak and rugged valley of the
Klamath, or in a small district near Santa Barbara.
Sec. 2. Discover!/ of California. Mexico was con-
quered in 1519, and Peru in 15-32. The prizes there
taken were so great, that the Spanish adventurers
in the New World, were full of hope that more such
kingdoms might be found and plundered. They looked
to the north-west coast of America as the possible
seat of a wealthy empire, and they made great exertions
to find it.
When Cortes went to the court of Charles V., in
1528, he was received with distinguished honor, and
rewarded for his services to the empire with many
concessions then considered important; among these
was one, that he might conquer at his own expense
any countries north-west of Mexico, annex them to
the Spanish crown, keep for himself one twelfth of the
precious metals and pearls, and retain the perpetual
viceroyalty for himself and his male heirs. So soon
as he had returned to Mexico, he commenced to make
preparations for his new expedition of conquest, but
various obstacles arose, and he did not go to sea in
person until 1535. At last, he found nothing save
the peninsula of Lower California, which was so bar-
26 HIS TOE Y OF SAN FRANCISCO.
ren that he soon abandoned the hope of finding any-
thing there, and many difficulties prevented him from
going further. When he returned to Mexico in 1537,
he learned that during his absence, two Spaniards,
who had landed with De Soto ten years before in
Florida, had crossed the continent and reached Culi-
acan, bringing with them the report of a rich, popu-
lous, and extensive empire in the north-west. They
did not pretend to have seen the country, or to have
any precise knowledge of it, but they had heard gen-
eral rumors of it. Their story corresponded so well
with the greedy hopes and ambitions of the Spaniards,
that it found ready faith, stimulated the desire to find
another prize like Mexico, and led to the discovery of
California by an expedition sent out in 1542 under
Jose R. Cabrillo, who did not explore the shore any-
where, or see any sign of San Francisco, though
he sailed northward to latitude 44^. The name
of California Avas first used in an obscure Spanish
romance, and there applied to an imaginary land lying
north-west of Mexico, as known when the book was
published, soon after the conquest of Mexico. As used
geographically, California meant nothing but what has
been called Lower California since 1769.
Sec. 3. Drake. In 1579, Sir Francis Drake,
English navigator, who had been out plundering
Spanish ships and towns on the western coast of South
America and Mexico, determined to try to return to
England by the passage supposed to exist in an open
sea north of the American continent. He found the
THE INDIAN ERA. 27
weather so cold in latitude 42°, that he turned south-
ward again, preferring to run the risk of being taken
by the Spaniards, while sailing in the South Pacific
and passing the Straits of Magellan, rather than to
face the chilly winds of the northern ocean. On the
17th of June, he entered a "faire good bay," ''within
thirty-eight degrees of latitude of the line." J. W.
Dwindle thinks that he anchored in Bolinas Bay in
latitude 37° 54', but a common opinion among navi-
gators, that he entered the bay behind Point Reyes,
induced them to give the name of Drake's Bay to
that place, which is exactly in latitude thirty-eight,
while the entrance of San Francisco bay is thirteen
minutes farther south. If he had entered the last-
named bay, it is not probable that he would have
allowed it to pass with simply calling it " faire and
good," without speaking of its large size, strong cur-
rents, magnificent entrance, fertile shores, secure an-
chorage, and numerous islands, matters which no
intellio^ent naviorator could overlook, and which he
must have observed if he had entered. He came to
the coast for the purpose of finding a passage to the
Atlantic, and after observing such deep channels as
as the northern and southern arms of San Francisco
bay, he would scarcely turn back without examining
them, or give an account of his voyage Avithout men-
tioning them. He speaks, however, of numerous
conies, and if by those he meant our ground-squirrels,
he must have gone a considerable distance from
Drake's bay, though they abound near ours. The
28 HISTORY OF SAN FRANCISCO.
" cony" is a rabbit, not a squirrel, and there are rab-
bits at Point Reyes. Here the Indians could build
their houses close by the water-side, better than un-
der the shelter of Point Reyes, and he says the Indians
had their huts at the edge of the water.
He says further, that the country was governed by
an Indian king, and that the Indians solicited Drake
to stay and be their ruler. He accepted, on behalf of
his sovereign, the crown and sceptre offered to him,
by the aboriginal monach. Wherever the earth was
examined, silver and gold were found in it. These
assertions are so improbable, that they are unworthy
of credence. The savages had no king, nor thought
of a crown or sceptre, nor tongue intelligible to the
English; but the chronicler may have made false
statements for the sake of conveying the impression,
that England had some kind of a claim to the new
land.
There is no specification of circumstances to give
probability to the story about the finding of gold and
silver, nor any account of a search for those metals,
or of any specimens having been obtained by Drake.
Gold and silver are not found in the earth near Drake's
bay or the bay of San Francisco, and we have no rea-
son to believe that he penetrated far inland.
The existence of a "San Francisco bay" near lati-
tude 38° was known to the Spaniards soon after Drake
made his voyage, and as there is no other way to ac-
count for its discovery or the origin of its name, it is
possible that the Spaniards got their knowledge from
THE INDIAN ERA. 29
Drake and applied to the bay his first name altered to
suit their tongue and creed. The bay of San Fran-
cisco may be considered the Spanish equivalent of the
bay of Sir Francis.
Sec. 4. Vizcaino. In 1595, the *' San Augustin,"
under command of Captain Cermeilon, was sent from
Manila to examine the coast of California, which
the annual galleon, on the way from the Phillipine
Islands to Mexico, had to skirt, but he was wrecked
in Drake's Bay, then known as San Francisco Bay.
We are not told how this wrecked party escaped, but
the pilot reached Mexico and occupied the same posi-
tion seven years later in the exploring expedition of
two vessels sent from Acapulco, under charge of
Sebastia.n Vizcaino, who, after touchins^ at San Diesfo
and Monterey, also entered Drake's Bay, which the
pilot recognized as the j^lace where he had been
wrecked. The description of Drake's Baj^, as given
in the account of this voyage in the history of Cali-
fornia by Venegas, written about 1768, is unmistak-
able, but it is there called " the port of San Francis-
co," and there was no knowledge or suspicion of a
larger and better harbor within a few miles. Vizcaino
did not land at Drake's Bay, but spent only one night
there, and continued his voyage to the northward,
finding nothing of interest in the history of Califor-
nia.
No attempt was made to explore the coast by any
vessel between 1603 and 1769, but in 1740 a Spanish
map of it was published and it represented the Faral-
30 HISTORY OF SAN FRANCISCO.
Ion Islands lying west of a circular bay with a diame-
ter of thirty miles and a short and narrow entrance.
No name is attached to it but the Spaniards knevr of
no other anchorage save San Francisco bay in' this
vicinity. We shall never know where the map-maker
got his idea of the form of the bay. An old English
chart presumptively prepared from Drake's informa-
tion represents Drake's bay as semi-circular, which
form agrees pretty well with the anchorage under Point
Reyes, but is entirely inapplicable to the inland sea
opening into the Pacific at the Golden Gate.
Sec. 5. Missions Projected. The expulsion of
the Jesuits having been ordered in 1767, the Francis-
can friars were instructed to take possession of the
Jesuit missions in peninsular California, and also to
establish new Missions which should protect the coun-
try farther north against seizure by the English or
French, more especially the former, as the more enter-
prising in such matters, and the less friendly. The
growth of Great Britain in commerce, industry,
wealth, military power and reputation abroad, was
extremely rapid about the middle of the eighteenth
century. England had already become the greatest
of mercantile and manufacturing nations. In four
great wars France was beaten, humiliated, and almost
broken, and in the last of them, with England, from
1756 to 1763, she lost her great possessions in Asia
and America — Hindostan and Canada.
After the peace, which secured to Great Britain not
simply the political dominion over these conquests,
THE INDIAN ERA. 31
but the far more important profits of their commerce
and almost exclusive possession of the sea, as a naval
power and a shipping nation, she began to look around
for further prizes. There was much talk of the new
countries to be occupied, new colonies to be j^lanted,
and new islands to be discovered. Now that Canada
was English, it was doubly important, if possible, to
discover the north-west passage by sea between the
two great oceans, from Baffin's or Hudson's Bay,
westward. The exploring vessels of Cook, and other
British navigators about ^le same time, did not sail
until after the Missions had been established; but the
preliminary talk had commenced years before, and the
Spanish court was influenced, if not governed, by
fears of English expeditions.
It was not the intention to establish towns too
strong to be taken by the English, in case they should
resort to force ; but no war was then feared, and the
mere occupation of a few points, it Avas thought,
would be sufficient. The cheapest and simplest mode
of taking possession of a distant country which of-
fered no great prizes or precious metals, pearls or
gems, would be to found Missions, and that was the
method adopted. It was expected that these would
be the beginnings of settlements, which in a genera-
tion or two would grow into valuable supports of the
Spanish crown. At the same time that the king
ordered the Jesuits to leave his kingdom and its de-
pendencies, he provided that the Franciscan monks
should succeed them in the manasfement of the Mis-
32 HISTORY OF SAN FRANCISCO.
sions of California, and that other Missions should be
established farther north on the coast, which then, for
the first time, was called Upper or New California,
while the peninsula was designated as Old or Lower
California.
The two best known ports in the former region,
San Diego and Monterey, though one hundred and fifty
miles apart were selected as sites for the first Missions
to be established. There was abundant work in the
vicinity of San Diego; and several Missions near one
another in the southern district of the new country
would be of less expense than the same number separ-
ated by long distances. The government at Madrid
was well aware that the Missions in Lower California,
after having been in existence for more than half a
century, were constant and considerable burdens to
the public treasury, and it could not be expected that
the expense would be less for new Missions, so much
more remote. The probable cost was not sufficient to
outweigh the important object of securing the north-
western American coast to the Spanish crown, and so
the occupation by missionaries was ordered. The con-
vent of San Fernando, the principal establishment of
the Franciscan monks in New Spain, was to have
charge of the religious department. The superior of
the convent selected Junipero Serra to be the head of
the friars in California. In 1768, Serra, with fifteen
Franciscans, arrived at Loreto, in Lower California, to
succeed the sixteen Jesuits who had left the peninsula
a few weeks before.
THE INDIAN EBA. 33
Sec. 6. Franciscan Order. The Franciscans made
missionary labor among the poor their specialty.
Their position in the Catholic church is like that of
the Methodists in Protestantism; they carry the gospel
to the lowly, and care less relatively for learning and
social polish than the spirit of devotion. They are
distinguished for humility, poverty, and self denial.
They accept literally the command to have no surplus
garments. One woolen gown tied at the waist by a
hempen cord, with a pair of sandals, was their usual
suit. This order was entrusted with the establishment
of Spanish authority, and the Christian religion in
California.
Sec. 7. Junipero Serra. Junipero Serra, the
founder of the Missions, was born on the Island of
Majorca, part of the kingdom of Spain, on the twenty-
fourth of November, 1713. At the age of sixteen, he
became a friar of the order of St. Francis, and the
new name of Junipero was then substituted for his
baptismal name of Miguel Jose. After entering the
convent, he went through a collegiate course of study,
and before he had received the degree of doctor, was ap-
pointed lecturer upon philosophy. He became a noted
preacher, and was frequentl}^ invited to visit the large
towns of his native island in that capacity.
Junipero was thirty-six years of age when he de-
termined to become a missionary in the new world.
In 1749 he crossed the ocean in company with a num-
ber of brother Franciscan friars, among them several
who afterwards came with him to California. He re-
34 HISTORY OF SAN FRANCISCO.
mained but a short time in the city of Mexico, and
was soon sent as a missionary to the Indians in the
Sierra Madre, in the district now known as the state
of San Luis Potosi. He spent nine years there, and
then returned to the city of Mexico, Avhere he stayed
for seven years, in the convent of San Fernando. In
1767, when fifty-four years of age, he was appointed
to the charge of the Missions to be estabHshed in
Upper California. He arrived at San Diego, 1769,
and with the exception of one journey to Mexico, he
spent all the remainder of his life here, dying at the
Mission of Carmel, near Monterey, on the twenty-
eighth of August, 1784, aged seventy-one years.
Our knowledge of his character is derived almost
exclusively from his biography by Palou, also a native
of Majorca, a brother Franciscan friar who had been
his disciple, came across the Atlantic with him, was
his associate in the convent of San Fernando, his
companion in the expedition to California, his succes-
sor in the presidency of the Missions of Old Califor-
nia, his subordinate afterwards in New California, his
attendant at his death-bed, and his nearest friend for
forty years or more. Under the circumstances, Palou
had a right to record the life of his preceptor and
superior.
Junipero Serra was a typical Franciscan, a man to
whom his religion was everything. All his actions
were governed by the ever-present and predominant
idea that life is a brief probation, trembling between
eternal perdition on one side, and salvation on the
1195088
THE INDIAN ERA. 35
other. Earth, for its own sake, had no joys for him.
His soul did not recognize this life as its home. He
turned with dislike from nearly all those sources of
pleasure in which the polished society of our age de-
lights. As a friar, he had in boyhood renounced all
the joys of love and the attractions of woman's
society. The conversation of his own sex was not a
source of amusement to him. He was habitually
serious. Laughter was inconsistent with the terrible
responsibilities of this probationary existence. Not a
joke OT a jovial action is recorded of him. He de-
lighted in no joyous books. Art or poetry never
served to sharpen his wits, lighten his spirits, or solace
his weary moments. The sweet devotional poetry of
Fray Luis de Leon and the delicate humor of Cer-
vantes, notwithstanding the perfect piety of both,
were equally strange to him. He knew nothing of
the science and philosophy which threw all enlightened
nations into fermentation a hundred years ago. The
rights of man and the birth of chemistry did not with-
draw his fixed gaze from the other world which formed
the constant subject of his contemplation.
It was not enough for him to abstain from positive
pleasure; he considered it as his duty to inflict upon
himself bitter pain. He ate little, avoided meat and
wine, preferred fruit and fish, and never complained of
the quality of his food or sought to have it more
savory. He often lashed himself wath ropes, sometimes
with wire; he was in the habit of beating himself in
the breast with stones, and at times he put a burning
36- HISTORY OF SAN FRANCISCO.
torch to his breast. These things he did while preach-
ing, or at the close of his sermons, his purpose being,
as his biographer says, not only to punish himself, but
also to move his auditory to penitence for their own
sins. Palou relates the following incident, which
occurred during a sermon which he delivered in Mex-
ico. The precise date and place are not given :
" Imitating his devout San Francisco Solano, be drew out a
chain, and letting his habit fall below his shoulders, after bav-
in" exhorted his auditory to penance, he began to beat himself
so cruelly that all the spectators were moved to tears, and one
man rising up from among them went with all haste to the pul-
pit, and taking the chain from the penitent father, came down
with it to the platform of the presbytery, and following the
example of the venerable preacher, he bared himself to the
waist and began to do public penance, saying, with tears and
sobs, ' I am the sinner, ungrateful to God, who ought to do
penance for my sins, and not the father, who is a saint.' So
cruel and pitiless were the blows, that in the sight of all the
people he fell down. They supposing him to be dead, the last
unction and sacrament were administered to him there, and
soon after that he died. We may believe with pious faith that
his sold is enjoying the presence of God."
Serra and his biographer did not receive the Protes-
tant doctrine, that there have been no miracles since
the apostolic age. They believed that the power pos-
sessed by the chief disciples of Jesus had been inher-
ited by Catholic priests of their time, and they
saw wonders where their contemporary clergymen,
like Conyers Middleton and Joseph Priestly, saw
nothing save natural mistakes. Palou records the
following story with unquestioning faith :
THE INDIAN ERA. 37
"When Serra was traveling with a party of missionaries
through the province of Huasteca, in Mexico, many of the vil-
lagers did not go to hear the word of God, at the first village
where they stopped; but scarcely had the fathers left the place
when it was visited by an ejDidemic, which carried away sixty
villagers, all of whom, as the curate of the place wrote to the
Reverend Father Junipero, were persons who had not gone to
bear the missionaries. The rumor of the epidemic having gone
abroad, the people in other villages were dissatisfied with their
curates for admitting the missionaries; but when they heard that
only those died who did not listen to the sermons, they became
very punctual, not only the villagers, but the country people
dwelling upon ranchos many leagues distant.
" Their ai)ostolic labors having been finished, they were upon
their way back, and at the end of a few days' journey when the
sun was about to set, they knew not where to spend the night,
and considered it certain that thej^ must sleep on the open plain.
They were thinking about this when they saw near the road a
house, w^ hither they went and solicited lodging. They found a
venerable man, with his wife and child, who received them with
much kindness and attention, and gave them supper. In the
morning the fathers thanked their hosts, and taking leave, pur-
sued their way. After having gone a little distance they met
some muleteers, who asked them where they I'^l passed the
night. When the place was described, the muleteers declared
that there was no house or rancho near the road, or within many
leagues. The missionaries attributed to Divine Providence, the
favor of that hospitality, and believed undoubtingly, that these
hosts were Jesus, Mary and Joseph, reflecting not only about
the order and cleanness of the house, though poor, and the affec-
tionate kindness with which they had been received, but also
about the extraordinary internal consolation which their hearts
had felt there."
The vessel in which Serra crossed the Atlantic, hav-
ing been caught by a terrible storm when within
sight of Vera Cruz, sprang a leak, and the water con-
38 HISTORY OF SAN FRANCISCO.
tinuing to rise in spite of the pumping, the sailors re-
quested the captain to run upon the beach as the only
way to escape from sinking in the open sea. He re-
fused and the sailors spoke of mutiny. From these
dangers Palou assures us, the ship was saved by a
miracle. The friars, including Junipero, put their
heads together and agreed that the proper thing to be
done was to apply to the proper saint, who Avas to be
found by lot. Each friar wrote the name of a saint on
a scrap of paper; the scraps were thrown together and
mixed up; and then one was taken out at random. It
had the name of Santa Barbara, and it so happened by
a fortunate coincidence that the day on which the event
occurred was consecrated to her in the Catholic calen-
dar. All on board shouted "hurrah for Santa Bar-
bara" {viva Santa Barbara); at the moment the storm
ceased; the wind which had been adverse became
favorable, and in two days the vessel was at anchor in
the harbor of Vera Cruz. These passages in the
book of Palou must be supposed to represent the opin-
ions of Serra as well as his companion,, friend and
biographer.
From 1752 till 1767, Serra was a commissioner of
the inquisition in Mexico, the office was one which
Franciscans seldom held, and in which they never
distinguished themselves. We have no record of any
of Junipero's labors in that capacity.
His reliofious convictions found in him a consrenial
mental constitution; he was even-tempered, temperate,
obedient, zealous, kindly in speech, humble and quiet.
THE INDIAN ERA. 39
His cowl covered neither creed, guile, hypocrisy nor
pride. He had no quarrels and made no enemies. He
sought to be a simple friar, and he was one in sincerity.
Probably few have approached nearer to the ideal
perfection of a monkish life than he. Even those who
think that he made great mistakes of judgment in re-
gard to the nature of existence and the duties of man
to society, must admire his earnest, honest and meek
character.
Sec. 8. First Expedition. Arrangements having
been previously made in Lower California by Inspec-
tor-general Jose Galvez, and President Junipero, two
expeditions were sent by sea and two by land to San
Diego. The little vessel " San Carlos" sailed from Cape
San Lucas on the eleventh of January with twenty-
five soldiers under Lieutenant Pedro Pages, and did
not reach her destination till after a lapse of three
months and a half, in which time she lost all her
sailors save one by scurvy. The companion vessel '' San
Antonio" started a month later, and entered the harbor
after eight of her sailors had died, on the eleventh of
April, 1769, on which day the permanent occupation
of California by white men begun. Captain Pivera
and Friar Crespi, with the first land expedition reached
San Diego on the fourteenth of May; Captain PortaU
(destined to be the governor of the territory), and
Father Junipero with the second on the first of July.
Sec. 9. First Missions. Not much time was lost
or spent in idleness. So soon as Junipero arrived, he
made preparations for active work. On the ninth of
40 HISTORY OF SAN FRANCISCO.
July the "San Antonio" sailed for San Bias to get a
number of sailors to supply the places of those who
had died of the scurvy. The occupation of Monterey
having been one of the most important objects of the
expedition, Gov. Portala set forth on the fourteenth
of July by land, with friars Juan Crespi and Gomez,
fifty-five other whites and some Indians, to find the
port. On the eleventh of July the Mission of San
Dieofo Avas founded — that is, a mass of unusual solem-
nity jvas said, and Father Junipero made a formal
declaration that the site had been chosen for an estab-
lishment where the savages of New California should
learn the doctrines of Christianity and the road of
salvation.
When Crespi and Portala, in their northward
march, reached the mouth of the Salinas river, they
looked for the harbor of Monterey, but saw no secure
anchorage, and presuming that either there had been
a mistake in the latitude, as mentioned in the books,
or that the port had been filled up by sand in the cen-
tury and a half since Vizcaino had examined the har-
bor, they Avent northward in search of it, or another
port. Passing along the coast for several days after
leaving Monterey bay, they then crossed the mount-
ains to the western side of San Francisco bay, and
on the seventh of November reached the end of the
peninsula and discovered the Golden Gate. The diary
of friar Crespi contains the first distinct mention of
the bay, and with most authorities he has the credit
of the discovery, though Dr. Stillman has made a
THE INDIAN EEA. 41
jjlausiblo argument to prove that Drake is entitled to
the honor.
Sec. 10. " Discovery of Bay. The Spanish ex-
plorers did not imagine that they had made a discov-
ery. They saw that the harbor was different from
that of Monterey, described by Vizcaino, but they
imagined it was the bay of San Francisco, mentioned
by their navigators as lying under shelter of Point
Reyes. Friar Juan Crespi, who may be considered
the head of the expedition, not knowing that he had
made a discovery, did on the seventh of November,
1769, discover the site and harbor of San Francisco,
and he gave to them the name which they now bear.
So soon as Crespi reported that he had found an
extensive and apparently a deep bay (he had no means
of sounding), the idea arose that the bay and its im-
mediate vicinity Avere destined to play an important
part in the future of California. Although the friars
had difficulties in maintaining the Missions already
established, and keeping up a connection between
them, they were anxious for another near the new
harbor; but the purpose was not carried into effect
until seven years later. Palou, in his biograi3hy of
Serra, says:
"As soon as I read this news, I attributed their failure to find
the harbor of Monterey at the place designated on the ancient
chart, to a divine disposal that they should continue their course
until they should arrive at the port of San Francisco, for the
reason that I am about to state: When tho venerable father,
Friar Junipcro, was consulting with the illustrious inspector-
general about the first three Missions which he directed him to
42 HISTORY OF SAN FRANCISCO.
found in his New California, seeing the names and the patrons
■which he had assigned to them, he said to him: ' Senor, and is
there no Mission for our father?' (St. Francis), to which Galvez
replied: ' If St. Francis desires a Mission, let him see that his
port is found, and it will be j)laced there.' The expedition
went up, arrived at the port of Monterey, stopped and planted
the cross without any of those of the party recognizing it, ac-
cording to the description of it in history; went up forty leagues
further, found the port of our father St. Francis, and recognized
it immediately by its agreement with the marks which they had.
In consideration of these facts, what shall we say but that our
father wished to have a Mission at his port ?"
Sec. 11. Privations. So soon as Portald reached
San Diego on his return, he made an examination of
the stock of provisions, and found it so small that
unless supplies should arrive before the twentieth of
March, it would be necessary to abandon the country
and return to the Missions of Lower California. The
'' San Antonio" had been overdue for months, but navi-
gation was so uncertain in those days, and among
those people, that the hope of seeing her was almost
given up. As the time fixed for the departure ap-
proached, every preparation was made for the journey,
and on the twentieth all were ready to start, Avhen a
sail was seen off the port. The vessel did not enter
the harbor until four days later, but the sight of her
put an end to all thoughts of abandonment. She
brought sailors, provisions, funds and letters of en-
couragement and promise from the viceroy and in-
spector-general.
The maintenance of San Diego having been secured,
it w^as determined that another attempt should be
THE INDIAN ERA. 43
made to find Monterey. On the sixteenth of April, a
party set out by land, and the next day the "San An-
tonio" sailed with Father Junipero on board. The land
party reached the bay on the twenty-fourth May, and
the barque on the thirty-first. The port was found
precisely as described by Vizcaino, one hundred and
sixty-seven years before. On the third of June, the
Mission of San Carlos, and the presidio or fort of
Monterey were founded, and a formal declaration was
made that possession had been taken of the country
in the name of the king of Spain. The Indians did
not approach the Spaniards for several days, having
been frightened by the discharges of artillery and
musketry, but they soon recovered from their fears,
and from that time forward were very friendly with
the whites. The firet savage was baptized on the
twenty-sixth December, seven months after the foun-
dation of the Mission.
The news of the establishment of the Mission and
presidio at Monterey reached the city of Mexico on
the tenth of August, 1770, and the viceroy, Marquis
de Croix, and the inspector-general, Galvez, consid-
ered the fact so important for " the glory of God, the
extension of our most holy Catholic religion, and the
honor of our Catholic monarch," that they ordered all
the church bells to ring in rejoicing. Accompanied
by the high officials of the city, they attended a
special mass, said for the occasion in the cathedral,
and afterwards the viceroy, as representative of the
U niSTORY OF SAN FRANCISCO.
king, received the congratulations of the principal
officers and citizens. A couple of days later, a circu-
lar was printed, reciting the leading facts of the estab-
lishment of the two Missions of New California.
THE MISSION ERA. 45
CHAPTER II.
THE MISSION ERA.
Section 12. Visiting Expedition. As the Missions
prospered and the time was approaching when others
must be estabhshed farther north, an exploring ex-
pedition was sent out in March, 1772, from Monterey,
under charge of Friar Crespi. Instead of passing west
of the bay as in 1769, he followed the eastern shore;
on the twenty-sixth of that month passed the present
site of Oakland, and four days later after going through
Napa and Sonoma valleys, reached Russian river.
From a hill near Carquinez strait he saw the Sacra-
mento and San Joaquin valleys, thus seeing some of
the most fertile and beautiful portions of California in
his journey. The next time that the bay was seen
was in December, 1774, on the fourth of which month
Friar Palou, with a military escort, reached the end of
our peninsula, and then returned with reports con-
firming those made in 1769, and 1772 by Crespi.
Sehor Anza, who in 1774 had opened the land route
between Sonera and California, the next year, under
orders of the viceroy at Hermosillo, organized expedi-
tion of colonists, mostly married men, to settle at the
projected Missions of Santa Clara and San Francisco.
The news of this order was broughttoMontereyin June,
1775, by the packet "San Carlos," under command
of Lieutenant Ayala, and ho had instructions to survey
the great bay, which no vessel had yet visited, though
46 HISTORY OF SAN FRANCISCO.
six years had elapsed since Crespi and his companions
had first looked down from the hills upon the inland
sea and its magnificent entrance, though two sailing
vessels were regularly employed in the traffic between
Monterey and San Bias, and though the viceroy had
sent a vessel in 1774 to explore the coast as far north
as latitude fifty-five degrees.
Ayala entered the Golden Gate on the night of
August 11, spent forty days in the bay, reached
Monterey on the twenty-second of September, and
assured Father Junipero that it was not a harbor but
a multitude of harbors, in which all the navies of
Spain could play hide and seek. Friar Crespi accom-
panied by the navigator Heceta (as his name is gener-
ally spelled), and a military escort, went by land to
assist Ayala, if necessary, but did not arrive till the
latter had departed.
Another expedition was sent to San Francisco from
Monterey in the following March, and on the twenty-
second of that month the sites of the projected Mission
and Presidio, or fort, were selected.
We learn from the writings of Friar Palou, the
founder of our Mission, that the site as then selected
and afterwards occupied, was near a lagoon, the
situation and size of which he did not accurately de-
scribe. It had disappeared before 1819, the earliest
date to which witnesses now living can carry back
their distinct recollection. A map on a scale of two
miles to an inch of the end of our peninsula, in the
report of La Perouse's voyage in 1786, copied probably
THE MISSION ERA. 47
from some Spanish chart (his expedition did not visit
any CaHfornian port save Monterey), shows a lagoon
with an area of about three hundred acres in the
neighborhood of Mission Cove, but the lines are so in-
correct that it is impossible to ascertain from the map
whether this water was north, south or east of the
Mission, or how far from it. It was probably a hun-
dred yards or so to the north-eastward where the
ground is low. A slight ridge thrown across the little
valley there would make a lagoon again. Palou, in
his Notes on New California, speaking of the first visit
of the Spaniards to San Francisco, says that Portala,
the commander of the expedition, traveling from the
southward, along the shore of the bay, came to the
cove of Llorones (the cry-babies, so styled because the
Indians there began to weep when they saw the white
men), and "crossed a creek which is the outlet of a
large lagoon called the Lagoon of Dolores, and this
appeared to him a good site for the Mission." The
oldest residents know nothing of any tradition of a lake
near the Mission, and we have no explanation for its
disappearance.
Sec. 13. First Settlement. All the preliminaries
having been arranged, the train of founders left Mon-
terey on the seventeenth of June, 1776, under Friars
Francisco Palou and Benito Cambon. The married
civilian settlers numbered seven, and there were seven-
teen dragoons, also married, with large families, under
command of Don Jose Moraga. They reached the
site of the Mission on the twenty-seventh of June, and
48 HISTORY OF SAN FRANCISCO.
after spending the night there, moved the next day to
the Presidio, which was to be the home of all save the
friars. This was the beginning of the permanent
settlement of white men on the site of San Francisco.
Work was immediately commenced on some rude
buildings, which were ready for occupation on the
seventeenth of September, and the occasion was not
allowed to pass without a public ceremony, Palou
blessed the establishment, celebrated a mass, elevated
and adored the holy cross, and chanted a Te Dcum, after
which Commandant Moraga took possession of the
Presidio in the name of his royal master, the king of
all the Spains, and salutes were fired by the dragoons
and by the artillerymen with cannon, on land and on
the packet.
Rivera, who was acting-governor of Upper Cali-
fornia, had given orders that the Mission of San Fran-
cisco should not be founded until instructions were
received from him, and as they had not arrived, Moraga
went off to explore the rivers emptying into Suisun
bay ; but, after crossing the San Joaquin river, he found
that the country was too extensive for his brief time
and short supplies, so he turned about and reached
San Francisco on the seventh of October. Nothing
had been heard from Rivera, and the friars were im-
patient to dedicate their Mission, where they had put
up some brush shelters, and Moraga authorized them
to make the dedication the next day, which they did.
A procession, comprising the entire male population,
soldiers, settlers and sailors, headed by the priests, who
THE MISSION ERA. 49
bore aloft the banner of the cross and an image of
St. Francis, marched from the Presidio to the Mission,
where the sacred objects were placed on the altar.
Father Palou, as the senior friar, chanted a mass and
preached a sermon about the founder of his order, as
the patron saint of the Mission. At proper intervals
in the sacred ceremonies, the soldiers and sailors fired
salutes of musketry.
The Mission dates from October 8; the military
establishment from September 17, and the perma-
nent settlement of the colonists in San Francisco from
June 28, 1776. In the early history of California the
Missions were the chief centers of population and in-
fluence, the Presidios being secondary and, to a con-
siderable extent, subordinate. The soldiers were sent
mainly to assist and protect the friars.
Sec. 14. Mission Authority. The site of the Mis-
sion of San Francisco was selected because of its
political and commercial advantages. It was to be
the nucleus of a seaport town that should serve to
guard the dominion of Spain in its vicinity. Most of
the other Missions were founded in the midst of fertile
valleys, inhabited by large numbers of Indians; no
other had so little tillable land or so few aborigines
within a radius of ten miles. Even the few Indians
living on the end of our peninsula, when Friar Palou
and his party of founders arrived, soon left. On the
twelfth of August, a San Mateo tribe attacked a
rancheria, in or near Bay View valley, and gained
such a victory that the defeated survivors and the
50 HISTORY OF SAN FRANCISCO.
neighboring tribes, afraid to remain, fled to the mount-
ains north of the Golden Gate, or east of the bay,
and stayed for several months sending back scouts
occasionally to report upon the condition of afiairs.
When their accounts became favorable, the fugitives
returned, but in December, some of them had a fight
with Spanish soldiers, who killed one and wounded
another. The consequence was another flight, and
again they did not come back till after the lapse of
several months. It was on the first of June, 1777,
that the first converts were baptized; three of them
were received into the church on the same day. They
did not understand much Spanish, the only tongue in
which they were instructed, but they could repeat the
names of the persons of the holy trinity, of the saints,
and of the leading mysteries of the faith, over after
the friar; they could rehearse the prayers and a simple
creed, kneel before the cross and the images, and
when they could do all these things they were held
worthy of baptism.
The Indians soon found that the Mission was not
without its attractions. The Spaniards, provided with
potent fire-arms and with horses, soon put an end to
the petty wars between the tribes, and established a
feeling of security which had never been felt before ;
relieving the red men from many anxieties and incon-
veniences^ The adobe houses were more comfortable
than the reed huts. The Mission herds furnished a
regular supply of nutritious and joalatable meat. The
Mission garden liad its pumpkins, melons, beans,
THE MISSION ERA. 51
turnips, and potatoes, and after a few years, the Mis-
sion orchard had its apples, pears, peaches and apricots.
Wheat and barley were brought from the fields culti-
vated on the peninsula at a distance of fifteen or twenty
miles or on the other side of the bay. The friars had
a large stock of beads, and these were of great value
in the eyes of the savages. Cloth and blankets from
Mexico, or woven -at the Mission, furnished better
material for clothing than anything used by the In-
dians before the settlement of the white men among
them.
Sec. 15. Indian Women. The influence of the
women was used to strengthen the Missions. In their
savage condition, the squaws were most abject slaves.
If any work was especially tedious or disagreeable,
they had to do it. They were not entitled to respect
or sympathy under any circumstances, and the man
who would put himself on a level with his sister, his
mother, or his wife, was regarded as disreputable. The
friars took the squaws under their protection, gave as
much attention and instruction to them as to the men,
treated them with a consideration which they had
never received before, overthrew polygamy and its
deo^radinof influences, and shielded them aofainst the
brutality of the men. The mode of life at the Mis-
sion, and the improvement in the dwellings, food, cloth-
ing and treatment in case of illness, were all of more
relative benefit to the women than to the men. Thus
their favor was won and control was obtained over the
children who held the future in their hands.
52 HISTORY OF SAN FRANCISCO.
It must not be supposed, however, that the Indian
women occupied a high position at the Mission. They
were more happily situated than their sisters in the
entirely savage state; but their fate was not enviable.
Their clothing, food and dwellings were very rude,
and their ordinary dress was nothing but a short,
woolen petticoat. A piece of colored cotton to tie
about the neck was a rarity. A single blanket served
for bedding, and occasionally for a cloak. The head,
the feet, the upper j)art of the body and the limbs
were usually bare. The only article of kitchen fur-
niture was a water-tight basket, made of wiregrass
that grew on swampy land. When any boiled dish
was needed, the material to be cooked was put in the
basket with water, and heat was applied by throwing
in red-hot stones. Vessels of metal or crockery for
cooking or eating did not belong to the average house-
hold at the Mission. There was no mill to grind
grain for the Indians. The women had to mash it on
a flat stone, or grind it in a stone mortar by a slow
process that took a considerable part of their time.
There was no education for the women. They never
were taught to read or to become skillful in the pro-
duction of any article to which much value was at-
tached. They learned to spin and w^eave coarse wool;
but the loom was clumsy and slow^ and the cloth
rough. In the dwelling there was no table-furniture
save a knife; no table, no bedstead, no bed-clothing
save the blanket of each person, no chair, no glass in
the windows, no chimney, and no wooden floor. In
THE MISSION ERA. 53
such a rude condition of society, it was impossible
that woman could occupy a high position.
The unmarried women were locked up every night
under charge of old women, and were always care-
fully guarded. As they were fewer in number than
the men, the friars were careful to give the de-
sirable girls as wives to the industrious of the young
men, who thus had strong motives to be faithful.
Sec. 16. Indian Men. The life of the Indian men
was not luxurious. Their working-dress was nothing
but a cloth round the loins, and a shirt; their head,
legs and feet being bare. The vaqueros or herdsmen,
however, and the captains, were provided with trow-
sers and shoes. Some of the boys were taught to read
and to sing from notes, but they were very few; the
great majority were left in the most abject ignorance.
The Indians were treated like children. They were
not allowed to own property, to cultivate land on their
own account, to control their children, to select their
occupations or place of residence, to choose their cap-
tains, or to determine the times when they would
work or play, nor could they leave the Mission with-
out the consent of the Friar Superior. The red con-
verts, as well as the wild Indians, were designated in
the Spanish speech as gente sin razon, jDeople without
reason or senseless; while the whites, or those con-
taining Spanish blood, were gente de razon, or reason-
ing beings. This contemptuous title for the Indians
was common in conversation and in official documents,
and was thus impressed upon the common mind. If
54 ■ HISTORY OF SAN FRANCISCO.
the Indians refused to work or to attend religious
service, they were not secure against the lash, and we
are even told that sometimes the goad (a stick with a
sharp iron point) was used to keep order in church,
the beadle reaching over with it to punch the fellow
Avho did not show a proper spirit of devotion.
While the red men were believed, to be very near
the brutes, intellectually, and were looked upon as in-
competent to take proper care of themselves, there
was little aversion on the part of the Spaniards or
Mexicans to association or inter-marriage with them;
and a large majority of the native Californians of
Spanish blood are the descendants of Indian women.
The numerous ties of influential relationship thus
established did not suffice to prevent the rapid decrease
of the jjure Indian blood. No red man living at the
Mission of San Francisco founded a family that still
exists, or ever distinguished himself sufficiently to de-
serve special mention of his name in local history. As
a general rule, the Indians had no family name, as if
there was no expectation that they would leave de-
scendants who would feel any interest in their ancestry.
The red men are mentioned in the church records
simply as Juan, Pedro, or Pablo.
Sec. 17. Savage Life. The male Indians near the
Mission, before coming under the influence of the friars,
went naked, except that in cold weather they daubed
themselves over with mud, which they washed ofl"
when the sun became warm. Acorns, hazel nuts,
wild seeds, the amole or soap plant, mussels, clams,
THE MISSION ERA. 55
wild geese and ducks, seals and occasionally a putrid
whale landed on the beach, supplied most of their food.
Sec. 18. Convert Life. Of the converts Palou
says :
We have at this Mission baptized three infants, born within
two months, all children of one Gentile man by three sisters, his
wives, and not content with this, he also had his mother-in-law
for a wife; but it j)leased God that he and his four wives should
be converted, and he remained alone with the eldest sister, who
had been his first wife, and the others, after their baptism, were
married to other men according to the Roman ritual; and with
this example, and with that which is preached and explained to
them, they are abandoning polygamy and reducing themselves
to our holy Catholic faith, and all those reduced live in the
town within hearing of the bell, going twice daily to the church
to repeat the Christian doctrine, supporting themselves by the
harvests which they grow of wheat, maize, beans, and so forth.
They already gather fruits of the Castilian peaches, nectarines,
pomegranates, and so forth, which were planted in the begin-
ning. All are dressed in clothes obtained by the Mexican
fathers on account of the public treasury, and as gifts from vari-
ous benefactors.
Sec. 19. Indian Work, At sunrise all the peo-
ple near the Mission were summoned to mass by the
bell, and attendance was compulsory. After mass
came breakfast, and then all the men and the unmar-
ried women were required to work till eleven o'clock.
A rest of three hours was allowed at noon, after which
they worked till the afternoon mass, an hour before
sunset. The chief occupations of the men were
plowino-, sowinof, harrowing;', harvestinof, threshina- and
hauling grain, herding the cattle, breaking horses,
cutting and bringing wood for fuel, building houses,
56 HISTORY OF SAN FRANCISCO.
baking tiles and weaving. There were a few carpen-
ters, blacksmiths, tanners and shoemakers at every
Mission, but they knew little of their trades, and had
a scanty supply of bad tools.
The processes of agricultural labor were extremely
rude. The plow was shod with a piece of iron a
little larger than a man's hand, and it scratched the
ground but did not turn a furrow nor even cut one.
It was drawn by one yoke of oxen and the yoke was
tied to their horns with strips of rawhide. One plow
made a little scratch, another followed in the same
track, and then another, and six plows were required
to do as much work, though not so well, as one Ameri-
can would with an American plow. Horses were
not used for draft purposes; and there was not a light
wagon in the country. The only vehicle was the
carreta, or cart, with wheels of solid wood six inches
wide at the tire and eight or ten inches at the hub.
The carreta was twice as heavy as its load, and it
sometimes moved faster than a mile an hour. The
harrow was a branch of a tree; and grain was cut
with a sickle or pulled up by the roots, and threshed
by treading it out with horses, and separated from the
chaff by throwing it up into the air on a windy day.
Sec. 20. No Education. The submission of the
Indians to the friars; their acceptance of baptism; their
repetition of the names of the mysteries, divine persons
and saints, their regular attendance at worship; their
observance of the disciplinary rules, even if under
compulsion; their freedom from all heretical ideas and
TEE MISSION ERA. 57
their veneration for the sacred images and other
emblems of the Cathohc faith, were considered all that
was necessary to fit them for full membership in the
church.
The friars did not restrict themselves to persuasion
in getting converts after they had brought all the
tribes in the near vicinity of the Mission under their
power; they sent out soldiers with tame Indians to
bring in others. Such an expedition was despatched
from San Francisco nearly every winter in the early
part of this century, to the foot-hills of the Sierra
Nevada, and sometimes returned with a hundred or
more captives, who had been surprised in their ranch-
erias. To go out for a purpose was styled ir a la
conquista, " to go out conquering;" or liacer reducciones,
''to make reductions" for the cause of Jesus. The
attempts to catch subjects for conversion in the sum-
mer were usually failures, and were not always suc-
cessful in the winter. While Beechey was in San
Francisco bay with his exploring vessel in 1826, a
party from the Mission of Santa Clara were beaten
off in an attack on a rancheria in the Sierra Nevada
with a loss of thirty-four men, and a new expedition
sent out to the same place lost forty-one men, but
captured forty-four Indians, mostly women and chil-
dren. Sometimes the wild Indians came to the Mis-
sions voluntarily, under persuasion of their relatives;
and often the harboring of fugitives, or the stealing of
cattle from the Mission was the cause of attack on
wild tribes, whose proximity and hostility to the Mis-
sions were frequently the cause of trouble.
58 HISTORY OF SAN FRANCISCO.
Sec. 21. Numher of Indians. The increase in the
number of Indians under the control of the Mission
was due to the introduction of new stock from with-
out, and not to the increase from within by the nat-
ural surplus of births over deaths. The Indians of
California did not thrive anywhere under the care of
the friars; and perhaps there was no Mission where
they throve less than at San Francisco. The women
gave birth to few children, and reared four boys for
three girls. They must have discriminated in the
treatment of the two sexes. Nothing but deliberate
intention entertained by many mothers could account
for the small proportion of girls. Such a purpose to
check the increase of women has often been observed
among savages; and unless we suppose its existence
at the Mission, we cannot account for the excess of
males.
Very soon after the white men established them-
selves in the country, the Indians began to diminish.
Various destructive diseases, unknown before, made
their appearance. The small pox raged with fearful
violence; the measles carried off many adults as well
as children, and an infection caught from the soldiers
spread like a slow but sure poison. There was no
physician in the territory, nor any intelligent medical
attendance for any of the new diseases. Vaccination
was practiced on a few of the whites, but was not
applied to the red men, nor was the more convenient
and yet effective inoculation tried. The food was
sometimes scanty and not always wholesome ; and in-
THE MISSION ERA. 59
jurious effects were attributed to the practice of
locking up the unmarried adults at night in close,
filthy chambers.
Sec. 22. Great Mortalitij. Whatever may have
been the causes of the mortality among the Indians
of the Mission of San Francisco, there is no room for
doubt about the results. The deaths, instead of being-
four for each hundred persons, as they are in sickly
seasons among highly civilized people, numbered from
ten to twenty annually, and sometimes even more.
The females, instead of being as numerous as the
males, were usually fewer by one fourth or a larger
proportion. The women should have reared three
children each on an average to prevent a decrease of
the population, but they did not rear two. About
half the children baptized were born of Gentile par-
ents, or of parents recently brought to the Mission.
It is a mistake to suppose that the Missions were
prosperous institutions until their secularization. They
were not even self-supporting. They were for a long
time a burden on the government. The friars com-
plained of serious inconvenience when their salaries of
four hundred .dollars each (spent usually not for their
personal advantage, but for the purchase of articles
needed by the Missions) were cut off by the civil war
in Mexico ; and though there was a steady increase in
the number of Indians under control of the friars
until about 1815, there was a rapid decrease of the
total number of Indians within reach of the Missions,
indicating the probability that the race would in a
60 HISTORY OF SAN FRANCISCO.
few centuries. disappear, as it has since disappeared in
nearly all those districts of California once occupied
by the Missions. There could, of course, be no true
prosperity of the Indians with a steady and rapid de-
crease of their number. Such a decline is undeniable.
We might suspect that there was some physical weak-
ness in the Indian blood, but no proof can be found
to sustain such a supj^osition. The descendants of the
Indian women who married Spaniards became a
strong, large, healthy, and remarkably prolific race,
with jDleasant countenances and respectable capacities.
Those Indians who never came to the Missions were
healthy and strong, and, though not very prolific, did
not commence to die off rapidly till after the Ameri-
cans took possession of their country.
The result was the same at most of the other Mis-
sions. Not an Indian remains at San Kafael, Sonoma,
San Jose or Santa Clara; and those who survive about
the Missions farther south do no credit as a class to
the instruction given to their fathers. But, however
defective may have been the system of the friars, we
have the most conclusive evidence that the weakening
and overthrow of the Spanish authority, the seculariza-
tion of the Missions, and the American conquest^ were
more disastrous to the aborigines of California. They
were happier when the Missions were at the summit
of their power than ever afterward. From the time
when they first heard of the rebellion for independence
in Mexico until now, nearly every political change
affecting their condition has been a change seriously
THE MISSION ERA. 61
for the worse as to them. If the Missions did not
succeed in establishing a high and permanent civihza-
tion among the red men of Cahfornia, the blame must
not be thrown upon the Franciscan friars. The Jesuit
Missions in Lower California, after the labors of three
quarters of a century, had not secured better results ;
and the reservations maintained by the federal govern-
ment in this state, for the last twenty years, have
been miserable failures. The Franciscan experiment
does not suffer by comparison with the influence of
the Jesuits, or of the Mexican or American politicians
upon the aborigines of the coast, and may even be said,
unsatisfactory as it was, to have been a relative suc-
cess.
It was perhaps well that the Indians were not capa-
ble, under such instructions as they received, of rais-
ing themselves to the level of Spanish civilization. It
Avould have been a great misfortune for California to
have been occupied in 1846 by a dense Indian popula-
tion, knowing just enough to support and defend them-
selves, ignorant, fanatical, idle, and hostile to foreigners
and foreign ideas, manners, machinery and mode of
working. There would have been little room for
Americans, and the few, who would have come, would
have found themselves powerless unless they submitted
themselves to base prejudices, and thus sacrificed a
large part of their superiority. The state might have
struggled for centuries before its inhabitants reached
the highest level of civilization, as they have now
done in a single generation.
62 HISTORY OF SAN FRANCISCO.
The number of the Indians was never ascertained,
or officially estimated under Spanish or Mexican do-
minion, but several early travelers speak in vague
terms of multitudes in some of the larger valleys. As
they had no agriculture, commerce, manufacturing
industry, regular supply of wholesome food, or secure
peace, and they were exposed to the occasional, if not
the frequent, ravages of war, pestilence and famine, so
the land could not maintain a dens& population, and it
probably never had more than one hundred thousand
or one hundred and fifty thousand aboriginal inhabi-
tants.
Sec. 23. Friars. It was the rule that there
should be two friars at each Mission; the elder, as su-
perior in authority, to conduct the worship on im-
portant occasions, to instruct and govern the Indians,
manage the finances and keep the records; the younger
to supervise the manual labor. Every year the Supe-
rior made a report of the number of the baptisms, mar-
riages, births, deaths, neat cattle, horses, sheep, goats,
swine, and bushels of grain harvested, to the Pres-
ident of the Missions, at Monterey; and he compiled
a table of all the Missions under him for the Vice-
roy of Mexico, who transmitted a copy to the King
at Madrid. The feeling between the Indians and the
friars was usually a very friendly one. The friar
when he met an Indian said to him, " Love God, my
son;" and the reply was, " Love God, father."
Eight or ten soldiers were stationed at each Mis-
sion. One was always on guard in front of the main
THE MISSION ERA. G3
entrance; another was usually out as herdsman with
the horses and cattle; and when a friar was called
away from a Mission for any transient purpose, or
sent a letter, a soldier served as companion or mes-
senger.
The red men were spoken of as wards, who owned
the property of the Mission, and the friars were the
guardians, who had absolute control of the persons
and property of their wards. Humble and poor as
the Franciscan order claimed to be, the Franciscans in
California held and enjoyed nearly all the power and
wealth of the country, such as they were. Their au-
thority over the Indians was despotic, but it was not
used harshly. Every Indian was required to work,
but the labor was not arduous nor long continued.
Though the friars kept the best of everything for
themselves, the best was not very good. They dressed
meanly, had a simple table, and plain apartments.
Of the friars who had charge of the Mission of San
Francisco, we know little beyond the names, with
the exception of Francisco Palou, who reached higher
office than any of his associates, ending his career as
principal of the order in Mexico. Although he had
little education, and lived in the mental atmosphere
of the thirteenth instead of that of the latter part of
the seventeenth century, still he had good powers of
observation and an active mind, and was probably the
ablest of all the Franciscans who came to California.
He was the only one who wrote for the press, and
he has left the most enduring- and accessible evidences
G4 HISTORY OF SAN FRANCISCO.
of his capacity. His biography of Junipero Serra
enables ns to see nearly as much of his own as of his
hero's character, and entitles him to as much admira-
tion. This book and his Notes on New California,
have a permanent historical interest, for California at
least.
The later friars wrote little, save the annual statistical
reports, and nothing from which we can obtain dis-
tinct ideas of their character or influence. They fur-
nished no other material for the historian or antiqua-
rian. Soon after the death of Serra, which occurred
in 1787, Palou returned to Mexico, and Cambon, his
younger associate, became the Superior friar at San
Francisco, but was soon superseded by Danti; and he
by Abella, who served for twenty years, commencing
in 1797. Altimira was in charge when Mexico de-
clared her independence, but not liking the new
dominion, he left the country. Estenaga, who had
been his junior associate, succeeded him, and was
alone for twelve years, remaining until after the secu-
larization.
Sec. 24. Mission Buildings. Materials for a his-
tory of the Mission buildings are very scanty. The
adobe church, erected in the last century, is pre-
sumptively the same structure which still stands on
Dolores street, near Sixteenth. Ten years is not an
unreasonable period to assume as the interval between
the foundation of the Mission and the final consecra-
tion of its permanent house of worship. The work
was nearly all done by the Indians, who had to be
THE MISSION ERA. G5
previously converted, conciliated, and instructed in
Spanish and in various useful arts unknown to them
in their savage state. The making of a supply of
adobes sufficient for such a building was a simple pro-
cess, but it required a combination and persistence in
labor beyond the experience of the red men of Cali-
fornia. It was necessary, also, to get timbers for
rafters, and even if we suppose that these were noth-
ing but rude poles, to place them on the ground was
a serious task. Even as late as 1820, not a good
wagon or a good boat had been made, nor even pur-
chased, for ordinary business purposes, by any Span-
ish Californian at San Francisco ; and it is probable
that many of the timbers used in building in the last
century were transported from the forests on the
shoulders of men.
Other matters required attention before the build-
ing of the church. The erection of dwellings for the
friars, soldiers and converts, the cultivation of the
ground and the herding of the cattle, took precedence.
All this went very slowly, because of the absolute
ignorance of the Indians, of whom there were for
years very few. The first converts were made in 1777,
when three were baptized ; and we have no report of
the numbers from that time until seven years later,
when there were two hundred and sixty red Chris-
tians. The average increase was about thirty in a
year, and not more than one in four was an adult
male competent to do much Avork. If the Indians
learned to speak Spanish, to break horses, to herd
66 HISTORY OF SAN FRANCISCO.
cattle, to plow, sow, reap and thresh, to make and lay-
adobes, and to cut and hew timber, besides building
their dwellings and their church, in ten years, they
must have been driven harder than it was the custom
of the friars to drive them in later times.
The church, when first built, was doubtless thatched
wrth flags or tules, which could be obtained without
trouble and supported on light poles; whereas the
molding and burning of tiles were comparatively ab-
struse arts, and the tiles when made required a strong
framework to bear their weight.
We do not find any account that the Mission church
at San Francisco was ever rebuilt or seriously injured.
An earthquake in 1808 shattered the houses at the
presidio, but the annual report of Friar Abella for that
year mentions no damage at the Mission. In 1812,
the church at San Juan Capistrano was thrown down,
and the buildings at Purisima, Santa Inez, San
Buenaventura and Santa Barbara injured; but San
Francisco was spared. So it was again in 1818, when
Santa Clara suffered so much by earthquake that a
new church was erected there.
Sec. 25. Mission Income. There was an average
increase of about thirty Indians annually at San Fran-
cisco, from its foundation for nearly forty years till
1813, when the number was one thousand two hundred
and five; and then there was a decrease at about the
same rate till the secularization in 1835. The most
remarkable break in the regularity of the figures oc-
curred between 1822, when there were nine hundred
THE MISSION ERA. 67
and fifty eight Indians, and 1823, when only two hun-
dred were left. In 1808, eighty-four Indians fled and
never were brought back; and in 1823 so many fled
that not enough remained to take care of the Mission
property. Part of the decrease in 1822 was caused
by the transfer of Indians to the new Missions of San
Rafael and Sonoma. The wealth of the Mission rose
and fell with the number of its subjects. The follow-
ing table shows how many Indians, neat cattle, horses
and sheep, and bushels of grain in annual crop, it had
in various years of its existence:
Years 1183 1793 1S04 1S13 1822 1832.
Indians 215 704 1103 1205 958 204
Cattle 808 2700 8120 9270 4049 5000
Sheep 183 2300 10400 10120 8830 3500
Horses 31 314 730 622 806 1000
Grain 2474 6114 4124 691
Before 1815, the Mission produced little that had
any salable value. The only vessels admitted into
the ports of the country for purposes of trade belonged
to Spain, and they were so slow and so badly managed
that the freight left no margin for profit in exportation.
It was not until after the independence of Mexico had
been established that the exportation of hides and
tallow became an extensive business. About 1840 a
ranchero could sell one fourth of his neat cattle every
year, getting five dollars from each animal slaughtered,
two dollars for its hide and three dollars for its tallow.
The management of the Missions was not so strict as
that of individuals, and the hides and tallow which
68 HISTORY OF SAN FRANCISCO.
the former could dispose of annually was as much as
they could get by killing one seventh of their neat
cattle. The Mission of San Francisco thus could ob-
tain from three thousand five hundred dollars to five
thousand dollars a year from its hides and tallow
annually, after 1822, and it had no other merchantable
article to spare. It needed all its grain for home con-
sumption, and horses and sheep were ordinarily not
salable. The pay for its exports was a small sum to
purchase imports for several hundred persons, and it
was besides usually given in merchandise not of the
best quality, and at high prices.
Sec. 26. Decay of Missions. The rebellion that
broke out in Mexico in 1810 soon made itself felt in
California. From 1811 to 1818 the government failed
to pay the four hundred dollars, promised annually to
each friar, and the government vessels which had
brought the imports and carried away the exports
ceased to make their trips regularly. The revolutionary
and anti-ecclesiastical spirit of the time declared that
the Missions ought to be secularized, and the friars
and the people understood that this idea would be
made the basis of a law at some future period. The
civil and military officials, who had never agreed very
well with the friars, became more antagonistic to
them; and the latter, feeling less secure, were less con-
tented and less zealous. The friars born in Sj)ain were
attached to the Spanish crown. They hated the rev-
olution and the institutions which it had established.
The new government, finding that the priests and
THE MISSION- ERA. 69
friars were not friendly to it, became hostile to tliem;
and one measure of hostility was secularization, which
had been demanded by the Spanish Cortes as early as
1813. It meant that the Indians should be taken
from the control of the friars and converted into free
and independent citizens, with full power to own
property, select their place of residence, and direct
their own conduct ; that each head of a family should
be entitled to the gift of as much land as he could
cultivate ; that the herds and tools and other personal
property of each Mission should be divided among its
Indians; and that the surplus land should be given to
white colonists. While secularization Avas considered
just and patriotic, it was also in favor with the poli-
ticians as a measure that would reduce the political
power and money resources of the clergy.
70 HISTORY OF SAN FRANCISCO.
CHAPTEK III.
THE VILLAGE ERA.
Section 27. Secularization. The Mexican Con-
gress, assuming that the people were competent to
maintain an orderly republican government, and be-
lieving that the Mission Indians of California, most of
whom had been born under the dominion and bred
under the instruction of the friars, must be competent
for the duties of civilized life and equal political priv-
ileges, on August 17, 1833, passed a bill' announcing
that the government would proceed to secularize the
Missions of Upper and Lower California, but making
no provision for the time or manner of carrying the
intention into effect.
The matter was thus left to the discretion of the
executive department, and on August 9, 1834, Gov-
ernor Figueroa, of California, acting under instructions
from the President of the Republic, issued a decree
that he would, in August, 1835, convert ten of the
Missions into pueblos or towns. These ten were not
then nor afterwards named. The friars at the Mis-
sions were to be deprived of all control over the Mis-
sion property, which should be placed in charge of an
administrator, who should give to every adult male In-
dian a tract of twenty -eight acres; and his fair share of
one half of the domestic animals and tools of the Mis-
sion; the other half to be held for the benefit of the
THE VILLAGE ERA. 71
Subsequently, Gumecindo Flores was appointed
administrator of the Mission of San Francisco; but
between the time of the announcement that the secu-
larization would be made and his appointment, many
of the cattle had been driven off; the Indians, left
without control, went away; and soon there was noth-
ing to divide and nobody to receive the dividends.
We have no precise account of the manner in which
Flores administered his trust. We know, however,
that in the brief period of forty years since the secu-
larization, all the Indian tribes of the San Francisco
peninsula, so far at least as the pure blood is con-
cerned, have disappeared from the face of the earth.
Immediately upon the announcement that the friars
were to be deprived of their power, cultivation was
neglected; and the Indians, instead of proving their
capacity to become independent and prosperous citi-
zens, wasted what little property Avas given to them,
and fell into idle or dissolute habits. Some became
the servants of rancheros; others went to the mount-
ains and ran wild; and a few remained about the Mis-
sion in beggary, or on its verge. Such were the re-
sults of emancipating the Indians of San Francisco
from the subjection in which they had been bred.
When the friars were deprived of their authority
by the order of secularization, twenty-one Missions
were in existence, all near the coast, reaching from
San Diego to Sonoma, five hundred miles in a direct
line, but the average distance between neighboring
Missions by the roads was forty miles, or a day's
72 HISTORY OF SAN FRANCISCO.
ride. Their jurisdictions met, so that the whole coast
from Sonoma southward, was considered to be occu-
pied. The only towns were Los Angeles, Branciforte
(near Santa Cruz), and San Jose, and the entire white
population was estimated to number five thousand,
of whom all, save perhaps two score, were of Spanish
blood. The Mexicans relied on their herds for sup-
port, lived with little effort or care, and generall}'^ knew
nothing of schools, books, or newspapers.
Sec. 28. Land Grants. The private land titles of
the peninsula of San Francisco date from 1835, pre-
vious to which time the Mission held control for thirty
miles southward from the Golden Gate, meeting the
old domain of the Mission of Santa Clara at San
Francisquito creek. Although great abuses were
practiced in the overthrow, or, as it was officially
called, the "secularization" of the Missions, the
measure was demanded by sound statesmanship.
Without it there was no hope for the progress of the
country. It was required as a matter of justice to
the Spanish-American settlers, whose fathers had
been induced to come to California in 1773 with the
promise that they should be raised to the position of
indejDendent colonists ; but after a lapse of sixty years
they, or rather their children, were still the tenants at
will of the Mission, with little chance of support save
such as they could find at the ruined presidio. The
government had forbidden them to own land, gave
them no encouragement to build houses, provided no
pasture for their cattle, discouraged the sale of their
THE VILLAGE ERA. 73
joroduce to foreign vessels, and provided no market for
their labor. Such was the situation of the Spanish-
Americans, or, as they were called, gente de razon —
" j)eople of reason " — on the peninsula of San Fran-
cisco in 1835. To these citizens, the official announce-
ment in that year that the Missions were to be
secularized was very welcome, and they soon began to
apply for grants of land. The residents at the Mis-
sion, most of them formerly soldiers at the presidio,
were the grantees of a large part of the land on the
peninsula. In some cases years elapsed after the
first application before the grant was made in absolute
terms.
The first title issued for land on our peninsula, was
that of the Rancho Laguna de la Merced — two thou-
sand two hundred and twenty acres — given in 1835
to J. A. Galindo. The San Pedro rancho, eight
thousand nine hundred and twenty-six acres, about
four miles south of lake Merced, was given to F. De
Haro, later in the same year. The Buri-Buri ran-
cho, of fifteen thousand seven hundred and ninety-
three acres, south of the San Bruno mountain, was
given to Francisco Sanchez. It was in 1840 that
Jose C. Bernal received the grant of the Potrero
Viejo, including Hunter's Point and the basin of
Islais creek, with an area of four thousand four hun-
dred and forty-six acres ; Jacob P. Leese, the only
foreigner among the grantees of ranches on our penin-
sula, in 1841 obtained the Visitacion rancho, of eight
thousand eight hundred and eighty acres, adjoining
74 HISTORY OF SAN FRANCISCO.
Bernal on the south ; and the San Miguel grant, of
four thousand four hundred and forty-three acres, in-
cluding the Mission hills and extending southward
nearly four miles, was given in 1845 to J. J. Noe.
Beside these grants, which were confirmed and have
become* the foundation of the present titles, various
other grants were solicited, but the titles were not
perfected. Angel Island was given in 1838 to A. M.
Osio, but he never occupied it and the claim was re-
jected. The archives contain the petition of Joaquin
Pina for a square league of land at Point Lobos, and
also a favorable report from a local official to the effect
that the tract was vacant and could properly be
granted; but no grant was made, and the claim was
never presented to the courts. Francisco Guerrero
and H. D. Fitch made an application on the thirteenth
of May, 1846, for two leagues and a half west of
Yerba Buena, but before action could be taken the
country had been conquered. A petition by Benito
Diaz for a league of land at the presidio was in the
same condition. F. De Haro obtained leave to pasture
his cattle on the potrero, including several thousand
acres between the Mission creek and Mission cove,
on the north and Islais cove on the south, and his
heirs laid claim to the land as theirs in fee-simple, but
the United States supreme court rejected the title.
One of the most troublesome claims to land, within the
city limits, was that of Peter Sherreback; purporting
to be a grant for two thousand two hundred acres,
seven hundred and twenty yards square, including most
THE VILLAGE ERA. 75
of the land bounded by Third, Sixth, Howard and Bran-
nan streets. The title was confirmed by the United
States district court in 1859, but a new hearing was
granted, and the testimony indicative of fraud in
the matter of the boundaries was so strong that the
claim was abandoned.
A third class of claims consisted of those rejected
under suspicion or proof of fraud. No records pertain-
ing to them were found in the archives. Among these
were a grant for Goat Island, purporting to have been
made to Juan Castro in 1838; a grant for a square
league west of Yerba Buena, purporting to have
been made to Fernando Marchena, on the fourteenth
of August, 1844; the Santillan and the Limantour
grants. The Santillan, based on a paper dated on the
tenth of February, 1846, conveyed to Prudencio San-
tillan, at that time parish priest at the Mission, all
the vacant lands that formerly belonged to the Mis-
sion, south of Yerba Buena and the presidio. Under
the Mexican customs, priests were considered incompe-
tent to become grantees of ranches, and this grant was
unheard of until four years after its date. Tho federal
supreme court rejected it as a fraud. J. Y. Liman-
tour presented to the United States land commission
two papers purporting to grant lands within the
present limits of the city of San Francisco. One,
dated on the twenty-seventh of February, 1843, gave
to him the tract between California street and Mission
creek, extending out to the westward till it made two
leagues; and, also, a second tract of two leagues, west
76 HISTORY OF SAN FRANCISCO.
of Yerba Buena. The other gave to him Goat and
Alcatraz islands. Both documents were proved to be
forgeries. It is worthy of remark, that the fraudulent
claims of Santillan and Limantour covered about
twelve thousand acres of the same land, and within
the limits of both claims, Sherreback wanted his two
thousand two hundred acres. The invalid Mexican
grants were three deep over a considerable area.
Sec. 29. Pueblo. The Mexican congress had shown
its purpose in the colonization and secularization laws
and other enactments to encourage and aid the
establishment of a pueblo, or town, near every Mission;
and there was no Mission in California where a pueblo
was more urgently demanded by public considerations
than that of San Francisco. Although the population
was not so large as at most other Missions, still it had
already reached a respectable figure, and there was a
certainty of a steady increase in the extensive and
fertile valleys round the bay, and the value of the
harbor for commerce and incidentally for military and
naval purposes was universally admitted. The pueblos,
which Gov. Figueroa intended to found, and which
the law contemplated, were to be composed of white
men and Indians together. Bed men who had been
bred at the Missions, and were disposed to live among
the whites, and accept the mode of life common among
them, were to be recognized as full citizens, with all
the rights to demand lots in town and ranches in the
country, enjoyed by any other class of citizens. There
was no provision for a white pueblo or an Indian
THE VILLAGE ERA. 77
pueblo; nor any discrimination in political rights on
the ground of race, color or previous relation to the
authority of the Missions. The Mission Indians were
to be raised from the class of gente sin razon to gente de
razon, from unreasoning to reasoning beings.
This purpose failed throughout California. No
political or military leader attempted to secure to the
Indians the rights offered to them by the law, and the
reason was that they Avere so weak intellectually that
the attempt would certainly have failed, and their ad
vocate would have ruined himself without doing any
good to them.
The governor who had announced secularization and
promised the establishment of pueblos at ten of the
Missions, died in September, 1835, before he could
carry out his plans. After his death, the new gov-
ernor felt less regard for the purposes of the law in
reference to pueblos and the Indians, and in conse-
quence of repeated revolutions, the business of the
administration was in great confusion.
No order was ever issued establishing a pueblo
at San Francisco, but it was assumed that one was to
be established, though there was a question whether
it was to be at the Mission or at Yerba Buena, or
whether it was to include both places. In the sum-
mer of 1835, Wm. A. Richardson, an Englishman
who had settled in California in 1822, and had made
his home at Saucelito, moved to Yerba Buena, set up
a tent on the place now known as No. 811 Dupont
street, and went into the business of collecting hides
78 HISTORY OF SAN FRANCISCO.
and tallow from various places on the bay. The Mis-
sion of San Francisco and that of San Jose had each
had a little thirty-ton schooner, which had been built
by the Russians at Fort Ross, These schooners, after
having been in service some time, got leaky, and sank
in the creeks of their respective Missions. Both had
been abandoned, when Richardson made his appear-
ance, and offered to raise their schooners and carry the
freight of the Missions free for the use of the vessels
and Indian crews. The offer was accepted, and Rich-
ardson had become regularly established in business
before the end of the year. He charged one dollar
per bag of tallow, and twelve and one half cents per
hide for bringing those articles from the various land-
ings on the bay to Yerba Buena cove, where they
were transferred to American vessels, which had pre-
viously anchored near the presidio or the Mission,
Richardson induced them to come to Yerba Buena.
Acting under the general law of Mexico, which per-
mitted towns to select their officials, the people at the
Mission, on the twenty-seventh of November, 1835,
held an election for alcalde, and chose J. J. Estudillo
to the place of alcalde for a term of one year, with
power to grant lots within the limits of the town,
which limits had not been and were not afterwards
authoritatively defined under Mexican law. The vil-
lage was usually called Dolores, which was also the
name of the creek, and was frequently substituted for
Assis in the name of the Mission, indifferently called
San Francisco de Assis or San Francisco de Dolores,
THE VILLAGE ERA. 79
to distinguish it from San Francisco Solano, the name
of the Mission at Sonoma. Dolores is the Spanish
for sorrows or sufferings, and is a favorite name in the
Catholic church of Spain.
Sec. 30. Leese. In the winter of 1835-36, Jacob
P. Leese, an American then residing -in Los Angeles,
and engaged in business there, Avas advised by some
shipmasters trading on the coast to establish a store
and commission house at San Francisco, where they
thought he might thrive. The annual exports in-
cluded twenty thousand hides, and two million pounds
of tallow, and the ships lost much time for the want
of some one to collect these articles. There was no
store or commission house at the place; the business
was increasing, and an American could succeed better
than a person of any other nationality, because the
ships were mostly from Boston and New York.
Mr. Leese determined to follow the advice of his
friends. In March, he went to Monterey, commu-
nicated his plans to his friends Nathan Spear and
Wm. Hinckley, and induced them to join him in a
partnership to establish a store. He returned to Los
Angeles, where he closed up his business, and then
started for San Francisco, which he had not yet
visited.
Shortly before he left Los Angeles, the first instance
of lynch law in California occurred there. A young
married woman named Verdugo deserted her husband
for another man, whom she loved better. Seiior Ver-
dugo applied to an alcalde for an order that his wife
80 HISTORY OF SAN FEANCISCO.
should live with him, and, after a deliberate examina-
tion, the order was granted. Thereupon Verdugo
took his wife on his horse and started for his ranch,
which he never reached. He was murdered on the
road by the wife and her paramour. The proof was
conclusive; the circumstances were revolting. Pop-
ular indignation rose to a great height. There was a
general demand for prompt punishment appropriate
to the offense. That could be obtained by lynch law
only. The Californian courts of jurisdiction in capital
cases never had taken decisive action; a case intrusted
to them never came to a decision. Homicides, though
frequent, were never punished by law. If the murder
of Verdugo should go unpunished, Lhere could be no
security. The people who spoke thus, therefore, took
the law into their own hands, tried the oflPenders, con-
victed them, and sentenced them to death. Every-
thing was done in a very deliberate manner, and with
every respect for the moral rights of the accused. A
careful record was kept of the proceedings, and after
the conviction, the accused were kept for two days,
waiting for a priest to come from San Gabriel to con-
fess them. The alcaldes, who happened to be Don
Manuel Requena and Don Abel Stearns, favored the
proceeding, or at least did not attempt any serious re-
sistance.
Mr. Leese, as he intended to visit the capital of the
territory, Monterey, where he might be arrested for
a violation of the law, took a certified copy of the
record of the trial, and of the agreement, by which the
THE VILLAGE ERA. 81
citizens ensras^ed in it had bound themselves to stand
by one another. When he reached Santa Barbara,
he was told that a new governor had just arrived
from Mexico, and was invited to call upon him. Mr.
Leese went to the house of Don Carlos Carrillo, where
he found Governor Chico, who had been appointed by
the President of Mexico to succeed Governor
Gutierrez, governor ad interim, after the death of
Figueroa. Chico requested Leese to spend a day in
Santa Barbara, and keej) him company to Monterey.
The young American, to whom a day was not of so
much importance as the favor of a governor might be
in a country where little attention was paid to written
laws, waited for the new official, and thus had his
company for several days. On the way, Chico asked
him for an account of the affair at Los Angeles, of
which Noriega, at Santa Barbara, had given him a
very unfavorable opinion. Leese told the circum-
stances, and produced the copy of the record, which
entirely satisfied the governor, who promised that he
should not be troubled about it. A desire to learn
the particulars of the execution at Los Angeles was
probably one of Chico's motives for requesting Leese's
company; and the conviction in his mind, that the
people acted properly, may have had some influence in
inducing him to give a letter that assisted Leese in
obtaining the order for laying out the town of Yerba
Buena. In answer to questions about his plans, Leese
replied that he was going to San Francisco to establish
a mercantile house, which was much needed there.
82 HISTORY OF SAN FRANCISCO.
Chico said that he desired to encourage commerce, and
he would give a letter to the local authorities, request-
ing them to grant a lot to him. At Monterey, Leese
was detained as a party to the Los Angeles vigilance
committee, by the order of Governor Gutierrez, but
was discharged so soon as Chico was installed; and
then he came on to San Francisco.
Sec. 31. Yerha Buena. At Yerba Buena, Leese
found nobody save Richardson. At least one Amer-
ican trading vessel visited the harbor every year;
four or five whalers put into Saucelito, and several
vessels came in from Sitka to purchase wheat, maize,
tallow and soap. The Russian trade then, or within
a few years, amounted to about forty thousand dol-
lars annually, and the purchases were paid for in drafts
drawn by the Russian- American company, payable
in St. Petersburg, which drafts were always taken at
par by the American trading vessels.
One of the institutions of Yerba Buena was an In-
dian sweat-house, or temascal, which stood at the
south-west corner of Sacramento and Montgomery
streets till 1842. The water from a ravine that ran
down the hillside about the line of Sacramento street
formed near Montgomery a little fresh water lagoon,
which Richardson's Indians considered a convenient
place for bathing; so they built their sweat-house
near it, and after taking a good steaming, would rush
out and plunge into the lagoon.
At the presidio there was no garrison, and only one
resident, a gray-haired soldier, named Joaquin Pina.
THE VILLAGE ERA. 83
A mile and a half eastward from the presidio was the
residence of widow Briones and family. At the Mis-
sion the chief Spanish residents were Jose Sanchez
and his sons, Francisco and Jose de la Cruz, Cande-
lario Valencia and Francisco De Haro (these two
were sons-in-law of Jose Sanchez), Francisco Guerrero,
Gumecindo Flores, Jose Galindo, Tiburcio Vasquez,
Jose Antonio Alviso, Jos6 Cornelio Bernal, Vicente
Miramontes, Padre Gutierrez, and Jose de Jesus Noe.
All these, except the priest, were married, and many
of them had large families. A few years later De
Haro had two pairs of twins and six other children,
the eldest being fifteen years old; Tiburcio Vasquez
had ten children; and C. Miramontes had seven
children, of whom the eldest was only nine years
old. There were some other residents of less note,
mostly bachelors. The people at the Mission lived
upon their herds of cattle ; their dwellings were all of
adobe, and their furniture, food and clothing simple.
* Mr. Leese examined the shore, from the Mission to
the presidio, and satisfied himself that the cove of
Yerba Buena was the best place for a settlement. The
anchorage, holding-ground and landing-place were bet-
ter than at either the Mission or the presidio. The
cove extended up to Montgomery street, to which
point high tide always reached. The landing-place
was at Clark's point, now the corner of Broadway and
Battery streets, the beach being shallow near the
middle of the cove. The district now bounded by
California, Pacific, Montgomery and Dupont streets.
84 HISTORY OF SAN FRANCISCO.
was an open, grassy slope, and over most of its area
had nearly the same level as at present. South and
west of this bare tract were hills, covered with bushes
and scrub oaks, like those which flourish at Lone
Mountain. No wagon or cart had ever visited Yerba
Buena cove, and the only roads from it were narrow
horse trails, where the rider had to take constant care
to save his person and his clothes from injury by the
bushes and trees.
Sec. 32. First House. Upon the arrival of Mr.
Leese, in June, 1836, he applied to the alcalde Estu-
dillo, who had his office at the Mission, though his
residence was on the bank of San Leandro creek, for
a grant of a lot at Yerba Buena. The alcalde replied
that he had no authority to grant a lot there, but he
would give him a lot at either the Mission or the pre-
sidio. Leese showed his letter from Chico, but Estu-
dillo said there was no express authority for him to
make a grant. The new settler thereupon went back
to Monterey, obtained from the Governor a peremp-
tory order for a grant, and returned with a little ves-
sel; carrying enough lumber for a small house. He
landed at the cove about the first of July, immediately
proceeded to the Mission, showed his order, obtained
permission to occupy a place south of Richardson's
tent; and with the help of the sailors and sea captains
in the harbor, succeeded in getting up his new house
in time to celebrate the fourth of July, with a hun-
dred guests or more, including the principal ranche-
ros on the northern or eastern shores of the bay, whose
THE VILLAGE ERA. 85
trade and favor he was anxious to secure. The Amer-
ican flag was on this occasion hoisted for the first
time on the site of San Francisco. The rancheros
were glad to see a commercial house established, for
previously they had depended for making their pur-
chases upon foreign vessels, of which the harbor might
be destitute for two or three months at a time.
The house built in July, 1836, by Mr. Leese, was
after the survey of the town, on the south side of
Clay street, a few feet west of Dupont. The next
year, Mr. Leese obtained from Senor Martinez, who
was then alcalde, the right to occupy a hundred vara
lot on the west side of Montgomery, between Clay
and Sacramento streets, as they were afterwards laid
out, with the understanding that the lines must be
subject to the subsequent survey. On this lot, near
the corner of Commercial and Montgomery streets,
the first substantial frame building of the village was
erected. It was known in later times as the house of
the Hudson Bay company, to which association Mr.
Leese sold it. Richardson built his adobe house No.
811 Dupont street; and in the same year Senora Bri-
ones built an adobe house on the north-east corner of
Powell and Filbert streets, the kitchen of which re-
mained there about thirty years. In April, 1838, the
first child of Yerba Buena, a daughter of Mr. Leese,
was born.
The alcaldes elected under Mexican rule after
Estudillo were Ignacio Martinez, Francisco de Haro,
Francisco Guerrero, Jose Noe, Francisco Sanchez,
86 HISTORY OF SAN FRANCISCO.
Wm. Hinckley, J. N. Padilla and Jose Sanchez
(these two in the same year), and Jose Noe, whose
authority after six months of service was terminated
by the American conquest. The alcaldes granted a
lot fifty or one hundred varas square to every appli-
cant ready to build a house; the first grant mentioned
in the books being that to Richardson, dated in June,
1836. The record shows that the land was given to
him partly because of satisfaction with his services as
"bricklayer, surgeon and carpenter."
Between July 1, 1835, and July 7, 1846, that is the
period of the Mexican town, the number of lots
granted by the alcaldes of San Francisco was eighty-
four. The grantees of thirty-four lots were of Spanish
blood, as we infer from their names; the others were
mostly Americans and English. One lot described in
the alcalde's book as being in San Francisco, is at
Dolores, the remainder at Yerba Buena. Sixty-four
of the lots were each fifty varas square, the others fifty
by one hundred varas, or one hundred varas square,
each vara being thirty-three inches.
Sec. 33. First Survey. The first survey was made
in 1839, by Jean Vioget, the lots previously granted
having been given at random, though they were after-
wards swung round to conform to the new lines.
Vioget's map was a ragged, irregular delineation of
about half the district, within the limits bounded by
Montgomery, California, Powell and Broadway streets.
It gave no name to any street, and the two main
streets on it were Kearny, shown as extending from
THE VILLAGE ERA. 87
Sacramento to Pacific, and Dupont from Clay to
Pacific. Clay had two full blocks on each side from
Dupont to Montgomery; Sacramento, Washington and
Jackson, were not so long. The survey did not tres-
pass upon the lagoon, that covered several acres, with
its center near the intersection of Jackson and Mont-
gomery streets. All the streets mentioned had nearly
the same positions as at present, but one street ran
north-westward from the crossing of Clay and Dupont,
and on the west side of this street, Leese and Richard-
son each had a lot one hundred varas square, the first
two which were occupied in the town. The other
streets crossed each other in directions two and a half
degrees from a right angle. Of the eleven blocks,
most of them fractional shown on Vioget's map, only
three now^ have the original size and shape; not one
exactly the position given by him.
In the previous year a wagon road had been opened
from Yerba Buena to the Mission by cutting out the
bushes and scrub oaks for a width of eight feet along
the line; but as the only vehicles to use it were the
Mexican carretas with solid wheels, the main benefit
of the road was that horsemen could pass without the
dansfer of beinsf scratched or havinof their clothes torn
by the chaparral. In 1840 there were four Americans,
as many Englishmen, and six other Europeans, in
Yerba Buena; and these owned and occupied most of
the houses. The next year Spear and Hinckley, Ameri-
cans, built a saw mill to run by horse-jDower, and
brought redwood logs for it from Corte Madera, in
88 HISTORY OF SAN FRANCISCO.
Marin County. The boards thus produced were used
for furniture and houses.
Sec. 34. Hudson Bay. About 1840, the Hudson
Bay company had a dispute with the Russian- Ameri-
can company about the exclusive right to hunt sea-
otter and trade with the Indians, in Queen Charlotte
Sound; and as competition in dealing with the warlike
savages of the northern coast might have been ruinous
to both parties, they made an agreement that the
Hudson Bay company should have the exclusive trade
of the Sound, and should deliver in Sitka, at certain
fixed prices, all the wheat, tallow, soap and maize
needed for that place. This last stipulation was made
by the Russians, with the intention of abandoning
their establishment at Fort Ross, to avoid trouble
with Mexico. Their occupation of that place had
been recognized by Spain; but the Russian emperor
had made no treaty with the Mexican government,
which considered the autocrat as an enemy, and feared
that he intended to lay permanent claim to a portion
of the coast. After the establishment of the Missions
and settlements north of the bay, for the avowed pur-
pose of heading off the Russians, General Vallejo
was sent to break up the settlement at Fort Ross, but
he soon came to the conclusion that discretion was the
better part of valor; and from that time the hostility
of the Mexican government was exhibited only on
paper. The rancheros w^ere friendly with the people
at Fort Ross, and went there frequently to trade. At
last, however, the sea-otter began to become scarce.
THE VILLAGE ERA. 89
the establishment at Fort Ross ceased to be profitable;
the Russians had never intended to lay claim to the
coast there, and they offered their establishment for
sale. Mr. Leese proposed to give them twenty thou-
sand dollars, five thousand dollars cash and five thou-
sand dollars annually for three years. General Sutter
bid thirty thousand dollars, to be paid on time, and he
obtained the bargain. The Russians abandoned the
country, and were replaced by the Hudson Bay com-
pany, which, having undertaken to supply Sitka w^ith
such produce as could be obtained only from California,
found it necessary to establish a permanent agency,
and selected Yerba Buena as the place. Dr. Mc-
Laughlin, then the head of the company on the Pacific
coast, and a resident of Oregon, sent his son-in-law,
Mr. Ray, to take charge of the new agency; and Ray
saw that there was an excellent opportunity to
monopolize the trade of the bay. The great capital
of the company gave them an advantage over indi-
vidual competitors, and the profits of trade would
justify the attempt. Mr. Leese, unable to compete
with them, sold out his store and business to them,
and moved to Sonoma. The American merchants had
paid for their hides and tallow on delivery, in mer-
chandise, upon w^iich great profits were made. Ray
offered to pay half cash and half merchandise, and to
pay the merchandise share in advance.
These terms were so much better for the rancheros
than those of the Americans, that the latter could get
but little trade, and the Hudson Bay company rap-
90 TEE HISTORY OF SAN FRANCISCO
idly grew in importance; but in 1844, Sir George
Simpson, the governor of the company, visited the
coast, condemned Ray's payment in advance, and re-
fused to approve the purchase of the house. About
the same time Ray made the mistake of lending the
ammunition of the company, placed in his charge for
purposes of trade, to Castro and Alvarado to aid them
in a revolt against Governor Micheltorena, expecting
to gciin political influence, as well as to make a pecun-
iary profit by the transaction. In this he was dis-
appointed, for Sutter gathered a party of Americans
and Indians and took sides against the rebels. Ray
had another trouble. In consequence of his atten-
tions to a native Californian lady, he had a quarrel
with his wife, from whose father he had received his
position. He sought relief from these vexations in
intoxication, and closed one of his debauches by blow-
ing out his brains. This was the end of the brief
predominant influence of the Hudson Bay company
in Yerba Buena, though it continued to maintain an
agency here till after the American conquest. In
1844, the houses of Yerba Buena were the Hudson
Bay house; the store of Spear & Hinckley; the store
of Wm. A. Leidesdorfl"; the groceries of David
Cooper, J. J. Vioget, Peter Sherreback, and Victor
Prudon; the restaurant of John Fuller; the grog shops
of Gregorio Escalante (Manila man) and Jacinto Mo-
reno (a Lascar); the blacksmith-shop of Tinker &
Thompson; the carpenter-shops of Andrews, Davis,
and Reynolds & Rose; and the dwelling of Seiiora
THE VILLAGE ERA. 91
Briones. The town remained nearly stationary dur-
ing 1844, 1845, and the early part of 1846. It was ex-
pected, however, by the Americans and other foreign-
ers in the country that California would soon become
a part of the United States, and all looked to Yerba
Buena as the probable metropolis.
Sec. 35. Predictions. More than fifty years ago,
ambitious Americans looked forward to the time when
San Francisco bay and its vicinity would belong to the
United States. The revolt of Texas was foreseen, and
California was too valuable to be left in the possession
of a small population, content to remain stationary in the
pastoral condition, whila surrounding nations were ad-
vancing with all the power and speed of steam. It was
evident that Mexico, involved in chronic civil wars,
could not continue to hold a country so remote, so
rich in resources, with a population that had already
outgrown many of its Mexican sympathies, and was
besides not numerous enough to offer much opposition
to conquest. The Americans considered themselves
best entitled to the prize, because their territory of
Oregon adjoined it, their whalers and other ships in
the Pacific were the most frequent visitors to it, and
with their adventurous and migrating disposition they
could soonest supply it with the people needed to de-
velop its natural wealth. A few years later they were
the largest class of foreigners in the country, and hav-
ing married into the most influential native Califor-
nian families, their presence supplied an additional
basis for their claim, which was then recognized to be
92 HISTORY OF SAN FRANCISCO.
the best; and all the travelers visiting the coast spoke
of the probability that the stars and stripes would
permanently wave over the future towns to be built
about the shores of San Francisco bay.
No experienced navigator or hydrograj)hic engineer
has ever written of our bay^ after examining it, with-
out giving it liberal praise. Lieutenant Ayala, the
first man to pass through the Golden Gate in com-
mand of a vessel, at least the first of whose entrance
there is no doubt, after making a survey of it in
1775, declared it "a collection of harbors in w^hich
all the navies of Spain could hide from one another."
Vancouver visited it in 1792, and said it was **as fine
a port as the world affords;" and thought its possession
ought to be "a principal object of the Spanish crown."
The Kussian navigator Kotzebue visited the bay in
in 1824, and the narrative of his voyage says:
It has hitherto been the fate of this region, like that of mod-
est merit or humble virtue to remain unnoticed, but posterity
will do it justice. Towns and cities will hereafter flourish
where all is now desert. The water over which scarcely a soli-
tary boat is seen to glide, will reflect the flags of all nations,
and a happy, prosperous people, receiving with thankfulness
what prodigal nature bestows for their use, will disperse its
treasures over every part of the world.
The rush of whalemen to the North Pacific about
1820, made the Americans familiar with this coast;
and in the course of years, many of their ships came
to this harbor to get fresh water and provisions. The
sailors in their conversation after reaching home, and
in their letters while here, spoke in glowing terms of
THE VILLAGE ERA. 93
the grand bay, which was undoubtedly well adapted,
by its jDosition and circumstances, to maintain upon
its shore the chief American seaport on the Pacific.
Sec. 36. Morrell. The first book speaking of Cal-
ifornia, by an American, was written by Benjamin
Morrell, who, in command of the schooner " Tartar,"
visited our harbor in 1825, and seven years later pub-
lished a book, in which he said :
The bay of San Francisco, connected with the surrounding
scenery, is the most delightful I have ever seen on the western
coast of America. It presents a broad sheet of water, of suffi-
cient extent to float all the British navy without crowding; the
circling grassy shore, indented with convenient coves, and the
whole surrounded with a verdant, blooming country, pleasingly
diversified with cultured fields and waving forests; meadows
clothed with the richest verdure in the gift of bounteous May;
pastures covered with grazing herds; hill and dale, mountain
and valley, noble rivers and gurgling brooks. Man, enlight-
ened, civilized man, alone is w^anting to complete the picture,
and give a soul, a divinity, to the whole. Were these beauti-
ful regions, which have been so much libeled, and are so little
known, the property of the United States, our government
would never permit them to remain thus neglected. The east-
ern and middle states would pour out their thousands of emi-
grants, until magnificent cities would rise on the shores of every
inlet along the coast of New California, while the wilderness of
the interior would be made to blossom like the rose.
Sec. 37. Beechey. Captain Beechey, in the course
of his exploring expedition with the British govern-
ment ship " Blossom," came into our bay in November,
1826, and his book, published before Morrell's, calls this
a "magnificent port," and said it "possesses almost all
the requisites for a great naval establishment, and is
94 HISTORY OF SAN FRANCISCO.
SO advantageously situated with regard to North
America and China, and the Pacific in general, that
it will, no doubt, at some future time be of great im-
portance."
This opinion, expressed by a distinguished hydro-
graphic authority, after a careful examination of the
entrance and anchorage, corroborating the unanimous
declarations of the American shipmasters — Beechey
found seven whalers anchored at Saucelito at one
time — contributed to fix the determination of the
American government to acquire the bay and its
vicinity. In 1835, when the annexation of Texas was
confidently anticipated, the cabinet made an offer for
California to Mexico, but it was rejected; and soon
afterwards the expedition under Captain Wilkes was
sent out to make extensive explorations in the Pa-
cific; bat his instructions directed him to visit Cal-
ifornia, " with special reference to the bay of San
Francisco," and the surveys ordered to be made in
other parts of the Pacific were presumably regarded
by the American government as of secondary and in-
cidental value.
Alexander Forbes, in his " History of California,"
written in 1835, and published in 1839, says, "The
port of San Francisco is hardly surpassed by any in
the world;" and as to the general resources of the
adjacent regions, he expressed the opinion that, "per-
haps no country Avhatever can excel, or hardly vie
with, California in natural advantages."
Sec. 38. Wilhes, Etc. Wilkes visited San Fran-
THE VILLAGE ERA. 95
cisco in 1841; returned to New York the next year,
and doubtless gave the chief points of his observations
to the cabinet in conversation. The official report of
his voyage appeared in 1845, and in it he says this is
'^ one of the finest, if not the very best harbor in the
world;" and he remarked, " the situation of California
will cause its separation from Mexico before many
years." Richard H. Dana's opinion, that "if CaH-
fornia ever becomes a prosperous country, this bay Avill
be the center of its, prosperity," an opinion formed
after visiting the bay as a sailor, in an American
vessel, that was here for hides, in the winter of 1835,
and recorded in a book which appeared in 1840,
found twenty times as many readers as did Wilkes's
ponderous volumes.
The annexation of Texas was looked forward to_,
from 1837, as a certainty, and a consequent war with
Mexico as a probability; and there was a fixed deter-
mination in Washington, that one of the first things
to be done, in case of war, was to seize California. We
have no copy of the instructions issued to the Ameri-
can war-ships, of which there was, at least, one con-
stantly in the North Pacific; but we can infer some of
their character from the conduct of Commodore Jones,
who, having heard a rumor of war, arrived at Monterey
with the frigate " United States " and the corvette
"Cyane," on the nineteenth of October, 1842, and
seized the place as the caj^ital of the country for his
government. He learned after a few hours that the
rumor was false, so the next day he hauled down his
96 HISTORY OF SAN FRANCISCO.
flag and apologized ; but he had ah'eady exposed the
purpose of the American cabinet, and if anything
could have been done by Mexico to avert the final
seizure, it would doubtless then have been done ; but
it was too late ; Mexico was too weak, and the United
States too strong. When Mofras was at Los Angeles
in 1842, he heard a native woman sing a Spanish song,
which said that when the Americans should come
California would be lost, but when the Frenchmen
came the women would surrender. It was the com-
mon talk among the frontiersmen in the upjoer Mis-
sissippi valley, that California was to be settled by
Americans, then made independent, and finally an-
nexed; and it was confidence in such talk that stimu-
lated the migrations of 1843, 1844, 1845 and 1846,
across the continent from Missouri.
Robert Greenhow, librarian of the Congressional
Library in 1840, published a book on the north-west
coast of America, afterward enlarged into a history
of Oregon, and in the first edition of his work spoke
of San Francisco bay as "one of the finest harbors in
the world, and possessing every requisite for a great
naval establishment," and " destined to be the center
of an extensive commerce." In the beginning of 1842,
Sir George Simpson, the head of the Hudson Bay
company, visited Yerba Buena, and five years later
published a book, in which he says the bay " is one of
the finest harbors in the world," '' a miniature Medi-
terranean," and " an inland sea."
On the twenty-fourth of June, 1845, George Ban-
TEE VILLAGE ERA. 97
croft, then secretary of the navy, wrote to Commo-
dore Sloat, commanding the American squadron in
the North Pacific: "If you should ascertain, with cer-
tainty, that Mexico has declared war against the
United States, you will at once possess yourself of the
port of San Francisco, and blockade or occupy such
other ports as your force may permit." The great bay
was considered the most important point.
Commodore Sloat^ in his proclamation issued at
Monterey, on the seventh of July, 1846, predicted " a
great increase in the value of real estate;" and said
" the country cannot but improve more rapidly than
any other on the continent of America," under the
permanent dominion of the United States, then oflBci-
ally announced by him.
On the sixteenth of March, 1848, Edwin Bryant,
alcalde of San Francisco, published a notice that the
water lots in Yerba Buena cove, including thirty-five
blocks now occupied for business purposes between
Broadw^ay and Folsom streets, would be sold at auc-
tion to the highest bidder, on the twenty-ninth of
June, and took the opportunity to say that the " town
is destined to become the commercial emporium of the
western side of the American continent."
The merchants of San Francisco, in March, 1848,
paid Sam. Brannan, publisher of the "California Star,"
to print a number of his paper for circulation on the
Atlantic slope, and Dr. Fourgeaud, who died several
years since, furnished an article six columns long on
" The prospects of California," in which he explained
7
98 HISTORY OF SAN FRANCISCO.
its resources and foretold its prosperity; and of San
Francisco he said: ''Our flourishing little town is des-
tined ere long to become the manufacturing metropo-
lis and commercial emporium of western America."
Within a month after that paper was published, the
little town was crazy with the gold excitement, and
soon it got such a fair swing that no more predictions
were needed.
Sec. 39. American Longing. The administration
of Polk, installed on the fourth of March, 1845,
looked forward to the acquisition of California as its
chief ambition. Although the purposes of the cab-
inet were kept secret, the idea of extending the
American dominion on the Pacific was familiar to
many minds. The Yankee traders on the coast, and
the trappers and the farmers in the Sacramento basin,
wrote letters glowing with praise of the climate and
soil of their new home by the sunset sea — letters that
frequently found their way into the newspapers.
Britons and Frenchmen also longed to seize the treas-
ure which they were convinced must soon become the
prize of the boldest. Duflot de Mofras, in his book
on Oregon and California, hinted that France ought
to take California in advance of England or the
United States. Forbes, in his history of California,
suggested that Great Britain should take it. The
Californians themselves were continually discussing
the matter, the preference being generally, among
those who favored a change, for the United. States,
which had a contiguous territory, the prestige of
THE VILLAGE ERA. ' 99
progress, the advantage of extensive commercial rela^
tions, and a number of citizens already established in
the country. Most of the trade was in the hands of
American merchants, and the most formidable mili-
tary force in California consisted of American rifle-
men, who had on several occasions taken an important
part in the local political convulsions.
The people were dissatisfied with the Mexican gov-
ernment. It was remote and weak; it did nothing
for the advancement of the country, and sent govern-
ors who were unknown to the inhabitants, insolent in
their manners, and incompetent to properly perform
their duties. The Californians had, by long inter-
course with foreigners, grown to be distinct in charac-
ter and tastes from the Mexicans. On one occasion
they had declared themselves independent of Mexico ;
and they had expelled several Mexican governors.
Many of the leading families, such as the Carrillos,
Vallejos, Bandinis and Ortegas were connected by
marriage with Americans.
Sec. 40. Larkin. These facts were well known to
the Washington cabinet, which had been actively
scheming for several years to prepare the way for a
seizure of California. The American consul at Mon-
terey, Thomas 0. Larkin, had been instructed to get
all possible influence with the leading native Califor-
nians. In May, 1846, a circular had been issued
under the stimulus of his suggestions, calling a meet-
ing of thirty prominent men, including the chief offi-
cials, for the purpose of considering the condition of
10.0 HISTORY OF SAN FRANCISCO.
affairs, with special reference to continued adherence
to Mexico. Larkin advised the adoption of a memo-
rial to the central administration, praying for a better
government in California, and if that could not be
provided, for a sale of the territory to some other
power. It was Larkin's expectation that the discus-
sion of this matter, and the ill feeling that would
probably follow would prepare the people for a change;
and he was confident that whether money or force
should control the transfer, in either case the Amer-
icans would carry off the prize.
Sec. 41. Fremont's Blunder. Everything was
going along smoothly with Larkin's plans, when they
were disturbed by the folly and insolence of Fremont,
wholiad arrived early in the year with an armed ex-
ploring expedition, and instead of taking counsel with
Larkin, and courtinof and conciliatinof the local author-
ities, insulted and defied them. When he reached
the vicinity of Monterey, several of the native Cal-
ifornians claimed that some of the horses in the pos-
session of his party had been stolen from them, and
he refused to surrender them. Dolores Pacheco,
alcalde at San Jose, sent a letter to Fremont, stating
that a complaint had been made before him to recover
a stolen horse, and to demand satisfaction for insults
given when the owner demanded his property in the
American camp. Fremont replied that the horse
claimed by the native Californian had been brought
from the United States, and that the claimant might
consider himself fortunate in escaping without a se-
THE VILLAGE ERA. 101
vere whipping, instead of being merely ordered to
leave the camp. He admitted that four horses had
been bought of Indians in Tulare valley, and offered,
if it could be shown that any of these had been stolen,
to surrender them, but no further ^communication
about the horse first claimed would receive his atten-
tion, and he added: "My duties will not permit me to
appear before the magistrate of your towns on the
complaint of every straggling vagabond."
Dolores Pacheco sent Fremont's letters to the pre-
fect of the district, Manuel Castro, who wrote to Fre-
mont, ordering him to leave the country immediately.
He refused to go. He wanted some supplies, and he
intended to stay till he could obtain them, whether
the officials liked his stay or not. This last defiance
provoked the authorities so that a military force
marched out to attack him; but the native Californians
were not accustomed to the use of the rifle, and after
taking a look at the bristling little camp, they with-
drew, leaving Fremont to move off as he did, going up
the Sacramento valley towards Oregon.
The more the natives heard of his conduct, the
angrier they got, and they extended their denunciations
to all Americans. The indignation was so strono^ that
Governor Pico was satisfied that the proposed con-
vention would do no good, so he withdrew his call for
it, and it never met.
The feeling, however, that had been awakened by
the call could not be suppressed. The attempts to
keep the movement a secret within a small circle
102 HISTORY OF SAN FRANCISCO.
failed, and the rumors which got out, alarmed one
party while they excited the other. Larkin wrote
thus to the American secretary of state on the fifteenth
of June :
He (Larkin, the. writer) has felt certain that from the almost
certain train of events now in the course of production in Cali-
fornia, he would be called from his own private business to at-
tend to other affairs. By withdrawing from his jDursuits, he has
been preparing- himself and the department of state, by his
numerous and voluminous correspondence in 1844 aud 1845, to
meet the ensuing events soon to be consummated. From a
favorable disposition on his part to aid what he saw was inevita-
ble, there has been no reluctance to expense and personal in-
convenience, which as begun would have been continued. It
therefore affords a sincere pleasure in being able by the new
proposal to have more power and room to carry out that already
begun. This will call for no remarks from natives or foreigners
residing here, as the parties and entertaining of company, and
several extra consular expenses, have been attributed to the
fancy, or advancement of position in life, of the undersigned.
The undersigned improves the opportunity of observing that
there cannot be brought forward, by the president against
Mexico, any claim or demand so strong and impetuous as the
unjust and cruel arrest, imprisonment and shipment in irons of
so many Americans from this port in April, 1840. Californians,
in California, committed this most outrageous act, and they and
their territory should be held responsible lor the deed.
Sec. 42. Bear Flag. The folly of Fremont was
followed by the blunder of the Bear Flag party. The
unmeaning threats of a few ignorant native Cali-
fornians irritated and perhaps alarmed the Americans
north of San Francisco bay, so much that without
taking advice of the naval officers, of the American
consul, or of the influential and wealthy Americans,
THE VILLAGE EEA. 103
living south of San Francisco, they revolted; seized
the town of Sonoma on the fourteenth of June; im-
prisoned General M. G. Yallejo, Captain S. Vallejo,
Colonel Prudon, and Mr. Leese (the last an Ameri-
can, but brother-in-law of the Vallejos) ; declared
California independent; and hoisted a flag showing a
bear on white ground with the words " California
Republic." Wm. B. Ide, who succeeded Captain S.
Merritt as commander of the bear flag party, issued
a proclamation in which he gave the reasons of the
movement, and declared that the Americans in the
territory had been " threatened by proclamation from
the chief officer of the aforesaid military despotism
[the government of California], with extermination if
they would not depart out of the country, leaving all
their property, arms, and beasts of burden." This was
a great mistake on the part of Ide and his friends.
The governor of California had issued no such procla-
mation, nor was such a matter thought of. Although
the Bear Flag party acted with far more moderation
than rebels usually do, its conduct gave great ofiense
to the native Californians, and added to the difficulty
of the subsequent conquest of the country.
Sec. 43. American Flag. On the seventh of
June, 1846, Commodore Sloat, while lying at Mazatlan
with the frigate ''Savannah," received news of the
battles on the Bio Grande. Without waiting for a
formal declaration of war, he set sail the next day for
Monterey, where he arrived on the second of July.
He counseled with Consul Larkin upon a proclamation,
104 HISTORY OF SAN FRANCISCO.
the form of which was soon agreed upon, and on the
seventh of July he sent Captain Mervine ashore, with
instructions to take possession of the custom house and
Presidio, hoist the stars and stripes, and read the
proclamation. His instructions were obeyed without
resistance or objection from the native authorities or
population. Governor Pico and General Castro were
both absent, and no soldiers showed themselves. The
proclamation announced that *' henceforth California
will be a portion of the United States," and promised
protection to the person and property of peaceable
citizens.
On the sixth, Sloat had sent a messenger to Captain
Montgomery, of the war sloop " Portsmouth," then
lying at Yerba Buena, giving him the news and in-
structing him to hoist the flag. On the eighth Mont-
gomery received the message, and hoisted the flag on
the plaza, or public square, which has since been called
Portsmouth Square; and, what was then the principal
street, was named after him who first asserted the
American authority in Yerba Buena. On the eleventh
Montgomery wrote back that the stars and stripes
wavedsit San Francisco, Sonoma, Bodega and New
Helvetia. Los Angfeles and San Diesfo were taken
soon afterwards; and although there were subsequent
troubles, the American conquest dates from the seventh
of July, 1846.
The war lasted nearly two years, but there was
little fighting in California, and that little did not
come near Yerba Buena. Such as there was in the
THE VILLAGE ERA. 105
southern districts was chargeable mainly to the indis-
cretion of Fremont and the haste of the Bear Flag
party. On the fourteenth of January, 1847, Larkin
wrote thus to the secretary of state :
It has been my object for some years to bring the Californians
to look on our countrymen as their best friends. I am satisfied
yery many were of that way of thinking, and more were becom-
ing so. General Castro, from the year 1842 to 1846, made
every demonstration in our favor, and opened plans for future
operations, granting passports to all the Americaus whom I
presented to him. At the same time he made some foolish proc-
lamations, supposing they would only be believed in Mexico.
The sudden rising of the j^arty on the Sacramento under the
Bear Flag, taking Californians' property to a large amount, and
other acts, completely frustrated all hopes I had of the friend-
ship of the natives to my countrymen, and of General Castro,
through fear of his people, to come into the arrangements I ex-
pected. On the arrival of the war squadron, from June to Oc-
tober, this came to my knowledge more and more fully. During
the time I accompanied Commodore Stockton, I led him to be-
lieve that having taken the country the people would quietly
submit; yet he should leave some forces amongst them. Among
other objections of his Avere the expense and want of men. He
has again hoisted our flag in this place. Colonel Fremont has
done the same in Santa Barbara. * * * From this day it
will require fifteen hundred troops to keep California, at least,
or a different line of conduct to conciliate, which I think the
Commodore will pursue. My present object is, that the State
Department should know that the Californians were friendh', as
1 believe they were, but proper methods were not taken to con-
ciliate them. Had the ofiicers left in command at different
towns in the country had the kind and friendly, yet firm man-
ner of Commodore Stockton, I am firm in the opinion that the
people would not have risen. During my imprisonment many
Californian officers told me this, and said that the strict mill-
106 HISTOEY OF SAN FRANCISCO.
tary discipline pursued, and ignorance of their customs, forced
them to take ujd arms.
Sec. 44. Effect of Conquest. The conquest made
a great change in Yerba Buena, which had been in-
ferior in population to the village of Dolores, three
miles distant, but now suddenly became the chief
town north of Monterey, with the expectation that it
would soon surpass the capital in importance. There
was the utmost confidence that the United States
would continue to hold the bay, w^ith the shores and
country eastward and northward. Yerba Buena had
become predominantly American in its po2:)ulation; it
was the only American town; it was the chief seaport
of the lari^e res^ion in which the Americans were most
numerous, and in which the large extent of unoccupied
fertile land woidd certainly at no distant time attract
many American settlers. These considerations con-
curred, with its superior advantages as a harbor, to
make it a preferred resort of the vessels that came to
the coast on business connected with the war. It was
evident that the American government could not hold
the country until the establishment of peace without
maintaining a considerable military force on its land and
a considerable naval force in its waters; nor after mak-
ing of peace without a considerable. American popula-
tion. These forces and this population would, it was
believed, bring most of their trade to Yerba Buena,
which thus became a place of great expectations.
One of the first acts of American authority was the
appointment by Captain Montgomery of Washington
THE VILLAGE ERA, 107
A. Bartlett, one of the lieutenants on the " Ports-
mouth," to the office of alcalde of Yerba Buena, to
supersede Noe, the Mexican alcalde residing at Dolo-
res. The Mexican dominion and the supremacy of
Dolores disappeared together. Under military au-
thority exercised by a naval officer, the chief magis-
trate of the town took a Spanish title and undertook
to administer Mexican law as modified by American
ideas and personal whims. There were neither stat-
utes nor precedents to guide the court in its judg-
ments, which were, however, probably as nearly just
as those precise and pretentious tribunals occupying
the same relative position in later times.
Sec. 45. Mormons. Three weeks after the hoisting
of the American flag, the " Portsmouth " and the
town were agitated by the report that a strange ves-
sel, with decks black with jDeople, and evidently not
an American war-ship, had sailed into the Golden
Gate and was pursuing her course towards Yerba
Buena cove. Captain Montgomery immediately got
ready for fight, but as the strange ship came round
Clark's point, he saw that his preparation was un-
necessary. The number of women and children on
deck proved that there was no hostile intention, and
there was nothing to indicate a warlike character.
But who were these people who seemed to have
dropped from the sky? They carried the American
flag, but no such load of people had ever been seen on
the coast before. There was no report that an immi-
grant vessel was coming, and the government would
108 HISTORY OF SAN FRANCISCO.
surely not send out women and children to a country
engaged in war.
The general curiosity was soon gratified. The ship
was the ''Brooklyn." It had left New York under a
pretense of being bound for Oregon, on the sixth of
February, with two hundred and thirty-eight emi-
grants, all, save perhaps a dozen, Mormons, who, un-
der advice or instructions from the leaders of their
church, had selected San Francisco bay as their des-
tination, with the expectation that they would find on
its shores a place where they could build up a large
and prosperous colony, and where no government or
mob would be strong enough for many years to dis-
turb them on account of their religion. They were
dismayed by the news that the American flag floated
over California, and by the fear that the men among
them would be called upon to enlist to support a do-
minion to escape from which they had undertaken a
long voyage, with the intention of settling in the wil-
derness. However, they made no public declaration
of their feeling, and it was too late to change their
destination.
They were mostly natives of New York and New
England, and the men were all mechanics and farmers
and well provided with the skill and the tools neces-
sary for opening farms, building houses, and doing all
the work of starting and maintaining a settlement in
a wild country. Their leader was Samuel Brannan,
who had been the joublisher of the " Prophet," a
Mormon paper in New York, and he brought his press,
THE VILLAGE ERA. 109
type and compositors with him. As head of the
company, he was the custodian of its propei^ty. The
disturbed condition of the country,* the demand of the
officials that the men should enter the military ser-
vice, and the expectations, afterwards justified by the
res alt, that the chief council of the Mormon church
would abandon the project of establishing a large
colony in California, induced those of the men who
did not enlist and all the Avomen and children to settle,
temporarily at least, in Yerba Buena, which then be-
came predominantly a Mormon town, for a brief period.
The men who remained in town were no idlers, and
the place soon showed signs of their activity in new
houses and shops. Brannan had his press at work in
September, finding occupation for some months in
striking off official notices, proclamations, blank deeds
and alcalde grants. About the end of October, the
first news sheet ajDpeared; it was called " an extra in
advance of the ' California Star,' " and contained a
copy of General Taylor's official report of the battles
in Texas on the eighth and ninth of May. On the ninth
of January the " California Star" commenced its career
as a weekly paper.
The Mormons made little effort to gain converts,
said little about the popular dogmas of their sect, did
not then recognize polygamy ii> their creed, and
generally maintained harmonious and even cordial re-
lations in business and society with their neighbors.
The men were industrious, intelligent, and jDublic-
spirited; the women chaste, and the children well-
110 HISTORY OF SAN FRANCISCO.
behaved. The *' Brooklyn " immigrants and their de-
scendants now make up a small, but respectaWe portion
of the Californian population, and have generally
abandoned their former creed.
Sec. 46. Change of Name. The year 1847 was an
eventful one for Yerba Buena. In January a decree
was published by the alcalde (there was no town
council), changing the name to San Francisco, "to
prevent confusion and mistakes in public documents,
and that the town mav have the advantaofe of the
name given in the public maps." There were other
motives not mentioned by Alcalde Bartlett. A rival
town had been laid off on the northern shore of
Carquinez strait, a place which had many advantages
for commerce, by Thomas 0. Larkin and Charles D.
Semple, who in wealth, political influence, general in-
telligence, and business capacity were among the first
Americans on the coast. They had purchased the
land from M. G. Vallejo, and named the tbwn
Francesca, after his wife. The name was well devised,
suggestive of the bay, new, and not too long; but it
was unfortunate in one respect, it did not prevent the
appropriation of "San Francisco " by another place.
Bartlett and his advisers were aware that while
everybody knew about San Francisco bay, few had
heard of the village of Yerba Buena, or would re-
member it. The name had a foreign look, and would
not be naturalized into English spelling or pronuncia-
tion, until after much effort. It would not do to let
the prospective town at Carquinez make the impres-
THE VILLAGE ERA. HI
sion in the Atlantic states by the mere similarity of
its name, that it was the chief town on San Francisco
bay. The remedy was very simple, change Yerba
Buena to San Francisco. There were no popular
prejudices to be overcome, no voters, or councilmen to
be consulted. The power of the alcalde was mo-
narchical, and his decree was final. It was issued with-
out the previous approval of the editor of the " Star,"
and he refused for several weeks to recognize the new
name; but the people appreciated the policy of the
change, and the refractory journalist had to submit.
One reason why the people Avere pleased was, that
Larkin and Semple were worried. They protested,
but protest was useless. The thing had been done,
the right to the name was secured, and San Francisco
was a genuine lively little town; while Francesca,
existed only upon paper, and in the anticipations of
its friends. The names were so much alike that who-
ever spoke of Francesca would be supposed to refer to
San Francisco; and its projectors took Benicia, a
second baptismal name of Senora Vallejo, as the title
of their place. Not long after this Captain Folsom,
of the United States quartermaster's department, hav-
ing considered the advantages claimed for Benicia,
selected San Francisco as the point where the military
stores of the United States should be kept, and thus
contributed materially to strengthen its position.
In February, meetings were held to send assistance
to the Donner party, who were starving in the mount-
ains. The sum of fifteen hundred dollars was col-
112 HISTORY OF SAN FRANCISCO.
lected, and the relief party frora San Francisco arrived
in time at the famine camp near Donner lake to ren-
der effective service, though thirty-six out of eighty
in the original party had died. This was the first of
many liberal subscriptions made by San Francisco to
relieve distant suffering.
Sec. 47. Stevensoas Regiment. On the sixth of
March the ship " Thomas H. Perkins" arrived with
the first detachment of Stevenson's regiment of vol-
unteers, who had been enlisted in the interior of the
state of New York, under special instructions to ac-
cept only those men who would promise to make their
homes in California after the war, and who, by their
good character and skill in the industrial arts, would
be valuable settlers in a new country. When the
" Perkins " left New York, on the twentieth of Sep-
tember, no news had been received there of what had
been done on this coast since the declaration of war;
but there was no doubt that the navy had possession
of San Francisco at least, and that place was made
the destination of the voyage. Stevenson's men as a
class became permanent, many of them worthy, and
some of them prominent, citizens of California; thus
justifying the wisdom of the cabinet in devising its
plan of enlistment and selecting the agents who ac-
cepted the men.
The arrival of the ''Brooklyn" and "Perkins"
with their immigrants, the business brought to the
town by them, and the general confidence felt in its
future, excited a desire amona: the residents to se-
THE VILLAGE ERA. 113
cure lots for homes, business and speculation. The
few who had studied law seriously doubted whether
American officials could give valid titles to land with-
out any express authority from congress ; and indeed
legally the country had not yet become part of the
American dominion by treaty, without which Mexican
authority could not be formally terminated. The sale
or gift of town lots to accommodate settlers certainly
did not come under the military powers arising from
the war. Nevertheless, the citizens were willing and
anxious to take all the chances. They urgently de-
manded some kind of a paper from the government
officials showing that they had done all they could do
to obtain a title, trusting that congress and the courts
would not deprive them afterwards of the property in
their possession and made valuable by their labor and
enterprise. It was represented to General Kearny,
then military governor, that the sale of lots was not
only advisable to help in building up the town and
attracting immigration, but also to provide funds with
which the expenses of the town government should be
paid. In accordance with the general solicitation,
General Kearny, on the tenth of March, claiming to
act by authority vested in him by the president of the
United States, who had no such authority and never
undertook to confer it on his subordinate, issued a de-
cree granting to the town all the beach and water lots
between Clark's point and Rincon point, except such
as should be reserved for government uses by the sen-
ior navy officer stationed at San Francisco, under con-
8
114 HISTORY OF SAN FRANCISCO.
dition that these lots should be sold at auction for the
benefit of the town.
Sec. 48. O'FarrelVs Survey. Within a week after
the date of this decree, Edwin Bryant, who had suc-
ceeded Bartlett as alcalde on the twenty-seventh Feb-
ruary, issued a notice that the water lots would be
surveyed immediately, and would be sold on the
twenty-seventh of June. Jasper O'Farrell, an Irish
civil engineer, was selected to make the survey, which
so far as the water lots were concerned, consisted in
marking them off upon paper. George Hyde, having
succeeded to the position of alcalde, postponed the
sale till the twentieth of July, when two hundred
water lots, forty-five by one hundred and thirty-seven
and a half feet in size, out of four hundred and fifty
were sold at prices varying from fifty dollars to six
hundred dollars each, most of them being near the
former figure. The lots between Clay and Sacra-
mento, reserved for the possible uses of the govern-
ment, were sold six years and a half later, and brought
twelve thousand dollars each on an average — more
than one hundred times as much as in 1847.
But the water lots could not be occupied, and this
sale gave little satisfaction to the purchasers or im-
mediate benefit to the town. The people needed
solid ground for homes and shops, and so O'Farrell
was instructed to enlarge the bounds of the town. He
did so, and made the first careful survey, covering an
area of about eight hundred acres. His map included
the district bounded by the lines of Post, Leavenworth
THE VILLAGE ERA. 115
and Francisco streets and the water front; and south
of Market street, it showed four full blocks fronting
on Fourth and eleven full blocks fronting on Second
street. There were besides a few fractional blocks.
O'Farrell disliked many things in Yioget's little sur-
vey, but some he could not change. Kearny and
Dupont streets were too narrow, but these could not
be widened without an expense of several thousand
dollars, which nobody wanted to incur. It was con-
sidered indispensable, however, that the acute and
obtuse angles of Vioget's lots should be corrected by
making the streets cross each other at right angles,
and to do this, a change of two and a half degrees
was necessary in the direction of some of the streets.
This transferred the situation of all the lots, and was
subsequently called "O'Farrell's swing" of the city.
All the lot-holders save one Bennett, who had a place
between Kearny and Dupont on Pacific, accepted the
change. He refused to be swung out of any of the
lot originally granted to him; and his title to a strip
covered by the swing having passed to a Mr. Barth,
was sustained by a judgment of the twelfth district
court in 1859. For years, on account of the swing,
buildings were to be seen at various places projecting
a little beyond the general line of the street, but
nearly all, if not all, have now conformed to O'Far-
rell's lines. The corner of Kearny and Washington
streets was the pivot of the swing, and the main mon-
ument or starting point was established there. The
new map gave to the streets the names which they
116 HISTORY OF SAN FRANCISCO.
now have, and they were doubtless adopted with the
approval of the alcalde. They provided that all the
people of the future metropolis of the coast should be
reminded every day of Montgomery, Stockton and
Dupont, of the navy; of Kearny, Mason, Fremont and
Taylor, of the army; of Sutter, Howard, Brannan, Bry-
ant, Folsom, Harrison, Hyde, Leavenworth and Jones,
of the early residents of the city. Vallejo and Larkin,
prominent citizens of California, were also immortal-
ized.
The first delineation of Market street was made by
O'Farrell, who correctly appreciated the importance
of making the main streets in the southern part of the
town agree in general direction with the route followed
by people going from Yerba Buena cove to the Mis-
sion. The extension of the streets running with the
cardinal points to Mission creek would have been a
source of much inconvenience for many years. The
lots south of Market street were made four times as
large as those to the northward, smaller lots there not
being considered desirable property.
Sec. 49. Sale of Lots. In August, of the seven
hundred fifty- vara lots, about four hundred had been
sold at sixteen dollars each, including the expense of
deed and recording; and of the one hundred and thirty
hundred- vara lots, about seventy had been sold at
twenty-nine dollars each, and the remainder were of-
fered for sale at the same rate. There was an express
condition in the conveyance of every upland lot that
the purchaser must erect a house on the land and en-
close it with a fence within a year, but this would
THE VILLAGE ERA. 117
have required the construction of nearly eighty miles
of fencing, and of more houses than there were adults
in the town, and neither men, money nor lumber for
so much work could be had. The purchasers had got
the deeds and possession, and were willing to take
their chances that the lots w^ould not be confiscated
for non-fulfillment of the conditions. Not one was so
confiscated.
Sec. 50. Census of 184-7. Under instructions from
the governor, Lieutenant Edward Gilbert, of Steven-
son's regiment, took a census in August, 1847; and re-
ported a total population, exclusive of officers and
soldiers, at San Francisco, which then did not include
the village of Dolores, of four hundred and fifty-nine
persons, of whom more than half were natives of the
United States, and about forty each of Spanish Cali-
fornians, Indians and Kanakas. In the seventeen
months ending on the first of August, 1847, one hun-
dred and fifty-seven houses — one fourth adobe houses,
and the remainder shanties — had been erected in a
town which had only thirty houses before. The cen-
sus-taker considered it within the scope of his office
to argue the prospects of his town as compared with
the rival places, and his conclusion was that the latter
would be left behind in the race. The following ex-
tract from his remarks is worthy of repetition here,
as indicative of the opinion prevalent in the town, and
as predictions which have been abundaigitly verified :
In conclusion I cannot suppress a desire to say, that San
Francisco is destined to become the great commercial emporium
118 HISTORY OF SAN FRANCISCO.
of the Nortli Pacific coast. With the advantages of so fine a
harbor, and the enterprise of so hardy and intelligent a race of
pioneers, it can scarcely be otherwise. Notwithstanding these
conclusions are so obvious, I have heard it asserted that Mon-
terey is destined to outstrip it. That Monterey can never sur-
pass San Francisco, I think the following view will clearly
establish; 1. San Francisco has a safer and more commodious
harbor than Monterey; 2. The waters of the bay afford an easy
method of communication, and a facile means of transportation
between the town and the hundred lateral valleys which sur-
round the bay, and which are destined soon to become granaries
and hives of plenty; 3. It also has a ready means of communica-
tion by water with large and rich valleys of the San Joaquin,
the Sacramento and the American Fork, as all of these rivers are
tributaries to the bay. So far as my information goes, Monterey,
although it has a fine country at its back, has none of the
facilities for reaching and transporting the products of that
country which San Francisco possesses in regard to the country
that surrounds it. This, it seems to me, allowing all other
things to be equal, would give to San Francisco an insuperable
advantage.
Sec. 51. Leading Town. Although Monterey was
still the political capital of the territory, and had twice
or thrice as many people as San Francisco, the latter
was the point where the enterprise and surplus money
of the American population collected. Its superiority
as a place of business was so clear that the "Californian"
which had been established at Monterey in the previ-
ous August as a weekly paper, was in May moved to
San Francisco, which now had two papers, while no
other town in the territory had one, although half
dozen others had more inhabitants.
Sec. 52. Shipping in 184-7. The inland commerce
of San Francisco in 1847, was scanty. A twenty-ton
THE VILLAGE ERA. 119
sloop belonging to Sutter, and manned by half a dozen
Indians, ran regularly to and from New Helvetia,
taking about three weeks usually for a round trip, and
having frequently little freight; but there were times
when one vessel could not accommodate the demand,
and then a smaller sloop, that usually plied to other
points on the bay, would run up the Sacramento river.
Another sloop was employed between San Francisco
and the Mormon settlement on the Stanislaus. The
ocean shipping was more important. In the year end-
ing March 30, 1848, there were eighty-six arrivals by
sea; including four naval vessels, sixteen whalers, and
eight vessels from the Hawaiian Islands. The others
were from various ports of California and Oregon.
About a dozen of these were regularly employed in
the coasting trade.
The first square-rigged vessel to enter San Pablo
bay, was the brig '' Francisco" of one hundred tons,
which on the twenty-second of August, 1847, took a
caro-o of lumber to Benicia. The first steamer to
o
paddle the water of San Francisco bay, the " Sitka,"
a steam launch brought from Sitka on the deck of a
Russian vessel to be used in collecting hides and other
freight at the various landings, was tried in October
and found too weak to face the combined forces of
wind and tide. She succeeded in getting to Sacra-
mento, but an ox team, which left after she did on her
return, arrived at Benicia in advance of her. When
she reached, her home port, her engine was taken out,
and she was converted into a sloop.
120 HISTORY OF SAN FRANCISCO.
Sec. 53. Puff for California. Business, after hav-
ing been active for the year succeeding the commence-
ment of the war, became dull towards the close of
1847. No more troops were landed or transhipped,
the war vessels were sent away to doubtful points, no
more immigrants arrived by sea, the expected im-
migration by land did not exceed a dozen persons, and
those who came said that few would follow till the
close of the war.
The residents having bought their lots, and incurred
debts in the expectation of a steady and rapid growth
of the town, were now oppressed by fears of several
years of dullness. After much consultation they
agreed that they must make an effort to attract im-
migrants, war or no war, by circulating information
about California in Missouri, and adjacent states, and
by providing facilities for sending letters across the
continent at intervals of not more than a month during
the spring, summer and fall.
In accordance with this plan, an extra number of
the " California Star" was published in the latter part
of March, 1848, with special reference to circulation
in " the States," and it had an article six columns
long by Dr. V. J. Fourgeaud, on '' The Prospects of
California," setting forth her attractions and resources
in highly laudatory and in some respects exaggerated
terms, but with much correct information, and many
judicious remarks. This first publication, designed
mainly to be sent overland, was received with general
favor, and liberal orders were given by the people of
THE VILLAGE ERA. 121
town and country for copies. On the first of April,
the day on which the paper was dated, a courier was
dispatched with two thousand copies, and some letters
— the latter paid fifty cents each — across the conti-
nent, with the promise that he should reach Indepen-
dence, then the border of civilization in the Mississippi
basin, within sixty days. It was arranged that an-
other paper, with other information for immigrants
should be printed on the first of June, and should be
sent to Missouri in the same way, but it never ap-
peared. Before the time for its publication arrived,
gold mining, which had been mentioned incidentally
in the extra edition of April 1, as a rumor that com-
manded no credit and had no importance, had taken
such dimensions that nobody thought about any effort
to attract emigrants. The diggings had provided an
advertisement that overshadowed everything else.
Sec. 54. Peace. The war had ended practically
on the fourteenth September, 1847, when the Amer-
ican army under General Scott occupied the Mexican
capital. From that time both parties were anxious
to make peace; but the Mexican chieftains for a long
time could not come to an ao^reement amonof them-
es o
selves. At last, on the second of February, 1848, a
treaty was made, and though there were some defects
m the authority of the negotiations on each side, yet
the terms agreed upon were considered satisfactory,
and both nations ratified them rather than expose them-
selves to the danger of delay. The ratifications were
exchanged on the thirtieth of May at Queretaro, where
122 HISTORY OF SAN FRANCISCO.
the document had been signed. The news of the
treaty reached San Francisco on the eighth of Au-
gust, and on the eleventh the people celebrated the
establishment of peace and the recognition of the
American title to California. This recognition was of
much influence in pacifying the native Californians.
There was no fear that Mexico could in any event
retake the country about San Francisco bay, but there
might have been serious trouble on the southern coast,
where murders, on account of antipathies of race were
not rare as late as 1858. Besides the other reasons
for rejoicing, there was the fulfillment of the promise,
made by Commodore Sloat in his proclamation issued
when he hoisted the American flag, that it would
bring prosperity to the country. Only twenty-five
months had elapsed, and already wonders had been
accomplished.
In the eleven years following secularization, the white
population had increased from five thousand to thir-
teen thousand, according to estimates, for no general
census had been taken in the meantime, but the Indi-
ans had decreased or disappeared rapidly. The towns
of San Diego, Santa Barbara, Monterey, San Fran-
cisco and Sonoma had risen on the sites of the old
Missions. A wagon road had been opened from Mis-
souri, and rude trails from New Mexico and Oregon,
and settlers had come in by sea as well as land.
Americans, looking upon California as theirs by man-
ifest destiny, were the most numerous and influential.
They married into leading families of Los Angeles,
THE VILLAGE ERA. •' 123
Santa Barbara, Monterey and Sonoma, obtained con-
trol of the valleys north of Carquinez strait, intro-
duced saw-mills, grist-mills, light wagons, improved
agricultural and mechanical tools, habits of reading
and industry, an appreciation of the value of the
country and a confidence that it would not be neg-
lected much longer. The American authority had
been established two years before the gold excitement
attracted general attention, and in that brief period,
though it was a time of hostility and confusion, Cali-
fornia had made considerable progress, indicating that
she would have prospered, even without the help of
any mines.
124 HISTORY OF SAN FRANCISCO.
CHAPTER IV.
THE GOLDEN ERA.
Section 55. Gold. James W. Marshal, an Amer-
ican emiDloyed by Sutter in building a saw-mill to be
driven by water, at Coloma, forty-five miles north-
eastward from Sacramento, on the nineteenth of Jan-
uary, 1848, found gold in the race or ditch, and hav-
ing heard of the gold mines in the Los Angeles
region, and being a man of excitable character and
active imagination, supposed he had made a great dis-
covery. He immediately began to talk of it to the
people round him, but they, like himself, did not
know how to test gold or to separate it from clay and
gravel, and they ridiculed him for attaching so much
importance to his brass, as they called it. Neverthe-
less, whenever the water was stopped so that the ditch
was empty, they looked for pieces of metal which had
been exposed by the current, so that in a month, with-
out neglecting their work at the mill, they had got
several ounces together, most of it in very small
pieces, the largest as heavy as a ten-dollar coin. As
boiling in lye and touching with vinegar did not make
the stuff turn green, the workmen began to think
Marshal might be right; and in the latter part of Feb-
ruary one of their number, a Mr. Bennett, partly for
the purpose of ascertaining the value of Marshal's
gold, went to San Francisco. Soon after landing he
was introduced to Isaac Humphrey, who had been a
THE 00 L DEN ERA. 125
gold miner in Georgia. On examining the specimens,
of which Bennett had half tan ounce, he immediately
declared that it was gold, that the pieces were larger
than those found in Georgia, and that the mines must
be rich.
He tried to induce some of his friends to go with
him, but they had no money to spend in such " foolish-
ness," as they called it, and he and Bennett had to go
alone. On the seventh of March he arrived at the
mill; and the next day, with a pan, prospected enough
to satisfy himself that the diggings would pay well.
He then made a rocker, went into the business of
washing gold, and was successful from the first. The
other men observed how he worked and imitated his
example. On the twenty-fifth of March the " Star"
stated that gold dust had become an article of traffic
at New Helvetia, and a few days later a party includ-
ing E. C. Kemble, editor of that journal, left San
Francisco to visit the diggings. At New Helvetia
they were joined by Captain Sutter, who was vexed
because his men, hired to run his mill, were neglect-
ing their work of getting out lumber; the mill labor-
ers, perhaps ashamed of the violation of their contract,
pretended while the visitors were there to be engaged
in lumbering, and Humphrey was probably away in
some distant ravine. Whatever was the cause, Kem-
ble could find neither gold nor mines, and immediately
after his return he declared the mines " a sham." He
had scarcely printed his opinion before half a pound of
the dust was offered to the merchants in town, and
126 HISTORY OF SAN FRANCISCO.
after inquiring of a jeweler and a man who hadseengold
dust at Los Angeles, they took it at eight dollars an
ounce, charging a high price for their provisions.
Everybody went to look at the stuff in the store, and
before the end of April, so many had gone to Coloma,
that the population was perceptibly reduced. Every
schooner from New Helvetia brought more dust, some
of which sold for four dollars per ounce in coin. More
(jrders for provisions, and more favorable news caused
more people to go to the mines. On the twenty-ninth
of May, the " Californian " announced its own suspen-
sion, because of the general abandonment of the town,
and added that the whole country was resounding with
" the sordid cry of gold, gold, gold!" Two weeks later
the "Star" also suspended, compositors, editors and
devils, all going to the diggings. The San Francis-
cans were already greedy for news; and if there had
not been a complete stoppage of ordinary business, the
newspapers would have continued to appear. Three
fourths of the men had left, and town lots were offered
at one half, or one third of the price at which they had
been held a month before, the owners being willing to
sacrifice all their property to reach the mines with a
good supply of tools and provisions.
Sec. 56. Trade Stimidated. But this condition of
affairs did not last long; many of those who went to
the placers saw that there was gold enough to attract
a large migration, which must pay a great tribute to
San Francisco. Those miners at the diggings, though
comparatively few, already demanded many articles
THE GOLDEN ERA. 127
which must be obtained from Oregon, the Atlantic
states and Hawaiian Islands. Gold was abundant, and
there was no disposition to spare it. If certain com-
forts and luxuries of life could not be bought for the
ordinary price, they must still be procured, for the
miners would pay ten prices rather than do without
them. It was under considerations of this kind that
some of those who had left the little town at the bay,
soon returned and prepared themselves to profit by
its business and growth.
In June and July about two hundred and fifty thou-
sand dollars of gold dust were received at San Francisco;
in the next two months, six hundred thousand dollars;
and the sums continued to increase. The exports of
1847 had been worth one hundred and sixty thousand
dollars; and after September, 1848, the monthly re-
ceipts from the mines were at least twice as much.
It was estimated that six thousand persons, includ-
ing tame Indians in the service of white masters,
were at work in the mines before the close of the
year. In September, a Honolulu paper announced
the arrival of a vessel there from San Francisco, with
"a cargo of gold dust and lumber." The gold export
of 1848, as shown by the custom-house statistics,
amounted to two million dollars, and the duties on
imports to one hundred and ninety-five thousand dol-
lars.
In May, the people in the mines were nearly all
from the valleys that send their waters to the ocean
through the Golden Gate; in June, many adventurers
128 HISTORY OF SAN FRANCISCO.
from Monterey and Santa Cruz had arrived; in July,
from Los Angeles; and in September and OctoTjer,
from the Hawaiian Islands and Oregon. The farms
and gardens having been neglected, California could
not supply the demand of the miners for provisions;
and vessels, mostly schooners, were sent off to buy
flour, salted meat, dried fruit, sugar, coffee, rice, fresh
vegetables, distilled liquors, bedding, tent cloth and
ready-made clothes, at any price. The miners had not
only ceased to produce anything save gold, but their
capacity for consumption had suddenly trebled. Men
who had before lived upon five dollars a month now
spent three hundred. Many who had been idlers,
when they could make little by labor, were now
amongf the most industrious; others, who had be-
fore never wasted a day, became loungers, because
they could live with comparative comfort by gam-
bling, or with an occasional day of work. The gen-
eral results were a vast increase of wealth, an unex-
ampled industrial production, a constant excitement
that has contributed to form the intellectual character
of the Californians, and a vast commercial activity
which enriched San Francisco, the port through which
most of the supplies for the mines came, and through
which nearly all the immigrants by sea arrived. Much
of the coin at San Francisco had been carried off to
the mines, and gold dust had become current in its
place at twelve dollars an ounce, though in New York
it was worth about eighteen dollars. On the thirty-
first of July Governor Mason issued an order that the
THE GOLDEN ERA. 129
duties at the custom-house might be paid in dust, and
on the ninth of September a public meeting of busi-
ness men agreed that gold dust should be accepted at
sixteen dollars per ounce.
Sec. 57. The Excitement in the East. From the
Hawaiian Islands the news of the gold discovery was
carried to all the ports of the Pacific; and in October
the adventurers from Oregon, Mexico, Chile, Peru,
and the various Pacific islands began to come in
throngs. Lieutenant E. F. Beale, of the navy, who left
Monterey on the first of July with official despatches,
crossed Mexico, and must have reached Washington
in August; but the earliest serious mention of the
gold discovery in the press of the Atlantic slope seems
to have been that made in the Baltimore " Sun" of
September 20. From that time forward nearly every
week brought its additions to the reports from the
diggings, though for months they were regarded with
general incredulity and ridicule. They came through
many different channels, all agreeing in the main fact
that there was an immense demand for provisions, tools,
and various other articles of merchandise, as well as
for labor. Letters were received in every State from
men in the mines advising their relatives and friends
to sell out at much sacrifice and start without delay.
At Portland, Mazatlan, San Bias, Guaymas, Panama,
Callao, Valparaiso, and Honolulu, there was an ex-
citement the like of which had never been seen, and
soon there was a similar excitement throughout the
United States. The main topic of conversation was
9
130 HISTOB Y OF SAN FRA NCI SCO.
California. It filled the papers; it was the subject of
the most popular songs; it suggested the plot and
dialogue of some of the most successful theatrical
pieces; it destroyed the popular interest in the re-
ligious revivals which were then worked up every
winter in several Atlantic cities; it added immensely
to the business and profits of fortune-tellers; it was a
common text for sermons deprecating the evil influ-
ence of a thirst for gold by clergymen who saw many
of their congregation preparing to depart; it was the
absorbing topic of conversation in every family; and
it was a remarkable experience for those who stayed
as home as well for those who went. The country
was in a condition of high prosperity, that prepared
a considerable projDortion of the people to take a part
in the excitement. Money was abundant; the Mex-
ican war, besides being a grand military success, had
attracted a laro-e number of immiOTants; and had
stimulated business and enterprise. Thousands of
young men, after sharing the triumphant cam^^aigns
of Scott and Taylor, had not settled down yet to dull
labor, and were looking round for some new field of
inspiriting activity. To them the news from Cali-
fornia was a special delight; and as every week brought
additional confirmation of the wonderful reports, their
enthusiasm rose and extended to the whole popula-
tion, so that from Maine to Texas there was one uni-
versal frenzy. It occupied the thoughts of all; it
disturbed business; it prevented marriages; it broke
up families; it was the hope of those who could go,
and the despair of those who could not.
THE GOLDEN ERA. 131
The noise of preparation filled the country. Most
of those taken Avith the gold fever in the Mississippi
basin prepared to start on the journey by land so soon
as the spring should open; those along the Atlantic
coast went by Cape Horn. The most active and en-
ergetic young men of every state were among the
adventurers. The New York "Tribune," near the
close of January, said:
A resident of New York, coming back after a three month's
absence, would wonder at the word ' California,' seen every-
where in glaring letters, and at the columns of vessels adver-
tised in the papers about to sail for San Francisco. He would
be puzzled at seeing a new class of men in the streets, in a pe-
culiar costume — broad felt hats of a reddish brown hue, loose,
rough coats reaching to the knee, and high boots. Californians
throng tbe streets; several of the hotels are almost filled with
them; and though large numbers leave every day, there is no
apparent diminution of their numbers. Even those who have
watched the gradual progress of the excitement are astonished
at its extent and intensity. The ordinary course of business
seems for the time to be changed; bakers keep their ovens hot
day and night, turning out immense quantities of ship bread,
without supplying the demand; the jDrovision stores of all kinds
are besieged by orders; manufacturers of rubber goods, rifles,
pistols, bowie knives, etc., can scarcely supply the demand.
In his " Seeking the Golden Fleece," Dr. Stillman
says:
At the close of the month of January, ninety vessels had sailed
from the various ports, carrying nearly eight thousand men, and
seventy more ships were up for passage. Never since the cru-
sades was such a movement known; not a family but had one or
more representatives gone or preparing to go. Every man was
a walking arsenal, prepared for every emergency but that of not
coming back loaded with gold. Companies for mining and trad-
132 HISTORY OF SAN FRANCISCO.
ing were formed in every considerable town, and those wlio
could not go subscribed to the stock and sent a representative.
Editors, who in the columns of their papers had discouraged the
movement and exhorted the young men to be satisfied with the
slow gains of home industry and stand by their households, sold
out, and by virtue of their character as representatives of the
press, obtained extraordinary facilities for transportation, and
anticipated the quickest of us at the gold mines by at least a
month. Ministers of the gospel raised their voices against the
dangers of riches, and, like Cassandra, prophesied unutterable
woes upon the countrj', and started in the first ship as mission-
aries to San Francisco. Physicians, impatient at the slow ac-
tion of alterants, sold their horses, and leaving their uncollected
accounts with their families, procured a good sujDply of musket
balls and Dupont's best rifle powder, and shoved off for the
land of gold, to the tune of " Oh, Susanna."
The song here referred to " The California Emi-
grant," gave the California fever to thousands, who
vi^ithout its stimulus would have remained in their
native towns. Written by Jonathan Nichols, who left
Salem, Massachusetts, in the ship ''' Eliza," on the
twenty-first of December, 1848, for the land of gold,
it was sung everywhere and by everybody, and at
concerts, and in the theatres, even when poorly
rendered, was received with more fervor by the multi-
tude than was shown to the well executed airs from
the most brilliant operas. This song bears to Cali-
fornia a relation similar to that borne to the United
States by the music of Yankee Doodle.
Sec. 58. 1849. The year of 1849 was marked by
the arrival of, at least, three times as many immi-
grants as the entire previous population of the terri-
tor3% and on account of the very large proportion of
THE GOLDEN ERA. 133
young, intelligent, active men, skilled in the industrial
arts, the productive power was increased, at least, five
fold; by the increase of San Francisco from a popula-
tion of about two thousand to six or eig^ht times as
many; by the establishment of a line of mail steamers
to New York, running each way every month, and
by a line of river steamers between San Francisco and
Sacramento, running each way every day; by the
popular movement or mob to punish the ruffians
known as ''the hounds;" by the adoption of a state
constitution; by the rapid spread of gold washing
between Mariposa and Trinity river over extensive
districts where no placers had been discovered or
worked in the previous year; by the collection in San
Francisco harbor of four hundred ships which had been
deserted by their sailors ; by the sale of a large num-
ber of city lots ; by the construction of a good wharf;
and by a serious conflagration.
Sec. 59. First Great Fire. The first of the great
fires of San Francisco came on the twenty-fourth of
December, and burned down all of the buildings on
Kearny street, between Washington and Clay, and at
that time those were the most valuable in the city,
including the Parker House, a two-story frame, which
served as a hotel and gambling-house. The entire loss
was one million dollars.
The high expense of landing merchandise in light-
ers, Avhen laborers charged from eight to sixteen dol-
lars a day, at a place where the greater part of the
Avater-front was a wide mud flat, except at high tide,
134 HISTORY OF SAN FRANCISCO.
and where the rocks of Clark's Point could not accom-
modate one tenth of the business, induced Alcalde
Leavenworth in May to give the block bounded by
Clay, Sacramento, Battery and Front streets, to en-
courage the building of a wharf projected on the line
of Commercial street. Six months later the structure
on the line of that street, known for years as Long
"Wharf, extended out eight hundred feet, reaching
nearly to the line of Front street, and the water at
its end was so deep that the largest ships could lie
there at low tide. It became the landing-place for
most of the steamers, and for much merchandise.
Business houses crowded both sides of the street above
the wharf, and for several years it was one of the
chief centers of retail traffic.
Sec. 60. Telegraph Hill. The urgent demand for
the earliest possible information about the entrance of
vessels into the harbor, a result of the rapid increase
of commerce, and the large profits of the merchants,
led in September to the erection of a house on Tele-
graph Hill, for the purpose of making signals visible
throughout the city. A couple of arms, which could
be raised or lowered at pleasure on a high pole, indi-
cated by their position whether any water-craft was
coming in at the Golden Gate, and, if so, what its
character; if a steamer, whether a side-wheeler or
screw steamer; if a sailing vessel, whether ship, brig
or schooner. All the business men and many of the
women and children were familiar with the signs, and
those not in sight of the station made inquiries at
THE GOLDEN ERA. 135
brief intervals what vessels had arrived. When the
telegraph signalled a side-wheeler about the time
when the Panama steamer was due, the city fluttered
with excitement, and thousands of men rushed to see
friends, to hear the news, and to look after letters.
The moment after the steamer reached the dock, the
streets were full of boys crying the New York papers,
the sale of which was a source of large revenue to the
newsmen. At a theater one evening, a stupid actor
rushed upon the stage with his arms stretched out
awkwardly, asking, *' "What means this, my lord;"
the actor who was to respond hesitated, in ignorance
of his part, but a newsboy in the third tier shouted
out: '•' Side-wheel steamer." The answer was so ap-
propriate, that the house instantaneously recognized
and applauded it loud and long.
Sec. 61. Edward Everett. Among the notable
pioneer vessels for California was the " Edward
Everett," which sailed from Boston on the thirteenth
of January, 1849, and arrived at San Francisco on the
seventh of July with one hundred and fifty-two pas-
sengers, or rather owners, for they bought the ship,
each paying for a share and contributing to the fund
with which her supplies were furnished. The dis-
tinguished gentleman, after whom she was named, was
then president of Harvard college, and having heard
that many of the company were young men of good
education and character, he sent a box with three
hundred volumes of standard books for their entertain-
ment and instruction during the long voyage before
136 HISTORY OF SAN FRANCISCO.
them. The passengers made good use of his liberal
gift, and many of them proved, by their subsequent
lives, that they were worthy of his bounty. The plan
of forming clubs to purchase ships to carry the mem-
bers to California was adopted in numerous instances.
Sec. 62. First Stecnner. In the forenoon of the
twenty-eighth of February, IS 49, the news ran through
the town that a merchant steamer had entered the
Golden Gate, and as the first boat of the Pacific Mail
company, from which great benefits were expected,
was overdue, the people ran out in joyful excitement,
some going to the top of Telegraph Hill, and othe?s
to Clark's Point, the landing place. The sun was
bright, the sky cle^r, the atmosphere quiet, the tem-
perature warm, the bay still, and the hills green, the
beauty of the day contributing to the general happi-
ness. At last San Francisco was bound to the Atlan-
tic coast by steam. As the vessel, black with its
wondering passengers, came round Clark's Point, a
couple of American war-ships at anchor in the cove
welcomed the new-comers with a display of flags, the
playing of national airs by the bands, salutes from the
guns, the manning of the yards, and cheer after cheer
from the crews — cheers that were repeated upon the
shore and answered from the steamer until the echoes
came back from the hills. The occasion was one never
to be forgotten by those present.
So soon as the steamer could come to anchor, for
she could not reach the wharf, the boats went off and
there was an anxious interchange of inquiries. The
THE GOLDEN ERA. 137
passengers, greedy to know whether the stories of the
gold discoveries were true, were told that the mines
were rich beyond example, yielding several millions
every month, a report that could well be believed; for
instead of seeing, as they expected, a harbor nearly
empty and a dull village, they saw a bay crowded
with ships, and a town that looked like the camp of an
army. In return for the news from the mines, the
town people were told that two othe steamers belong-
ing to the Pacific Mail company had started to come
round Cape Horn, and that the monthly service with
New York by way of Panama had now commenced
regularly. This provided facilities for travel and the
transmission of news, with the help of which the
mines would soon fill up with people. The San Fran-
ciscans feared nothing else so much as the difficulties
of access to the Atlantic slope, and the lack of mail
transportation. The arrival of this steamer was a
great epoch in the early history of the city, and the
general appreciation of its importance was shown by
the gatherings of the people to congratulate one an-
other and talk over the news, by the firing of j^istols,
and by an illumination in the evening.
Congress had passed an act on the third of March,
1847 — before Mexico had ceded her claim to Califor-
nia, and even before General Scott had taken Vera
Cruz — providing that a semi-monthly mail should be
carried from New York to Panama, and authorizinof a
contract for a monthly mail each way between Pan-
ama and Oregon. It was not until after the war had
138 HISTORY OF SAN FRANCISCO.
been closed that the contract thus offered could find
a responsible bidder, but the Pacific Mail steamship
company, having' been organized on the twelfth of
April, 1848, finally took it, with the promise of two
hundred thousand dollars annual subsidy, and the ob-
ligation of maintaining three steamers on the route
between Panama and Astoria, by way of San Fran-
cisco. The three steamers, the "California," "Ore-
gon " and " Panama," each measuring about one thou-
sand tons, were all built without delay and started
promptly, though the last had an accident soon after
getting to sea, so that she was compelled to return
and refit. All rendered long and good service on the
Pacific coast. The " California " brought no passen-
gers round the Horn, but when she touched at Panama
she found there the passengers of the steamer " Fal-
con," which had left New York on the first of Decem-
ber. Most of them had engaged passage before much
was said about the gold discoveries, and they attached
little importance to the story until they arrived at
Panama, where they found some of the dust and saw
the excitement that had reached all the western coast
of the continent. Among the passengers were Gen-
eral Persifer Smith, who was to have chief command
of the American forces on the Pacific coast; Major
Canby, Eugene Sullivan, Alexander Austin, E. T.
Batturs, Alfred Robinson, Malachi Fallon, Pacificus
Ord, P. M. Price, Wm. Van Voorhees, H. F. Will-
iams, Dr. A. B. Stout, Rev. 0. C. Wheeler, Eev. S.
H. Willey, and others since prominent in the history
or business of the state.
THE GOLDEN ERA. 139
The "California" was immediately deserted by her
crew, so she had to lie in the harbor for several weeks
before entering upon her regular mail service. The
" Oregon " arrived on the thirty -first of March, with
John W. Geary, first postmaster at San Francisco.
He brought the first mail sent by the post-office de-
partment to the Pacific coast, and he had authority to
establish the post-offices and to make contracts for
carrying the mails.
Sec. 63. Immigration by Sea. The average dura-
tion of the voyages made under sail from the Ameri-
can Atlantic ports was about five months, many of the
ships sent out being old tubs which had been built
with more regard for solidity than speed, and not a
few of them so old that they would never have made
another voyage but for the extraordinary demand of
the gold excitement. In April two vessels arrived
from the Atlantic, having started in November ; in
May only one came ; in June, eleven ; in July, forty ;
in August, forty- three ; in September, sixty-six ; in
October, twenty-eight ; in November, twenty-three ;
and in December, nineteen, a total of two hundred and
thirty-three in nine months. In addition to these,
three hundred and sixteen vessels arrived in that peri-
od from other ports, making a total of five hundred
and forty-nine arrivals, and an average of two vessels
a day. The passengers of the year arriving by sea
numbered thirty-five thousand, including twenty -three
thousand Americans. Besides these passengers, three
thousand sailors deserted their ships, and in the be-
140 HISTORY OF SAN FRANCISCO.
ginning of August two hundred square-rigged vessels
were lying in the bay unable to get sailors. The
number of immiorants who arrived overland in the
o
course of the year was estimated to be forty- two thou-
sand, including thirty-three thousand Americans. The
large proportion of Americans secured their predom-
inance in the mines where previously the aliens, mostly
Spanish- Americans, had a majority. At the close of
the year it was estimated that the poi:)ulation of Cali-
fornia numbered one hundred thousand souls.
Sec. 64. Call for Convention. As population and
business increased, the want of a better government
was felt in many ways. It was already clear in the
fall of 1848, that California would soon have enough
inhabitants for a state, but it was understood that there
would be difficulty in securing its admission. The
members of congress from the south were dissatisfied
upon finding that California would demand admission
as a free state, thus destroying what they called " the
balance of power," — the thirty states then composing
the union being equally divided between free and slave.
It was with the anticipation that the next year would
surely bring a large immigration, and that congress
might be unable to provide for a government, that on
the twenty-ninth of December a public meeting in San
Francisco requested the election in January of dele-
g'ates to a constitutional convention which should meet
o
in March ; but many of the districts held no election,
and the time for holding the convention was post-
poned. When in the spring of 1849, there was no
THE GOLDEN ERA. 141
longer any doubt throughout the union that CaUfornia
must soon be a state, and that the ill feeling between
slavery extensionists and their opponents would prob-
ably be embittered by delay, the cabinet sent word to
General Riley, military governor, that California
should not wait for preliminary action by congress,
but should adopt a constitution and thus save the ad-
ministration from much bother. In accordance with
the suggestion of his superiors, sent to him unofficially,
Governor Riley, on the third of June, issued a proc-
lamation calling a constitutional convention, to consist
of thirty-seven members, five of them from San Fran-
cisco, to meet at Monterey on the first of September.
This document made no mention of the previous pop-
ular movement for a convention, and did not recognize
those gentlemen who had been chosen delegates.
There were some angry protests, but they amounted to
nothing.
Sec. 65. Ayuntamiento. The governor had also
given much ofiense by his action in reference to the
city affairs. The people were dissatisfied with the
administration of Alcalde Leavenworth, who did not
efficiently preserve order or administer criminal jus-
tice. They felt the want of a deliberative body, and af-
ter a preliminary meeting, on the twenty-seventh De-
cember, they held an election for a town council, but
the old council or ayuntamiento appointed by the alcalde
declaring the election void, on the ground that the
votes of aliens had been received, refused to surrender
the books; and ordered an election for the fifteenth of
142 HISTORY OF SAN FRANCISCO.
January. The number of voters at this second elec-
tion having been so small that the council thus chosen
did not command general confidence, a public meeting
passed resolutions requesting both councils to resign,
and ordering an election on the twenty-first February
of a legislative assembly which should take chief man-
agement of the government of the city. This election
was held and the two councils disbanded; but Leaven-
worth, the alcalde, would not surrender his office, which
controlled the sale of town-lots, then the chief source of
revenue, thus depriving the Assembly of much of the
importance which they expected to enjoy. They took
measures with little delay to eject him by legal pro-
cess from his position, but before they could accom-
plish that purpose, Governor Riley issued another
proclamation declaring the legislative assembly an
illegal body, forbidding the payment of any money to
them or their subordinates on municipal account,
recognizing Leavenworth as still in authority, and or-
dering^ an election to be held on the first Au2fust —
the day for choosing delegates to the constitutional
convention — for a prefect, first alcalde, second alcalde,
and an ayuntamiento. The legislative assembly de-
nounced the governor, and desired the people to ex-
press their wishes through the ballot-box on the ninth
July. Only one hundred and sixty-nine votes were
then given in favor of the legislative assembly, and
though but seven were cast on the other side, the
decision was regarded as favorable to the Governor's
course, and further opposition was abandoned.
THE GOLDEN ERA. 143
Sec. 66. City Government. On the first of
August, fifteen hundred and sixteen votes were
polled; Edward Gilbert, Myron Norton, W. M.
Gwin, J. Hobson, W. M. Stewart, F. J. Lippitt,
A. J. Ellis, R M. Price, W. D. M. Howard
and Francisco Sanchez, were elected delegates to
the constitutional convention, the last five as alter-
nates, and the last two did not serve. J. W. Geary
was unanimously elected first alcalde, an official
similar in authority to that of mayor. At the first
meeting of the new ayuntamiento, Mr. Geary sub-
mitted a message reviewing the general condition of
municipal affairs, informing them that there was no
office room for the transaction of government busi-
ness, no police, no provision for the care of the indi-
gent sick, and no fund for the burial of the pauper
dead. He advised them that, in the absence of any
state legislative authority, they were supreme in the
district; and if they confined themselves within the
legitimate sphere of their duty, their acts would be
approved by the governor and confirmed by the leg-
islature when it should be organized. He recom-
mended the licensing of gambling — a piece of advice
which was soon adopted and adhered to for nearly
five years. The new administration went to work
vigorously^ especially in the matter of levying license
taxes on business, and soon supplied all those things,
about the lack of which Mr. Geary had complained.
The first public building purchased for the j^urposes
of the city government was the hulk of the brig
144 HISTORY OF SAN FRANCISCO.
" Eupliemia," anchored in the bay at the crossing of
Jackson and Battery streets, for use as a prison.
Sec. 67. Constitution. The constitutional con-
vention, composed of forty-seven members, of whom
eio-ht were from San Francisco, three of the alter-
nates having been admitted as full members, met at
Monterey on the first of September, and after com-
pleting its work, adjourned on the thirteenth of
October. Nearly all the sections were quoted, word
for word, from the constitutions of other states.
There were few questions that excited much inter-
est. The convention was almost unanimous in accept-
ino- the ideas that slaveiy should be forbidden; that
the people had the right to settle the slavery ques-
tion; that the people had the right to form a consti-
tution without the intermediation of congress, or of a
territorial government; and that the coast, from Ore-
gon to Mexico, should be one state. These proposi-
tions were all the subjects of much debate afterwards
in congress; but in the convention little was said
ao-ainst them. The question which excited more feel-
ing than any other was the mode of raising the reve-
nue. The people along the southern coast were afraid
that all the taxes would be put on the land and cattle,
and none on property in the mining districts; and
they succeeded in carrying the clause that "all prop-
erty shall be taxed according to its value," intending
to deprive the legislature of the power of exempting
any large class of property to the injury of any portion
of the state. There was also much dispute about
THE GOLDEN ERA. 145
the eastern boundary, many of the members desiring
to inckide Salt Lake.
The new constitution was submitted to the people
on the thirteenth of November, and accepted by a
large majority, with only five negative against two
thousand and fifty-one affirmative votes in San Fran-
cisco. These negatives were doubtless cast by advo-
cates of slavery, against which the general sentiment
was emphatic, and had been expressed at several
public meetings held in the city in the previous
summer. The first legislature was to consist of six-
teen senators, including two from San Francisco, and
thirty-seven assemblymen, including five from the
city. The capital was transferred from Monterey to
San Jose. As there was no time to be lost, and there
was no prospect of having any proper government till
the state authorities should assume power, the people,
when voting on the constitution, also elected a full
ticket of state officials and two congressmen, though the
population Avas not large enough for more than one.
Peter H. Burnett was chosen governor, and Edward
Gilbert and George W. Wright, congressmen. The
constitution provided that in case of its adoption the
administration chosen at the same time should enter
upon its duties without waiting for the action of con-
gress. This course superseded Governor Riley, who,
in accordance with the spirit of his instructions, or
confidential advices from Washington, on the twentieth
of December issued an order relinquishing the admin-
istration of civil affairs in California to the state
10
146 HISTORY OF SAN FRANCISCO.
administration, which had been installed five days
before.
Sec. 68. Summer of 1849. In the summer of
1849 San Francisco was a remarkable town. It cov-
ered an area of about half a mile square, the bounda-
ries being California, Powell and Vallejo streets, and
the water line, which for nearly a quarter of a mile
south of Jackson street was near Montgomery street.
Many of the people lived in tents, and most of the
remainder in shanties or mere shells of houses. The
tents and shanties were in some places built along the
sides of trails or roads over the hills, without regard
to the lines of the streets. The hill from Yallejo to
California street, above Stockton, had much chapar-
ral. There was no grading, planking, or paving in
any of the streets; nor was there any wharf extend-
ing out to deep water. There were two small wharves,
one about seventy feet long between Sacramento and
California, its outer end being west of Sansome street
and having five feet of water at low tide; the other,
perhaps thirty feet long, on Commercial street, with
not more than two feet of water at low tide at its
outer end. This smaller wharf was used mainly for
row-boats. The chief landing-place, besides the
wharves, was at Clark's Point, near the intersection of
Broadway and Battery streets, where the deep water
came close up to the rocky shore. The beach along
the front of the town was a sticky mud ; south of Pine
street it was sandy.
Among the notable buildings were the custom-
THE GOLDEN EBA. 147
house (an adobe building of one story on the south-
western corner of Brenham Place and Washington
street), the city hotel (an adobe of one story and a
half on the south-western corner of Clay and Kearny),
Mr. Mowry's dwelling (one story adobe on the north-
eastern corner of Broadway and Powell), the adobe res-
idence of Seiiora Briones(on the north-eastern corner of
Powell and Filbert), a brick dwelling on the north-
western corner of Washington and Powell, (originally
of two stories, but now of four, two others having been
added beneath, because the streets in front of it have
been cutdown about sixteenfeet), andtheParker House
(which was built at a cost of thirty thousand dollars,
and rented at fifteen thousand dollars per month for a
gambling-house), a two-story frame building on the site
of the old city hall, fronting on Portsmouth Square.
The south-eastern corner of Kearny and Washington
streets was occupied by a large tent called the El
Dorado, and that, too, was used for gambling. The
Parker House was burned in December, 1849, and
having been rebuilt, was converted into the Jenny
Lind theatre, Thomas Maguire being the manager.
It was burned again in May, 1850, and in June, 1851;
and after the last fire the theater was rebuilt of brick
with a stone front, which still stands as a part of the
old city hall.
The population was not counted in 1849, but it in-
creased rapidly. The number of inhabitants was esti-
mated to be two thousand in February, three thousand
in March, and five thousand in July. In November, at
148 HISTORY OF SAN FRANCISCO.
the election on the adoption of the constitution, and
the choice of a full state ticket, an occasion that ex-
cited much interest, only two thousand and fifty-six
votes were cast; and as no previous residence was re-
quired for voting, it is probable that more than one
half the people of the city at that time were author-
ized to vote. After making all allowances for lack of
interest among new" comers, and the unwillingness to
neglect profitable occupations for the sake of going to
the polls, the entire population probably did not ex-
ceed eight thousand.
Sec. 69. Hounds. Before the installation of Geary
as first alcalde, there was no systematic administration
of justice, and criminals not content with exemption
from public prosecution, organized themselves into an
association called "the hounds," held parades and made
attacks in open day upon Spanish- America,ns, who
were assailed under the pretext that they were for-
eigners and were taking away the gold of the Ameri-
cans without any right. One excuse for this hostility
was an unauthorized proclamation published by Gen-
eral Persifer Smith, at Panama, in January, where he
had been told that the aliens, especially the Spanish-
Americans, were becoming so numerous in California
that neither gold nor room would be left for Ameri-
cans. Notwithstanding the animosity of "the hounds "
towards foreigners, many of them were new-comers
from Australia, and English sailors who had never
been in the Atlantic states. These fellows were more
zealous for the rights of Americans than the Ameri-
THE GOLDEN ERA. 149
cans themselves. At night they were ready to rob
without regard to nationality, and at last they became
so outrageous and the inefficiency of Alcalde Leaven-
worth so manifest, that on the sixteenth of July a pub-
lic meeting of citizens demanded the arrest and pun-
ishment of the leaders. A j^opular court was organ-
ized, attorneys for the accused were appointed, and
after a fair trial two of the hound leaders were sen-
tenced to ten years imj^risonment and others to shorter
terms; some were required to give bonds for keeping
the peace, and all were frightened so that their or-
ganization was abandoned and most of them fled, some
of them going off by sea. Those sentenced to impris-
onment were soon released, as the judgment was not
authorized by law or signed by any official, but they
understood that San Francisco was not a safe place for
them and they avoided it.
Sec. 70. Auctions. There was a wonderful dispro-
portion between the vast amount of merchandise daily
arriving and the scanty room in the store-houses of the
town; for this reason, and partly also because the mer-
chants of San Francisco were unknown by rejDutation
or even by name to many of those who shipped goods
to California, it became a common custom to sell car-
goes by auction, the master, supercargo, or consignee
selecting the auctioneer soon after his arrival, A man
occupying a shanty with a sign " auction " over the
front door, would sell property worth millions in a
year. As capital, credit and fire-proof store-room in-
creased, the auction sales lost much of their relative
150 HISTORY OF SAN FRANCISCO.
prominence, but they still hold an important place in
the business of San Francisco.
Sec. 71. More Lot Sales. While adventurers con-
tinued to crowd in at the rate of several thousand
every month, while the city grew and its trade in-
creased with marvelous rapidity, while the harbor
was filled with large vessels deserted by sailors, and
while the gold dust, notwithstanding the large expor-
tation, was accumulating by millions, the people were
not indifferent on the subject of town lots. Nearly
all the lots surveyed by O'Farrell had been sold before
midsummer of 1849; and on the third of October the
ayuntamiento ordered city surveyor Eddy to extend
the survey north of Post street to Larkin street, and
south of Post to Leavenworth and Eighth streets.
The lots thus added to the city map, were soon offered
for sale at auction, and some remaining unsold, the
alcalde was authorized to sell them at private sale,
the price for the hundred- vara lot being five hundred
dollars, and for the fifty- vara lot two hundred dollars.
These lots are now worth on the average several hun-
dred times as much as they were in 1849, and some
of them a thousand times as much. But the purchase
did not look very promising then. Several of the
buyers boasted of their prudence in examining the
land in advance, so that they could get lots which had
enough scrub oak for firewood to return the greater
part of the price, and thus they could not lose much.
Sec. 72. Inland Steamboats. The arrival of the
ocean steamer "McKim," on the third of October,
THE GOLDEN ERA 151
was an important addition to the small steam fleet of
the North Pacific. She was the first steamboat to
run regularly between San Francisco and Sacramento,
beginning her trips three weeks after she entered the
Golden Gate. Previously most of the passengers and
all the freight went by sailing vessels, which rarely
made the distance in less than four days, and some-
times required two weeks, especially in seasons of high
water or contrary winds. Occasionally passengers
would go to Benicia in a sailing vessel, and from there
take a row-boat, or walk or ride across the country.
There were no stages, and teamsters could find the
most j^rofitable employment in hauling from Sacra-
mento to the mines. The " McKim" was a slow boat,
but she could make the distance of one hundred and
twenty miles in fourteen hours, going up one day and
coming down the next. This was a matter of vast
convenience and economy, even when she charged
thirty dollars fare for the trip. She had been running
only a few weeks when the " Senator," a faster boat
and much better fitted for the business, arrived and
began to run to Sacramento, taking alternate days, so
that there was a boat each way every day. The two
boats were able to carry all the passengers and most
of the freight. The "Gold-hunter" arrived early in 1850,
and being a superior boat replaced the *' McKim."
Sec. 73. Plank Road, The demand for some
communication with the Mission, better than the road
over loose sand winding about to avoid some hills and
crossing others which could not be avoided, led to the
152 HISTORY OF SAN FRANCISCO.
passing of an ordinance in November, 1850, granting
a franchise for the Mission plank road, as it was
called, running by Kearny, Third and Mission streets,
from California to Fifteenth street, a distance of three
and a quarter miles. The work was commenced
within a few weeks after the passage of the ordi-
nance, and was finished the next spring. The toll on
it was half a dollar for a horse and cart, and a dollar
for a four-horse team. Mission street was preferred
for the route to Market, because the latter was occu-
pied from Second to Fifth street by a high ridge, and
Kearny was preferred to Montgomery because the
latter would have required a longer and more costly
route. The chief expense of the enterprise was the
grading, including deep cuts through several sand
hills crossing Kearny street. One of these was near
Post street, and in that cut, as a place which team-
sters could not avoid, the toll-gate was established.
One of the features of the road was a bridge about
a hundred j^ards long built across a swamp that ex-
tended from near the corner of Mission and Seventh
streets in an eastward direction to Mission cove. The
road company made a contract for the construction of
this bridge upon a pile foundation, but that plan had
to be abandoned, because to the astonishment and dis-
may of the contractor, the first pile, forty feet long,
at the first blow of the pile-driver sank out of sight;
indicating that there was no bottom within forty feet
to support a bridge. One pile having disappeared, the
contractor hoisted another immediately over the first,
THE GOLDEN ERA. 153
and in two blows drove the second one down beyond
the reach of the hammer. It was supposed that the
second pile had driven the first one under it, and if so,
there was no foundation within eighty feet. The
project of piling was abandoned, and cribs of logs
were laid upon the turf so as to get a wider basis than
that offered by piles. The bridge thus made always
shook when crossed by heavy teams, and gradually
settled till it was in the middle about five feet below
the original level.
The cost of the road was ninety-six thousand dol-
lars, about thirty thousand dollars per mile, a sum
that would now be sufificient to supply a good rail-
road. The stock of the company was one hundred
and fifty thousand dollars, and the dividends amounted
to nearly eight per cent, a month on the investment.
As the city grew and the number of people at the
Mission increased, they began to talk about opening
a free road on a parallel street; and to ward oflP that
danger, the plank road company obtained another
franchise for a road on Folsom street, which could be
graded at a much less expense than Howard or Mar-
ket. The Folsom street road ran for nearly half a
mile across swamps, between Third and Eighth streets,
and the builders had serious difficulty in filling up
with sand until a permanent road-bed was made. In
1854 a hiofh tide overflowed the road between Fourth
and Fifth streets, and floated off the planking. The
tolls on the two roads paid about three per cent, a
month net on the capital invested from 1853 to 1858,
when they became free.
154 HISTORY OF SAN FRANCISCO.
Sec. 74. Winter of 1849. The winter of 1849-50
was very wet. The streets were soon worked into a
deep mud by the traffic, and in many places it became
little better than a swamp. Not unfrequently men
were in danger of sinking out of sight in the mire,
and it was a common occurrence to see them in up to
their waists. Two horses sank so deep in the mud in
Montgomery street, between Clay and Sacramento,
that they were left there to die; and die they did of
starvation, while hundreds of merciful men would
have been glad to relieve them, but could not. Be-
tween Washington and Jackson streets, three men
got into the mud of Montgomery street at night,
probably in a state of intoxication, and were suffo-
cated. Dirt and brush were thrown into the street at
some of the crossings, but no gravel or lumber could
be hauled to the places most in need of improvement,
nor was there any arrangement to pay for such work
out of any city fund. Labor and materials of all
kinds could not be obtained for less than five or in
some cases even twenty times as much as in New
York, and all that could be done was to lay a board
here and there, or throw a box, barrel or a keg into
the mud. The people waded through the winter as
well as they could.
The abundant rain was, however, not an unmixed
evil. The merchants soon observed that gold dust
was far more abundant than before. The monthly
yield of the mines was three times greater after No-
vember than it had been in the summer. Thirty thou-
THE GOLDEN ERA. 155
sand men at least of the new arrivals did not get well
at work until the wet weather commenced. The rise
of the rivers drove the old miners from the river bars
where they had been employed, and they were aston-
ished to find that the ravines oflPered far more exten-
sive, and to the majority, more remunerative diggings.
The vast increase in the production was soon felt as a
stimulus to the trade of San Francisco, which made
rapid advances so soon as the streets began to dry in
the spring of 1850. The monthly gold yield of 1848
averaged perhaps three hundred thousand dollars; that
of 1849, one million five hundred thousand dollars; and
that of 1850, three millions of dollars. At any rate
the supply of dust increased with great rapidity, and
also the demand for supplies.
Sec. 75. 1850. The admission of California legal-
ized the state administration chosen in the previous
year, the statutes adopted at the first session of the
legislature — including a city charter for San Francisco
— and the election of a full set of city officials in May
with John W. Geary as first mayor. The exportation
of gold, as reported at the custom-house, amounted to
twenty-seven millions six hundred thousand dollars,
and the number of immigrants by sea was thirty-six
thousand, and by land probably twenty thousand more.
A federal census taken in June showed a total popula-
tion of ninety-two thousand five hundred and ninety-
seven in the state, but did not include San Francisco,
Santa Clara and Contra Costa, the returns from which
were lost. These counties two years later had forty-
156 HISTORY OF SAN FRANCISCO.
five thousand seven hundred and four inhabitants, and
doubtless had thirty thousand in 1850, so that the en-
tire population of the state was then not less than one
hundred and twenty-two thousand. The taking of the
census was an unprofitable business in those days, and
was done in a manner that deserved little confidence.
The building on Brenham Place, previously occu-
pied for the city ofiQces, being no longer adequate for
the increased business, the Graham House, a four-
story wooden building on the northwest corner of
Kearny and Pacific streets, built for a hotel, was bought
for a city hall at the price of one hundred and fifty
thousand dollars. The new government soon got into
full operation, though the officials as a class were reck-
less and extravagant. The council voted themselves
salaries of six thousand dollars each, but as- their work
occupied only two evenings of the week, a storm of
popular indignation arose, and the ordinance was de-
feated by the mayor's veto. Not satisfied with this
discreditable check, when the admission of the state
was celebrated they voted themselves large gold med-
als, commemorative of the occasion, but as their liber-
ality to themselves was severely condemned by public
opinion, the municipal medals were never exhibited
with pride.
Sec. 1Q. Second Great Fire. The second great
fire occurred on the fourth of May and burned three
blocks, of which two were between Clay, Jackson,
Kearny and Montgomery, and one bounded by Wash-
ington, Kearny, Jackson and Dupont. The first fire
THE GOLDEN ERA. 157
in the previous December had injured the gamblers
and speculators chiefly; the second fell severely on the
merchants, who lost about three million dollars. The
third conflagration, six weeks later, on the fourteenth
of June, swept away everything between Clay, Cali-
fornia, Kearny and the water front, which was then
near Sansome. The amount of the loss was about the
same as in the preceding fire. The ground burned
over was in a few months covered with better build-
ings than before; and the growth and business of the
city appeared to be rather stimulated than checked by
the disaster. A fire-limit ordinance followed, pro-
hibitino^ the erection of buildings covered with cotton
cloth, bat placing no restriction upon the use of wood.
The purpose was rather to improve the appearance
than to increase the security of the city. Numerous
houses arrived in pieces on shipboard from eastern
cities and were put up, some of them south of Market
street in Happy Valley, which became the chief resi-
dence district of the city. The first directory was
published in September, and had two thousand five
hundred names.
Sec. 77. Legislative Work. The legislature met
in January, and elected W. M. Gwin and J. C. Fre-
mont federal senators. These two, like Gilbert and
Wright were residents of San Francisco, which thus
received four of the highest political honors which could
then be conferred by California. No American stat-
utory law having ever been adopted, and the law of
Mexico having been superseded, the legislature was
158 HISTORY OF SAN FRANCISCO.
called upon to transact an immense amount of busi-
ness, which was wonderfully well done, the circum-
stances of the case being considered. Among the bills
passed was one to incorporate the city of San Fran-
cisco; the charter limits on the west being a line near
the present Buchanan street, and on the south a line
near Santa Clara street, both lines being considerably
beyond any street surveys made up to that time. The
limit on the north and east was the water front, and
the south-western corner was near the Mission church.
The area thus included was about two thousand seven
hundred acres. The charter declared that the city
should be the successor of the pueblo of Yerba Buena.
The city government was to be intrusted to a common
council in two chambers, the aldermen and assistant
aldermen, each board containing eight members. The
chief executive officer was the mayor. At an election
held on the first of May, under the charter, Geary
was chosen mayor, and all the other city offices were
filled. Thus the city government was at last put into
complete operation under American law. Besides the
city of San Francisco, the legislature organized the
county of the same name, including the entire penin-
sula for a distance of thirty miles from the Golden
Gate, the southern boundary being San Francisquito
creek. The county of San Mateo, afterwards organ-
ized, took about fifteen sixteenths of the area of the
original county of San Francisco. The county had
its legislative, executive and judicial officers, so that
there were two local administrations in the city.
THE GOLDEN ERA. 159
Sec. 78. Admission. The Calif ornian senators and
congressmen reached Washington in February, 1850,
and, on the thirteenth of that month, President Taylor
transmitted the constitution to the United States sen-
ate, with a message recommending the admission of
the state. The ultra southerners did everything to
delay or defeat the bill, which was drawn up by Doug-
las, as chairman of the committee on territories. Nu-
merous amendments were proposed, and secession was
openly threatened if the bill should be adopted. At
last it passed the senate on the tenth of August, by a
vote of thirty-four ayes against eighteen noes. The
latter were all southerners, and among them were
Jefferson Davis, Wm. R. King, J. Y. Mason, Pierre
Soule, and R. M. T. Hunter. Four days later ten
southerners, including Davis, presented a protest,
which the senate refused to receive. The following is
an extract from it:
"We have dissented from this bill because it gives the sanction
of law, and thus imparts validity to the unauthorized action of a
portion of the inhabitants of California, by which an odious dis-
crimination is made against the property of the fifteen slave-
holding states of the union, who are thus deprived of that por-
tion of equality which the constitution so manifestly designs,
and which constitutes the only sure and stable foundation ou
which this union can repose. * * * Against this conclusion
[the dedication of all California to freedom] we must now and
forever protest, as it is destructive of the safety and liberties of
those Avhose rights have been committed to our care, fatal to
the peace and equality of the states which we represent, and
must lead, if persisted in, to the dissolution of that confederacy
in which the slave-holding states have not sought more than
equality, and in which they will not be content to remain with less.
160 HISTORY OF SAN FRANCISCO.
The threat contained in this protest was far more
moderate in language than the resolutions adopted at
many public meetings held in various southern states.
A mass meeting at Montgomery, Alabama, on the
seventeenth of August, declared that the application
of California for admission was a stupendous fraud, and
that the southern states ought to take measures to
vindicate their ris^hts — secession beinof hinted at in
unmistakable terms. The pretext for the opposition
was that slavery was excluded from the territory south
of latitude thirty- six degrees thirty minutes, but the
admission of a state which would give a majority to
freedom in the senate was scarcely less offensive to the
slave interest, though it was not considered politic to
base the opposition on that point. The temper of the
north was up, however, and all the attempts to throw
the Californian bill into the unfinished business failed.
On the seventh of September it came to a vote in the
house of representatives, and passed — ayes, one hun-
and fifty; noes, fifty-six, the latter all southern men.
Two days later the president signed the bill, so the
attempt to devote the southern part of California to
slavery failed; the state was admitted, and the free
states obtained a majority in the United States senate.
Sec. 79. Rejoicing. The news of the passage of
the bill by the Senate was received with much satis-
faction in California, and it was confidently asserted
and generally believed that there would be no long
delay in the lower house. When the time came near
for the arrival of the October steamer from Panama,
THE GOLDEN ERA. 161
the people of San Francisco were waiting to hear
that their state had been admitted. On the morning
of the eighteenth signal guns were heard, and persons
who had been watching on the hills, came rushing
down into the town with the report that the mail
steamer had entered the Golden Gate with an un-
usual display of bunting, indicating that there was
some special cause of rejoicing. It was understood
at once to mean admission, and the news flew over
the town as fast as men could carry it. The story of
the reception and celebration of the news is thus told
in ''The Annals of San Francisco:"
October 29th. This day was set apart to celebrate the ad-
mission of California into the Union. When, on the eighteenth
instant the mail steamer * ' Oregon " was entering the bay, she
fired repeated preconcerted signal guns which warned the citi-
zens of the glorious news. Immediately the whole of the
inhabitants were afoot, and grew half wild with excitement
until they heard definitely that the tidings were as they had
expected. Business of almost every description was instantly
suspended, the courts adjourned in the midst of their work,
and men rushed from every house into the streets and towards
the wharves, to hail the harbinger of the welcome news. When
the steamer rounded Clark's Point and came in front of the
city, her masts literally covered with flags and signals, a uni-
versal shout arose from ten thousand voices on the wharves, in
the streets, upon the hills, house-tops, and the world of ship-
ping in the bay; again and again were huzzas repeated, adding
more and more every moment to the intense excitement and
unprecedented enthusiasm. Every public place was soon
crowded with eager seekers after the particulars of the news,
and the first papers issued an hour after the aj^pearance of the
" Oregon" were sold by the newsboys at from one to five dol-
lars each. The enthusiasm increased as the day advanced.
162 HISTORY OF SAN FRANCISCO.
Flags of eveiy nation were run up on a thousand masts and
peaks and staffs, and a couple of large guns placed upon the
Plaza were constantly discharged. At night every public thor-
oughfare was crowded with the rejoicing jjopulace. Almost
every large building, all the public saloons and places of amuse-
ment were brilliantly illuminated; music from a hundred bands
assisted the excitement; numerous balls and parties were hasti-
ly got up; bonfires blazed upon the hills, and rockets were
incessantly thrown into the air, until the dawn of the following
day. Such an occasion beyond all others demanded a j^roper
celebration at San Francisco; and the citizens, accordingly, one
and all united to make the day memorable. On the twenty-
ninth instant, a procession of the various jDublic bodies and
inhabitants of the city, with appropriate banners, devices,
music and the like, marched through the principal streets to
the plaza. The Chinese turned out in large numbers on this
occasion, and formed a striking feature in the ceremonies of
the day. The Hon. Nathaniel Bennett, of the supreme court,
delivered a suitable oration to the people on the x)laza, and an
ode, composed for the occasion by Mrs. Wills, was sung by a
full choir. During the day repeated discharges of fire-arms
and a proper salute from great guns carried off some of the
popular excitement, while the shipping displayed innumerahle
flags. In the evening public bonfires and fireworks were ex-
hibited from Telegraph Hill, Kincon Point, and the islands in
the bay. The houses were likewise brilliantly illuminated, and
the rejoicings were everywhere loudly continued during the
night. Some five hundred gentlemen and three hundred ladies
met at the grandest public ball that had yet been witnessed in
the city, and danced and made merry till daylight, in the
pride and joy of their hearts that California was truly now the
thirty-first state of the Union.
Sec. 80. Clipper Ships. The California clippers,
sailing vessels measuring one thousand tons or more,
with sharp bows, sides modeled with careful regard
for ease of motion through the water, tall masts, long
THE GOLDEN ERA. 163
bowsprit and yards, and capacity to carry a great
spread of canvas, made their appearance in the latter
part of this year, in answer to the demand for the
quick transportation of large quantities of freight to
San Francisco. They were as much superior in size
and elesrance of marine architecture to the Indiamen
o
of England as these were to the clumsy luggers of
Holland. Time being precious in reaching the golden
market, they charged for several years on certain
kinds of freight fifty dollars a ton, or about four times
as much as had been paid usually to sailing vessels
for voyages of the same distance; and in return they
kept all sail set to the limit of safety. They made
the trip from New York to San Francisco often in
less than three months, and ordinarily took one third
less time than the old style ships. With a good
breeze, they could leave ocean steamers behind. Sail-
ors saw them at first with amazement and have not
yet lost their admiration, though clipper ships have
ceased to be the exclusive possession of American
shipowners, or to be employed entirely in the Cali-
fornian trade. The early clippers earned nearly
enough to pay for their cost by the freight of a single
voyage; and on several occasions when the cargo was
shipped by the owners, the profit on it was twice the
cost of the ship.
The names of the early clippers, unlike the "Eliza,"
the '' Euphemia," the *' Thomas H. Perkins," the
'' Mary Jane," and the titles fashionable for the slow
ships, were frequently suggestive of the romance of a
164 HISTORY OF SAN FRANCISCO.
sailor's life. The "White Squall," the ''Flying
Cloud," the " Typhoon," the " Trade Wind," and the
"Sovereign of the Seas," were among the notable
pioneer vessels that did honor to the American flag
on both the great oceans. As the expenses of lying
at a wharf in San Francisco were very high, one hun-
dred dollars or even two hundred dollars a day for
large ships, it was feared that the long time required
for discharging two thousand tons of freight, and tak-
ing in a cargo of ballast, would eat up much of the
profits. Instead, however, of taking a month for the
work, the stevedores, under the stimulus of extra pay,
succeeded in doing in a day what elsewhere consumed
a week.
Sec. 81. Pioneer Society, Some of the citizens of
San Francisco, impressed with the remarkable events
in which they had taken an active part, in August or-
ganized the Society of California Pioneers, to which
anybody who had arrived before the preceding Janu-
ary might be admitted. Much fault has been found
with them of late that the admission of the state was
not the limit of date, but such a limit could not be
fixed when the state had not been admitted.
Sec. 82. WJiarf Contracts. As the company own-
in «• Commercial street wharf made an immense profit
from it, and as there was ten times as much business
as it could accommodate, it was evident that notwith-
standing the high cost of wharves, they ofiered excel-
lent opportunities for investments, so there was a rush
for franchises. In October, 1850, Market street wharf
THE GOLDEN ERA. 165
had extended out from the shore line six hundred feet
into the bay; California, four hundred; Sacramento,
eight hundred; Clay, nine hundred; Washington, two
hundred and seventy-five; Jackson, five hundred and
fifty-two; Pacific, five hundred and twenty-five, and
Broadway, two hundred and fifty. Other wharves or
piers running along the water front, and named after
individual owners, were fifteen hundred feet long.
The aggregate length of all the wharves was more
than six thousand feet, and the cost to that date
about one million, dollars.
Soon after the wharf builders began their march
out into the bay, the graders started to follow, crowd-
ing upon their heels. The first filling in of a water
lot was done by Captain Folsom, on California street,
west of the site of the present Bank of California,
and although the work was extremely expensive, it
was immediately recognized as a good investment, and
others imitated the example. After the wharves were
built out on Clay and the parallel streets into the bay,
it was found convenient to build cross streets on piles,
thus inclosing the blocks, and in more than a score of
instances shutting in old hulks which had long been
dismantled and had been used as storehouses. Of
these, the "Niantic" subsequently became the most
notable. She measured four hundred and fifty tons
and was hauled up at high water to the lot on the
north-west corner of Sansome and Clay streets. Her
masts were taken out, her rigging and some of her
ballast removed, piles were driven on each side to
166 HISTORY OF SAN FRANCISCO.
keep her from turning upon her side, and she was
used for storing merchandise. The May fire of 1851
destroyed all save that part of her hull below the
level of the ground and some of her ribs, and on the
site was erected a hotel called the "Niantic," the
foundation of which rested on the remains of the hull.
In 1872 the wooden building was torn down and the
hull dug out to make room for the foundation and cel-
lar of the brick building which now occupies the
place. In the course of their digging the laborers
found that the bottom of the hull was filled with dirt,
covering various articles of merchandise, including
several dozens of champagne, which had been buried
for twenty-one years. The dirt was doubtless washed
in on the occasion of the fire, and nobody had in the
meantime thought it worth while to examine what lay
buried there.
Sec. 83. 1851. In 1851, the gold manifested at
the San Francisco custom-house for shipment amount-
ed to thirty-four million dollars, and the number of
immigrants by sea was twenty-seven thousand. It
was now considered certain that the gold mines would
not be exhausted in a life-time; that they would con-
tribute immensely to the wealth of the nation, and
that California would continue for years to attract
immigrants — points about which there had previously
been serious doubts. The establishment of a semi-
monthly mail was ordered; the statute '^ to settle pri-
vate land claims in California," as it was called, though
a more appropriate term, as suggested by its results,
THE GOLDEN ERA. 167
would have been, " An act to despoil owners of land
under Mexican grants," was adopted; large federal
appropriations were obtained for various public works
in California. All these measures were carried
through congress mainly by the influence of Senator
Gwin, who now rose into prominence as the leading
representative of the state in congress. His associate,
Senator Fremont, and the two representatives Gilbert
and Wright, Avere young men without legislative ex-
perience, and their terms expired in a few months
after they took their seats. Gwin had been in con-
gress before, had many personal friends at Wash-
ington, was in political sympathy with men occupying
high positions in the administration, was industrious,
and had the ability and tact required for success in
American politics.
The legislature confirmed all the sales of water lots
in the city previously made without legal authority
by any ayuntamiento, town council, or alcalde, thus
perfecting the titles of the occupants, and putting an
end to much uneasiness among the citizens. . A new
legislative apportionment gave the city one ninth of
the members of the legislature, whereas previously
it had one eighth. The city debt had grown to one
million and a half dollars, and as the current expendi-
tures were equal to any sum that could be raised by
taxation, the legislature had to pass a funding act.
The police was inefficient, and the frequency of un-
punished crime led in February to the organization of
a vigilance committee, which in July and August
168 HISTORY OF SAN FRANCISCO.
hanged three murderers after extra-constitational but
deliberate and orderly trials. Two great fires in May
and June swept away property valued at thirteen mil-
lion dollars. The Jenny Lind theater, now the old
city hall, the American theater on the north-east
corner of Sansome and Halleck streets, and two free
schools established under the authority of the state,
were opened in the last quarter of the year.
Meantime the city continued to grow in population
and increase in business. The adventurers became citi-
zens; tents gave way to frame houses, and frames
gave way to brick. It became a matter of vast im-
portance to obtain security against fire, and the erec-
tion of fire-proof buildings was commenced.
Sec. 84. Fourth and Fifth Fires. The fourth
fire, called the great fire, as surpassing all the others,
came on the anniversary of the May fire of the prev-
ious year, and destroyed property valued at seven
million dollars. It really commenced a little before
twelve on the night of the third of May, but was
called tke fire of the fourth. It swept away the en-
tire business portion of the city, and that included
nearly everything, for there were few families or fine
dwellings in those days. The burned district was
three quarters of a mile long and a quarter of a mile
wide, and more than fifteen hundred houses were de-
stroyed. Sixteen blocks were burned, including ten
bounded by Pine, Jackson, Kearny and Sansome; five
bounded by Sansome, Battery, Sacramento and Broad-
way; one bounded by Kearny, Montgomery, Wash-
THE GOLDEN ERA. 1G9
ineton and Jackson, and fractions of five other blocks.
Many of the brick buildings supposed to be fire-proof,
were unable to withstand the intense heat of half a
mile of flame fanned by a high wind. Vast quanti-
ties of goods were destroyed, and the destruction of
these contributed greatly to swell the loss. Among
the buildings burned were the custom-house, the
Jenny Lind theater, the Union hotel, on the north-
eastern corner of Kearny and Commercial streets,
and the banks of Page, Bacon & Co., Burgoyne & Co.,
and Wells & Co. The banks of Argenti, James King,
and H. M. Naglee, escaped. These six were the
principal banks of San Francisco in those days; not
one of them remains, nor is any partner of either of
them engaged in banking in this city now. The El
Dorado and the Verandah, both gambling houses, on
the eastern corners of Kearny and Washington, suc-
cessfully defied the flames. The custom-house, a
three-story building on the north-western corner of
Montgomery and California streets, was burned, with
a large amount of goods. A number of persons
perished in the fire — how many was not known. In
some cases men stayed inside of the brick stores with
barrels of water, intending to risk their lives in the
hopes of saving their buildings and goods. Twelve
men were shut up in Naglee's building for three
hours, in the midst of intense heat and almost suffo-
cating smoke, but they survived. Six who remained
in the store of Taafle, McCahill & Co., were not so
fortunate ; the store was destroyed, and they lost their
lives in it.
170 HISTORY OF SAN FRANCISCO.
The fifth and last fire (loss two million dollars),
that of June 22, 1851, began on Pacific, near Powell,
and burned eight blocks, bounded by Broadway, Jack-
son, Pow^ell and Montgomery; three blocks between
Stockton, Montgomery, Jackson and Washington; and
fractions of five other blocks. The principal buildings
burned were the city hall (formerly the Graham
House), the city hospital, the Jenny Lind theater,
and the old adobe on the plaza. The losses may ap-
pear great for a city which had so few fine buildings,
but a shanty in those days with its merchandise might
cost almost as much as a palace now.
These fires exercised great influence upon the politics,
building and trade of the city. The May fire in 1851
was attributed to incendiarism; and it was reported
that one man charged with arson was beaten to death
while the fire was raging. The amount of property ex-
posed in the streets was so great that the citizens organ-
ized into a patrol or committee of vigilance, which soon
extended its jurisdiction, and hanged murderers as
well as protected property. Merchants, unable to
secure their property on land, put their goods into
store ships, and the harbor Avas filled with old hulks
until 1854, when the brick stores, really fire-proof,
began to furnish room and safety on shore. Unable
to make bricks or to cut stone, except at terrific
prices, orders were sent abroad for incombustible
building materials. Granite was brought from China
and Quincy; lava from Honolulu; and bricks from
Sydney, New York and London.
THE GOLDEN ERA. 171
The scenes at conflagrations were as remarkable as
was the city itself. Most of the inhabitants were
men between the ages of twenty and forty, of rare
activity and energy, and deeply interested in protect-
ing the place against destruction. At the cry of
fire, they rushed out, anxious to check the flames at
the start, and the streets became the scene of won-
derful confusion. At first there was a current of peo-
ple running at full speed to the fire, with engines and
hose carts thundering over the sonorous planks; fore-
men shouting through their hoarse speaking-trumpets,
while the men at the ropes yelled mutual encourage-
ment for higher speed. When the conflagration be-
came large, the scene was terrific and sublime. The
roaring of the fire, the crackling of the timbers, and
the shouts of the firemen and of the citizens engaged
in saving merchandise or furniture, combined to make
a frightful noise. The flames of the light pine and
redwood shot up in immense sheets, dense clouds of
smoke made a contrast to the brio^ht fire, and the
furious gusts of wind carried up into the air burning
shingles, and large pieces of blazing wood. The fire-
men rushed desperately into the most dangerous posi-
tions with their hose, their axes, their hooks and lad-
ders; and an excited crowd of Americans, Frenchmen,
Germans, Mexicans, and Chinamen struggled to carry
away furniture, clothing, and other valuables beyond
the reach of the danger. Man and fire engaged in a
fierce but brief struggle; in a few hours the destruc-
tive element had exhausted its fury; millions of prop-
172 HISTORY OF SAN FRANCISCO.
erty had been destroyed; hundreds of men before
wealthy were almost penniless, and smouldering ruins
were all that remained of costly edifices and precious
merchandise.
The day after the fire another wonderful scene was
presented. Instead of sorrow, idleness or despair, the
city seemed to be gifted with new life. The ground
burned over was covered with men pouring water
upon the embers ; wagons were busy everywhere haul-
ing away the ashes or unloading bricks and lumber;
the saw and hammer were heard on every hand. The
price of labor and building materials rose suddenly;
the merchant of the day before had become a laborer
or mechanic, and within a week many of the houses
were already open for business again.
Sec. 85. Vigilance Committee of 1851. On the
twenty-second of February, a mob collected to pun-
ish two men arrested under the names of Stuart
and Windred on a charge of having robbed and tried
to murder C. J. Jansen. Though grave crimes had
been committed in large numbers, none of the of-
fenders had been punished. The police were inefii-
cient if not criminal, and the judges and prosecuting
attorneys showed no zeal in their business. The
people saw that if they wanted an effective adminis-
tration of justice they must take charge of it them-
selves, and accordingly about three thousand citizens
gathered at the City Hall to take decisive action.
Twelve men were selected as a jury; W. T. Coleman
was appointed public prosecutor, and D. D. Shattuck
THE GOLDEN ERA. 173
and Hall McAllister, lawyers, were designated to de-
fend the accused, who were then tried. Jansen testi-
fied that the prisoner called Stuart, who however
truly declared that his name was Burdue, was one of
the robbers who attacked him in his store on the
nineteenth of February, and as the prosecuting wit-
ness bore a good reputation, and had no known motive
for perjury, the multitude were convinced. But three
of the jury refused to convict, whereupon many of
the outsiders demanded the acceptance of the verdict
of the majority, and cried, '' hang them !" being dis-
posed to execute Windred too, though Jansen did not
recognize him distinctly, and the chief evidence against
him was that he had been caught in Burdue's com-
pany. The leaders would not disregard the decision
of their own jury, but they had great difficulty in
preventing the execution of the prisoners by the mob,
which surrounded and threatened the City Hall till
one o'clock the next morning. Burdue was dis-
charged.
In the first week of June some of the same persons,
who had been active in the previous February, held
meetings, and formed ^' a committee of vigilance," with
a constitution, records and officials. The main pur-
pose was to punish incendiaries suspected of having set
the great fires, but they soon found other work to do.
They had scarcely organized, when, on the evening of
June tenth, John Jenkins, reputed to be an ex-convict
from Sydney, was caught in a boat while carrying off
a small safe which he obtained by burglary from a
174 HISTORY OF SAN FRANCISCO.
store on Comlnercial street. The evidence against him
was conclusive, and the committee, after trying him in
its rooms, pronounced a verdict of guilty, and sen-
tenced him to death. The multitude outside approved
the verdict, and at two o'clock in the morning he was
hanged to a beam of an adobe building on Brenham
Place, opposite to Portsmouth Square.
Sec. 86. Coroners Verdict. A coroner's jury, on
the twelfth of June, found a verdict that Jenkins was
executed by certain persons styling themselves "a
committee of vigilance," of which nine persons,
whose names were given, were members. The publi-
cation of this verdict was immediately followed by a
manifesto signed by one hundred and eighty-two citi-
zens of the committee, expressing their surprise at the
invidious verdict after the signers had informed the
jury that they were all participators in the trial and
execution, and declaring that the nine persons named
were unnecessarily picked out from the members of
the committee, when the jury had full evidence that
all were equally implicated and equally responsible.
These one hundred and eighty-two signers included a
majority of the leading business men of the city, and
their conduct was generally approved by the citizens
who had not joined their organization. Nobody doubt-
ed the guilt of Jenkins, the inefficiency of the courts,
or the intention of the committee to exercise its power
with prudence and decision. They made no secret
that they had violated the law, and were leagued to-
gether to violate the law in the future, but they were
THE GOLDEN ERA. 175
faithful servants of the cause of justice, for whose sake
they assumed very serious personal responsibilities.
When they made a public avowal of their participation
in the execution of Jenkins, they could not know what
the future had in store for them. At the same time
that they protested against any attempt to single out
a few of their number for prosecution or odium, they
published an address stating that they were convinced
of the presence of a band of robbers and incendiaries
in the city, that the criminals arrested by the police
had escaped punishment, that the committee was ready
to receive information about crime and criminals, that
convicts then in the city should leave within five days,
and that convicts arriving by sea should be forbidden
to land.
Sec. 87. Execution of Stuart. The committee soon
found more work to do. James Stuart, a professional
murderer and robber, for whom Thomas Burdue had
been arrested by mistake in February and tried, fell
into their hands in July, and on the eleventh of that
month was tried. He complained during the progress
of the trial that the proceedings were ** tiresome,"
asked for a chew of tobacco, and confessed that he
had committed a multitude of capital crimes. The
evidence was conclusive, the verdict guilty, and the
sentence hanging on the same day. He was left two
hours with a clergyman, and then marched down to
the end of Market street wharf, where a framework,
built to support a pulley used in hoisting freight in
and out of vessels, served for the execution.
176 HISTORY OF SAN FRANCISCO.
A grand jury of the county soon afterwards made
a report containing the following justification of the
course of the committee :
When we recall the delays, and the inefficient, and we believe
that with truth it may be said, the corrupt, administration of
the law, the incapacity and indifference of those who are its
sworn guardians and ministers, the frequent and unnecessary
postponement of important trials in the district court, the disre-
gard of duty and imj)atience while attending to perform it man-
ifested by some of our judges having criminal jurisdiction, the
many notorious villains Avho have gone unwhij^ped of justice,
lead us to believe that the members of the association have been
governed by a feeling of opposition to the manner in which the
law has been administered and those who have administered it,
rather than a determination to disregard the law itself. * *
The grand jurors, believing, whilst they deplore their acts, that
the association styling themselves " the vigilance committee,"
at a great personal sacrifice to themselves, have been influenced
in their actions by no personal or private malice, but for the
best interest of the whole, and at a time, too, when all other
means of preventing crime and bringing criminals to direct pun-
ishment had failed, here dismiss the matter.
Sec. 88. Whittakcr and McKenzic. Soon after the
execution of Stuart, the committee arrested Samuel
Whittaker and Robert McKenzie, who, on the twen-
ty-first of August, before dawn, were taken from the
rooms of the committee by the sheriff, under a WTit of
habeas corpus, issued on petition of Governor Mc-
Dougal. At half-past two, p. m., on Sunday, August
24, twenty-nine members of the committee went to
the county jail, overaw^ed the jailors, took the two
prisoners to the rooms of the committee on Battery
street between Pine and California, and there, amidst
THE GOLDEN ERA. 177
a vast concourse of people summoned by tlie tap of
the fire-alarm bell, hanged them. This was the last
public act of that committee. It never dissolved for-
mally, but it ceased to hold its meetings. No judicial
proceedings were ever taken against its members on
behalf of the state, but several suits for damages
were instituted by those whom the committee had
treated as suspicious characters.
After Burdue had been released by the committee,
he was arrested by the police as James Stuart, to
whom he bore a resemblance so close that their famil-
iar acquaintances could not readily see any difference.
A criminal court found him guilty of robbery and
afterwards of murder, and he would doubtless have
been hanged (the judicial tribunal made a mistake
which the mob of February 22 avoided), had not the
right man been caught in time. One of the vigilan-
tes took the proper steps to secure the release of
Burdue, who was thrice saved from unmerited punish-
ment by the influence of the committee. It thus
protected the innocent as well as punished the guilty.
The committee ordered many professional criminals
to leave, and having obtained a list of vessels which
had carried convicts from England to Australia, with
the names of the passengers on each, sent a commit-
tee on board of every vessel from that country so soon
as she entered the harbor, and made inquiry about the
time when, and conveyance by which, every native of
Great Britain had reached the colony; and if it ap-
peared that he or she had been transported for crime,
12
178 HISTORY OF SAN FRANCISCO.
permission to land was denied, and the passage-money
for the return was paid. The precise number of Aus-
tralian convicts exiled and ordered to return before
landing was never reported, but probably exceeded
fifty.
Sec. 89. Land Commission. Congress passed the
act to settle the land titles in California in March,
1851, providing a special tribunal or board of commis-
sioners with authority to examine all claims made to
land under grant under Mexico, and confirm all valid
grants. The act made no reference to the promise
given by Commodore Sloat in his proclamation issued
on the seventh of July, 1846, when in taking posses-
sion of the country on behalf of the American govern-
ment, he declared that thenceforth California would
be a portion of the United States; and as an induce-
ment for accepting cordially, or at least peaceably, the
change, he assured the people that " all persons hold-
ing titles to real estate, or in quiet possession of land
under color of right, shall have those titles guaranteed
to them." This lansfuawe was doubtless used under
express instruction from the cabinet; we know that
Commodore Sloat had been ordered in 1845, to seize
California at the first outbreak of hostilities, and we
may presume that directions were given to him in re-
gard to what he should say when he made the seizure.
^' Color of right " is a phrase common in American
jurisprudence, and would not have been adopted ex-
cept under the suggestion of a lawyer. Even if Sloat
exceeded the authority conferred by his instructions,
THE GOLDEN ERA. 179
that fact could not be known to the native Californians,
and they were justified in believing that he had full
power to make the promise, which thus became a sol-
emn contract under the law of nations with every one
who submitted to the American authority.
The phrase " quiet possession of land, under color of
right," means any possession authorized by the law;
or any possession that is not a wrong to the govern-
ment or some individual. A tenancy at will — the
weakest of all lawful tenures — which may be termi-
nated by the owner at any moment and without notice
or condition, is a tenure under color of right. By
Sloat's promise, the government was bound in honor
and law to confirm the titles of all the Californians
who had taken possession of ranches with permission
of the local authorities, and had petitioned the govern-
ment for grants. They held "under color of right."
They were entitled to the confirmation of their titles,
after an examination as brief and simple as the circum-
stances would permit, and with as little expense as
possible to the claimants. The government should
have made a list of all ranches, the possession of which
was matter of common notoriety, and mentioned in the
archives; should have confirmed them summarily, then
surveyed them and issued patents for them. The
claims which were not mentioned in the archives or
had not been reduced to possession, might properly
have been subjected to a careful judicial inquiry.
Above all things, it was important, in a country that
changed so rapidly as California did after the treaty of
180 HISTORY OF SAN FBANCISCO.
cession, that the action should be prompt. To leave
the land titles in doubt was to deprive the people of
their property.
These plain principles of justice and reason were
utterly disregarded by congress and the politicians.
No provision was made for confirming claims held
under mere color of right ; those which had been held
in notorious possession for generations, as well as
those of the most suspicious character, were alike
subjected to a hostile, costly and tedious investiga-
tion, a large part of the cost being thrown upon the
owners.
The Mexican land system was entirely different
from that of the United States. The Californian
ranches were granted not by the acre, but by the
square league. There were no surveys, seldom any
precise boundaries. It was sufficient in the descrip-
tion of a rancho to say that it was a tract of ten
square leagues, including a certain place, or that it
was a small valley, or that it extended from one range
of hills to another. The change from that system to
the new one should have been made at the expense
of the new government, not of the claimants, and
especially not at a time when the government denied
their title. The native Californians suddenly sur-
rounded by a strange population, strange laws, a
strange language, strange customs, and strange in-
dustries, w-ere virtually deprived of the bulk of their
wealth, and then compelled to raise money to defend
themselves against complete spoliation by the gov-
THE GOLDEN ERA. 181
eminent. They had to go to San Francisco, where
all the cases were tried (though some witnesses were
heard at Los Angeles) take their witnesses with them,
and employ lawyers who in many cases measured
their fees by thousands of dollars or thousands of
acres.
Nor did the trouble and expense thus imposed upon
the land owner come to an end when he had gained
his case in the land commission. As the boundaries
as well as the titles were in doubt, the Americans,
who wanted to buy farms for the purposes of making
permanent homes, were afraid to pay for deeds in
which they could jDlace no confidence. Under com-
pulsion, it may be said, they became squatters, that
is they seized and occupied, as their own, land claimed
under Mexican grant. Having once made Ijheir set-
tlement, they acquired interests which they defended
in the courts. If they could defeat the Mexican
grants they would acquire the land for a trifle. They
were numerous, and became a political power. The
governor, the legislature, the courts, the federal sen-
ators, the congressmen, and the federal attorneys, who
managed the suits against the Mexican grants,
courted them. Squatterism tainted legislation and
jurisprudence. Senator Gwin went so far in sub-
serviency to it that he introduced a bill providing
that if the courts should finally confirm any Mexican
grant, including land occupied before March 3, 1851,
by a squatter, the latter should hold the property and
the lawful owner, might take the same amount of land
182 HISTORY OF SAN FRANCISCO.
elsewhere, j)erliaps in some remote place. The federal
attorney, instead of striving to do justice, made every
effort to defeat and delay the confirmation of hundreds
of claims since recognized as valid, appealed them
first to the United States district court, and from
there to the United States supreme court, making
three trials on the title, and as many on the bound-
aries, and each at great expense to the owners.
There were squatter governors, squatter legislatures,
and a squatter press. An act was passed in 1856 to
provide that all lands should be deemed public till
the legal title had passed from the government to
private parties (Mexican grants w^ere declared not
legal titles till finally confirmed); that actual and
peaceable possession should be presumptive proof of
the right of possession; and that in ejectment suits,
if the verdict were against the defendant, the jury
should appraise the value of the improvements put
upon the land by the defendant, and the valile of the
land without the improvements; and the plaintifi
could get the land by paying for the improvements,
or take the money-price fixed upon the land. The
juries were impaneled by squatter sheriffs, and the
appraisements were always in favor of the squatter
defendants. The statute was declared unconstitu-
tional, so that plundering trick was defeated.
The general result was that the rancheros had to
give on the average half of their land to get their
titles confirmed, and then waited eight years before they
could get out the patent. To obtain the means of
THE GOLDEN ERA. 183
living in the meantime, they had to sacrifice a consid-
erable part of what was left to them by the lawyers
and the courts. The Noe> Bernal, Sanchez, De Haro,
Peralta, Moraga, Alvarado, Vasquez, Vallejo, Soto,
Estudillo, and Castro families, which once owned lands
now worth one hundred million dollars in and near
San Francisco have entirely disappeared, or are re-
duced to a few pitiful acres. But for all this injus-
tice to the native Californians-there was a compensation
— the lawyers of San Francisco accumulated great
wealth, and they and their grantees hold hundreds
of leagues of the most valuable land in the state.
The land commission opened its sessions in San Fran-
cisco on the second January, 1852, and received claims
till the third of March, 1853, the total number being
eight hundred and twelve. The filing of some of the
petitions relating to lands in or near to San Francisco,
made a lively sensation in the city. Among these
the most notable were those of Limantour, Santillan,
and Sherreback, who laid claim to nearly everything
worth having south of California street.
Sec. 90. 1852. The gold shipment of 1852, as
recorded in the custom-house books, was forty-six
million dollars, and the number of immigrants by sea
sixty-seven thousand; both figures showing a large
increase over those of former years. According to a
state census taken in June, California had a total pop-
ulation of two hundred and fifty-five thousand one
hundred and twenty-two, including thirty-six thou-
sand one hundred and fifty-four in San Francisco, or
184 HISTORY OF SAN FRANCISCO.
about one seventh of tlie inhabitants of the state.
The federal commission appointed to settle private
land claims began its sessions, and made a very large
and very profitable business for lawyers. The city
council, acting jointly with the supervisors represent-
ing the county, bought the Jenny Lind theater for a
city hall and court house, paying two hundred thou-
sand dollars for it (twice as much as it was worth), or
rather promising to pay, for, in those times, the city
debtors received scrip in payment, and the council,
relying on the paper-mill for funds, was not troubled
by any anxiety to make both ends meet. One public
creditor, Dr. Peter Smith, who had maintained a hos-
pital for the indigent sick of the city in 1850, having
demanded payment of his dues in vain, (and nobody
denied the debt), obtained judgment, and the council,
instead of paying him, allowed him to sell a large
area of land claimed by the city at sheriffs sale. It
went for a mere trifle, because prominent officials de-
clared that purchasers would get no title. The Peter
Smith sales were sustained by the courts for much of
the land, and the city was despoiled.
The " Herald's" insinuations of fraud in the pur-
chase of the Jenny Lind theater provoked Alderman
Cotter so much that he challenged John Nugent, its
editor, and healed the official honor by breaking a
journalistic arm. Edward Gilbert, editor of the
" Alta," was killed by J. W. Denver, for ridiculing
Governor Bigler, under whose appointment Denver
held an office. Yerba Buena cemetery w^as opened
THE GOLDEN ERA. 185
for general use, and the removal to it of the remains
in the cemetery near North Beach was commenced.
Kaousset went to Sonora with his first expedition of
Frenchmen. The streets were lighted for the first
time with city lamps, oil burners, of which there were
ninety. A station for signaling vessels was erected
on a hill near Point Lobos, and the signals repeated
at Telegraph Hill, gave information of the arrival of
ships when they were fifteen miles or more from the
Golden Gate.
Sec. 91. French Immigration. Some Frenchmen
who had been scattered over the Pacific islands and
Spanish- America arrived in California with the first
rush of adventurers in 1848, and their letters encour-
aged their countrymen to come to the gold mines.
Facilities for migration were offered by the frequent
departure of vessels from Bordeaux with wines, bran-
dies, sardines, olive-oil, sauces, canned meats, bottled
fruits, and various other French products that found a
ready sale in the diggings. In 1850, the Parisian
"lottery of the golden ingot," in which a bar of gold
was the chief bait, offered many passages to Califor-
nia among its prizes, and in 1851 about five hundred
French men and women, most of them nearly penni-
less, were transported to San Francisco by their suc-
cessful tickets. The advertisements of the lottery,
and the articles about it in the newspapers, caused a
gold fever in Paris, such as did not j^revail in any
other part of Europe, and the " ingots," as the lottery
immigrants were called in France, instead of finding
186 HISTORY OF SAN FBANCISCO.
themselves the majoritj of the adventurers from their
country, were outnumbered by others, so that the
French became one of the prominent features of the
population of California; and even now, after a con-
tinuous decrease of the French residents for nearly a
quarter of a century, San Francisco has yet relatively
more Frenchmen than any other city in the Union
save New Orleans.
They were at a great disadvantage as compared
with the British, Irish, Germans and Scandinavians,
because as a class they did not learn English, and
they would not be naturalized. Most of them went
to the mines, but in several of the camps where they
were most numerous they were attacked by bands of
ruffians and robbed of their claims, the demag-oofue of-
fice-holders refusing to protect men who had no votes.
The expulsion of the French miners from many of
their claims was most unfortunate for California, since
if they had been protected and encouraged, the im-
migration from France would have been large and
continuous, giving to the country a class of people
who would have been of great value to its agriculture
and commerce, as well as to its mining. Those who
came contributed not a little to the industry of San
Francisco, where most of them collected after the
outbreaks at the diggings. Few of them knew any
mechanical trade at which they could earn much
money, and on account of their ignorance of English
they were excluded from occupations which they
could otherwise have pursued with jDrofit. Sev-
THE GOLDEN ERA. 187
eral thousand of them were dissatisfied, and though
generally peaceable, they offered excellent material
for some desperate enterprise.
Sec. 92. Raousset. Gaston de Raousset Boulbon,
a count by birth, a native of Provence, thirty-five
years of age, thought he could give them congenial
employment that would accrue to his own honor and
to the benefit of his country. He knew the sting of
disappointed ambition. Notwithstanding his noble
title, excellent education and superior talents, after
coming to California almost penniless, he had been in
the mines, then fisherman, hunter, stevedore and
shoveller of sand, and had not, in any capacity, ob-
tained more than a scanty compensation. He thought
Sonora was a field suitable for himself and his adven-
turous countrymen in California. Here they were
subordinate and powerless; there they might obtain
dominion. It was supposed and confidently asserted
that the basin of the Gila was as rich in gold as the
western slope of the Sierra Nevada, and it was known
there were, besides, many silver mines fully opened,
and wanting nothing but the expulsion of the Apaches
to enable the Mexicans to render them productive
within a few months.
He spoke to his friends of organizing a party of
Frenchmen to settle in Sonora, and they encouraged
him. In the latter part of 1851 he went to Mexico,
where he was received with much favor by Levasseur
French minister, under whose counsel a company called
the restauradora, or restorer, was organized, to occupy
188 HISTORY OF SAN FRANCISCO.
and work the mines of Arizona. President Arista
approved the plan of the company, promised to assist
it, and advised capitalists to take stock in it. Many
of the mines to be occupied were well known by name
and reputation, but they had long been abandoned.
The fame of the richness of these mines, the opinion
that Sonora exceeded all other portions of Mexico in
its mineral wealth, the promise of governmental pro-
tection, and the advice of the French minister induced
the banking house of Jecker, Torre & Co., which had
French sympathies, to contribute a large part of the
funds needed for the undertaking.
With this aid Raousset returned to San Francisco,
and found no difficulty in gathering followers. He
was required by his contract with the government to
take at least one hundred and fifty armed Frenchmen
to Sonora but he took two hundred and fifty, landing
at Guaymas on the tenth of June. Instead, however,
of being welcomed with open arms by the local author-
ities, as he expected, there was a feeling of ill-con-
cealed hostility. Soon after he left the capital, intrigue
had been commenced to prejudice the administration
and the people against him. The English feared the
dominance of French political influence, and the con-
trol of the treasure shipments and foreign commerce
of Mexico by French merchants. Some Mexicans
were afraid the French would repeat in Sonora the
game which the Americans had played in Texas.
Assertions were made that Raousset had told his
friends that he intended to establish a colony that
THE GOLDEN ERA. 189
would be of more value to France, and that would at-
tract more French settlers than Algeria. If the pres-
ident, Arista, was not convinced, he at least became
apprehensive, and authorized a company, headed by
the wealthy British banking house of Barron, Forbes
& Co., to take the same mines which had been previ-
ously set apart for the French company.
Sec. 93. Fighting in Sonora. General Blanco,
Governor of Sonora, doubtless followed instructions
from the capital when he refused to fulfil the condi-
tions of the French contract, but he acted as if he
had a personal grievance, and as if the entrance of
anybody into his state with an independent command
was an insult to himself He was mean as well as
hostile. He attempted to get the French commander
away from his men, and finding that he could not suc-
ceed by that kind of treachery, he sent word on the
twenty-eighth of August, when Raousset was at
Saric, near the northern frontier, that the Frenchmen
must enter the Mexican army, take out letters of se-
curity as aliens without the right of owning any mine
or real estate, or reduce their military organization to
fifty men under a Mexican commandant. All these
demands were submitted to the adventurers in mass
meeting, and were instantaneously, indignantly and
finally rejected, with the declaration that they would
fight to the last rather than submit to any one of
them. So soon as the governor of Sonora learned
their reply, he sent word to the local authorities near
Saric that the French were not to be recognized as the
owners or lawful occupants of any mines.
190 HISTORY OF SAN FRANCISCO.
On the sixth of October, E-aousset, seeing that
nothing could be done where he was, started for the
capital of the state, determined to see what could be
done there. If he had submitted without protest to
the gross insults offered, and pecuniary wrongs done
by the Mexican officials, he could have left the coun-
try in peace, but neither he nor his men felt like sac-
rificing a point of honor^ as well as of business inter-
est, for the sake of avoiding danger, so they marched
gallantly and gaily to the chief city of the state,
stopping for several days at Magdalena to enjoy the
amusement of a religious festival and a large popular
gathering. They were a jolly set of fellows, and
made friends with the common people there and at
all other places where they stopped.
They entered Hermosillo on the morning of the
fourteenth of October, driving out Governor Blanco
and his twelve hundred soldiers, who had a defensive
position selected in advance, the shelter of thick adobe
walls, and all the advantages of fighting among their
own people. Blanco had a narrow escape from cap-
ture. Raousset was now in possession of the chief
city of Sonora, and he determined to hold the state
with the assistance of those inhabitants friendly to
him and hostile to the central government. He con-
sulted several influential citizens, who promised to aid
him, and they told him they would organize a general
revolt. He depended upon them, and they did noth-
ing — probably they never intended to do anything.
Before he could discover their inefficiency or bad faith,
THE GOLDEN ERA. 191
dysentery, with which he had been troubled before,
became severe, and reduced him to a helpless condi-
tion. None of his subordinates was capable of lead-
ing the party, and they could not maintain themselves
where they were, so they marched to Guaymas,
carrying their commander in a litter. Arrived at the
port, they made a treaty with Blanco, he paying forty
thousand dollars, and they leaving Sonora. They
returned to San Francisco, where they learned that
the news of the battle of Hermosillo had been re-
garded throughout California as the conquest of
Sonora, and thousands of Frenchmen would soon have
gone to their aid. A party of six hundred men, well
provided with arms, was ready to sail,
Raousset, who was not a party to the treaty,
so soon as able to move, went from Guaymas to
Mazatlan, and thence to San Francisco, where he
was received with distinction, his men giving him
high praise for courage, capacity, generosity, and
considerate attention to their feelings and mate-
rial wants, declared themselves ready to follow him
again. All the dissatisfied Frenchmen in Califor-
nia hoped that he would make another trial with
better luck the next time. He was determined to
make another effort; he had wrongs to avenge, he
had convinced himself that a considerable party in
Sonora would favor independence, and he believed
that, with his reputation, all that was necessary for
success was a good start.
He was encouraged by Dillon, French consul in
192 HISTORY OF SAN FRANCISCO.
San Francisco, and affairs in Mexico turned in his
favor. President Arista was dethroned in January,
1853, by Ceballos, he by Lombardini in February,
and he by Santa Anna in April. In June, under an
invitation from Levasseur, Raousset went to Mexico,
where Santa Anna received him with favor, promised
to compensate him for the injustice done by Arista,
and made a contract with him for the introduction of
a company of five hundred armed Frenchmen into
Sonora. They were to receive one hundred and
eio-hteen thousand dollars a month as regular pay,
besides fifty thousand dollars in advance, for trans-
portation and equipment. The contract was written
out, approved by the council, signed by Santa Anna,
and then annulled by him. To pacify the ambitious
Frenchman, he offered him the command of a regi-
ment in the Mexican army, but Raousset refused,
and wrote a note to the president stating that he had
come not so much fbr his own gain as to get justice
for the Frenchmen who had been defrauded by the
Mexican government, and hinted plainly that Mexi-
cans are liars. He returned to San Francisco to find
that in the meantime a filibustering party of Ameri-
cans under Walker had left San Francisco to seize
Sonora. If they should get hold of the prize for
which he had been scheming, there would be no
chance there for France. He could not afford to waste
any time.
Sec. 94. Obstacles. Raousset and his poorer friends
had before vainly appealed repeatedly to all the French
THE GOLDEN ERA. 193
capitalists of San Francisco for aid in seizing Sonora
for France, but now three houses came forward and
subscribed three hundred thousand dollars, enough to
arm and transport one thousand five hundred men and
maintain them till they could get control of the rev-
enues of Sonora. Before any of the money thus sub-
scribed was paid, a report was published that the
American government had bought Sonora, and though
not generally credited, there was good reason to be-
lieve that the Washington cabinet was negotiating for
the cession of at least part of Sonora. The capitalists
would advance no money under these circumstances.
While matters were in this position, Santa Anna,
frightened by the proceedings of Walker, and consid-
ering the French the only secure protection against
the American filibusters, instructed Del Valle, the
Mexican consul at San Francisco, to send three thou-
sand Frenchmen to settle as a military colony in So-
nora. This order filled Haousset with ecstacy. The
Mexican government, at its own expense, was provid-
ing for him far more than he demanded for his tri-
umphs. He told his men to go, and in a few days
eight hundred had applied to Del Valle and had been
accepted. But the friends of the filibusters were not
indifferent to this danger. They saw that if these
Frenchmen should get secure foothold in Sonora, no
room would be left there for Walker, slavery or an-
nexation. The federal attorney in San Francisco had
Del Valle and Dillon arrested, and the '' Challenge"
seized for violating the neutrality laws of the United
13
194 HISTORY OF SAN FRANCISCO.
States. There was much doubt whether those laws
had been violated, but there was no doubt that the
charge must be made if the Frenchmen were to be
headed off. It succeeded. The " Challenge " sailed
on the twentieth of April with three hundred col-
onists, but many of them were men whom Raousset
would not have taken, and few others followed. The
delay gave time to Santa Anna to see that there was
no serious danger in Walker, and to recover from his
scare. He felt grateful to the American authorities
for protecting him against the three thousand French-
men. Raousset was in despair. The American offi-
cials would permit no emigration of French military
colonists, and there was no other way of getting the
force needed to establish French authority in Sonora.
Louis Napoleon, though solicited for aid, had refused.
If a great conquest was to be made for France, it must
be made by the three hundred who went in the
" Challenge." Some of them had gone at Raousset's
request, and with the assurance that he would follow,
so he determined to go. He saw that in all proba-
bility the venture would be fatal to him, but there
was a remote possibility of conquering for France not
Sonora alone but all Mexico, and with that purpose
distinctly avowed to a few friends he left San Fran-
cisco, in a sloop of ten tons, on the night of May
twenty -fourth. He made his departure in the dark-
ness to avoid arrest, for he had been informed that a
warrant had been issued against him for violating the
neutrality laws.
THE GOLDEN ERA. 195
Sec. 95. End of Raousset. It was his plan to
land in secret, join the "Challenge " party, seize Guay-
mas or some other sea-port town and wait for reinforce-
ments from San Francisco, or a revolution in his.
favor in the interior. His arrival was announced be-
fore he landed, so Gen. Yailez in command at Guay-
mas, where the "Challenge" party had remained, could
not be taken by surprise. Raousset went ashore and
was received politely. The Mexicans anticipated
trouble. When the French went out into the streets
they were assailed by the populace. Yanez had a
regiment of Mexican soldiers, and on the morning of
the thirteenth of July more troops arrived from the
interior, raising his force to twelve hundred men, and
it was reported that eighteen thousand were to arrive
the next day. The French would not wait to be
attacked. They went to the house where E-aousset
was, called on him to lead them. He refused to take
command, but joined them in a disastrous attempt to
storm the Mexican barracks. After a hundred had
fallen, the remainder surrendered, under a promise by
the French consul on behalf of the Mexican authori-
ties that the lives of all should be spared. The con-
ditions first offered to the French included life to all
save Raousset, if they would lay down their arms,
but they refused, and then the excej)tion was with-
drawn. Notwithstanding this explicit promise, Raous-
set was shot on the twelfth of August, dying with
free hands, open eyes, and a firm countenance. Of
these we are told by witnesses of his execution; and
196 HISTORY OF SAN FRANCISCO.
that his heart was gay we learn from his letters writ-
ten on the night before his execution. As one of his
biographers says, "he was a Cortez slain at the begin-
nino" of his enterprise." He had the material but not
the ojDportunity for a great conqueror. If he had re-
ceived a little assistance from Louis Napoleon he
might and probably would have done far more for
France in Mexico than Maximilian did ten years
later. His death was the end of the scheming among
the Frenchmen of San Francisco for the conquest of
Sonora.
Sec. 96. 1853. In 1853, the gold exportation
culminated at fifty-five millions, as ofiicially reported,
though the yield of the placers had probably reached
its highest point in the previous yeat. Mining being
the chief industry, and the one upon which all others
depended, everything was affected by its decline,
which, however, was not generally understood or
discovered by merchants and bankers in San Fran-
cisco till the close of the year, and even then many of
them were not fully convinced. There was a decrease
in the rate of wages; and for the first time there was
a large return migration to the Atlantic states, so
that the gain of population by sea was only three
thousand, or at least seventeen thousand less than in
any of the previous four years. At the same time
there was a great falling off in the immigration by
land, and it did not again approach its previous mag-
nitude until after the railroad had been completed.
The period within which Mexican land grants had
THE GOLDEN ERA. 197
to be filed in the land commission under penalty of con-
fiscation of the title, expired in March, and as the spec-
ulation in city land had been the source of much
wealth, and was looked to for much more in the fu-
ture, the citizens were not a little concerned to find
that two claims had been filed for nearly everything
south of California street, and a third one claimed
eight hundred acres in the district south of Market
and west of Second street. While the Limantour,
Santillan and Sherreback claims covered three deep
much of the best upland, the '' Peter Smith men," as
the purchasers at the sheriff's sale in the previous year
were called, were trying to seize a strip six hundred
feet wide outside of the permanent water front, by
the help of the legislature, and Governor Bigler. In-
tense indignation prevailed among the citizens against
the proposed fraud, and after it had passed the assem-
bly, it was defeated in the senate by the casting vote
of Lieutenant Governor Purdy. Notwithstanding
Bigler's eflPorts in favor of the extension bill, and his
great unpopularity in San Francisco, he was renomi-
nated under the influence of Broderick, who had ob-
tained a predominant influence in the Democratic con-
ventions of the city and state. The chivalry poli-
ticians hated Broderick and Bigler, and many of them
voted against the latter; so the former, as chairman of
the state committee, published an address to the peo-
ple, denouncing them as traitors to the party.
The real estate prices, which had been rising rapidly
since the fall of 1848, culminated in December, 1853,
X98 HISTORY OF SAN FRANCISCO.
when two Ml blocks, known as tlie '' city slip," be-
tween Clay and Sacramento streets, east of Davis,
were sold at public auction. This land was intersec-
ted bv the wharf of Commercial street, and included
lots then believed to be among the most valuable sites
for business houses in the city, Montgomery, between
Pacific and Pine, had now become the street of the
most elegant stores; Stockton street and Pincon Hill
had the most costly residences.
The construction of the plank road on Folsom
street to the Mission, gave access to an extensive area
jDreviously, on account of the sand hills and swamps,
inaccessible for wagons. Puss's garden, on the corner
of Sixth and Harrison streets, became the first popu-
lar suburban Sunday resort. The erection of a tele-
graph line to Point Lobos, and the connection of the
wires with the Merchants' Exchange, led to the aban-
donment of Telegraph Hill as a station for signaling
vessels. An electric telegraph brought the city into
instantaneous communication with San Jose, Stockton,
Sacramento and Marysville. The Metropolitan thea-
ter on the west side of Montgomery street, between
Washington and Jackson, one of the largest and most
eleorant buildino^s of the kind in the United States, and
the Union theater on Commercial street, above Kear-
ny, offered opportunities for dramatic performances, in
addition to the American theater on Sansome street,
and the Adelphi, occupied by a French company, on
the west side of Dupont, north of Clay. The First
Unitarian church on Stockton street, between Clay
THE GOLDEN ERA. 199
and Sacramento, and the First Congregational church
on the south-west corner of Dupont and Cahfornia,
were completed, and St. Mary's cathedral was com-
menced on the corner diagonally opposite. These were
three of the leading congregations of San Francisco at
the time, and the situation of their buildings was in
the vicinity of the fashionable residence district.
Other notable events of this year were the sailing of
Walker's expedition to conquer Sonora and Lower
California, the foundation of the Mercantile Library,
the adoption of a comprehensive system of grades, the
erection of Montgomery block, and the election of
C. K. Garrison to the office of mayor.
Sec. 97. City Slip Sale. In December the city
council passed an ordinance to sell the city slip water-
lots — they were covered by the bay, some of them to
a depth of twenty-five feet at low tide — in the two
blocks bounded by Clay, Sacramento, Davis and East
streets. This slip had been set apart by ordinance for
a public dock, but it was evident, after Commercial,
Clay and Sacramento street wharves had been built
out, that the place would soon fill up, and the project
to sell Wcis, therefore, a wise and proper one. The
council consisted of two boards, each containinof eig-ht
members, one for each ward. The ordinance to sell
having received a majority in the board of aldermen,
and four out of seven votes in the board of assistants
(one member had resigned), was declared passed, and
the property was sold on the twenty-sixth of Decem-
ber, at public auction, the average price of the lots
200 HISTORY OF SAN FRANCISCO.
being nine thousand seven hundred and eighty-four
dollars; the total, one million one hundred and ninety-
three thousand seven hundred and fifty dollars. One
fourth was to be paid down, one half in two months,
and the remaining fourth in four months from the day
of sale. The Sacramento street and Commercial street
wharf companies threatened to enjoin the sale, on the
ground that they had built their wharves on the faith
of the ordinance setting off this property for a public
dock, and the council, on the day of sale, passed an
ordinance giving one hundred and eighty-five thousand
dollars out of the proceeds to those companies as a
compensation for the injury done to them.
Sec. 98. Filibuster Walker. The expedition of
Kaousset with his Fi-enchmen to Sonora, in 1852,
under a contract with the Mexican government, pro-
voked much angry comment among the American
slavery extensionists. They looked forward to the
conquest of Mexico as a matter of manifest, destiny,
and the introduction of negro slavery there as a
source of much wealth and political influence to the
gulf states. The establishment of a large French
population anywhere in the sister republic, and espe-
cially near the border, was represented as the delib-
erate planting of an obstacle in the path of the Union,
and as an a,ct of monarchical intervention in the af-
fairs of the republican hemisphere. It was partly for
the purpose of excluding Eaousset from the southern
half of the Gila basin, which was supposed to be the
richest part of Sonora in mineral wealth, that in 1853
THE GOLDEN ERA. 201
a treaty was negotiated by the cabinet of Washington
with Santa Anna for a region that now forms a con-
siderable j)ortion of Arizona. This treaty, however,
left abundant room in Mexico for the ambitious French-
man, and before anything was known of the negotia-
tions for it, some of the slavery extensionists in San
Francisco thought that the responsibility of defeating
Raousset's purposes rested upon them. The leading
men among them, mostly lawyers from the slave
states, had numerous consultations upon the subject,
and they agreed, in the summer of 1853, that the
proper remedy for the danger of a French occupation
of Sonora was the conquest of the country by a fili-
bustering expedition.
William Walker, a native of Tennessee, then thir-
ty-three years of age, who had been a lawyer and ed-
itor in California, was selected as commander by the
San Francisco conspirators. He was a ready writer
and speaker, a man of moderate ability in every
respect, but brave and willing to risk everything
rather than live in obscurity. He imagined that he
was destined to establish the dominion of the United
States over Mexico and Central America, and misled
by that fancy, spent years with small bands of ruf-
fians in fighting and plundering the unfortunate Span-
ish-Americans in those districts which he selected as
the fields of his exploits. Money was subscribed,
bonds of the new republic of Sonora and Lower Cal-
ifornia were printed and sold, a flag was made, and
meetings were held in the city hall, where the men
202 HISTORY OF SAN FRANCISCO.
considered desirable recruits for the expedition were
brought together under injunctions of secrecy, ad-
dressed upon the brilliant promise of the adventure,
and enlisted. There was no difficulty in getting men;
money enough was gathered to buy arms and charter
the brig " Arrow;" but when she was nearly ready to
sail, General Hitchcock, commander of the United
States forces in California, seized her on a charge of
violating the neutrality laws. This procedure gave
great offense to the federal officials generally, most of
them slavery extensionists, and the federal attorney
ordered the release of the vessel, on the pretext that
there was not " a scintilla of evidence " against her.
General Hitchcock could do nothing in the matter
without the support of the civil authorities, so he
made no further effort in that direction, more espe-
cially as he found that he had not the approval of
those whose influence was most potent with the fed-
eral administration. Almost as soon as replies could
be received from Washington, it was rumored that he
would be degraded, and in the following February he
was superseded by General Wool, who was required to
transfer his headquarters from San Francisco to Be-
nicia, so that if any further filibustering expeditions
should be organized, they might leave without pass-
ing under his nose. Jefferson Davis, then secretary
of war, received credit from the friends of Walker for
the excellence of his management.
The seizure of the "Arrow" did not defeat the enter-
prise nor long delay it. The arms and stores were
THE GOLDEN ERA. 203
transferred to the bark ''Caroline," which sailed on
the sixteenth of October with forty-six men, a small
force to be used in conquering an empire as large as
France, and inhabited by one hundred and fifty thou-
sand people. But Walker had the promise that rein-
forcements should be sent so soon as he had obtained
a foothold. He landed at La Paz, the capital of
Lower California, took possession of the town, and
issued a proclamation declaring Lower California an
independent republic, whereupon his followers elected
him president, and he published a decree adopting the
code of Louisiana as the law of the land. He and
his chivalry friends in San Francisco wished to legal-
ize slavery without mentioning it, and the adoption of
the Louisiana code seemed to them the best method
of attaining their ends. Being unable to maintain
himself at La Paz, after a brief stay, he and his army
of conquest set sail for Magdalena bay on the west
coast of Lower California, and thence they moved in
a few days to Muertos, a point on the coast about a
dozen miles from the American boundary, whence in
case of attack they could soon escape to friendly terri-
tory, and whence they could conveniently send letters
describing their victories over the enemy. These
letters as given in the San Francisco papers excited
an ardent desire among moneyless scamps to share
the glories "of extending the area of freedom" over
the bare mountains and cactus covered plains of north-
western Mexico. The flag of the new republic was
hoisted at the corner of Kearny and Commercial
204 HISTORY OF SAN FRANCISCO.
streets ; its bonds were exhibited in the shop-windows
and sold openly; the money paid for them by the
orio-inal jDurcbasers being generally considered as so
much thrown away; enlistments of filibusters were
made without concealment, and. on the thirteenth of
December the bark "Anita" sailed with about two
hundred men. Their main reliance for provisions
was the cattle of the country, taken without com-
punction of conscience, and if the owners were not
satisfied with the only pay offered by Walker's band,
they were insulted, and in some cases beaten or even
shot. Unable to contend on equal terms with the
invaders, most of the Mexican rancheros in the vicin-
ity fled with their families and cattle, and the filibus-
ters were compelled to move sooner than they had
intended, though they never expected to stay long at
Muertos.
Walker announced his intention of marching to
Sonora, and issued a proclamation annexing that
state to his dominion and announcing that the name
of the nation was the Republic of Sonora. All this
was done with the most solemn sincerity on his part,
but the men ridiculed the procedure and had no in-
tention of marching, without proper supplies, four
hundred miles through a desolate country and then
entering the settled districts of Sonora with less than
three hundred men. They were desperate, but not
insane. They did not object to danger, but they
Avanted some reasonable hope of compensation. They
were willing to plunder the Mexicans, but the pros-
THE GOLDEN ERA. 205
pect of a long march through a desert, with the pos-
sibiHty that just after crossing it they would be shot
down like dogs, did not suit them. So most of them
deserted, crossed the line, and became peaceful Amer-
ican citizens again. Walker took a serious view of
their desertion, regarding it as treason to his au-
thority, and having caught some of the offenders,
shot two and drummed two others out of cam]) after
a severe flogging. He shortly afterwards started on
his march with about one hundred men, but the
Mexicans harassed them so much that there was no
hope of saving the cattle on which they depended for
food, and they were glad to reach the American ter-
ritory and surrender themselves to federal officers
w4io had been informed of their coming. They were
taken as prisoners to San Francisco, where President
Walker, Vice-President Watkins and Secretary of
State Emory were indicted for violating the neutral-
ity laws. Watkins was convicted after a long trial,
and fined fifteen hundred dollars; but as there was no
alternative of imprisonment, and as he never paid the
fine, there was no punishment. He might have saved
some time for himself, and much needless trouble to
the federal officials, by pleading guilty. Emory hav-
ing seen that the vindication of the neutrality law
was i^ot a very grave matter, pleaded guilty, and
was in like manner ordered to pay fifteen hundred
dollars into the United States treasury, an order
which he never condescended to obey. Walker him-
self was acquitted, and his republic of Sonora and
206 HISTORY OF SAN FRANCISCO.
Lower California disappeared from the records of the
criminal courts and the chronological tables.
Sec. 99. Six Years Work. The period of nearly
six years from the beginning of the gold excitement
till the end of 1853, was marked by a steady and rapid
increase in the production, or at least in the exportation
of gold, and therefore called ''The Golden Era," saw
San Francisco rise suddenly from the condition of an
insiofnificant villasfe, almost unknown to commerce and
geography, to that of one of the leading seaports, with
a semi-monthly steam communication by way of Pan-
ama with New York, and the illumination of the
North Pacific ocean and its shores with the brig-ht
light of high civilization. The tents and shanties that
made up a large part of the city for .several years after
the gold discovery, having been cleared away by the
great fires, were succeeded by substantial brick build-
ings, and a hundred acres of the bay were filled in to
make room for more. Everything that was necessary
for a metropolitan center of business — warehouses,
wharves, banks, large stocks of merchandise, extensive
relations with distant markets, and able newspapers,
as well as the social wants of schools, theaters, libraries
and churches — were supplied at short notice.
California, like San Francisco, rose as if at one bound
from the stagnation of semi-barbarous pastoral life to
the varied arts and restless activity of a refined civ-
ilization. All the energies were drawn to the mines
and the means of supplying them. Agriculture and
the agricultural districts were neglected. Although
THE GOLDEN ERA. 207
money was abundant and there was a great rush of
people to the mineral regions, their apparent pros-
perity was delusive. The miners generally lived in
tents and rude cabins, without wives or female rela-
tives, without permanence of residence or regularity of
occupation. Deprived of the influences of home life,
many became dissipated or extravagant and lost the
disposition, if they ever had the capacity, to save their
earnings. The government did not permit them to
acquire fee-simple titles to their claims, or even to
farms in the vicinity, and having no opportunity to
enrich the land they despoiled it. The more they
made, the poorer it became. The wagon roads were
bad, or were covered by heavy tolls; there were no
railroads; and business generally was conducted on the
hand-to-mouth principle as nearly as possible. Gam-
bling was carried on publicly in all the towns, and the
most costly champagnes and cigars were imported
from France and Havana for men who supported
themselves by the pick and shovel. In 1850, settle-
ments had been made in nearly all the towns now ex-
isting in the mining districts on the western slope of
the Sierra Nevada between Mariposa and Oroville;
El Dorado was the most populous county in the state;
Sacramento, Stockton and Marysville were the chief
river ports where the miners got their supplies ; and
Petaluma, Vallejo, Napa, Santa Rosa, San Rafael,
Martinez, Santa Clara, Redwood, and Eureka on Hum-
boldt bay, were centers of business in the coast region.
208 HISTORY OF SAN FEANCISCO.
CHAPTER Y.
THE GOLDEN ERA IN DECLINE.
Section 100. 1854. The flush times of 1853 were fol-
lowed by a serious depression in the next year. There
was a decline of four million dollars in the gold export-
ation, a decrease of one fourth in the tonnage of the
vessels entering the port, and a still greater decrease in
the prices of real estate. A fever for erecting fire-proof
brick buildings had followed the great conflagration of
1851 and had outrun the demand, and now hundreds
of the business houses were vacant. The increase of
agricultural production in the state had greatly reduced
the demand for imports; and having supplied nothing
of note for exportation, it cut off much of the traffic of
resident merchants, as well as of foreign shipowners.
Mr. Broderick attempted to take advantage of the state
by getting himself elected to the federal senate a year
in advance of the proper time, but failed, and the people
gave an overwhelming majority at the September elec-
tion to his opponents, the chivalry candidates. The
gas works went into operation and furnished light for
the streets in February. Omnibuses began to run be-
tween North Beach and South Park at intervals of half
an hour. The owners of the steamboats plying on the
inland waters tributary to the Golden Gate, combined
in the California Steam Navigation Company, which for
fifteen years afterwards had control of the passenger and
freight traffic between San Francisco and the chief in-
THE GOLDEN ERA m DECLINE. 209
land ports. The Hoadley grades were modified, sav-
ing about one hundred feet on the top of Telegraph Hill,
which Hoadley had proposed to cut down so much.
Portsmouth square, previously open, uneven and filthy,
was graded, supplied with an iron fence, and planted
with grass, ornamental trees and shrubs. In October,
Henry Meiggs failed for eight hundred thousand dollars,
and fled to Chile, after issuing forged city warrants,
forged promissory notes and fraudulent shares in a lum-
ber company to the amount of two hundred thousand
dollars or more. Paving with cobble stones, as prefer-
able to planking, was introduced in those blocks where
land was most valuable, and among the streets thus
improved were Montgomery between California and
Washington, and Washington between Montgomery and
Dupont. Powell street was graded from Clay to North
Beach. Pacific was graded between Montgomery and
Sansome, by a deep cut through rock. A road to North
Beach was opened along the eastern base of Telegraph
Hill. Meiggs' wharf was built, and Lone Mountain
cemetery was opened, superseding Yerba Buena cemetery
for general use.
Sec. 101. Dillon and Del VaUe. The arrest of Del
Yalle, Mexican consul in San Francisco, as principal,
and of Dillon, French consul, as accomplice in the vio-
lation of the neutrality laws of the United States, by en-
listing Frenchmen to serve in the Mexican army, was
followed by trials which excited great interest at the
time. The testimony showed that the men were en-
gaged as colonists, not as soldiers ; but it was understood
14
210 EISTOBY OF SAN FRANCISCO.
they might be required to serve in the Mexican army,
especially if the American filibusters should become
troublesome, and the jury, perhaps influenced by the
feeling prevalent in the community, that the French
should not be permitted to put any obstacle in the way
of the march of American annexation, found Del Yalle
guilty. In the case of Dillon the jury disagreed. Del
Yalle was never sentenced, and the American govern-
ment apologized to Mr. Dillon for having arrested him
illegally for refusing to appear as a witness in the Del
Valle case. Before the trials were ended, Raousset had
been executed, and all fears of a French occupation of
Sonora had been dissipated.
Sec. 102. Mercantile Business. The business of the
merchant in San Francisco for years after the gold dis-
covery was exposed to frequent and violent fluctuations,
which could not be avoided by any experience or pru-
dence. The city was the sole port of the only large and
highly civilized community on the north Pacific. It
was far from the other notable seaports in the same ocean,
and as a market for imports was nearly equal to all the
others together. No other Pacific port could exercise
much influence by relieving the extremes of demand or
supply at San Francisco ; none could furnish the articles
most needed by the miners. Oregon had only thirteen
thousand inhabitants in 1850, and most of them were
new settlers and busy in opening farms, so that they had
little to export. Mexico had nothing to sell save silver ;
Asia nothing that California wanted save rice and sugar;
Australia and Chile little save flour, and that was not to
THE GOLDEN ERA IN DECLINE. 211
be had regularly in large supply. The north Atlantic
was the source from which nearly everything was brought.
The distance from New York to San Francisco by the
sailing route was nineteen thousand miles, and the time
four months and a half, though the trip was repeatedly
made in three months. All the freight before the open-
ing of the Panama railroad, in 1855, came by way of
Cape Horn. Letters by the isthmus required nearly a
month ; and after the receipt at New York of an order
for merchandise to be sent to California, two or three
weeks usually elapsed before a ship willing to take addi-
tional freight would sail. Thus, between the date of the
order sent from San Francisco and that of the final de-
livery of the merchandise, there was an interval of six
months, and there might be great fluctuations in that
time. The merchant had to take the chances that the
market would be overstocked or exhausted. He could
not learn precisely what had been ordered by others, for
the manifests sent out b}' mail and published after the
departure of each ship from New York with a cargo for
California, classed many articles as sundries, and often
gave the number of packages without weight or size, so
that when the article shipped was known, there was no
clear indication of the quantity.
For many reasons it was not possible to keep large
stocks on hand. The rate of interest in 1849 was ten
per cent, per month, so that it was better to sell an
article immediately after receipt for one dollar and loan
the money than to keep it a year and then sell for
two dollars. Such warehouses as there were, were not
212 HISTORY OF SAN FRANCISCO.
secure against fire. Merchandise could be put in store-
ships, but the storage was from two^ to ten dollars a
month per ton, and the lighterage, or transfer from the
ship to the shore, was three or four dollars per ton.
The merchants were newcomers, many of them inexpe-
rienced in the business, or men under thirty, so that they
could not have long-established reputations. All the
houses were highly' combustible and liable to be swept
away at two hours' notice by a conflagration, and the
land-titles were defective, thus leaving the people without
such basis for credit in their real estate as every com-
munity should have for high prosperity. The popula-
tion was migratory, and sudden reverses of fortune were
frequent. If there was not enough of an article, it would
go up ten, a hundred, even three hundred-fold: if there
was an overstock it might go down to nothing. The
arrival of one ship often changed the condition from
scarcity to glut, and made or marred several fortunes.
Lumber was worth four hundred dollars a thousand
feet in the fall of 1849, twelve times the present price,
and in the spring of 1850 it would not sell for enough to
pay freight. Tobacco, which had commanded two dollars
per pound, had been imported so abundantly that in
the winter of 1849 boxes of it were thrown into the mud
as a substitute for stepping-stones, and other boxes of it
were used to make a foundation of a wooden house on
the eastern side of Montgomery street, near Jackson.
Saleratus, which could be bought in New York for four
cents a pound, ran up to twelve and fifteen dollars. The
miners generally having no professional bakers, nor yeast,
THE GOLDEN ERA JN DECLINE. 213
nor skill in baking, depended upon it to make their
bread light, and would have paid twenty dollars a pound
rather than go without. Dried apples fluctuated from
five to seventy-five cents a pound ; whisky from forty
cents to two dollars per gallon ; carpet-tacks, which sold
for ten cents a paper in New York, sold here at one time
for one dollar and twenty-five cents; common candles
rose to one dollar and tw^enty-five cents a pound, and
New York butter, after rising to eighty, fell to six cents.
Apothecaries' scales, used in every business place
for weighing gold dust, commanded high prices. Spring
balances, worth three dollars a dozen in New York, sold
for seventy-five dollars in San Francisco. Heavy canvas
was used extensively for tents ; and the rough boarding
on the inside of wooden houses — or if there were no
boards, the studding — was hidden under white muslin,
w^hich was fastened with tacks, of which, as well as of
the muslin, there was a large consumption.
An example of the urgency with which things were
wanted when they were wanted, was furnished by the
keeper of a saloon who needed a large punch bowl in
1849, but could find none for sale. The nearest ap-
proach to it was a soup tureen, and not being able to
buy it separateh^ he took 'the whole dinner set to which
it belonged, though he had no use for the other pieces.
Another keeper of a liquor shop having failed to find
any white sugar in the market, bought barrels of Chinese
candy and had it ground fine, as preferable to brown
sugar.
In 1850 four firms made an agreement to take all the
214 HISTORY OF SAN FRANCISCO.
flour that should be delivered by a certain house from
Chile within a limited period, the amount to be not less
than one hundred thousand nor more than two hun-
dred thousand barrels, at fourteen dollars per barrel.
Each firm assumes a responsibility of seven hundred
thousand dollars, and there was a forfeit of one hundred
thousand dollars for a failure to comply with the con-
tract. Soon after the flour began to arrive the purchasers
thought they were secure of a vast profit, the market
price being from twenty-five to thirty dollars per barrel.
They had pocketed several hundred thousand dollars,
and could have paid the one hundred thousand dollars
forfeit, thrown up the contract, and had a nice surplus
for themselves; but they kept on taking the flour, which
began to fall under the influence of the large importa-
tions till it went down to ten dollars, and they lost all
they had made and something more.
Sec. 103. Staple Imports. As a result of the necessity
of importing provisions, the diet of the miners was pe-
culiar. The leading articles of food imported, such as
would bear the voyage round Cape Horn (passing twice
through the torrid zone) with least injury, and possessing
the most nourishment in the least bulk, were flour, salt
meat, salt fish, beans, hard 'bread, rice, dried apples,
coffee and sugar. Even so late as 1853, six thousand
tons of hard bread were imported in one year from ISTew
York.
The San Francisco market was remarkable not less
for its fluctuations than for its leading articles, which
were different from those of any other city. Women
THE GOLDEN ERA IN DECLINE. 215
were very rare in the mines, and the business dependent
upon their patronage was scarcely worthy of mention.
There was not much more demand for fine broadcloth
than for ribbons and laces ; but a large proportion of the
articles which elsewhere every farm or neighborhood pro-
duces for itself, and which therefore do not pay tribute
to metropolitan merchants, were here imported. There
were no farms, in or near the mines, producing fresh
vegetables, fresh fruit, milk, butter, eggs, chickens and
pigs ; no housewives making soap, candles, pickles, sweet-
meats or clothing ; no flax or cotton was grown ; no slieep
were shorn ; no cloth was woven ; no leather was tanned ;
no clothes, shoes or hats were made; no pottery was
burned; no iron was smelted. A little wheat was
ground, scarcely enough to be taken into consideration.
The Californians had to send to New York for their
provisions, clothing, tools, cooking utensils, table furni-
ture, and many of the articles needed in building their
houses. Other communities imported only a few ar-
ticles relatively, and those few of subordinate value in
the ordinary business of life. Not so in California. If
they had been deprived of what they obtained from
abroad, the Californians could scarcely have lived for a
day.
Sec. 104. Commercial Panic. Early in 1854 a severe
panic smote the mercantile business. The marvelous
prosperity of the period from the beginning of 1851 till
the middle of 1853 had led to overspeculation. Men
supposed that the gold production, the imports, the value
of real estate, the demand for storage, and the population
216 HISTORY OF SAN FRANCISCO.
would go on increasing at the same ratio as in the pre-
vious two years ; and they made this supposition the basis
of their calculations and contracts. They bought lots,
built fire-proof houses, and ordered cargoes of merchan-
dise from the east, and would have doubled their capital
twice in a year, if their expectations of a continued in-
crease in the yield of the mines and in the number of
miners at the same rates as from 1849 to 1852 had been
verified ; but the mining jproduction had already culmin-
ated in the winter of 1852-3, though the fact was not
known or appreciated until several years later. The
yield was probably larger in 1852 than in any other
calendar year, though the exportation as officially report-
ed was largest in 1853, when it reached fifty-seven mil-
lions; the next year it fell to fifty-one, and in 1855 to
forty-three. The decline was at first attributed to un-
favorable seasons; to the lack of water in the diggings,
and to the early floods that swept away the dams and
flumes just when vast sums were about to be taken from
the beds of the rivers.
Whatever were the causes, the miners as a class felt
the results. Many returned to the eastern states ; others
removed to the valleys and sought employment on the
farms; thousands of claims previously highly productive
were abandoned ; only thirty-three thousand immigrants
came in 1853 by sea, though sixty-six thousand had
come in the previous year; the decline in production
frightened the people in the mines, and many of them
undertook to be economical ; consumption decreased, and
the prices of merchandise and land, and the rates of in-
THE GOLDEN ERA IN DECLINE. 217
terest fell in San Francisco. The city had more stores
and warehouses than she could use. Out of a thousand
business houses in the middle of 1854 more than three
hundred were unoccupied. Many of those who had
bought large supplies of merchandise, or built costly
fire-proof houses, failed in 1855, when they could bear
up no longer. There were two hundred voluntary bank-
rupts, with deficits of forty thousand dollars each, on the
average, in a city that probably had not forty thousand
inhabitants.
Something of the decay of business in the city must
be attributed to the growth of agriculture. Many of the
immigrants of 1852 had gone to farming, and they were
joined by thousands of miners in the next year, so that
there was a large increase in the production of grain and
vegetables, and a correspondent decline in the quantity of
flour imported, in the number of ships needed, and
in the profit of the consignees, warehousemen, jobbers,
and draymen in the city. The value of certain kinds
of provisions and grain imported was fourteen millions
in 1853, only five in 1854, two the next year, and one
in 1855. There was no compensating increase in the
exports, exclusive of the precious metals. Quicksilver
was more than one third in value of the exports between
1854 and 1857, and there was not enough of it in a year
to load one large clipper ship. The shipping entering
the harbor fell from four hundred and seven thousand
tons (not counting steamers which carried little freight,
or coasters) in 1853, to one hundred and ninety-seven
thousand in 1857.
218 HISTORY OF SAN FRANCISCO.
Sec. 105. Meiggs. By superior knowledge of busi-
ness, attention to it, capacity, tact and manners, Henry
Meiggs became a prominent citizen of San Francisco in
1850. With a prepossessing appearance and address, a
kindly greeting for everybody, and a purse open for
every public need and for every call of meritorious pri-
vate charity, he was a general favorite. His decision
upon bargains proposed to him was quick and clear.
People had confidence in liis judgment. His occupation
in San Francisco was, as it had been in his native state,
New York, that of buying and selling lumber. His
place of business was at North Beach, where he built a
little wharf and a planing and sawing mill. He also
organized a company which erected in Mendocino county-
one of the largest and best sawmills in the state.
Meeting every day with the people owning land at
North Beach, listening to their predictions of the ad-
vance of their part of the city, he adopted their ideas,
became more sanguine than any of them, and satisfied
himself that by speculation in lots there he could make
millions. It was less than a mile from the business
center of the city ; it was nearer the Golden Gate ; it
had a larger area of level land ; it had a water front
where ships could anchor securely, though the winds
and waves were higher than in Yerba Buena cove ; it
might be reached on a level road by a cut round the
base of Telegraph Hill, and by Stockton street, over an
elevation that did not exceed eighty-five feet in height ;
the titles of land were better than at any place south of
California street, and the prices not one quarter of those
THE GOLDEN EH A IN DECLINE. 219
in the district south of Pacific and east of Stockton.
The city must grow, and every circumstance indicated
in Meiggs' opinion, that, by proper management, a large
part of its most valuable growth might be turned to
North Beach. The more he thought of it, the clearer it
became to him. Millions had been made by the owners
of water lots in Yerba Buena cove, and he imagined that
he could make as much out of the lots in North Beach.
They could be had cheap, so he bought extensively, per-
suaded his friends to buy, built Meiggs' wharf two thou-
sand feet long, and filled in some lots.
Having done more than anybody else for the improve-
ment of the northern end of the city, he became so popu-
lar in that neighborhood that there was a general demand
that he should represent it in the city council, and he
took the place. The cemetery in the block bounded by
Powell, Stockton, Lombard and Chestnut streets, was
regarded as a drawback to the growth of that part of
the city, and he obtained the passage of ordinances to
close it, and to remove the bones of those who had been
buried there to the new cemetery to be opened on the
blocli now occupied by the new city hall. He graded
part of Stockton street, and under his influence contracts
were let for grading Powell street from Clay to North
Beach, Francisco street through the northern end of
Telegraph Hill, and several other streets along the north-
ern and eastern sides of the hill, thus facilitating access
to North Beach from the business centre of the city.
Sec. 106. Forged Warrants. But these improvements,
the taxes and the street assessments, demanded more
220 HISTORY OF SAN FRANCISCO.
money than he could spare from his business. He had
expected that his lots would now advance considerably
in value, so that he could sell a few at a high profit, and
obtain the means for going on with his plans ; but the
people could not be made to believe in North Beach,
and besides, just at the time when he expected to sell —
that is, in the spring of 1854 — there was a serious de-
cline of real estate throughout the city. He was a
bankrupt ; but that fact was his own secret, and he under-
took to save himself by forgery, going into the business
extensively. The city was then doing business on trust,
giving to her creditors warrants or municipal promissory
notes, without interest, attested by the signatures of the
mayor and controller. Those officials were engaged in
private business, and did not guard the blank warrants
with proper care. Meiggs, as an alderman and business
man of high position, was a frequent visitor in their
offices. He was attorney in fact for a contractor, who
was entitled to a large number of warrants for street
work, and while getting them, could see where and how
the blank warrants were kept. The blanks were sup-
plied to the controller in book form, and it is supposed
that, for the convenience of the officials, the controller
signed a lot of blanks in advance, then the mayor signed
also, and the paper was ready to be filled with the
amount, name of creditor, date and number, torn out
and given to the creditor. This was not less careless
than convenient.
The city warrants were considered good security for
one half their nominal value. Many of them were used
THE GOLDEN ERA IN DECLINE. 221
by Meiggs as security for borrowed money. He was
constitutionally a borrower. From the time when he
undertook his North Beach speculation, he was never
out of debt; he was nearly always pushed. "' Shinning
round " for money was a large part of his regular busi-
ness. He said, in a joke, that it seemed an unnatural
situation to him if he left his dwelling in the morning
without having to hunt up a loan of forty thousand dol-
lars in the course of the day. He found that nothing
was accepted as security by the borrowers generally
with less objection, delay and suspicion than city war-
rants ; nor when he came to examine the circumstances,
could he find any other fraudulent paper which he could
obtain or use with so little danger to himself
There is reason to believe (for the facts were never
judicially or officially investigated) that Meiggs took a
book of blank warrants already signed by the mayor and
controller, and filled them up with the name, sum, date
and number, in some cases copying the warrants which
he had previously received, so that it would be a difficult
matter for the officials to distinguish between the original
and the duplicate. As no interest was to be paid on
them, and there were no funds with which to redeem
them, and no suspicions had been excited as to their gen-
uineness, the holders did not take them to the controller's
office for examination. Thus month after month went
by without the discovery of the forgery, and meantime
Meiggs was getting deeper and deeper into difficulty. To
prevent detection it was necessary for him to pay interest
punctually every month. Many of the lenders discov-
222 HISTORY OF SAN FRANCISCO.
ered that he was ready to pay more than the market
rate and they exacted from three to ten per cent, a month,
and some of them, it is said, even took one per cent, a
day. His burden rapidly accumulated until his debts
reached eight hundred thousand dollars; that was the
figure fixed by common rumor, and, if correct, he prob-
ably had to pay not less than thirty thousand dollars
monthly of interest. So long as he paid this, his cred-
itors generally were satisfied to let the debt stand, and
each might imagine that he was the only one to whom
Meiggs was paying heavy tribute.
Sec. 107. Other Frauds. The forged warrants were
not the only fraudulent resource of Meiggs. He used a
number of forged promissory notes, and it is supposed
that as he was not a skillful penman, the signatures,
which were very well done, were executed by a clerk in
his service. It is possible that some signatures repudi-
ated as forgeries after Meiggs' flight, would never have
been questioned if he had remained to defend himself.
By his course he placed himself at the mercy of some
who were worse morally than he was ; but never having
been publicly exposed, they could safely charge him with
offences which he had never committed, and by this in-
justice to him they avoided the payment of honest debts.
Among the forged notes used by Meiggs was one for fif-
teen thousand dollars, purporting to be drawn by Thomp-
son & Co. A member of the firm discovered the fraud,
but consented, under the influence of Meiggs' pleading,
to conceal it, told the holder of the note that it was all
right, and afterwards was compelled to pay it. Meiggs
THE GOLDEN ERA IN DECLINE. 223
made a fraudulent overissue of stock of the lumber com-
pany of which he was president to the amount of three
hundred thousand dollars, and upon this he obtained
seventy-five thousand dollars; so said rumor, accepted
at the time, but never proved to be true.
Sec. 108. Meiggs Flight. At last, in September, 1854,
it became evident to Meiggs that detection could not be
avoided much longer. His only chance to escape bank-
ruptcy and the consequent exposure of his frauds was
based upon the hope that real estate at ISTorth Beach
would come into demand ; but many circumstances indi-
cated that business would continue to grow w^orse rather
better. Besides, the manner of people towards him be-
gan to change ; his continuous solicitations for money,
his payment of high rates, and the multitude of his loans
became a subject of conversation and suspicion among
the brokers and bankers. They foresaw his failure. Re-
mark was made about his relation to street contracts, in
some of which it was supposed that he had an improper
interest. It was time for him to leave San Francisco.
He bought or chartered the brig ''American," of sev-
eral hundred tons, supplied it with a good lot of provis-
ions and fine stores, including canned meats and wines,
told his friends that he was going out to sail on the bay,
took his family and brother along, and on the sixth of
October sailed out through the Golden Gate and disap-
peared from the horizon of California. It was reported
on the same day that he had failed for eight hundred
thousand dollars, and when it was announced the next
day that he had fled there was a terrific excitement.
224 HISTORY OF SAN FRANCISCO.
The holders of the Meiggs warrants rushed to the City
Hall, and there many learned that they had nothing save
worthless paper as security. They numbered hundreds,
and belonged to all classes, including bankers, merchants,
city officials, mechanics, draymen and public women.
He had taken advantage of the people to whom he fur-
nished employment, and even his laundress was not
spared. The city treasurer was a victim to the extent of
twenty thousand dollars.
His brother, John Gr. Meiggs, who went with him, had
been elected city controller a month before, but had not
yet entered upon the duties of his office. His nomina-
tion was secured by Henry's influence, who perhaps
hoped to have an opportunity of managing the forged
warrants, so that their character would never become
known to the public. There was no reason to suppose
that John knew anything of the forgeries.
As there was no opportunity for trying him, the char-
acter and extent of his crimes were never established
judicially. Many of those robbed by him considered it
better for their credit to say nothing of the loss, save to
their intimate friends. It was reported in the news-
papers, at the time, that the nominal value of his forged
paper-warrants, stocks and notes, amounted to two million
dollars, and that he carried away five hundred thousand
dollars with him ; but afterwards the former figure was
reduced to seven hundred and fifty thousand dollars, the
latter to two hundred and fifty thousand dollars.
The bark "American" touched at Tahiti, and went
thence to Chile, where soon after his arrival he found
THE GOLDEN ERA IN DECLINE. 225
employment as an overseer of a small gang of men. His
story had followed him, and people generally regarded
him at first with suspicion and dislike ; but the railroad
contractors found that he was useful, and gave him a
chance to exercise his talents. The work was very
difficult, and the country poor in men competent to
take charge of a large number of laborers in an enter-
prise of this kind. It was new to Meiggs, but he had
high capacities, and was soon able to surpass all his
rivals. He became a contractor, succeeded, and built
the most difficult parts of the road between Valparaiso
and Santiago. He said afterwards that he landed in
Chile with only eight thousand two hundred dollars,
and that he was at one time so poor that he was com-
pelled to pawn his watch. Whether this was true or
not, it is certain that in a short time he was recognized
as a wealthy man, able to take contracts which required
the advance of large sums of money. After he became
well known, it was universally admitted that his arrival
in Chile had been a great benefit to the country. The
government, bankers, engineers, sub-contractors and
laborers agreed in praising him.
His fame filled South America. When Peru under-
took the construction of her system of railroads, he
was invited to become the principal contractor, and he
accepted the invitation. The possession of capital, ex-
perience and confidence gave him political influence, and
he became one of the leading men of Lima. He built
eight hundred miles of railroad, including some of the
most difficult work of the kind in the world, and re-
15 '
226 HISTORY OF SAN FRANCISCO.
ceived' on his contracts more than one hundred miUion
dollars in Peru. As in California, before his departure,
and in Chile, he succeeded in gaining general esteem.
For years he was anxious to return to San Francisco.
By agents he bought up nearly all his notes, though paying
in many cases only a small percentage of the principal
originally loaned to him. In 1873, his friends applied to
the legislature of California for the passage of a bill to
exempt him from trial for his crimes, in case he should
return. Both houses passed the bill, but the governor
vetoed it, and that was the end of it. If signed, it
would have been void ; for the constitution does not con-
fer the pardoning power upon the legislature. So Mr.
Meiggs stayed in Peru, where he died in 1877, and was
followed to the grave by the lamentations of the whole
people, who admired him not less for his amiable char-
acter and charitable deeds among them than for his
signal services to the country in the construction of its
railroads.
Sec. 109. 1855. As compared Avith 1854, which
had been a year of panic in real estate and great loss in
mercantile business for San Francisco, 1855 showed a
decrease of six million dollars in the gold shipment, and
of eighteen thousand in the number of immigrants arriv-
ing by sea. In February Page, Bacon &; Co.'s l^ank,
which had bought twenty million dollars' worth of gold
dust in the previous year, and was the leading financial
establishment of the state, failed in consequence of the
embarrassments of its parent house in St. Louis. This
disaster was followed by the failure of Adams & Co., the
THE GOLDEN ERA IN DECLINE. • 227
chief express company of California, and of many other
banking houses, most of which never resumed. Adams
& Co., who had built up the express traffic, and had a
much larger business (counting transportation, banking,
and the number of their servants together) than any
other house in the state, disappeared forever, and Wells,
Fargo k Co., the rival establishment, succeeded to the
place. An excitement about the Kern river mines
agitated the whole state, disturbed business in San Fran-
cisco during February, and then suddenly died out when
the truth became known. Broderick obtained control of
the democratic state convention and secured the renom-
ination of Bigler, whereupon the chivalry leaders joined
the new secret political society of the know-nothings, who
obtained control of the state and city administrations,
the Whig party having disappeared. The duty of the
legislature to elect a federal senator this year was not
performed, the members being unable to agree in a choice.
The floating debt of the city was funded, three hundred
and twenty-two thousand dollars in bonds being issued
for two million fifty-nine thousand dollars in city war-
rants, most of which were repudiated, while others were
acknowledged to be worth about one third of the sums
which the city had solemnly promised to pay. This was
an act of repudiation, the only one in the history of the
city, but was so represented to the people that they did
not fully appreciate the dishonesty of refusing to pay the
explicit obligations incurred by the officials.
Sec. 110. Adams & Co. In 1849, the house of
Adams k Co., expressmen, of Boston, sent D. H. Haskell
228 HISTORY OF SAN FRANCISCO.
as resident partner to found a branch house in San Fran-
cisco, where he arrived on the thirty-first October; and
in a few weeks Adams k Co. made larger shipments of
gold to New York than any other house. The business
increased rapidly, and a banking department was added
to the express, at the urgent solicitation of merchants.
At first Adams & Co. did not extend their routes beyond
Sacramento and Stockton, connecting at the former city
with Freeman & Co.'s express, which had routes thence
to the " northern mines," as they were then called, and
at the latter city with Newell k Co., which had offices
in the camps of the southern mines. Subsequently the
firms of Freeman and Newell were bought out, and
Adams k Co. had their offices and agents in all the
towns of any note in California. They were, in 1853,
unquestionably the leading business house of the state,
dealing with more people, furnishing more accommoda-
tion to commerce and industry, handling more money,
and probably making more profit than any other estab-
blishment. They undertook a careful system of assays to
ascertain the value of the gold dust from different camps
— ranging from fourteen dollars and fifty cents in parts of
Mariposa county to nineteen dollars and fifty cents on the
Lower Yuba — and they paid the miners the value, less
a moderate discount. Wherever they opened an agency,
the price of gold dust rose. By Adams k Co. the miners
sent money to their families in the eastern states — pro-
bably aggregating five hundred thousand dollars month-
ly — and also obtained their letters, which were often
addressed to San Francisco, and were there hunted out
THE GOLDEN ERA IN DECLINE. 229
by the express for their customers, scattered through the
Sierra Nevada. They used their influence efficiently to
introduce the private gold coin — five, ten and twenty
dollar pieces — struck by J. G. Kellogg and Wass, Molitor
& Co. This mone}^, though not authorized by law, con-
tained as much gold as the government mintage of the
same respective figures, and, in the scarcity of the other
coins, was a great convenience to the public. Some of
the bankers, expecting their profits in exchange and
gold dust to be diminished by the general acceptance of
the private coin, tried to excite prejudice against it, but
were defeated partly by the influence of Adams & Co.
In May, 1854, the eastern branch of Adams & Co.
was merged into a joint stock company, and the Califor-
nian branch was reorganized, with D. H. Haskell and I.
C. Woods as general partners and Alvin Adams as a
special partner, the business remaining' under the same
style and management, and continuing to extend and
gain favor. The profits of the express department were
about fifty thousand dollars a month, and the house had
a capital of two million dollars. A New York bank
which had promised to assist Page, Bacon & Co., of St.
Louis, in building and raising the money for a railroad
from that city to Cincinnati, having failed to keep its
engagement, the former house saw itself on the verge of
failure, and sent one of its partners to San Francisco to
get as much gold dust as possible. Unfortunately for the
Californians, the next steamer from Panama with the
news of the St. Louis trouble was behind time, so that
two steamers left San Francisco after the arrival of the
230 HISIOBY OF SAN FRANCISCO.
partner and before the people knew that a disaster was
coming. The result was that about one million dollars
more had been carried away tlian would have been if the
merchants and bankers had had the usual warning, and
the lack of that sum was probably the main cause of the
completeness of the crash that smote San Francisco on
the twenty-third February.
On the day when the run began on Page, Bacon
& Co., it became evident to Adams k Co.'s bank that
they would have to close the next day, and that the
attachments issued after the closing would not only
be a source of ruinous expense, but would give such
assets as might be saved from the ruin to a few cred-
itors, leaving the others to lose everything. The house
owed perhaps two million dollars to depositors — mostly
poor men, there were no savings banks then — and
the alarm was so great and general that it would all
be demanded the next day, though there was not cash
on hand to pay one tenth of it. A large portion of the
capital was in fire-proof brick buildings, which had de-
creased much in value with the decline of the mining
towns, and yet would pay a good profit on the invest-
ment if the express business could be continued, as the
resident partners hoped it would be.
To preserve the popularity and good-will of the ex-
press department, if possible, the resident partners con-
sidered it important to secure a ratable distribution of
the assets of the bank among the creditors. There was
then no federal bankrupt act, and the state law gave the
property to the attaching creditors according to the date
THE OOLDEN ERA IN DECLINE. 231
of their levies; so the first might get paid in full^ while
those later got nothing. To avoid the injustice of the
attachment law, if possible, it was considered advisable
to obtain the appointment of a receiver, who should act
as trustee for all the creditors and pay his fair share to
each. An amicable suit was therefore commenced in
the name of Adams against the other partners, and under
this proceeding, A. A. Cohen was appointed assignee,
with instructions to take charge of all the property.
The popular excitement was intense throughout the
state, the number of losers being great in the interior, as
M^ell as in the metropolis. The officers of the law in
various towns refused to recognize the receiver, seized
the assets within their reach, and distributed them to
the resident creditors, paying in many cases not only the
principal debt, but considerable sums for legal expenses,
arising from attachment suits. In one town the bank
was broken open by a mob and the money and dust in
the vault were paid out by a committee of citizens to
persons producing certificates of deposit, or claims backed
by writs of attachment. It was soon evident that neither
the banking nor express business could ever be revived.
Much of the property had been taken illegally, but the
costs of recovering it would far exceed its value.
On the night of his appointment as receiver, Mr.
Cohen, acting with the advice of his counsel, moved the
cash in the vault, for fear of a mob, from the house of
Adams & Co. to that of Alsop k Co., bankers. The
receivership having been declared illegal, under the
state insolvent law, the creditors held a meeting and
232 HISTOBY OF SAN FRANCISCO.
elected A. A. Cohen, Richard Roman, formerly state
treasurer, and Jones, of the firm of Palmer, Cook & Co.,
assignees, and by them the assets were transferred from
the house of Alsop & Co. to that of Palmer, Cook & Co.
Cohen, having obtained permission to leave the state for
three months, went to New York, and while there, Naglee,
who had been appointed receiver, demanded from Roman
and Jones the possession of the assets ; but in the mean-
time garnishments had been served by creditors on Pal-
mer, Cook & Co., and the assignees pleaded inability to
get the funds from the bank. The same demand was
made on Cohen, as one of the assignees, when he re-
turned, and he responded with the same plea. In a suit
by Naglee against Cohen, before Judge Hager, judgment
was rendered for two hundred and sixty-nine thousand
dollars, and he was imprisoned for contempt when he did
not pay. Meantime, the vigilance committee broke out;
Heydenfeldt, one of the three justices of the supreme
court, left the state ; Terry, another, was imprisoned by
the committee; Murray, the third justice, could not hold
court alone, and no other tribunal could release Cohen.
He was held in durance for six months, but when his
case was heard he was released on his plea that it was
an impossibility to get the assets from Palmer, Cook
&Co.
The law provided that a bank could not be discharged
under the insolvent law, and this principle had the corol-
lary that the assets of a bank could not be distributed
equitably among the creditors, so the assets of Adams &
Co. became the subject of a general scramble by creditors
THE GOLDEI^ ERA IN DECLINE. 233
and lawyers, and reams of paper were required to eon-
tain the legal records of the proceedings. Most of the
creditors got a trifle; some got payment three or five
times over; others, after partial collections, sold their
certificates to others, who collected again. Men who got
hold of property of Adams k Co. bought up claims, em-
ployed agents to garnishee them, and otherwise managed
to keep what they had. The litigation continued for
seven years, and most of the property was eaten up by the
litigation, or disposed of so that no judicial decree showed
what had become of it. A storm of obloquy for ^ears
followed the manager and the first receiver. The poor
depositors, who would have got most of the money in the
bank if the doors had not closed for the purpose of giving
the money to a receiver, obtained nothing, and they and
the press generally denounced the proceedings as a de-
liberate fraud, but the accusation was never made the
subject of trial in a criminal suit.
Sec. 111. Panama Railroad. The first railroad
train crossed the isthmus of Panama, from ocean to
ocean, on the twenty-third of Januar}^ Work had
been commenced in 1850 with the expectation that
the road would be finished within a year or two, at a
cost of not more than one million and a half dollars.
It was only forty-eight miles long ; its highest eleva-
tion was three hundred feet above the sea; for a con-
siderable distance it ran over ground nearly level; it
had neither long tunnels, deep rock cuttings, nor any
great river to cross; and the right of way cost little.
It had none of the difliculties that make railroads ex-
234 HISTORY OF SAN FRANCISCO.
ceptionally ex23ensive in the United States. Its pro-
jectors thought they had an immense fortune in their
hands, but they soon found unexpected obstacles. The
ignorance and indolence of the natives, and the fearful
mortality of the imjDorted laborers were beyond all
calculation. Graders died by thousands. The num-
ber of victims was never reported, and was studiously
concealed. The line at the eastern end ran for eight
miles through a swamp which smote nearly all who
worked in it with pestilence. While the laborers were
struck down with fever on the road, the New York
capitalists who had underttiken the enterprise were
borne down by the fearful expense. The millionaires,
Howland and Aspinwall, were induced to take hold
of the enterprise, and even they were in danger. At
last, however, by the help of Senator Gwin, hav-
ing obtained a mail contract which assured a large
revenue, and improved credit to them, they- were
enabled to see the work finished, after seven and a
half millions of dollars had been sj^ent upon it. The
discomfort of riding thirty miles on a mule, and trav-
eling thirty-five miles in a canoe under charge of rude
and nearly nude negroes, and the danger of catching
the virulent Panama fever, by sleeping on the ground,
were thus obviated, and the voyage between Noav
York and San Francisco became relatively a jDleasant
trip, as well as cheaper than before. Travelers, es^Dec-
ially those with large trunks, not unfrequently had to
pay seventy-five dollars to get from Chagres to Pan-
ama by boat and mule.
THE GOLDEN ERA IN DECLINE. 235
After the construction of the road, the number of
lady immigrants to California rapidly increased, and
so did the Californians of both sexes returning to the
east for short trips, to see their relatives and visit
their old homes. These travelers demanded cabin
passages, with luxurious accommodations — they did
not go in the steerage, as in earlier years — and the
Pacific Mail Steamship Company, which had previ-
ously built boats larger, more commodious, more ele-
gant, and higher above the water than any used or
that could with any reasonable degree of safety be
used on the stormy Atlantic, ordered other boats still
larger and more elegant — veritable ocean palaces.
Though the road and the Pacific mail steamers were
owned in New York, California supplied the motives
and the money for building them, and they were rela-
tively of more importance to San Francisco than to
any other city.
Sec. 112. Gambling. Gambling was a prominent
feature of San Francisco life before 1855. It had
been permitted under the Mexican dominion, had not
been punished under the military government that
came with the conquest, and was made a source of
revenue by the ayuntamiento in August, 1849. This
legalization coinciding with the great influx of immi-
grants by sea and land, and a large increase in the
gold yield, raised gambling to be one of the most
prominent branches of business in the city. The
gamblers had the best buildings in the busiest streets,
paid the largest rents, and had the most customers.
236 HISTORY OF SAN FRANCISCO.
Their halls on a level with the street were crowded
with people from dark till late in the night. Every-
thing was done to make these halls attractive. They
were brilliantly lighted, fine orchestras or companies
of vocalists furnished music, and elegant pictures
adorned the walls. On one side was a bar where
liquor could be had, but the main business was done
at the green tables rented to gamblers. And there
they sat with their gambling implements so long as
there was business or hope for it. There was usually
no lack of it, for these gambling saloons were the
general resort in the evening, and there could be
found officials, lawyers, merchants, mechanics and
hod-carriers. The professional gamblers were chiefly
Americans, French and Mexicans. The first class
had the faro tables, with the last monte was the favor-
ite, and the Frenchman preferred rouge-et-noir and
roulette. The games were such that there was no
limit to the number of participants, and that nobody
but the dealers should handle the cards or other im-
plements. Chairs were placed round the table, and
outside of the persons occupying seats stood sev-
eral lines of men, interested either in betting or in
watching ^the bets of others. Not unfrequently the
dealer had an assistant, sometimes a woman of pre-
possessing appearance elegantly dressed, seated on
the opposite side of the table, to collect the winnings
and pay the losses. The dealer usually called out be-
fore dealing "make your bets, gentlemen;" after a
few minutes he added, "the game is made; all down, no
THE GOLDEN ERA IN DECLINE. 237
more." Then he dealt, gathered in, paid out, and
went on as before. In front of the dealer was piled
up a stack of gold and silver coin. Mexican doub-
loons or ounces and Mexican dollars were in 1849 the
bulk of the money; later the slug or fifty dollar pieces
and the American half dollars occupied a large place.
Not unfrequently nuggets or purses of dust were
thrown upon the table, and if the owner won he
stated the weight, and the gambler examined the
article for a moment, and if he thought the statement
correct, or nearly so, he paid over its value in coin,
sometimes sacrificing something to avoid delay or
prevent complaints.
Among the notable gambling houses were the El
Dorado, on the south-east corner of Kearny and
Washington, the Vei^andah on the opposite side of
"Washington, the Bella Union, on the other corner,
the California Exchange, on the north-eastern corner
of Clay and Kearny, the Arcade, the Casino, and the
Polka on Clay and Commercial streets.
At one time a dozen large houses were occupied,
and each had from five to fifteen tables, with nearly a
hundred tables in all, and the coin displayed was
sometimes more than ten thousand dollars to a table,
the attraction increasing with the amount exhibited.
An adventurer would frequently pass a table with a
small stock of money, saying there was not so much
as he would win if the luck turned in his favor.
Sec. 113. Walker in Nicaragua. Walker's thirst
for filibuster glory was not satisfied by his campaign
238 HISTORY OF SAN FRANCISCO.
in Lower California. His reputation for courage, and
his ability to command the services of men worthy of
such a leader, brought an invitation to him from the
defeated rebels in Nicaragua. That country had been
devastated by a civil war between two hostile races,
the Spaniards on one side, and the Indians on the
other, the former having their chief strength in the
city of Grenada, the latter at Leon. The Grenadines
having triumphed, the Leoneses, willing to sacrifice
their country rather than submit to enemies of their
own nationality, appealed to "Walker. The oppor-
tunity of obtaining power in any portion of Spanish-
America was welcome to him, so he collected sixty
desperate followers, left San Francisco, landed in Nic-
aragua, and with the help of the Leoneses soon scat-
tered the Grenadine troops and reached a position in
which, with prudence and patience, he could have be-
come the virtual ruler of all Central America. But
prudence and patience were not among his qualities.
He did not know how to pacify the hostile, nor even
to confirm the friendly in their favorable dispositions.
He would neither regard rights nor conciliate preju-
dices, if he thought he could attain his end by over-
riding them, and he greatly overestimated his own
capacity. Thus it was that soon after conquering the
Spanish party, and while the Indians were willing to
concede to him the substance, though for their own
safety they could not surrender the show of power,
he defied them, assumed dictatorial power, and treated
disobedience to his orders as treason, to be punished
THE GOLDEN ERA IN DECLINE. 239
with death. Not content with offending the people
by turning upon his benefactors and excluding the
natives of the country from the highest offices, he un-
dertook to change its institutions, and abrogate the
laws prohibiting slavery.
Vanderbilt controlled the Nicaragua steamer line
connectino- New York with San Francisco, and thouo-h
he carried recruits and supplies to Walker gratuitously
or cheaply, he did not comply with all the demands
of the arch-filibuster who then ordered a sale of the
transit franchise across Nicaragua; and C. K, Gar-
rison, who had been Vanderbilt's agent, became the
purchaser. The Leoneses and Grenadines were now
united against him, and Colonel Cauty, an English-
man, another agent of Yanderbilt, managed, at the
head of a Costa Rica army, to sieze the steamer on the
lake, thus broke up the transit business, and deprived
Walker of a large part of the revenue and of the hope
of re-enforcements.
Through nearly two years of bloodshed and confu-
sion Walker ruled like a stolid madman, till he was
compelled by native victories to escape by surrender-
ing himself to United States officers, who took him
back to their country, whence he returned after six
months, but w^as captured by an American naval ves-
sel and taken again to New Orleans. He ventured to
Central America once more as a filibuster, and landed
in Honduras where he was shot in September, 1860.
Sec. 114. 1856. The general business depression
which began two years before continued through 1856.
240 HISTORY OF SAN FRANCISCO.
The general conviction rising in tlie public mind, that
the state had wonderful agricultural and horticultural
resources, the great areas of unoccupied federal land,
the final settlement of the titles of many of the large
Mexican grants, and the high wages, led to a demand
for immigration, and meetings were held to devise
means for constructing a good wagon road over the
Sierra Nevada, thus removing one of the chief obsta-
cles to the journey overland. Several years later the
road was completed from Placerville to Genoa in time
to render great service to the development of the Com-
stock lode. The merchants had, in 1854, reduced the
current value of francs from twenty-five to twenty
cents; in 1855 they refused to accept the octagonal
fifty dollar piece or slugs, coined by Moffatt & Co., and
in the year of 1856 they rejected the eagles, double
eagles and half eagles of private coinage, thus restrict-
ing themselves to gold and silver from the American
mints. Although under ordinary circumstances the
coinage of money without government authority is
treated as a crime, yet the demands of business in Cal-
ifornia were so imperious that millions of dollars, not
in imitation of the mint stamps, however, were coined
Avithout secrecy by citizens in San Francisco, circu-
lated with the favor of leading business men and ac-
cepted by everybod}'- at par. The material was gold,
usually mixed with about twelve per cent, of silver,
and without copper; and as each piece contained as
much gold as one of an equal denomination issued by
the government, and had the silver besides, it would
sell for more in the European market.
THE GOLDEN ERA IN DECLINE. 241
Something of the improvement in the city admin-
istration observable after this year, is to be credited
to the adoption of the consolidation act, or new city
charter, which created the county of San Mateo out
of what had previously been the southern part of the
county of San Francisco, and organized the city and
county of San Francisco as it now exists. There had
formerly been a county government and a city gov-
ernment, making much unnecessary expense, and giv-
ing many opportunities for political fraud. The aver-
age annual expenditure of the city government for
seven years from 1849 to 1856 was two million dol-
lars; and for the next seven years only six hundred
and fifty thousand dollars, justifying the inference that
one million three hundred and fifty thousand dollars
had been wasted or stolen every year before the time
of the vigilance committee.
Sec. 115. Political Corruption. The American
political system had in 1855 reached a greater depth
of corruption in San Francisco than in any other part
of the United States. The people were new-comers,
not long acquainted with their leading men, and their
officials were selected at random. The profits of mer-
cantile business and mechanical labor far exceeded the
salaries of most of the government offices, which, be-
sides, were as a class beyond the reach of men who
would not bribe conventions and descend to low
associations. The sudden and comjDlete formation of
the American government of California was not more
wonderful than was the organization of the spoils sys-
16
242 HISTORY OF SAN FRANCISCO.
tern of party management in San Francisco, under the
lead of men who had received the highest education
in political corruption before they left New York,
which city furnished about one sixth of the population
of the Californian metropolis, including a majority of
those who controlled the dominant faction of the dom-
inant party. All the arts founded or perfected by
Tammany Hail or the Albany Regency for defrauding
the jDeople out of a fair choice in the nomination of
candidates or the election of officials were practised by
master hands in San Francisco. Party conventions,
as expressions of public opinion, -became a farce. The
vilest ruffians were publicly employed by prominent
politicians with instructions that they must carry such
and such wards. When election day approached, as-
sociations were publicly formed for the purpose of
selling their votes to the highest bidders. Gangs of
men marched or went in wagons from one precinct to
another, voting in every ward. There were several
voting places where the ballot box was in charge of
men ready to take out the genuine ballots, in case of
need, and substitute others; and some of the boxes had
false sides, in which the fraudulent tickets were hid-
den in advance.
Most of the policemen were appointed to reward
partisan service, and were grossly inefficient and cor-
rupt. They could be trusted for untiring labor in
elections, but little was to be expected from them in
the matter of arresting criminals who had money or
influence. Some of the j udges were honest, but the
T^E GOLDEN ERA IN DECLINE. 243
laws were full of technicalities for the benefit of the
guilty, and the executive officers whose duty it was
to collect evidence against criminals neglected their
duty. In fact, some of the boldest and most danger-
ous criminals in California were themselves officials.
A thousand homicides had been committed in the
city between 1849 and 1856; and there had been only
seven executions. The crimes upon the ballot-box,
the corruptions of the public service, the prominence
of notorious ruffians and their patrons in city offices,
the forgeries of Meiggs, and the failure of the courts
to administer criminal justice promptly, or to clearly
fix the blame for the failure of Adams & Co., upon
some individual, had tried the patience and provoked
the indignation of the people, until there was a gen-
eral desperation. The opinion prevailed that ft was
impossible to correct these political crimes in accord-
ance with law; the only remedy was to be reached by
a disregard of the law.
Sec. 116. Murder of King. While popular feeling
was thus excited, at least among the more respectable
classes of society, the '' Bulletin" made its appearance
and devoted its bitter energies to the denunciation of
the crimes and criminals that had given most offense.
Many of its attacks upon individuals were not sus-
tained by any proof, or even plausible testimony, and
others were unjust and even inexcusable; but these
mistakes were overlooked by the people generally for
the sake of the good motives attributed to Mr. King,
the editor; and he was regarded, if not by the ma-
244 HISTORY OF SAN FRANCISCO.
jority, at least by a considerable portion of the com-
munity, as the man who should lead to a purification
in the management of public business. No editor had
before or has since in California reached so exalted a
position as a hero in popular estimation.
Such were the circumstances when on Tuesday,
May 14, 1856, he mentioned in his journal the fact
that James P. Casey (who recently, while inspector of
election in the Twelfth ward, at a time when he was
not known as a candidate for office, had stuffed tickets
with his own name on them as a supervisor into the
ballot-box and then declared himself elected.) was a
graduate of the New York state prison at Sing Sing.
This statement was true; but Casey, who, though he
had committed many breaches of the j)eace at San
Francisco without subjecting himself to any punish-
ment, thought he could safely wash out the exposure
of his convict character with blood. The '' Bulletin"
containing the offensive article was published about
three p. m., and two hours later. King on his way
home was stopped at the corner of Montgomery and
Washington streets by Casey, who when about fifteen
steps distant, called out to him " Draw and defend
yourself;" and a second later, before King could draw
his pistol, fired. The bullet struck him in the left
breast, passed through his lung, and came out under
his shoulder blade. He staggered into an office near
by, and sank helpless. The wound was evidently
dangerous, and whether it was to be fatal or not, there
was no doubt of Casey's murderous intent.
THE GOLDEN ERA IN DECLINE. 245
The news that the popular editor had been shot
spread through the city in half an hour, and at six
o'clock the sheriff was afraid that the angry multitude
collected around the jail, to which Casey had been
hurried for safety by his friends, would take him out
by force. The mayor vainly harangued them in favor
of law and order. They hooted him, and remained
there till a late hour of the night waiting for a leader,
but none came.
Sec. 117. Vigilance Committee of 1856. The en-
emies of the prevalent political corruption, including
many who had no special admiration for Mr. King, saw
the opportunity in the popular excitement, to correct
some of the abuses of the government. The recollec-
tion of the vigilance committee of 1851 was still fresh
in the minds of many who had participated in it, and
its reputation was good with those who had come to
the city since. Its method of procedure was a pre-
cedent; its members were solicited to become the
leaders in a new organization. All the men of the
city were in the street that evening, and there was a
general demand for a vigilance committee.
About nine o'clock notice was circulated that a
meeting would be held in Cunningham's warehouse on
Battery street, near Union, for the purpose of forming
a committee. After several hundred persons had col-
lected an attempt was made to organize, but some of
the most active persons were looked upon with suspi-
cion, and there was no cordial support of any proposal.
Many of those present moved off into another room
246 HISTORY OF SAN FRANCISCO.
and they, too, failed to agree upon and plan of action.
Other later efforts had similar abortive results, and
finally they separated without doing anything.
The next morning notice was published that there
would be a meeting at a house on Sacramento street,
below Battery. The place had been occupied for a
Know-nothing lodge, was spacious and had double
doors with wickets, well fitted for holding secret meet-
ings. Door-keepers excluded all who were not vouched
for by the few who engaged the hall, and these few
were mostly ex-members of the committee of 1851.
So soon as the people learned the character of the
movement there was a great rush for admission, but
much caution was used and they got in slowly. Some
of the prominent business men made a little gathering
and discussed the method of organization. Sugges-
tions that an oath should be taken, that every member
should sign his name, and that he should be known
by the number in the order of his signature were
favorably received. A book w^as obtained, an oath
written in it, and a clerk placed in charge of the rec-
ord. There had been an executive committee five
years before, and W. T. Coleman, one of its active
members, a ready talker, a good worker, and a poj)ular
man, was urged to become one of the new executive
committee. Finding that his excuses were not accept-
ed, and that his efforts to put others before him were
overruled, he yielded, and then asked a dozen or more of
the merchants near him, one by one, whether they
would serve with him. They said "yes," and thus
THE GOLDEN EBA IN DECLINE. 247
was formed the nucleus of the executive committee.
Afterwards they elected about a score of others, some
of them being chosen to represent certain nationalities
and occupations, so as to command the support and
confidence of the people generally. The executive
committee had full control, originated every order, and
decided every question. The members were not chosen
by the body which they governed; their names were
not submitted to it for approval. The power appeared
to be thrust into their hands, and after the start had
been made neither they nor the multitude objected,
though if the duration of the work, and the expense,
which far exceeded expectation, could have been fore-
seen, the organization would doubtless have been made
in a different manner. Some of the executive com-
mittee Avere indiscreet, and others inefficient, but the
result proved that it had a large preponderance of pru-
dence and administrative capacity. Isaac Bluxome,
who had been secretary of the executive committee in
the first organization, had the same position in the
second. In many ways the experience of 1851 was
made available in 1856.
Sec. 118. Swift Organization. So many members
were received on the first day that no room in the
building on Sacramento street could hold those who
wanted to stay there, and the place of assemblage
was transferred to the large hall of the Turn-verein
building on Bush street near Powell. This place
was filling up in the evening when the president of
the executive committee gave notice that all the
248 HISTORY OF SAN FRANCISCO.
members numbered from one to one hundred inclusive
would form a military company, and should meet in
a designated corner of the hall and elect their officers,
subject to approval by the executive comDiittee;
while those numbered from one hundred and one to
two hundred should meet in another corner and form
another company, and so on. The French, however,
who were numerous, and were scattered irregularly,
as to their numbers, among the others, and were
ordered to organize separate companies, because few
of them could speak English.
This distribution of the members into military com-
panies gave occupation to all, as the arming and
drilling began immediately; and partially relieved the
executive committee from questions and advice.
The executive committee distributed its work among
sub-committees. Great zeal was shown by the offi-
cials generally, and with marvelous rapidity three
thousand men were armed, drilled and established
in armories, while arrangements were made at the
same time for covering a large expense, and meeting
many contingencies of political or other character.
Several of the militia companies in the city dis-
banded because they were unwilling to be called into
service against the committee, which they then joined,
taking their muskets with them; and arms were ob-
tained from various sources, so that there Avas soon a
good supply. On the second day several companies
under arms were stationed in the streets near head-
quarters to prevent any interruption of the proceed-
THE GOLDEN ERA IK DECLINE. 249
ings. There was a general susiDension of business, so
that citizens could attend to what they considered the
most pressing duty. They dev^oted themselves to it,
and in three days had got into good working order.
Sec. 119. Execution of Casey and Cora. The first
meeting had been held on Wednesday, and on Satur-
day the executive committee instructed a sub-commit-
tee to make arrangements for taking Casey from the
jail the next day. Twenty-four companies were called
to assemble at nine o'clock on Sunday mornino- at
their respective armories in different parts of the city;
and then further orders were delivered to each cap-
tain to march to a certain position on Broadway, near
Dupont. No information had been given to the pub-
lic, nor to the captains, beyond the brief note sent to
each, but it was well understood that when the viof-
ilance committee moved something serious was to be
expected. The streets bristled with bayonets; mili-
tary companies marched without music, noise or con-
fusion to their designated stations; and citizens, not
members of the organization, filled the streets and
covered the hills near the jail to watch the proceed-
ings. An artillery company with a brass cannon halted
in front of the jail and turned the gun upon it. When
all the military arrangements had been made, two
vigilance ofiicials went to the door and informed
Sheriff Scannell that they had come to take Mr.
Casey. They were told that no resistance would be
made. Casey begged permission to speak ten minutes
before he should be hanged, his expectation being evi-
250 HISTORY OF SAN FRANCISCO.
dently that he would be executed without delay. He
was assured that he should have a fair and deliberate
trial, with a right to be heard in his defense. He
submitted then with a good grace, was led out, placed
in a carriage, and driven under strong guard to the
vigilance headquarters, where he was securely im-
mured. Charles Cora, who had murdered United
States Marshal Richardson, and had' been tried once,
with a disagreement of the jury, was also taken from
the jail to the same place. On Monday King died,
and on Tuesdaj^ the executive committee, acting as a
jury, tried Casey. No person was present at the trial
save the accused, members of the vigilance committee
and witnesses. The testimony was given under oath
though there was no lawful authority for its administra-
tion. Hearsay testimony was excluded; the general
rules of evidence observed in the courts were adopted;
the accused heard all the witnesses, cross-examined
those against him, summoned such as he wanted in
his favor, had an attorney to assist him, and was per-
mitted to make an argument by himself or his attorney
in his own defense. Both Casey and Cora were con-
victed.
On Wednesday, King was buried with a grand and
solemn funeral, the whole city being draped in mourn-
ing; and while the procession was on the way to the
cemetery, and in sight of it, Casey and Cora w^ere
hanged in front of the vigilance headquarters. Both
claiming to be Catholics, were shrived by priests of
their faith before execution, and their corpses were
THE GOLDEN ERA IN DECLINE. 251
buried by their respective friends with much display.
Casey at the time of his death was foreman of a vol-
unteer fire company, which erected a monument over
him in the graveyard of the old Mission church,
with an inscription, ''The Lord have mercy on my
persecutors." The public woman who had supported
Cora during the latter year of his life, and had been
married to him in prison, provided a monument for
him.
Before the execution of the two criminals, the
sentences were submitted to and approved by the
board of delegates, consisting of three members from
each company, one of the delegates being usually its
captain. This board was designed to prevent the
adoption by the executive committee of any measure
that would not give satisfaction to the majority of
the members, and to exclude the suspicion of an in-
tention to make a dangerous use of power.
Sec. 120. Ballot-hox Stuffers. Having got rid of
Casey, w^hose execution required urgency, the execu-
tive committee settled down into regular business.
They established a kitchen in their building, required
half a dozen or more of their members to be present
at all hours, and went to work to correct political
abuses. They arrested half a dozen persons on charges
of ballot-box stuffino-, and amcno- these was James
Sullivan, a native of Ireland, a prize-fighter, a con-
victed felon, a refuQfee from New South Wales, to
which colony he had been transported, and a ballot-
box stufFer, in which last capacity he had helped
252 HISTORY OF SAN FRANCISCO.
Casey to the place of supervisor. Demoralized by
fright, he confessed his crimes and the promise that,
as he was not guilty of murder, he would not be
hanged, did not suffice to give him confidence. He
committed suicida by cutting an artery in his arm
with a table knife. It was the impression of those
who observed him for several days before his death,
that the unwonted deprivation of distilled liquor
which he had used largely every day for years, pro-
duced a disease in some respects similar to delirium
tremens.
The executive committee were careful to take no
evidence except that which would be received in the
courts, and to execute no prisoner unless he had com-
mitted a crime punishable with death under the law
of California. What should be done with the crimi-
nals guilty of ballot-box stuffing and frauds upon the
public treasury ? They could not be consigned to the
government prisons nor compelled to pay fines; and
these were the usual punishments. No penalty seemed
so convenient as banishment; about a score were taken
to vessels bound for foreign ports, most of them to
the Panama steamers, when about to leave the wharf,
put on board, told that they would be hanged if they
should come back, and sent away. One of the exiles
returned while the committee w^as still in existence;
but instead of executing him the committee explained
that he would be spared because, on account of his
nervous condition, his sentence with the penalty of
death for return was not read to him.
THE GOLDEN ERA IN DECLINE. 253
The vigilance organization did not interfere in any
way with the ordinary business of the courts and the
poHce. The district courts sat every day to try suits
involving rights of property, and the criminal courts
sentenced offenders for theft, assault and drunkenness
as in ordinary times. The city was far more orderly
than ever before or since. The professional criminals,
as a class,, fled in terror. They would rather work for
a living than face the danger of prompt and severe
justice. Everybody was on his good behavior.
Sec. 121. Law and Order Party. Meantime the
state authorities were not idle. The governor selected
W. T. Sherman (who had before been in the federal
army, and is now its highest general) to command
the militia in the district of San Francisco, and put
down the committee by force. Sherman entered
upon the duties of his position with zeal, but found
himself confronted by many difficulties. The com-
mittee, supported by a strong public opinion and
liberal money contributions, had obtained nearly all
the arms in the city. The law and order party were
divided among themselves and almost without funds.
A public meeting held by the law and order party
to organize opposition to the committee was a failure.
The governor applied to General Wool of the United
States army for aid with the federal troops, and was
denied. Some of the responsibility for this action was
attributed to Dr. Gwin, who, according to report, was
pleased to see the manner in which Broderick's polit-
ical friends were treated. Certainly Gwin did not
254 HISTORY OF SAN FRANCISCO.
distinguish himself by hostility to the committee; nor
would it have been politic for him or his party to do
so on the eve of a ]3residential election. Sherman,
finding that he could not procure arms, and that his
views did not agree with those of Governor Johnson,
resigned. Yolney E. Howard was appointed to suc-
ceed him, but did nothing of note.
Sec. 122. Arrest of Terry. The next step of Gov-
ernor Johnson was to request President Pierce to
order the military and naval forces of the United
States to attack the committee; and he reported that
the committee was hostile to the federal authority, and
meant secession. This assertion commanded no credit,
and injured the influence of Governor Johnson. His
application was denied.
On the twenty-first of June, S. A. Hopkins, a
vigilance sergeant, wnth two soldiers, was ordered to
arrest Peuben Maloney, who was wanted as a witness
to testify in reference to some state arms which had
been shipped in his custody for the state troops from
Sacramento to San Francisco on a schooner which J. L.
Durkee, under order from the committee, had seized at
the strait between San Pablo and San Francisco bays.
Maloney was in a room with D. S. Terry, chief justice
of the supreme court of the state, and a friend, and
they said Maloney should not be arrested in their
presence. The sergeant went off", soon returning with
reinforcements, met Malony and his companions going
to the state armory, and undertook to make the ar-
rest there. Pesistance was offered, and Hopkins hav-
THE GOLDEN ERA IN DECLINE. 255
ing seized Terry's gun, the latter stabbed him in the
neck, inflicting a wound which it was supposed would
prove fatal, though fortunately it soon healed. Terry
was held a close prisoner for seven weeks, went through
a long trial, and was at last released, because Hopkins
recovered.
The discharge of Terry gave great offense to many
vigilantes, as the members of the committee w^ere
called, and the complaints were so loud, that the ex-
ecutive committee called a meeting of the general
committee, the first time the latter body had been
brought together, and explained the motives of their
conduct. It was approved, partly because it could
not be undone. There were many hot heads who did
not understand the serious dangers to which the
movement and its leaders had been exposed on ac-
count of Terry. If he had been executed for defend-
ing a citizen against arrest by an organization estab-
lished to defy the law, the state authorities would
have made renewed efforts to punish the offenders,
and the federal administration would probably have
interfered. While Terry was in prison, the legisla-
ture of Texas, where he had formerly resided, ad-
dressed a memorial to Congress, praying for action to
protect him. Soon after his arrest application was
made to Judge McAllister, of the United States cir-
cuit court, for a writ of habeas coiyus, but the old
gentleman did not wish to provoke the animosity of
the people among wdiom he made his home and he
refused, thus committino- a glarino- violation of his
256 HISTORY OF SAN FRANCISCO.
official duty. The committee would probably have
made no resistance, for they did not want to come
into conflict with the federal authority, and they con-
sidered themselves extremely fortunate when the
judge would not issue the writ. Before the arrest of
Terry a writ of habeas corpus issued by one of the
justices of the state supreme court, was treated with
a show of respect, though the prisoner was not sur-
rendered. He was taken from the vigilance building
secretly and concealed elsewhere, and when the officer
came with the writ he was politely conducted through
all the rooms and assured by the persons in charge
that nobody was deprived of his liberty by them.
The committee felt safe in evading the order of a
state court which was not supported by popular opin-
ion, but to defy the federal government would have
been a far more serious matter.
The general dissatisfaction among the members of
the committee, with the discharge of Terry, was
partly due to the prevalence of a rumor that he had
boasted before going to the city that he would sweep
the vigilantes into the bay; and although his en-
counter with Hopkins had not occurred under circum-
stances that permitted him to exercise his judicial
authority, he had shown that he was not afraid to
assume responsibility, or to defy the most serious
danger. His release was regarded by soine persons
as giving power to the most formidable enemy of the
reform movement. Terry's interference prolonged
the existence of the organization. The executive
THE GOLDEN ERA IN DECLINE. 257
committee had nearly finished all the work that ap-
peared urgent to them, and they would probably have
adopted a resolution for disbanding six weeks earlier
than they did.
Sec. 125. McGowan. The main object of the ex-
ecutive committee was from the first, in the opinion
of some members at least, to secure political justice;
the administration of criminal justice was regarded as
of secondary importance, and of value mainly in so far
as it could be made serviceable to the more important
purpose. Political swindlers, under the pretense of
managing the city government, had robbed the prop-
erty owners of millions upon millions, and the duty
now most pressing was to deprive them of their power.
But for this object, the committee would, perhaps,
have dissolved within a couple of weeks after the exe-
cution of Casey. Several ballot-box stuffers (base and
ignorant tools of cunning tricksters who devised the
political frauds, and took their chief honors and prof-
its,) confessed their crimes upon the ballot-box, and
conveyed the idea that they had been guided by Ed-
ward McGowan, who, having been accused of being
an accomplice of Casey in the murder of King, had
absconded. The committee made extraordinary efibrts
to get McGowan, gave him a close chase, and many
narrow escapes, and sent parties after him by land and
sea as far as Santa Barbara, but failed to catch him.
Sec. 124. Hetlierington and Brace. On the twentj^-
ninth of July, two months after the execution of Casey
and Cora, two other murderers, Joseph Hetherington.
17
258 HISTORY OF SAN FRANCISCO.
and Philander Brace were hanged. The crime of the
latter had been committed two years before, and he
had been tried by a criminal court, and acquitted in
defiance of reason. These four executions were the
only ones ordered by the vigilance committee of 1856.
In every case the prisoner was, in the general opinion
of the community, undoubtedly guilty of a capital
crime, was kept several days in custody by the com-
mittee before execution, so as to avoid all danger from
hasty action, was tried deliberately, and was executed
by daylight, publicly, and in the presence of a multi-
tude of quiet people; the entire proceeding being as
orderly, solemn, and respectful to the feelings of the
criminals and their friends as if the execution had
been conducted by a sheriff under the order of a high
constitutional court.
Sec. 125. Dishandmerit. The executive committee
were now anxious to close their labors, which de-
manded much of their time, endangered their prop-
erty and lives (for their executions, though justifiable
morally, were murders in the eye of the law), exposed
them to animosities that injured them in business and
discommoded them in their social relations, and sub-
jected them to a severe pecuniary tax. The expense
of the committee, amounting for part of the time to
five hundred dollars a day, had to be paid by subscrip-
tion of the members and sympathizers. The burdens,
dangers and inconveniencies were willingl}^ borne
while the committee iiad an abundance of important
work to do, but after they had been in session two
THE GOLDEN ERA IN DECLINE. 250
months and a half they came to the conclusion that a
longer maintenance of the organization would be of
doubtful benefit. There was no prospect of getting
any new light on the political frauds; it would not do
to hang oflPenders on general principles (that is, with-
out legal proof of capital crimes), though there was
no lack of hot heads in the general committee de-
manding such a course; and it would be folly to
maintain the organization for the purpose of punishing
the ordinary murders that might be committed in the
future.
Under the influence of such considerations, the
executive committee, with the approval of the board
of delegates, adopted a resolution to disband the
forces. On the eighteenth of August the city took a
general holiday to witness the celebration of the dis-
banding of the vigilance committee, and thousands
came from interior towns to see the men who had
defied the law in the interest of j ustice and honesty
for three months. The streets were bris^ht with flasfs
and flowers; the sidewalks were lined with ladies in
brilliant dresses along the line adopted by the proces-
sion, or rather the army, w^hich contained five thou-
sand one hundred and thirty-seven men, including
three artillery companies with eighteen pieces of can-
non, twenty-nine members of the executive committee,
two hundred and ninety dragoons, forty-nine surgeons
and physicians, one hundred and fifty members of the
committee of vigilance of 1851, vigilant police, hun-
dreds of citizens on horseback, thirty-three companies
260 HISTORY OF SAN FRANCISCO.
of the vigilant infantry, and numerous military bands.
The troops were reviewed, and a farewell address was
published by the executive committee, congratulating
the general committee and the community on the val-
uable service rendered, and promising that the organ-
ization should be revived, if it were necessary, to
protect its members against violence or malicious pros-
ecution on account of the action of the committee, or
to guard the purity of the ballot-box. It was never
formally dissolved.
Sec. 126. Work of the Committee. This was the
end of the active work of the committee. There
never was any necessity or demand for the resumption
of its activity. Durkee was tried on a charge of
piracy, for taking state arms consigned to the law and
order forces from the schooner " Julia " in the bay,
but was acquitted. Several suits for damages were
commenced by the exiles, but in most cases the plaint-
iffs did not recover enough to pay expenses. Though
the committee was practically dissolved, its influence
lived; its members and sympathizers, having the con-
fidence and favor of the people, obtained control of
the city government, held it for nearly twenty years,
and established and maintained the best and most
economical city government in the United States —
the municipal administration where the spoils system
had less power than anywhere else under American
dominion.
After the dissolution, many good citizens who had
been opposed to the committe, partly because they
THE GOLDEN ERA IN DECLINE. 261
feared that it would lead to great riots and reckless
violence, expressed their satisfaction and surprise at
the good results secured, and resumed their former
relations of social friendship with the vigilance lead-
ers. Others, however, cherished the bitterness against
the committee, and after a lapse of twenty years some
indications of it still crop out here and there.
The vigilance committees of San Francisco in 1851
and 1856 were in many important respects unlike any
other extra-judicial movement to administer justice.
They were not common mobs; they were organized
for weeks or months of labor, deliberate in their
movements, careful to keep records of their proceed-
ings, strictly attentive to the rules of evidence and
the penalties for crime accepted by civilized nations,
confident of their power, and of their justification by
public opinion, and not afraid of taking the public
responsibility of their acts.
Many mobs in Montana, Colorado, Nevada, and
other sparsely settled parts of the United States,
have assumed or received the name of "vigilance
committee" thus made respectable in San Francisco,
but not one was governed by similar principles. They
have been simple mobs, which collected on the first
impulse of popular excitement and executed an of-
fender or several within half a day and then dis-
persed; or if there was an organization to be main-
tained more than a day, it was composed of a few
members, bound to secrecy, and they seized and exe-
cuted their prisoners when masked or at night. It
262 HISTORY OF SAN FRANCISCO.
would be grossly unjust to judge the San Francisco
vigilance committee by the acts of any other organiza-
tion with a similar name elsewhere. The Fehm-
Gericht of "Westphalia, and the Santa Hermandad of
Spain, though maintained for a longer period as extra-
judicial organizations to administer justice, were de-
cidedly inferior in efficiency, and in the precautions to
prevent errors arising from haste or secrecy of pro-
cedure.
The two San Francisco committees pursued the
same system. It was entirely original, the out-
growth of the local circumstances, and the best
remedy in the judgment of many good citizens for
public evils which had become intolerable. In 1851,
as in 1856, quiet men said either they or the scoun-
drels must leave San Francisco. The main work in
the former year was to punish convicts from Austra-
lia; in the latter it was to correct the abuses intro-
duced by political tricksters from eastern cities.
Each committee executed four men; each banished
several scores; both were highly successful and earned
an honorable place in history.
Sec. 127. Peoples Party. On the approach of
the first city election held after the organization of
the vigilance committee, a mass meeting called by
some of its members appointed a convention of twenty-
one respectable and prominent citizens to nominate
candidates for the city offices. This convention se-
lected its nominees from men who had been members
of the committee, or sympathizers with it. The gen-
THE GOLDEN ERA IN DECLINE. 263
eral of the vigilance army was selected for sheriff; the
marshal of the vigilance police, for chief of the city
police. The nominees as a class were far superior in
business capacity and moral character to the previous
city officials. The ticket included northern and south-
ern men, republicans, democrats, and know-nothings,
jews, catholics, and protestants. It deserved and
commanded public confidence, and was elected.
The new administration was a marvel of economy.
The expenses of the city and county had been two
millions six hundred and forty-six thousand dollars in
1855, and in 1857 they were only three hundred and
fifty-three thousand dollars. Much of this saving
w^as due to the consolidation act adopted by the legis-
lature in April, 1856; but a large part of it to the new
officials. There was no doubt that the spirit of the
administration was different from that of any of its
predecessors. There Avas an entire absence of the
partisan trickery, low scheming, and disreiDutable per-
sonal association common about the city hall in pre-
vious years. The general opinion of the men recog-
nized as persons of influence in the city government
demanded zealous devotion to the public interests in
all the officials. Something of the reduction of ex-
penditures was secured by cutting off needful supplies.
Although there Avas a considerable increase in the
number of school children every year, yet the average
attendance in the public schools was four hundred
less in 1857 than in 1856; so many children were ex-
cluded from the public schools for the purpose of re-
264 HISTORY OF SAN FRANCISCO.
ducing expenditures. In the street department, a
great saving was made by stopping the work of grad-
ing, sewering and planking. The use of gas in the
street lamps was stopped for a time, and when re-
sumed, the quantity burned was smaller than before.
These economies caused some inconvenience to the
citizens, but they were delighted with the large reduc-
tion of taxes; the more so on account of the general
depression under which mercantile business and real
estate had suffered for several years.
When the time for the election came in 1858, sev-
eral thousand citizens signed a petition requesting the
nominating convention of 1857 to appoint a new con-
vention for the people's party, and it did so. The
new organization resolved that none of its own mem-
bers, and none of the members of the preceding con-
vention should be nominated; that solicitation for a
nomination by the candidate in person should be con-
sidered an objection; that it was desirable that those
officials who had performed their duties in a satis-
factory manner should be retained; and that the
nominations should be kept as independent as possible
of national parties. The ticket was worthy of these
prudent rules, and was elected by the j)eople. With
some minor changes and slight interruptions, this in-
dependent city party had control of the government
until 1874, a period of eighteen years.
The method of nomination was always substantially
the same. A convention, the list of which had been
prepared beforehand by a few persons, was submitted
THE GOLDEN ERA IN DECLINE. 265
to a public meeting which had been called without
notice of its main purpose, the names of the members
of this convention submitted in a lump, without time
for consideration, without an opportunity to reject or
accept each individual by a separate vote, or to decide
whether some other person would be preferred, was
the foundation of all the subsequent nominations, and
was the only people's party nominating convention
that was ever submitted to any kind of a popular
vote. There were no primary elections, no ward
meetings, none of the trickery of professional politi-
cians.
Yet this system of obtaining nominating commit-
tees, so different from that customary in American
politics, and defiant of the common rule that the nom-
inating conventions must be selected every year at
a public meeting or primary election open to every
member of the party, was doubtless one of the causes
of the success of the people's party. Lacking the
element of popular participation, the leading men of
the party understood that the nominating convention
must be composed of men occupying reputable posi-
tions in business and society. They were so composed,
and they commanded the confidence of the ^^ublic,
Avhereas the democratic and republican conventions
included many ruffians and men without property or
reputable occupation. R. H. Dana, jr., a lawyer and
statesman of high ability and strict veracity, having
visited California in 1859, when the acts of the com-
mittee were fresh in the minds of the people, and its
266 HISTORY OF SAN FRANCISCO.
influence over the municipal administration dominant,
wrote thus:
And now the most quiet and well-governed city in the United
States. But it has been through its season of heaven-defying
crime, violence and blood, from which it was rescued and
handed back to soberness, morality and good goverment by that
peculiar invention of Anglo-Saxon republican America, the sol-
emn, awe-inspiring vigilance committee of the most grave and
responsible citizens, the last resort of the thinking and the
good, taken only when vice, fraud and ruffianism have en-
trenched themselves behind the forms of law, suffrage and
ballot.
Sec. 128. 1857. As compared with the preced-
ing eight years, 1857 in San Francisco was quiet and
dull. There was no remarkable mining excitement;
no great speculation or panic in business; no great
crime against life or property; no revolt of the people
against their rulers. The city government, installed
by the people's party, was extremely economical.
Thieves and murderers stayed away for fear that the
vigilance committee might resume power. Business
continued to suffer under the depression that began
three years before. Broderick having secured a ma-
jority of the members of the legislature in the state
election of 1856, in January took the prize of the
federal senatorship, and then holding the power, gave
the other senatorship to Dr. Gwin.
Some adventurers from the city joined Crabb's
party, which started on the twenty-first of January,
to conquer Sonora, and perished with it. The claim
of Santillan for several thousands of acres of land be-
THE GOLDEN- ERA IN DECLINE. 267
tween California street and Mission creek, was con-
firmed by the United States district court in April,
but the decision was not final, and general confidence
was felt that it would be finally overthrown. The
first savings bank was opened with success from the
start, and the first industrial fair of the Mechanics'
Institute was held in a building erected for the pur-
pose on the site now occupied by the Lick House.
The greater part of the state debt having been de-
clared unconstitutional by the state supreme court,
was ratified at the election in September, by the peo-
ple who thus accepted the legal responsibility for its
jDayment, and did much to strengthen the credit of
the state at home and abroad.
The sinking of the " Central America," in Septem-
ber, off the coast of Florida, on her way to New
York, with passengers and treasure from California,
was one of the notable events of the year. The
steamer having sprung a leak in a fearful hurricane, the
water rose slowly for thirty- three hours, until she sank.
At three o'clock in the afternoon of the second day,
when it had become evident that she must go down
before the next morning, a brig, which had suffered
in the storm, came near and offered to receive the
passengers; but as she was not very manageable, or
near, the sea was rough, and the only conveyances
were three small boats, the transfer went slowly.
When night came on all the twenty-six women and
twenty-seven children, besides four adult male pas-
sengers, had reached the brig, leaving more than five
268 HISTORY OF SAN FRANCISCO.
hundred men behind to what appeared almost inevit-
able death. Though many were armed and nearly all
were rough in appearance, they were content that the
women and children should be saved first; and if here
and there a grumble was heard, it received little en-
couragement. Never did so many men face death
near at hand more quietly or decorously. About
eight o'clock in the evening the ill-fated steamer gave
a final plunge and disappeared forever, carrying down
with her into the vortex of the sea many of her pas-
sengers, and leaving others afloat, supported by life-
preservers or pieces of wood from the wreck. Of
these, more than one hundred were picked up the next
day, out of five hundred and eighty-two persons on
board, four hundred and nineteen were drowned. A
commercial panic caused or greatly intensified in the
Atlantic states by the loss of one million five hundred
thousand dollars in gold dust with the steamer, was a
startling proof of the dependence of the business of
the nation on the mines of California.
Sec. 129. Crahb. Walker was not the last Cali-
fornian to undertake a quixotic conquest in Spanish-
America. Henry A. Crabb, a resident of Stockton,
a prominent man in the whig party of California, a
lawyer and public speaker of decided ability, an oflS-
cial of experience and good repute, and an ardent
advocate of slavery, was the husband of a lady who
had been born in the state of Sonora, and had rela-
tives still living there. It was through the relatives
of his wife that he received an invitation from a de-
THE GOLDEN ERA IN DECLINE. 269
feated chieftain in that state to bring an armed force
for the purpose of overthrowing Governor Gandara,
who had long been master there. He accepted the
invitation, collected a force of one hundred men, on
the twenty-first of January sailed from San Francisco
to San Pedro and thence marched to Sonora, where
he Avas met near the line, attacked, defeated, and com-
pelled to surrender at discretion, after twenty-five of
his men had been killed in battle. He and fifty-eight
companions were promptly executed. Nearly a hun-
dred men who were on their way to aid him heard of
the catastrophe before reaching Sonora. Those natives
of that state who had invited him made no attempt to
assist him. They expected that he would appear with
a much larger force, and said it was useless for them
to come out openly in his favor wdien there was no
hope of success. The disasters and tragical deaths
of Raousset, Walker and Crabb were serious discour-
agements to filibustering, and twenty years have now
gone by without any new enterprises of that kind.
Sec. 130. 1858. The most notable feature of
1858, in the history of the city and state, was the
Fraser fever, of which more will be said in a subse-
quent section. An overland mail, connecting San
Francisco with St. Louis, by the southern route
through Arizona, New Mexico and Texas, was estab-
lisheg in September; and though the time from New
York was not less than by Panama, yet the mail had
the great advantage of being semi-weekly, whereas
the steamer mail came only once in a fortnight.
270 HISTORY OF SAN FRANCISCO.
Water was brought into the city in an aqueduct from
Lobos creek, and was carried round in carts until
pipes could be laid. As they were supplied, the carts
upon which the city had previously depended gradu-
ally disappeared. At the election in September the
slavery extension wing of the democracy elected
more than two thirds of the legislature. The docu-
ment submitted to the courts by Limantour as a grant
for about six thousand acres within the limits of the
city was proved to be a forgery, and the claim was
finally defeated. The privilege of collecting tolls on
the Mission and Folsom street plank-roads having
expired, the roads became free. The fare on the
ferry-boat to Oakland previously fifty cents, was re-
duced to twenty-five cents; and the construction of
the San Bruno turnpike gave a new and nearly level
road much of the way along the shore of the bay
from the Mission to the plain of San Mateo, offering
the first pleasant drive on the peninsula in the vicin-
ity of the city and outside of its limits.
The supreme court was subjected to much ridicule
on account of a decision in the case of the negro
Archy, brought as a slave to California from Alabama
by Mr. Stovall, who supposed the negro would follow
and obey him anywhere. Archy used his freedom;
the master applied to the supreme court, and P. H.
Burnett, the chief justice, rendered his opinion that
the applicant was not entitled to the custody of
Archy under the law, but as Stovall " was a young
man traveling mainly for his health," and the court
THE GOLDEN ERA IN DECLINE. 271
was " not disposed to rigidly enforce the rule for the
first time," therefore he might take Archy; but fair
notice was given in the opinion that in all future
cases, the court would decide the other way. " The
law was given to the north and the nigger to the
south." Joseph Baldwin, who succeeded Burnett as
chief justice, prepared a syllabus of the decision, in-
ferring that the constitution does not apply to young
men traveling for their health; that it does not apply
the first time; and that the decisions of the supreme
court are not to be taken as precedents. Ludicrous as
this decision was when considered from a legal stand-
point, and lamentable in its disregard of personal right
and public policy, it was written by a man who had
previously been the governor of the state, and has
since been the president of a bank in San Francisco;
and perhaps no man in California has a higher reputa-
tion for kindliness and integrity. His blunder is an
example of the great wrong that may result from con-
fused logic combined with amiable weakness, if such
name could properly be given to a motive in which
there was no malice, and more regard for the claims
of one class than for the rights of another.
Sec. 131. Mining Excitements. Regions contain-
ing extensive placer mines are peculiarly subject to
sudden migrations of the miners to districts reported
to be richer. The more abundant the gold, the more
unsettled the population. They who are doing well,
instead of being attached by their prosperity to their
claims, are the more ready to move because they have
272 HISTORY OF SAN FRANCISCO.
money to spare. They will not wait till the value of
the new diggings has been conclusively proved, for
fear that before such proof can be furnished all or
nearly all the best claims have been taken up, and
then the discovery would be of no benefit to them.
They would abandon a good claim for the chance of
getting a better one. Such conduct may appear in-
comprehensible to men who have never seen a placer
mining community, but it was common among the
gold hunters of California before 1860. They did not
understand the geological laws under which gold was
distributed through the gravel beds of living or dead
rivers, and they had seen such wonderful deposits of
it, and many of them were so ignorant that no rumor
of its abundance seemed incredible to them. There
were many intelligent and prudent men among them,
but these could not prevent the others from being car-
ried away by excitements.
Many of the reported new discoveries which at-
tracted hundreds or even thousands of adventurers
from gold diggings, and never paid them for their
trouble, were on the slopes of the Sierra Nevada and
were reached by the miners without passing through
San Francisco, and the influence of the excitement in
such case was scarcely felt here.
The first rush that affected the city was that to
Gold Bluff* on the beach of Humboldt county, in
January, 1851. The secretary of a mining company,
which had a claim there (and hundreds of others
equally good could be taken up), published a state-
THE GOLDEN ERA IN DECLINE. 273
ment that according to the representation of persons
who had examined the ground, it would yield four
hundred and thirty million dollars to each member of
the company. On the eleventh of January eight
vessels were advertised to sail for Gold Bluff, but
before they departed, the exaggerations were exposed,
the applicants for passage drew back, and the mem-
bers of the millionaire company never received a cent
of dividend from their claims.
Three years later wonderful stories were published
in the Panama journals about rich placers on the
head waters of the Amazon in eastern Peru, and one
thousand adventurers from California w^ere astonished
on landing at Callao to find that nobody there knew
anything of such mines. Several parties having come
so far, thought they might as well do some prospect-
ing on the eastern slope of the Andes, and after
making the journey at great expense and trouble,
they found nothing.
In February and March, 1855, a number of letters
full of falsehoods, about extensive and rich placers in
the basin of Kern river were published in the Stock-
ton and Los Angeles papers, and five thousand per-
sons started for the new Eldorado. Many of them
abandoned good claims or profitable emjoloyment, and
ten thousand more were getting ready to follow very
soon, when letters came back that there w^as not work
for more than one hundred men.
Sec. 132. Fraser Fever. These rushes w^ere mere
trifles, however, as compared with the Fraser fever,
18
274 HISTORY OF SAN FRANCISCO.
which prevailed from April till September, 1858.
Gold had been found in the banks and bars of Fraser
river in British Columbia, about one hundred miles
from the ocean, and some sanguine miners there, sup-
posing that there must be a large and rich placer
mining region in the basin of the stream, converted
their inferences into assertions in letters which were
given to the public. Many thousands of the Cali-
fornian miners, unwilling to adapt themselves to the
relative impoverishment of the diggings of the Sierra
Nevada^ received with joyous credulity the rumors of
great gold fields in what was then known to the law
and to the map-makers as "New Caledonia," The
first adventurers generally were men who had money
enough to go to Fraser river, and return in comfort
even if they should find nothing there; and they went
as other parties have gone to examine every district
reported to have much precious metal within the
limits of our continent. Their reports were that
there was no doubt of the existence of gold in the
bars of the river, and that the stream was much
larger than any of the rich Californian rivers, but
that the water was too high to permit as yet of profit-
able work in the bars or in the river bed, or even of
any thorough prospecting.
All this was true literally, and did not mean much
directly, but most extravagant deductions were drawn
from it, then accepted as a proper basis for action,
and confirmed by the writers of sensational letters,
some of whom may have been paid by the owners of
THE OOLDEN ERA IN DECLINE. 275
the steamships, which reaped a rich harvest from the
excitement. So great was the rush that CaUfornia
seemed in danger of being depopulated. The custom-
house records say that between the twentieth of April
and the ninth of August, the limits of the Fraser fever,
fifteen thousand and eighty-eight passengers left San
Francisco in one hundred and twelve vessels for the
new Eldorado; but the " Prices Current," a carefully
edited commercial journal, said the number of adven-
turers was twenty-three thousand four hundred and
twenty-eight, the reports to the custom-house being
greatly below the truth in many cases. In the mid-
dle of August only two thousand three hundred per-
sons had returned. The twenty-three thousand five
hundred who went to Fraser river were six in a
hundred of the entire population of the state, a very
large proportion to leave within four months; and
they were relatively fifteen times as many as left the
Atlantic slope for California in 1849, when the world
was astonished at the magnitude of the migration,
and when all the business relations of the country
were disturbed. Not only did one in sixteen of the
men in California start for Fraser river, but one third
of the others were preparing to go when the folly of
the excitement became clear to the common com-
prehension. For a time, fears had prevailed that the
state would be depopulated, and that San Francisco
would be stationary for many years, while Victoria,
the chief port of the gold mines of British America,
would become the metropolis of the coast. Real es-
276 HISTORY OF SAN FRANCISCO.
tate lost half its market value; lots on Montgoiiieiy
street, between Bush and Sutter, were offered at two
hundred dollars a front foot, and found no takers,
thouo-h since in demand at eis^hteen hundred to two
thousand dollars; and Blythe's gore, between Market
and Geary, for which according to common report an
offer of one million and a half dollars was rejected in
1876, was considered dear at thirty thousand dollars.
For several months California appeared to be on the
verge of dissolution under the influence of the Fraser
river. Some of the mining towns lost half their in-
habitants. Placer claims that yielded ten dollars per
day, net, to the man, were almost unsalable. Seats
in the stages from the mining towns to Sacramento
and Stockton were engaged for weeks in advance.
Real estate fell in many places eighty per cent, in
market value. In San Francisco, through which all
the emigrants passed, and to which they paid a large
tribute in many ways, there was a ruinous decline.
Bankers, lawyers, wholesale merchants and real estate
speculators began to make arrangements for transfer-
ring their business to Victoria. The confident belief
that New Caledonia would produce as much gold, and
would be as lively in business as California had been
in 1849, was extensive if not general; and to be in
the midst of such another storm of gold dust would
well be worth the sacrifice of a few thousand dollars.
Before the middle of July, the credulous acceptance
of the stories about the mineral wealth of the Fraser
basin v^^as seriously discredited by the failure to find
THE GOLDEN ERA IN DECLINE. 277
any extensive diggings; early in August the excite-
ment had become a subject of ridicule; and in Sep-
tember the people wondered how they could ever have
believed that there was any reason for an excitement.
It was calculated that the adventurers who went to
Fraser river lost nine million dollars in the aggregate,
including sixty dollars fare, sixty days time and one
hundred dollars for outfit and freight money for each
man on an average. The estimate was probably ex-
travagant for the direct loss, but the indirect loss was
much greater, especially in the depreciation of prop-
erty in the mining districts. San Francisco, however,
gained far more than she lost. The panic which
threatened her with disaster, and for a few months
caused many serious losses to individuals, soon re-
acted, and made busines more active than before.
The Fraser fever was really a turning point in the
fortunes of the city. The money wasted by the miners
had gone into the pockets of San Franciscan owners
of steamers, stages, hotels and supplies. Here the
adventurers all stopped, purchased outfits and paid
passage money to transportation companies. The
shipping of the port, which had been decreasing for
five years, now began to increase. The report of the
excitement attracted many people from the Atlantic
states, and the gain of population by sea was thirteen
thousand, whereas it had been only five thousand
annually, on an average, for the three preceding years.
The temporary decline in city lots caused severe loss
to individuals, but there was an equal profit for others;
278 HISTORY OF SAN FRANCISCO.
and as the disappointed miners generally declared
when they got back, many of them having in the
mean time traveled through the basins of the Colum-
bia and Frazer rivers and Puget sound, that they
would never leave California again, whatever mines
might be discovered at a distance — these were the
men Avho called this " God's country " — there was a
heightened feeling of confidence in the permanent
prosperity of the state. Before the end of the year,
real estate in San Francisco was in more demand than
it had been since 1855.
Sec. 133. 1859. The large increase in the pro-
duction of wheat and wool, the extensive plantings of
fruit trees and vines, the conviction, now taking strong
hold of the public mind, that California had wonder-
ful resources for agriculture, especially in its horticul-
tural department, and a growing disposition on the
part of many of the people to regard the state as a
desirable place for permanent homes, contributed in
1859 to strengthen the era of prosperity that had its
beginning in the previous year. The settlement of
the titles of many large Mexican ranches, and the
belief that all the large claims to land in the city or
its settled districts would be defeated, had favorable
influences. Land rose in value, and buildinof as^ain
became active. The Hayes tract of one hundred and
fifty acres, south of Turk street and west of Lark in,
including Hayes Valley, was sold at auction, bringing
about one hundred and fifty dollars on an average for
lots twenty-five feet in front by one hundred and ten
THE GOLDEN ERA IN DECLINE. 279
feet deep. Several manufacturing establishments
were erected, including a woolen mill and a glass fac-
tory. The steam-paddy, which had been idle for six
years, resumed work. Foreign coin was throM'n out
by the banks, thus excluding it from common cir-
culation. The first reports of the discovery of the
silver deposits of the Comstock lode were published
in the summer, and before the end of the winter,
forty tons of the ore, worked at San Francisco,
had yielded one hundred thousand dollars net, after
paying five hundred dollars per ton for transpor-
tation and reduction. The political campaign of the
year was very bitter. The people at the polls, by a
large majority condemned the conduct of Mr. Brod-
erick as senator, and a few days later he was mortally
wounded in a duel.
Sec. 134. Early Politics. There had been no
organization of political parties in California before
its admission into the Union. But most of the citi-
zens had brought with them from the East their old
partisan opinions and prejudices, and were ready to
unite or divide on party lines whenever opportunity
should occur. The two national parties at that time
were, in California at least, nearly agreed upon most
of the questions which had agitated the country for
ten years before, save the extension of slavery; and
even in reference to that, the difference was under-
stood rather than explicitly defined. Its most ardent
advocates were all democrats; its most active oppon-
ents, as a class, were whigs. Because of the pro-
280 HISTORY OF SAN FRANCISCO.
hibition of slavery in her constitution, the admission
of California had been resisted by the democrats in
Congress, and thus the people of the state were much
offended, and driven towards the whig party, whose
representatives had been the steadfast friends of the
new state, and to whose support she mainly owed her
triumph over the slavery men. But the favor which
the whig party gained on account of democratic hos-
tility to the admission of California, was more than
counterbalanced by the blunders of the whig admin-
istration in its treatment of her. Congress, absorbed
with slavery and questions incidental to it, neglected
the new state, which, on account of rapid growth,
needed great attention. President Fillmore recom-
mended the taxation of the mines, and thus irritated
her people. The chief federal officials instead of be-
ing selected from the old residents, were strangers
sent out to take the honors and profits after others
had faced the danger and done the work of pioneer
life; and these "carpet-bag politicians," as their class
was afterwards called, jDroved themselves in many
cases incompetent and corrupt.
Thus it was that in all legislatures and in most of
the counties, until the middle of 1854, the democrats
had the majority. In 1851 they elected to the gov-
ernorship John Bigler, a man who had neither the
capacity, the education, nor the manners to grace the
position. But as a good fellow with the multitude,
he was an available candidate. The better democrats
were ashamed of him, and especially the southern
THE GOLDEN ERA IN DECLINE. 281
men, who could not pardon his coarseness, though
they could have overlooked the unscrupulous manner
in which he abused his official power for the benefit
of his political friends. It was necessary that there
should be a contention in the party for its control,
and it divided into two nearly equal factions; the
chivalry, or men from the slave states, in one, and the
Tammany, or foreigners and natives of the free states,
in the other. The line of separation was not dis-
tinctly drawn; that is, there was no authoritative
declaration of principles on either side, but a strong
antagonism had broken out so early as 1852.
Sec. 135. Broderich. Among the pioneer citizens
of California who arrived in 1849 was David C.
Broderick, then about thirty years old, who, though
a native of the national capital, had spent most of his
years in New York City, where he had kept an ale
house, had been a member of a fire company, had
learned that he could manage men, and had acquired
such popularity with a considerable proportion of
voters that he had been a candidate for congress.
His defeat in a district in which his party had
fifteen hundred majority, and the public criticisms
upon his career and associations, contributed to dis-
gust him with his position in New York, and he was
glad when he saw the prospect of commencing life
again in California.
He made his home in San Francisco, and again got
into politics through the fire department. He was a
leader in the organization of the first fire company,
282 HISTORY OF SAN FRANCISCO.
but he took care to avoid the mistake of putting him-
self on a level with all his fellow members. Though
his early education had been limited, he had given
much time to reading, and not without profit to him-
self. The reward soon came. He had been in San
Francisco but a few months when, with the help of
the "boys" who had known him in New York, and his
skill in partisan management, he was chosen state
senator to represent the city.
Neither lawyer, statesman, nor orator, he attracted
little attention in the first session of the legislature,
when an entire code of laws had to be enacted. It
w^as observed, however, that he was versed in parlia-
mentary law; he could well explain those matters
with which he was familiar; all his knowledge was
ready at his tongue's end whenever required, and he
had a character that gave liim authority, influence,
and the promise of political preferment. Governor
Burnett having resigned and having been succeeded
by John McDougal, when the senate met in 1851 it
had to elect a president, who thus became lieutenant-
governor. Broderick was chosen for the place.
That leofislature had also to elect a senator of the
United States, and Broderick wanted the office, but
he had not yet enough influence. Other men were far
better known and more popular, and among them were
Fremont, John B. Weller, who had been a member
of consrress from Ohio, and others. While he did
not succeed in getting the place, he was gratified by
the failure of the legislature to agree — a result to
THE GOLDEN ERA IN DECLINE. 283
which he contributed — and by the postponement of
the election to the next year, thus giving him more
time. He worked industriously, and not without
effect, for though he had not been recognized as a
candidate in 1851, in 1852 he gave John B. Weller a
hard contest in the democratic caucus, and the latter
did not triumph till the fifth ballot and then by only
two majority. The defeat was a great disappointment
to Mr. Broderick, but it gave him a high place in the
party, and made him the head of its northern faction.
Sec. 136. Hostility to Slavery. The first oppor-
tunity for Mr. Broderick to show his hostility to the
chivalry on a question relating to slavery was when a
bill was introduced permitting southern men who had
brought negroes as slaves to California before the ad-
mission of the state, to take them back by force.
Although the majority of his party w^ere for tliis
measure, he opposed it energetically, and when a bill
was introduced to provide for the enforcement of labor
contracts (the purpose being to encourage the import-
ation of a large number of Chinamen under agreement
to work for cheap labor), Broderick denounced it as
a substitute for slavery, and contributed to its defeat.
Notwithstanding his dislike of slavery, he was not dis-
posed to leave the democratic party, which was
the stronghold of the pro-slavery joarty. When
in 1852, the democratic national convention, sub-
mitting to the dictation of the fire eaters, adopted
the Virginia and Kentucky resolutions of 1798 and
1799 as " one of the main foundations of their polit-
284 HISTORY OF SAN FRANCISCO.
ical creed," and declared an intention " to carry them
out in their obvious meaning and import," thus reject-
ing President Madison's attempt made during the
nullification excitement to show that they did not
justify nullification and secession; — when in accord-
ance with the spirit of that platform the Missouri
compromise was repealed in 1854, opening all the ter-
ritories to slavery; — and when in 1856 the national con-
vention re-adopted the resolutions of 1798 and 1799,
asserting for every state the right of judging for itself
whether the federal constitution had been violated,
and what should be the mode and measure of redress,
thus pledging the national administration to permit
secession; — when all these things were done in the
interest of slavery, Mr. Broderick, whose position re-
quired him to understand their purposes and tenden-
cies, submitted to them quietly.
At the presidential election of 1852, the state gave
a majority of eight thousand, out of a total vote of
eighty thousand, to Pierce, and thus the democratic
character of California seemed to be well established
at the first opportunity of taking part in a national
political contest. The result was considered by Mr.
Broderick as a promise that he should have the sen-
atorship if he could get the control of the party organ-
ization, and he devoted all his energies to that point.
Sec. 137. Campaign of 1853. In the democratic
state convention held in the spring of 1853 to nomi-
nate a governor and state ticket, he proved his power.
He was acknowledged by the representatives of the
THE GOLDEN ERA IN DECLINE. 285
party as their leader, and by his influence John Big-
ler, notwithstanding the opposition of the southern
faction and the protest of San Francisco, where he
was especially unpopular, was renominated. The
elections returns gave a majority to Bigler, though it
was a common opinion, and probably a correct one,
that if an honest count had been made, he w^ould have
been defeated by not less than five thousand. The
men in charge of several of the election precincts in
San Francisco were professional ruffians and political
swindlers, and if they did not commit frauds upon the
ballot-box, it was not because their reputations were
too good, or the precautions of the law to prevent
abuses too careful and j udicious.
Mr. Broderick could look upon the election as a
great triumph for himself; the executive officers of
the state had been selected by him, the majority of
the members of the legislature looked to him as their
leader, and he was the chairman of the state demo-
cratic committee which had charge of the general
business of the party. The circumstances were full
of promise for him. He was suspected of being the
manager of serious election frauds in San Francisco;
he was known to be the employer and protector of
the ruffians who had taken charge of the ballot boxes,
and he had given some needless offense to various in-
fluential southern politicians; but he now stood so
high that he could have discarded liis base supporters,
conciliated the leaders of the adverse faction, and
strengthened his influence in many ways.
286 HISTORY OF SAN FRANCISCO.
Sec, 138. Hammond Denounced. But such a
method of procedure was contrary to his tastes. He
could be gentle in his demeanor towards his friends,
and he owed much of his ascendency to his manners;
but in political tactics it was his rule to completely
crush the enemy who fell into his power. He tried
the crushing process upon the chivalry men in fed-
eral offices, and especially upon R. P. Hammond, col-
lector of customs and a member of the Southern
faction, who, disliking Bigler and Broderick, had re-
fused to contribute personally or to assess his subordi-
nates for the campaign funds. In November, 1853,
two months after election, Mr. Broderick, as chairman
of the state committee, issued a proclamation to the
party, congratulating it upon the victory, and com-
plaining that many of those who held federal offices
under a democratic administration, and bound by the
usages of the country to furnish the sinews of war,
had refused to contribute in the late critical contest,
and denouncing them as traitors. The following is
an extract from this proclamation:
We made the next appeal to the stipendiaries of the na-
tional purse who owed their offices and ingots to the permission
of the party in this state. We had a peculiar right to look in
that direction for relief. We had responded to the appeal of
the first national election in our history by four electoral votes,
and we felt entitled to expect that the influence and aid of the
general administration would be cheerfully reciprocated by its
agents here in fair requital for that profound pledge of our de-
votion. We invoked the aid, therefore, of those who held ap-
pointments under the government at Washington. But, except
in a few honorable instances, our Lopes were vain.
THE GOLDEN ERA IN DECLINE. 287
Sec. 139. Grab for Senatorsliip. Mr. Broderick
supposed that this language would be approved by the
party generally, and would greatly weaken, if it did
not destroy the power of the chivalry leaders; but as
they had both the federal senatorships — Weller,
though a native of a free state, being in full harmony
with them — all of the federal offices, many of the
county offices, and the devoted adherence of a large
faction, the excommunication was generally regarded
as a cause of discord which would seriously endanger
the success of the party in the future. It failed to
produce the effect uj)on which Mr. Broderick had cal-
culated, and indeed it reacted and seriously damaged
him. He had cherished a plan which he revealed to
his friends so soon as the election returns assured him
of the preponderance of his faction in the state admin-
istration. The democrats had majorities in both
houses of the legislature, and most of them were his
friends. He proposed that a federal senator should
be elected without delay for the term to commence
March 4, 1855. Objections that such an election, a
year before the time fixed by custom, would be highly
unpopular as well as unlawful; that if the legislature
meeting in January, 1854, could choose a senator for
the term commencing in March, 1855, it could with
equal right and jDropriety elect for the terms com-
mencing in 1857, 1861, 1865, and so on indefinitely,
thus robbing future legislatures of their rights; and
that the members of this legislature had not been
selected with any reference to this question, and there-
288 HISTORY OF SAN FRANCISCO.
fore could not properly act upon it — all such objections
were overruled by Mr. Broderick, who answered that
custom was not good authorit}^; that no statutory or
constitutional provision fixed the time when the sena-
torial election should be held; that the party might
not have a majority in the next legislature, and that
it is the rule of politics to take every prize within
reach, leaving nothing to the enemy. A large pro-
portion of the democratic members of the legislature
accepted the ungenerous dictation of Mr. Broderick,
and labored strenuously to bring on the senatorial
election, but a few of the Tammany men refused to
sacrifice themselves to gratify an unscrupulous leader,
and these, with the southern democrats, whigs, and
independents, defeated the scheme. They had one
vote more than all those under Mr. Broderick's con-
trol.
The struggle to elect Mr. Broderick was not fin-
ished in a day, or limited by a single vote, but it
absorbed the attention of the lesfislature for two
months, and had many serious accompaniments and
consequences. One of the members of the legislature
reported that J. C. Palmer, a banker friendly to the
senatorial aspirant, had offered to pay him for his
vote, and a trial for bribery followed. The evidence
was conflicting, and the verdict acquittal; but the cus-
tody of certain public funds was taken from the house
of Palmer, Cook & Co, — a severe punishment in itself.
The angry journalistic disputations about the propri-
ety of then electing a senator, led to a duel between
THE GOLDEN ERA IN DECLINE. 289
two editors, each prominent on his side; and C. A.
Washburn received a troublesome bullet in his shoul-
der from the rifle of his opponent, B. F. Washington.
To prevent a second attempt to seize the senatorship
before the proper time, the legislature at its next ses-
sion passed an act prescribing the manner in which
future elections should be held, reserving to the legis-
lature, which should begin its session next before the
commencement of the senatorial term, the privilege of
making the selection. It was an ofiicial and appro-
priate rebuke of a discreditable plot.
Sec. 140. Chivalry Triumph. Complete as had
been the control of Mr. Broderick over the majority
of the democratic members of the legislature, the
party was against him, and when a state convention
met, a few months later, his faction was in a woeful
minority. Bather than submit to the rule of his ene-
mies, he managed affairs so that the convention di-
vided into two conventions, each claiming to be the
fair representative of the organization. The claim
was honestly made on the chivalry side. The only
officers to be elected by general vote of the state in
that year were two congressmen, and there were three
tickets in the field. The chivalry democrats obtained
thirty-seven thousand votes, the whigs thirty-five
thousand, and the Broderickites ten thousand. These
figures looked like political destruction to the man
who a few months before considered himself master of
the state.
But the whirlig-is^ of fickle fortune soon turned
19
290 HISTORY OF SAN FRANCISCO.
again in his favor. In the year of 1854 the Mis-
souri compromise, prohibiting slavery in the territories
north of latitude 36° 30', was repealed at the demand
of the slavery extensionists, and many of the whig
leaders favored the repeal. This was the death-blow
of the whig party, on the ruins of which rose the
know-nothing party, whose main purposes were to ex-
clude all foreign-born citizens from office, and to dis-
courage immigration.
The slaveholders complained that the rush of immi-
grants occupied the territories, and thus prevented
them from getting any benefit from their half owner-
ship of the southern states in the public lands. Their
dislike of foreigners shared by the chivalry faction of
the democracy in California, made discord in the com-
bination which had overwhelmed Mr. Broderick.
Many of the northern democrats who had voted to
punish him for his attempt to grab the unripe sen-
atorship, were galled by the manner of the chivalry
leaders towards them, and were unwilling to be used
ao-ainst the interests of free soil. The election of 1854
had elevated Dr. Gwin to the dictatorship of the party.
He was a southerner by birth, a politician of much
experience, ability and tact, an industrious jDublic
servant, a hospitable entertainer, and a gentleman in
his manners. His social position, his attractive home,
the good character of his most intimate associates,
and his refusal, perhaps his inability, to manage pri-
maries, or personally employ ruffians or swindlers for
service in conventions and elections, gave him a su-
THE GOLDEN ERA IN DECLINE. 291
periority in the estimation of many genteel people
over Broderick. When the latter was overwhelmed
by the election of 1854, Gwin was recognized as the
master. He was the senior senator, and the head of
the dominant faction. Inferior as a political orator,
he was much superior as a party manager and influen-
tial member of congress to his senatorial colleague,
John B. Weller, who made no effort to control the fed-
eral patronage. The two representatives in the lower
house acknowledged the authority of Gwin, and no
important federal appointment was made without his
consent. ^
Now, as on previous occasions, he used his power
unwisely. He gave the best offices to ultra southern
men. The democrats of northern birth could get
nothing, unless they had southern principles and
were hostile to Broderick; and even then the inferior
men were preferred, and usually got only inferior
places. No encouragement was to be given to the
northern faction of the party. Under this policy the
federal spoils in California were distributed, and the
public buildings swarmed with men whose chief qual-
ification for government service were their southern
birth and advocacy of the extension of slavery.
S. W. Inge, of Alabama, United States district at-
torney, and Volney E. Howard, of Texas, law agent of
the United States in the land commission, had as mem-
bers of conofress in 1850 voted ao-ainst the admission
of California, because its territory was dedicated to
freedom. Mr. Inge was succeeded by Mr. Delia
292 HISTORY OF SAN FRANCISCO.
Torre, of South Carolina. The highest federal j udicial
officer, appointed before Dr. Gwin obtained much
power, was Judge Hoffman, a native of New York,
wdio held his place during good behavior ; so he could
not be removed, bCit another federal court was placed
over him, with Judge McAllister, of Alabama, pre-
siding. The custom-house, the chief field of federal
patronage, swarmed with southern men, and several
years later was nicknamed " The Virginia Poorhouse,"
because of the multitude of penniless men belonging
to noted families of the old dominion there provided
with refuge.
It was partly because of his sacrifice of the party
to his southern feelings that Gwin was not re-
elected senator by the legislature that began its
session in January, 1855. Most of the democrats
were devoted to him; but in violation of custom the
minority refused to go into caucus, or to be governed
by the majority, and the know-nothings and anti-
Gwin democrats were strong enough to prevent a
choice. It was a triumph for Broderick to prevent
his rival from grasping the prize.
Sec. 141. Know -Nothing Triumph. When the
democratic state convention met in the spring of 1855,
to nominate a full ticket of state executive officers,
notwithstanding the dissatisfaction among the Irish-
men, Germans and northern democrats with Gwin,
the chivalry faction still had undoubtedly a large ma-
jority of the party; but it had no manager of primaries
equal to Broderick; no one so willing to make pecun-
THE GOLDEN ERA IN DECLINE. 293
iaiy sacrifices for the sake of success; no one for whom
personal friends would so freely contribute their money.
To the g-reat astonishment of the general public,
when the two factions came to vote on the nomina-
tion for governor, they were about equally divided,
neither having a majority. A squad of delegates
from the northern end of the state had the balance
of power, and would not decide till its leader had
time to consider the situation. He took a walk dur-
ing a recess of the convention with Mr. Broderick,
and at the next vote the chivalry were defeated
and Mr. Broderick was again the dictator of the
party. This was too much for the chivalry; they
had been overreached in the primaries, defeated in
the state convention, and rather than submit would
defeat the democratic ticket. Circumstances per-
mitted them to do this conveniently. The whig party
had disappeared, the republican organization was as
yet in embryo, and the native American order a
secret society, the nucleus of a national party, had
run, like electricity, throughout the Union. The
branch of it established in California struck out the
hostility to Catholics, and thus deprived it of any
sectarian character. The chivalry democrats went
into the lodges in swarms, and J. N. Johnson, the
know-nothing nominee for governor had a majority of
nearly five thousand in a state where the previous
year the democrats had a plurality of twelve thou-
sand.
Sec. 142. H. S. Foote, Again Broderick had
294 HISTORY OF SAN FRANCISCO.
been defeated before the people; again there was to
be a senatorial election, and he had no chance. Again
he was subjected to the ridicule of his enemies, and
the complaint of pretended friends. However, he had
the satisfaction of seeing that the know-nothings could
not grasp the senatorial prize, of which they consid-
ered themselves secure. They had a majority of one,
but that one was a man of decided free soil principles,
and he refused to vote for the know-nothino- nominee,
Henry S. Foote, a native of Mississippi, an advocate
of slavery extension, who, if rumor were true, had
come to California on purpose to be elected senator.
Thus it happened that again the senatorial election was
defeated; again the state was left without complete
representation in the federal senate; again Mr. Brod-
erick could have a chance in a struggle at the prima-
ries for the great prize of his life.
Sec. 143. Chivalry in Discredit, He went to
work industriously early in the spring of 1856 to get
control of the county conventions, so that the legisla-
tive candidates throughout the state should be pledged
to his service. Circumstances turned strongly in his
favor. The policy pursued by the chivalry leaders
to defeat him in the previous year now reacted against
them with strong effect. The know-nothings had
been demoralized by their inability to elect a senator.
They saw that they had not the elements for the
maintenance of a national party, and letters from their
friends in the eastern states said there was little hope
for the new organization there. The foreign born
THE GOLDEN ERA IN DECLINE. 295
voters, with the aid of the large class of Americans
who appreciated the immense benefit of immigration
to the country, together made up a majority of the
votes.
Having withdrawn in 1855 and given serious offense
to the Irish and Germans, the chivalry leaders could
not regain control of the party in the spring of 1856.
As Broderick had been previously the chief enemy
of the southern faction, so now, when that faction was
overthrow^n, the power naturally fell into his hands.
The prize seemed at last to have come within his
reach.
Sec. 144. Vigilantes against Broderick. But the
kaleidoscope of fate had not yet exhausted its black
pictures for him. It took another and a fearful turn
in May, 1856. The rise of the vigilance committee
was a rebuke to Mr. Broderick. Its main purpose
and its most valuable results were to drive from power
the tricksters by whose help he held control of the
democratic organization in San Francisco. The city
officials recently installed had been selected with his
approval, and with special regard to the service they
could render him. The vigilance committee, while it
did not expel them from office, deprived them of in-
fluence and disgraced them. The intelligence, the
respectability and the weight of the city were with
the committee. The adherents of Broderick had cap-
tured most of the counties before the vigilance com-
mittee broke out; and though that movement brought
great discredit upon him in the opinion of the general
296 HISTORY OF SAN FRANCISCO.
public, yet it gave him strength among the managers
of his party. It was regarded by them and their fol-
lowers as an act of hostility to the democracy. Some
chivalry leaders who disliked Mr. Broderick, by giv-
inof their countenance to the committee, excluded
themselves from the partisan councils and left the
power to his followers. Thus it was that many of the
nominations for the legislature — and they form a large
part of a senatorial contest in California, as in other
states of the Union — belonged to him.
Sec. 145. Senator at Last. The popular election
was not less favorable. The people were called upon
to elect a president in 1856, and they had to choose
between the democratic and republican candidates.
Know-nothingism had sunk back into insignificance.
The people were not ready to accept the republican
doctrines; the democrats carried away the oflSces in
California, as well as in some other free states, and
their success implied the triumph of Mr. Broderick.
There was now no question about his predominance in
the party. Two senators were to be chosen, and before
election by the legislature, were to be nominated by a
caucus of the democratic members. No candidate
had an absolute majority, but Broderick was much
stronger than Gwin, Latham, or Weller (each had his
adherents), and it was conceded that he must be nom-
inated first, and could control the nomination of the
other. He lacked three of a majority, and as he said
he Avould prefer Latham to anybody else for his col-
league, four Latham men voted for him in the caucus
THE GOLDEN ERA IN DECLINE. 297
and gave him the nomination, expecting that their
man would be nominated immediately afterwards.
Sec. 146. Sale of Second Senatorsliip. This was
a reasonable expectation; but when Mr. Broderick
had gained his part of the spoils, he interrupted the
proceedings. At his dictation, the caucus adjourned
to give him time for intrigue. Having obtained the
end of his great ambition, he ought to have been
satisfied; but now that he had so much, he wanted
more. The selection of the higher federal officials in
California had been the jDrivilege or perquisite of the
senators, and Mr. Broderick wanted it all for himself
As the Tammany faction of the party had a majority
in the legislature, custom demanded that it should
select another of its members to- the other senator-
ship, but that did not suit Mr. Broderick. The fac-
tion, indeed, had few leaders whose election would
have done credit to the state. Mr. Broderick's
method of requiring complete submission repelled
men of ability, who otherwise would willingly have
worked with him. Besides, he wanted to impose
humiliating conditions upon his colleague, and he
could not propose them to any of his friends.
Having been elected on the tenth of January, his
first step Avas to send for Dr. Gwin, who, in compli-
ance with the invitation, went to see him on that
night. Of the conversation between these eminent
politicians on this occasion we have no record, but we
know that Dr. Gwin, having received what he con-
sidered satisfactory assurance that he should have
298 HISTORY OF SAN FRANCISCO.
Mr. Broderick's support for the senatorship, addressed
to him the following letter, which, though evidently
confidential, was afterwards published by the recipient
and acknowledged to be correct by the author:
Sacramento, January 10, 1857.
Dear Sik: I am likely to be the victim of the unparalleled
treacheiy of those who have been placed in x>ower through my
aid. The most potential portion of the federal patronage is in
the hands of those who, by every principle that should govern
men of honor, should be my supporters instead of enemies, and
it is being used for my destruction. My participation in the
distribution of this patronage has been the source of number-
less slanders upon me, that have fastened a j)rejudice in the
public mind against me, and have created enmities that have
been destructive of my happiness and peace of mind for years.
It has entailed untold evils upon me; and while in the senate,
I will not recommend a single individual for appointment to
office in this state. Provided I am elected, you shall have the
exclusive control of this patronage, so far as I am concerned,
and in its distribution I shall only ask that it may be used with
magnanimity, and not for the advantage of those who have
been our mutual enemies, and unwearied in their exertions to
destroy us. This determination is unalterable; and in making
this declaration I do not expect you to sur^port me for that
reason, or in any way to be governed by it. But as I have
been betrayed by those who should have been my friends, I am
powerless myself, and dependent on your magnanimity.
W. M. GwiN.
The pretext of disgust with federal patronage on
account of the ingratitude of his appointees was per-
haps the best excuse for making such a bargain.
Many of those who had fawned upon him when he
was master of the party, did the same to Mr. Brod-
erick when he became the dictator, and the motive
THE GOLDEN ERA IN DECLINE. 299
was no worse in one case than in the other. The cus-
tom of the spoils doctrine requires that the official
appointed by the influence of a patron should be his
partisan, under obligations of fidelity to him. The
men placed in office by Gwin were guilty of treason
when they went over to his enemy.
Sec. 147. Offer to Sell it Again. Mr. Broderick,
not content with having such a letter from Dr. Gwin,
the next evening, January 11, sent for Mr. Latham,
and when they met expressed his preference for him
as a colleague among all the senatorial aspirants, and
offered the senatorship to him if he would promise not
to interfere with the federal patronage. Mr. Latham
said he had a few friends to whom he was under ob-
ligations, and if he were senator he must recommend
them for office. When Mr. Broderick learned their
names, he said they were men who had not been his
enemies, and he would join in the recommendation;
and as they were thus agreed, he would like to have
a written memorandum of the agreement, signed by
Mr. Latham, promising that he would not try to in-
fluence the federal patronage in California. Mr.
Latham refused to put his name upon any such paper,
and Broderick gave him to understand that he could
not have the prize.
What would have occurred if the signature had
been given cannot now be known. It is evident that
Broderick intended to play a trick upon Gwin or
Latham, perhaps upon both. J. M. Estell, who was
active in the negotiations as Broderick's intimate
300 HISTORY OF SAN FRANCISCO.
friend and confidential adviser, said afterwards that if
Latham had signed the document demanded, the two
letters would have been produced in caucus to ruin the
reputation and political influence of both Gwin and
Latham. Other friends of Broderick are confident
that he meant in good faith to to elect Latham, if
they could agree upon the terms.
Sec. 148. Reception of Gwins Letter. On the
eveninsf of the twelfth the democratic caucus nomi-
nated Dr. Gwin; the next day he was elected; and
on the following day a letter addressed by him " to
the people " was published. It was similar in its
ideas and expressions to his letter of the tenth, ac-
knowledging his indebtedness to Broderick for his
election, and declaring that having been betrayed by
those whom he had put in office, he should have
nothing to do with the federal patronage. A politi-
cal tempest followed the publication. The federal
officers, who were all Gwin men, finding that they
had been deserted, complained bitterly of their leader;
the friends of Latham and Weller denounced the let-
ter as a sale of the senatorship to the injury of men
who were above base bargains; and the independent
newspapers cited the transaction as proof of the depth
of political corruption. All Dr. Gwin's protests that
the renunciation of all claims upon the federal pat-
ronage was written without any kind of a bargain,
Avas in harmony with his declarations made freely to
his friends before he expected any aid from Mr.
Broderick, and was the reasonable results of a most
THE GOLDEN ERA IN DECLINE. 301
humiliating and vexatious experience, were treated as
unworthy of serious consideration, however phiusible
they might appear if looked at from his side only.
To Broderick's great astonishment the people would
not see the letter with his eyes. They blamed the
seller of the senatorship more than the buyer. The
transaction was held up as disgraceful to the nation,
and as injurious to the democratic party; and if grave
political considerations had not demanded the silence
of the majority in the senate, both Gwin and Brod-
erick would probably have been expelled. Some of
Mr. G win's fellow-senators who had long been his in-
timato friends, and who had systematically sought
and followed his advice, were disposed, when they
first heard of the affair, to turn their backs upon him,
but they were assured that he submitted to the hu-
miliation as the best thing that could be done for the
party, and they finally accepted the explanation and
received him as before, while they reserved their chief
indignation for Mr. Broderick.
Sec. 149. No Patronage to Broderick. That
gentleman was not less astonished with his own chill-
ing reception at Washington than he had been by the
reception of Gwin's letter by the public in San Fran-
cisco. President Buchanan, a warm j^ersonal friend
of Mr. Gwin, regarded the exaction of the letter in
the first place, and its publication afterwards, as two
separate offenses, each discreditable to the govern-
ment, and especially dangerous to the party at a time
when it needed all its strength to meet the republican
302 HISTORY OF SAN FRANCISCO.
excitement which was carrying everything before it
in the north, and threatening to soon overwhehn the
democracy. As Mr. Broderick seemed to stand alone,
the president thought he could safely treat him with
neglect.
Notwithstanding the coolness in the personal de-
meanor of the president towards him, Mr. Broderick
made out a list of the friends to whom he proposed
to distribute the chief federal offices in California,
filed the names in the appropriate departments, and
mentioned them to the president and members of the
cabinet, who took no notice of them. It was a mat-
ter of notoriety that Mr. Gwin was in much higher
favor personally than his colleague with the adminis-
tration, and before long it began to appear that his
advice was sought and followed in reference to polit-
ical appointments. The control of the patronage was
in the opinion of Mr. Broderick, if not the most valu-
able attribute of his senatorship, at least essential to
its dignity; without it he could not reward his friends,
punish his enemies, or maintain his power. The loss
of it was a bitter humiliation to him, and a great dis-
appointment to his followers, who accused Gwin of
violating his contract. The answer made to this by
G win's friends was that he had not volunteered advice
to the administration; but when solicited for inform-
ation or his opinion, he had given it, in compliance
with his duty. The accusation, if not the defense,
implied the existence of a bargain.
Sec. 150. Insult to Buchanan. When the ques-
THE GOLDEN ERA IN DECLINE. 303
tion of introducing slavery into Kansas came before
the senate, Mr. Broderick took the side against the
administration, and he could do thafc without exposing
himself to the charge of treason to the party, for he had
the example and protection of Senator Douglas, by
many considered the ablest politician of the country,
and of excellent standinof in the oro-anization. Presi-
dent Buchanan claimed that the laws of the United
States carried slavery with them into the territories,
and that it could not be excluded until after the state
had been admitted into the Union. Douo^las aro-ued
that the territorial legislature could prohibit it. He
called the doctrine " popular sovereignty," a title well
designed to catch the favor of the people. So far
from sacrificing such popularity as he had in Cali-
fornia, Mr. Broderick really added much to it, by
adopting that doctrine, and yet by so doing he
wounded Mr. Buchanan and the pro-slavery democrats
in a most tender point, for every defection from the
administration strengthened the frenzy of the great
northern party, which was determined that the exten-
sion of slavery should stop. It is highly probable
that if even if Mr. Broderick had been on the best
terms with the administration, he would have adopted
Douglas's views upon the legal rights of the slave-
holders in the territories, for the slave party in Cali-
fornia had long been and were still his bitter enemies;
and his sympathies derived from northern associations
in favor of freedom were strengthened by the inter-
ests of his personal ambition and the animosities of
his political quarrels. <
304 HISTORY OF SAN FRANCISCO.
His control over a majority of the democrats in the
legislature of 1854 had been followed within a few
months by the overwhelming triumph of the chivalry,
and events took a similar course in 1857. The state
convention which met in June, was under the con-
trol of his enemies, and so was the legislature chosen
in that year, as well as in the next one. The major-
ity of the people were democrats, but they did not
recognize Mr. Broderick as a true representative. In
1859 the democratic legislature adopted resolutions
denouncing, as a disgrace to the nation, the hinguage
used by him in the United States senate when he
said that the policy of the administration towards
Kansas should be ascribed to ''the fading intellect,
the petulant passion, and the trembling dotage of an
old man on the verge of the grave." This studied
insult wounded the feelings of the president, violated
the j^roprieties of parliamentary debate, and w^as with-
out foundation in fact. Mr. Buchanan was doubtless
Avrong, at least the people have since decided that he
was, but his error was that of his party, and, it may
be said, that of his country, for his policy towards
Kansas was nothing more than the legitimate devel-
opment of the course pursued by the democratic lead-
ers and approved by the party in the two preceding
presidential elections. He was gentlemanly in his
manners, upright in his official position, and entitled
to respect in his errors of judgment. On no other
occasion has the legislature of California complained
that the state had been disgraced by one of its sen-
ators.
THE GOLDEN ERA IN DECLINE. 305
Sec. 151. Campaign of 1859 . The democrats had
now divided into two wings, the Lecompton, Buchan-
an or pro-slavery on one side, and the anti- Lecomp-
ton, Douglas or popular sovereignty faction on the
other. Each nominated its ticket, and the republi-
cans had theirs also, so there were three tickets in
the field. The campaign was bitter; Broderick, for
the first time in his life, made speeches before mass
meetings, and in these spoke abusively of Gwin,
accusing him of having been bribed by the Pacific
Mail company, and by the owners of Lime Point, on
the northern shore of the Golden Gate (they de-
manded and came near getting an outrageous price for
a piece of land valuable only for military purposes),
and denouncing his " utter worthlessness of character,"
his " unreliability of word," and his " sneaking man-
ner of acting " He also claimed that a letter had
been stolen from him by the connivance of Latham.
Both gentlemen denied these accusations, and repaid
them with interest. Latham declared that Broderick's
speeches were written for him, and that he had not
ability to make one of his own. Gwin said that Brod-
erick intended to use his senatorial power to compen-
sate his friends for money loaned to him. Before the
day of election a fusion was agreed upon between the
leading republicans and anti-Lecomptonites as to the
candidates for congress, so that instead of two anti-
administration tickets, with two congressional candi-
dates on each, there was only one, so far as congress
was concerned, with one candidate for each joarty.
20
306 HISTORY OF SAN FRANCISCO.
Even this did not avail. The Lecomptonites elected
their congressmen, as well as their governor. Thus
Broderick was again rejected by the people.
And now came the tragic end of his checkered
career. In June, David S. Terry, chief justice of the
sapreme court of the state, in a speech to a conven-
tion before which he Avas a candidate for renomina-
tion, said that Broderick's claim of having followed
the lead of Douglas, needed the explanation that it was
the lead, not of Stephen A. Douglas, the statesman,
but of Frederick Douglass, the mulatto. Broderick was
at the breakfast-table in the International Hotel
when he read the report of this speech, and speaking
to a friend so loud that others could hear, said ho had
spoken of Terry as the only honest man on the bench,
but now he took it back. D. W. Perley, a friend of
Terry, happening to be present, spoke up showing his
intention to take Broderick's remark seriously, left
the table, where some ladies were seated, and soon
afterwards sent a challenge. Broderick refused to
accept it, and in a note to the challenger, said he
could not fight with an alien — Perley was a British
subject — who had no political rights to be affected by
taking part in a duel, and then added the following :
For many years, and up to the time of my elevation to the
position that I now occupy, it was well known that I ayouIcI not
have avoided any issue of the character proj)Osed. If compelled
to accept a challenge it could only be with a gentleman holding
a position equally elevated and responsible; and there are no
circumstances which could induce me even to do this during
the pendency of the present canvass. When I atithorized the
THE GOLDEN ERA IN DECLINE. 307
announcement that I would address the people of California
during the campaign, it was suggested that efforts would be
made to force me into difficulties, and I determined to take no
notice of attacks from any source during the canvass. If I were
to accept your challenge, there are probably many other gen-
tlemen Avho would seek similar opportunities for hostile meet-
ings, for the purpose of accomplishing a political object or to
obtain public notoriet3^ I cannot afford, at the present time
to descend to a violation of the constitution and the state laws
to subserve either their or your purposes.
The note Avas one that could not be justified by
any code. The penalties affixed to duelling in the
laws of California, never having been enforced, were
practically void; and the principle that the rights of
gentlemen were limited by citizenship had never been
accepted. The challenge might with entire propriety
have been refused on the ground that the remark
about Terry was none of Mr. Perley's business; and
when it was declined there was no need of inserting
the indirect invitation for a challenge from a gentle-
man holding a position equally elevated and respon-
sible.
Sec. 152. Deadly Duel. Mr. Broderick did not
write thus without a purpose, which was "to kill old
Gwin," as he freely expressed it in conversation.
When he suggested his desire to fight with a gentle-
man holding a position equally elevated and responsi-
ble, he thought only of his senatorial colleague, who
might choose between shunning a duel and facing a
practiced pistol. But Mr. Broderick was caught in
his own trap. David S. Terry was not the man to
abandon his friend Perley or to let Gwin assume his
308 HISTORY OF SAN FRANCISCO.
quarrel. As he could not fight a duel while on the
bench without violating his oath of office, he resigned
on the day after the election and immediately sent the
challenge. Broderick was astonished and chagrined.
Without any thought of Terry he had invited his
challenge. The remark made at the breakfast table
was a serious public insult; the letter to Perley was
a declaration that he was ready to accept a challenge
from a high official. No excuse could be found in
Terry's character or position for avoiding his polite
invitation to slaughter. Instead, however, of giving
a simple acceptance, he explained that when com-
menting on Terry's speech he said that "during Judge
Terry's incarceration by the vigilance committee, I
paid two hundred dollars a week to support a news-
paper in his defense." This attempt to conciliate
Terry failed, for it was never a rule in "the code of
honor" that a favor at one time was a justification
for an insult at another, but the assertion itself was
untrue, for though Broderick and his friends did
maintain a newspaper while Terry was incarcerated,
yet it was not supported for the purpose of defending
Terry. Its defense of him was merely an incident of
its general policy of hostility to the vigilance com-
mittee.
The duel was fought in San Mateo county, ten
miles from San Francisco, on the thirteenth of Sep-
tember, with dueling pistols, at a distance of ten
yards. Both men were excellent marksmen, familiar
with the weapons and brave ; but Broderick, suffering
THE GOLDEN ERA IN DECLINE. 309
with diarrhea and the piles, was nervous, while Terry
was cool. When the signal was given, both beo^an
instantly to raise their pistols, but before Broderick
had brought his near to a level his finger pressed the
trigger, and his bullet struck the ground near the feet
of his enemy who fired a second later, the ball striking
the right breast and passing into the left lung, where
it lodged. Terry was so cool that he saw the dust
fly and the cloth bend under the bullet. He immedi-
ately said, '' The shot is not mortal; I have struck two
inches to the right." Broderick lingered for five days,
much of the time under the influence of narcotics,
given to protect him against the acute pain of his
wound. It was reported that while upon his death-
bed he said, '* They have killed me because I was op-
posed to the extension of slavery and a corrupt admin-
istration;" but he said nothing of the kind.
Sec. 153. Conversion into a Hero. After his death
Broderick was converted into a hero. The general
sentiment in San Francisco, especially among the most
intelligent men, was strongly adverse to Buchanan's
administration, and a political purpose was to be
gained by treating him as a martyr to the cause of
liberty. To praise the dead senator was an excellent
bait for his followers. Thus in the city where Brod-
erick while alive was generally regarded as an un-
scrupulous politician, after his death he was praised
as the greatest of her citizens. In Lone Mountain
cemetery his tomb has the best place, and his monu-
ment is the most prominent and is the only one there
310 HISTORY OF SAN FRANCISCO.
to which the state contributed funds, and in laying the
corner-stone of which a governor participated. The
funeral of Broderick was one of the most imposing
public demonstrations ever seen in San Francisco, and
E. D. Baker delivered an eloquent oration on the
occasion.
Sec. 154. Trading Capital. Mr. Broderick's res-
idence in San Francisco was a source of great political
strength to him. The majority of the ward politi-
cians of the city were from New York, and they
recoofnized him as their leader. Throuf^h them he
controled the democratic conventions from 1851 to
1856 inclusive. He did not dictate all the nomina-
tions, but they were generally submitted to him and
accepted by him before they were formally announced.
He allowed considerable liberty of action to his fol-
lowers, so long as they did nothing to obstruct his
plans. As he had control of the city and state
offices in the city so long as the democrats had power,
all the ruffians who wanted to make money out of
politics on the Tammany side, sought his favor, and
were ready to do what they supposed would please
him. They were the friends of his friends and the
enemies of his enemies. Whoever in that class had
taken his money and betrayed him was treated by his
former associates as an outcast.
San Francisco was the chief center of political
power. It was the point where all the inland lines
of travel converged^ where the politicians of the in-
terior met to arrange their plans. There was not so
THE GOLDEN ERA IN DECLINE. 311
much communication between Mokelumne Hill and
Placerville, though only thirty miles apart, as there
was between either town and San Francisco, which
was two hundred miles from each. In this metro-
politan situation, Broderick and Gwin were the lead-
ers of the two rival factions, but the latter was in the
city, the weaker of the two. He had not the same
talent for partisan discipline, not so much experience
in it, nor, on account of his duties as senator at Wash-
ington, could he devote so much time to it; and what
was more important than all, the southern people,
who were his reliance, were in a decided minority in
the city, where the northern men, who sympathized
wdth Broderick's policy, even wdien they disliked him
personally, were numerous, especially among the
classes who had most influence in the partisan organ-
ization. Having control of the San Francisco nomi-
nations, and of the delegations sent by San Francisco
to the democratic state conventions, Broderick pos-
sessed in them a large capital for j^artisan traffic,
w4iile Gwin had no such strength to trade with.
Broderick was determined to do everything that
was necessary to secure his election to the federal sen-
ate with the help of the democratic party. It appeared
indispensable that he should use many very disreputa-
ble men, like Mulligan, Sullivan and Casey, but he
refused to associate with them. Some of them he
paid with money and some with minor offices. With
other men, against whom much was said in the com-
munity, in some cases perhaps more on account of the
312 niSTOBY OF SAN FRANCISCO.
company in which they were seen than for any other
reason, he was on terms of familiar friendship, and he
considered them his lieutenants, to be called into ser-
vice Avhenever their several capacities were adapted
to the work to be done. Among them were J. M.
Estell, A. J. Butler, Leonidas Haskell, Reuben Ma-
loney, and Judge McGowan. Another class, com-
posed of men of excellent repute, was employed in
work suited to their tastes, and under circumstances
when their respectability would reflect credit on him.
He had friends also among his political enemies; but
most of the men with whom he associated familiarly
were political tricksters of low character.
Sec. 155. Reward for Service. These people did
not serve him for nothing. Many of them received
high pay, usually out of the public treasury. It was
not his policy to let those who had been his friends go
without reward, some with oflSce, some otherwise.
When the county supervisors and city council, in 1852
(the city had then one government, and the county
another), united to buy the Jenny Lind theater from
his friend, Thomas Maguire, for twice as much as the
property was worth, he favored the transaction. It
was consummated in defiance of a strong outburst of
popular indignation, but not long afterwards the value
of land advanced so much that the property was
worth more than had been paid for it.
When Broderick sought to secure the senatorship
in 1854, he felt the want of support by some respect-
able newspaper in San Francisco, and he secured that
THE GOLDEN ERA IN DECLINE. 313
of the " Alta California," which had previously been
his enemy. As it depended for its support mainly on
the merchants, with whom as a class he was very un-
popular, the paper incurred serious risks by advocating
his cause, but a cash consideration was paid, and sub-
sequently the county supervisors purchased the Alta
building on the south-west corner of Washington
street and Brenham place for a hall of records, pay-
ing about fifty thousand dollars in warrants, or the
equivalent of forty thousand dollars in gold for it —
considerably more than it was worth.
The extension bill of 1853 was one of the great
political frauds of California. It provided that the
water front of San Francisco should be moved six
hundred feet into the bay beyond the line fixed as a
permanent water front by law in 1851, and the inter-
vening strip should be conveyed to individuals; at
least one third of the value to go into the state treas-
ury, and the remainder to those persons who had
bought the land at the Peter Smith sale several years
before. That sale purported to grant the interest of
the city in the land, but as the city had not the least
interest there, the deed was void. It served, how-
ever, as a basis for a vast scheme of plunder, which
was to be carried out with the help of the legislature.
The property was valued at six million dollars. It
was expected that the state would get two million,
and the holders of deeds for the extension land
four million, which latter sum was to be stolen
indirectly from the state treasury. Of course the
314 HISTORY OF SAN FRANCISCO.
advocates of the measure did not confess that it
was theft; they pretended that purchasers at the
Peter Smith sale had equities which the state should
recognize; and they argued, though the argument de-
served no respect, that the extension would benefit
the city and commerce. Some of the younger, or
more io-norant, members of the legislature doubtless
believed that the measure was right; others voted to
please friends and without demanding any valuable
consideration, but many sold their votes. It was a
matter of common notoriety that deeds had been dis-
tributed freely among legislators while the bill was
pending.
In San Francisco, the leading journals denounced
the measure in the most emphatic terms; the mer-
chants held meetings to condemn it; its fraudulent
features were fully explained and proved; it was a
violation of the contract made in the statute fixing
the water front line in 1851; it would require the
raising of the grade on Montgomery street from Jack-
son to Sutter street eight or ten feet, and a corre-
sponding increase of elevation further east, thus im-
posing upon the citizens an expense far beyond the
amount that would be paid into the state treasury.
Those San Francisco assemblymen opposed to the bill
resigned for the purpose of getting an expression of
opinion from their constituents, and they were tri-
umphantly re-elected by five sixths of all the votes
cast. There was no doubt about the feeling in San
Francisco.
THE GOLDEN ERA IN DECLINE. 315
The majority of the holders of the extension deeds
were Broderick's intimate friends. The measure was
recommended by Governor Bigler, who was under his
influence. Brush, one of his devoted followers, in-
troduced the bill. Estell, one of his chief aids, was
its manager in the lobby. Nearly all his friends in
the legislature voted for it; he was in attendance
during the session, though his home was in San
Francisco, and he was not a member. It passed the
assembly, where his faction had a large majority; it
was defeated in the senate by the casting vote of
Lieutenant-Governor Samuel Purdy, who afterwards
received the congratulations of Mr. Broderick for
having done right, with the explanation that as his
friends were largely interested in the bill, he had not
made any eflbrt against it. By Broderick's influence
Bigler was subsequently renominated, Estell obtained
a lucrative state prison contract, and Brush was
placed in a fat oflice in San Francisco.
Purdy's vote secured great popularity to him, and
there was a general demand that he should be the
democratic candidate for governor. There was no
doubt that the extension bill was generally considered
a serious fraud, and that Bigler, if renominated, would
lose many democratic votes. But Broderick had his
personal purposes to gain, and for their sake he was
willing to endanger the party, and to impose upon the
good nature of his friends. The election of Purdy
for jjfovernor would have thrown two obstacles in the
way of his advancement to the senate. Purdy and
316 HISTORY OF SAN FRANCISCO.
he were both from the same state, and objection would
surely be made to giving a senatorship to a New
Yorker immediately after another had obtained the
governorship. If Bigler, who Avas a Pennsylvanian,
were not nominated for governor, he would become a
candidate for senator, and his popularity with 'the
Missourians, Avho were a strono- element in the leo^is-
lature, might give him the preference. The leader of
the Tammany faction explained these points to Purdy,
and begged him not to be a candidate, and the selfish
request was acceded to with an excess of generosity.
Bigler and Purdy were ren(^minated for governor and
lieutenant-governor; the platform avoided all mention
of the extension fraud; Purdy received twelve thou-
sand votes more than Bigler; and the latter had a
majority of fifteen hundred, though it was generally
believed that he owed not less than three thousand
votes to frauds on the ballot-box.
Though Broderick did not plunder the public treas-
ury for his own profit, nor directly assist his friends
to do so for theirs, yet he was, for several years, the
" boss" of the city administration of San Francisco, as
much as Tweed ever was in New York, and the gen-
eral character of the city officials Avas equally base in
the two cities under the '' boss" control.
Sec. 156. Veracity. Mr. Broderick employed
falsehood often and boldly, for the purpose of deceiv-
ing the people and injuring his enemies. He not only
denied facts known to many persons, but he contra-
dicted himself, and thus furnished j^roof of his mis-
THE GOLDEN ERA IN DECLINE. 317
representations. In a public letter, he said: " Be-
tween Mr. Gwin and myself there was no condition
whatever in regard to the distribution of the patron-
age." In a speech at Quincy, he told the people that
" Gwin sought me * * * and begged me, in the
most humiliating manner to take him with me to
the United States senate." At Stockton, he repre-
sented that there was a bargain, but it was made by
Gwin with Ferguson; and at Yreka, he declared that
Gwin " absolutely sold his followers for the position
he now holds. * '"' * I gave him the position."
On one occasion he said he knew nothing of Gwin's
promise to give up the patronage, and afterwards he
published Gwin's letter to himself dated three days
before the election, renouncing all claim to the pat-
ronage. At Nevada, he asserted that he intended
to support Latham, but discovered that the latter had
employed an agent to steal a letter from Tilford, and
for that reason Gwin was preferred. We have, how-
ever, the concurrent testimony of Estell, Tilford and
Latham to prove that Latham was defeated solely
because he would not give a written bill of sale trans-
fering all the federal patronage in California. Besides,
when Broderick replied to Latham's long speech at
Nevada, giving a history of the senatorial election, he
did not contradict the latter's statements.
Those who knew- Mr. Broderick intimately claimed
for him remarkable administrative ability, high con-
versational power, a strong attachment for his friends,
a strict regard for his promises, and a wonderful
318 HISTORY OF SAN FRANCISCO.
capacity to charm all upon whom he exerted his pow-
ers. Their opinion may be accepted upon those points.
He must have been a remarkable man to have tri-
umphed over circumstances so strongly adverse as he
repeatedly did, and to hold his influence over his
followers after he had made so many serious blunders.
Sec. 157. Chase for Senatorship. He spent seven
years in his struggle for the prize of the federal sena-
torship. Three times — in 1851, in 1855, and in 1856
■ — he prevented an election rather than permit any-
body else to get the place; once — in 1852 — he was
defeated; once — in 1854 — he attempted to bring on
the election fraudulently before the proper time; only
one legislative session — that of 1853 — between 1850
and 1857 inclusive, was free from the worry of a
senatorial contest, and in six out of the seven
struggles Mr. Broderick was a prominent actor. In
1854 his congressional ticket got only ten thousand
out of seventy thousand votes; in 1855 his party was
defeated because he controlled its nominations; in
July, 1856, rumor said he was in danger of banish-
ment by the vigilance committee, and when he left
the city for several days his absence was popularly
attributed to fear of the committee. Thus for three
successive years after his attempt to grab the sena-
torial toga before it was ready, the people had ex-
pressed their dislike of him in a most emphatic man-
ner; yet in January, 1857, he turned up as master of
the legislature, and not only secured his own election
to the highest political office which California could
THE GOLDEN ERA IN DECLINE. 319
confer, but designated his bitterest political enemy
as his colleague, obtaining from him, however, a writ-
ten assurance that Mr. Broderick was to be dictator
of the democratic party in California. Supposing that
this transfer of the federal patronage to him would be
approved by the people and his party, he confidently
anticipated the distribution of the leading federal offi-
ces in the state among his friends, and when his
demand was refused, he denounced President Buchan-
an as a dotard, and his policy as an outrage upon
freedom. He appealed to the people of California to
sustain him and they condemned him. , Challenged by
Perley, he declined, under the pretense that an alien
was not entitled to the satisfaction of a gentleman,
but he declared that he would not object to shoot
at some official as high in office as himself This
bait, designed for Gwin, was seized by Terry, who, as
a preparation for it, resigned his office of chief justice
of the state. Broderick was so nervous that his pistol
went off before he was ready, and his cool antagonist
planted a mortal bullet within two inches of the spot
which would have been instantly fatal. Thus this
ambitious man was finally at rest; his fortunes ceased
to vary, and his character belongs to history, where it
must be judged, not by the extravagant praise of his
personal friends, or the hate of his enemies, but by
his public actions, which furnish sufficient material for
measuring him morally and intellectually.
Sec. 158. ISGO. Among the important events of
1860 were the rejection by the federal supreme court
320 HISTORY OF SAN FRANCISCO.
of the Santillan claim under a pretended Mexican
grant for fifteen thousand acres south of California
street; the defeat by the state supreme court of the
Peter Smith title to two thousand acres of land west
of Larkin street, and the publication of evidence
showing conclusively that the Sherreback claim for a
tract of eight hundred acres south of Market and
east of Tenth street w^as worthless. These claims and
the Limantour, defeated two years before, had all
been held by a few speculators; the Limantour and
Santillan by persons not residents of the city; and as
they were not in possession, and the occupants were
not disposed to buy them off, the grading of lots, the
opening of streets and the construction of houses on
the large areas covered by the claims had been pre-
vented or seriously obstructed. The overthrow of
the claims added much to the wealth of thousands of
citizens, gave security to the titles of large districts,
and stimulated improvement and business south of
Market and west of Larkin street. The construction
of the steam railroad on Market and Valencia streets
gave cheap and convenient access to the Mission and
to Hayes valley, and added much to the value of
their land. The Washoe mines had attracted much
attention in 1859, but it was not until 1860 that the
conviction was established that the Comstock lode
had large and rich ore deposits, not to be exhausted
for many years, and that the business men of San
Francisco began to comprehend the importance of
owning the mines and controling the management by
companies incorporated in their city.
THE GOLDEN ERA m DECLINE. 321
The federal census reported that California had
379,994 inhabitants. Of these three sevenths were
men between the ages of twenty and fifty, and one
eighth were women of the same age; and more than
one third of all, or one half the adults were of foreign
birth. Of the 146,528 foreigners, China supplied
34,935; Ireland, 33,147; Germany, 21,646; England,
12,227; Mexico, 9,150; France, 8,462; British Amer-
ica, 5,438; Scotland, 3,670; Italy, 2,805; and South
America, 2,250. The American states which had the
largest number of natives in California, were California,
77,707; New York, 28,654; Missouri, 14,002; Ohio,
12,592; Massachusetts, 12,165; Pennsylvania, 11,143;
Maine, 9,864; Illinois, 8,251; Kentucky, 7,029; Ten-
nessee, 5,197; and Virginia, 5,157. All the Amer-
ican states and all civilized nations were represented
in this motley population; San Francisco was credited
with 56,802 inhabitants.
Sec. 159. Prosperity. The defeat of the Mexican
and Peter Smith claims to large areas in the south-
ern part of the city, not only enriched thousands
of citizens occupying the land in dispute, who now
became the owners in full, and gave them inducements
for opening streets, grading lots, and building sub-
stantial houses, but it offered opportunities for the
investment of money, just at the time when the out-
break of the civil war checked the habit of paying
visits to the east, and stimulated many Californians
who had previously considered the state as a place for a
brief sojourn to look upon it as their permanent home.
21
322 HISTORY OF SAN FRANCISCO.
The ownership of the land south of Pine street
having been doubtful, those citizens who wanted per-
manent homes had been compelled to purchase them
in the northern wards, where the space was limited,
the streets narrow and in many places steep, the build-
ings old and shabby, the grading, on account of the
tough clay of the soil or underlying rock, costly, and
the prices high. It was because of the uncertainty
of titles in the south that most of the fashionable res-
idences before 1860 were on Stockton, Powell, Mason
and Taylor streets, north of Clay, and that nearly all
the houses of worship were north of Pine street. St.
Mary's cathedral and the First Congregational church
were on the corner of California and Dupont streets;
the First Unitarian and First Presbyterian on Stock-
ton, near Clay; the First Baptist on Washington, near
Stockton; the First Methodist and Grace (Episcopal)
on Powell, near Washington, and Trinity (Episcopal)
on Pine, below Kearny. The sites of these churches
were selected then with reference to their proximity
to the residences of the members of their congrega-
tions. The leading hotels, save the Oriental, were
also north of Pine street.
The south end of the city, released from the heavy
drag which had checked enterprise and prevented im-
provement for ten years, started suddenly upon a
wondei'ful career of prosperity. The north end, de-
prived of the protection previously given to it by the
inability to obtain secure titles and by the prohibition
of grading and building in the south, remained nearly
THE GOLDEN ERA IN DECLINE. 323
stationary, while the growth, the fashion, and the
wealth gravitated rapidly to the southward, and to
the western addition, which was reached through the
southern streets. The work of the steam paddy, the
construction of street railroads, the rise of the new
hotels, completely eclipsing those of older date in the
convenience of arrangement and elegance of construc-
tion and furniture as well as in size, and the transfer
of the majority of the wealthy families, of the most
fashionable promenades, and of the leading theaters
and churches to the region south of Pine street, were
among the imjDortant changes that followed the judi-
cial decisions defeating the great land frauds. It is a
singular fact, however, that the decision confirming
the Sherreback claim has never been reversed, though
it is said that the claimants have abandoned it. The
rapid progress of the agriculture of the state, and the
large revenue derived from the Comstock lode stimu-
lated the growth of the city, and in the course of the
year ending with August, 1861, one thousand four
hundred and fifty-three new buildings were completed
or commenced, including the Kuss house. Lick house,
Occidental hotel. Masonic temple, Grace church, and
St. Mary's hospital.
Sec. 160. Bulkhead. As the time for the expira-
tion of the contracts under which the wharves had
been built was approaching, the owners of those
structures having enjoyed large profits from the heavy
taxes levied upon ships, formed a consolidated corpo-
ration, which proposed to build a stone bulkhead, and
324 HISTORY OF SAN FBANCISCO.
requested the legislature to give them, as compensa-
tion, possession of the water front, with the privilege
of collecting tolls there for fifty years. The mercan-
tile community protested against such a sacrifice of
public interests to lobby influence, but the legislature
passed the bill in defiance of sound policy and the
popular will; but as the city had been saved seven
years before from the great fraud of the extension
bill, by the casting vote of Lieutenant-Governor
Purdy, so now it was saved from the bulkKead bill
by the veto of Governor Downey.
Sec. 161. Pony Express. A notable event in its
time was the establishment of the pony express,
which began its service carrying letters between St.
Joseph, Missouri, the western end of the railway sys-
tem on the Atlantic slope and Sacramento on the
Pacific side. The distance was about nineteen hun-
dred miles, and the time ten and a half days, or two
hundred and fifty hours, with an average speed of
nearly eight miles an hour, each horse going about
twenty-four miles.
The horse mail started twice a week each way and
seldom carried more than two hundred letters on a
trip, sometimes not twenty, the high postage of five
dollars for a half ounce driving the ordinary business
to the slower mail. The first pony mail rider from
the east arrived at one a. m. on the fourteenth of April
at San Francisco, by the regular steamboat from
Sacramento, bringing his horse with him for the pur-
pose of making a display on his arrival. Announce-
THE GOLDEN ERA IN DECLINE. 325
inent Had been made that there was to be a public
demonstration, and a multitude of people went in
grand procession, with music and torches to the wharf,
whence they escorted the mounted mail-carrier with
continuous cheers to the post-office. The time for let-
ters between New York and San Francisco was by the
help of the pony reduced to thirteen days; but for
news it was brought down to nine days, that being
the time between the telegraphic stations at Carson and
St. Joseph. The pony mail, though sometimes inter-
rupted by Indian troubles, deprived the mail stage on
the southern route of much of its interest for the gen-
eral public, and was the main reliance of California
for important news until the telegraph was completed
across the continent. Before the pony mail had been
started, a telegraph company, aided largely by news-
paper enterprise, had begun to construct a line through
the San Joaquin valley, on the mail route, the object
being to catch the news in advance of the arrival of
the stage at San Francisco. The wire reached Visalia
in June, and was then continued on to Los Angeles,
but its value for the purposes of its construction was
of brief duration.
Sec. 162. Election of 1860. Though about two thou-
sand miles away from any of the territory upon v.'hich
the rebellion raged, California was profoundly agitated
by the war. At nearly all the elections, from 1852
to 1859, the people of California had given decided
majorities to the party in favor of the extension of
slavery. In 1859 the southern democrats had 62,000
326 HISTORY OF SAN FRANCISCO.
out of 103,000 votes; in 1858, 44,500 out of 81,000,
and in 1857, 53,000 out of 93,000; but in 1860, when
the death of Mr. Broderick had removed an objec-
tion that kept many votes from the northern democ-
racy wliile under his political management, and when
the line between the north and south was drawn with
greater distinctness, the state gave its electoral vote
to Lincoln, and out of 71,000 democratic votes, Doug-
las, the northern candidate, had 38,000. Breckin-
ridge, who represented the moral right of secession,
though the intention to secede was not avowed, and
was not generally believed, had little more than one
fourth of the votes cast in California, and only one
sixth in San Francisco. Thus a large majority of the
people had indicated at the polls that their sympa-
thies were with the north, as might be inferred from
the fact that more than two thirds of the Californians
born on the Atlantic slope were natives of the free
states. Under these circumstances it is not strange
that when the flag of the rebellion was hoisted, Cali-
fornia, under the leadership of San Francisco, ad-
hered to the Union, and continued faithful to it to
the end.
One result of the war was the abandonment of the
overland mail on the southern route, and the estab-
lishment of a daily overland stage on the central
route. At the same time the telegraph made rapid
strides from both sides towards Salt Lake, where the
connection was made on the twenty-third of October,
and then San Francisco was put in instantaneous
THE GOLDEN ERA IN DECLINE. 327
communication with New York. A new apportion-
ment was made this year, giving the city one seventh
of the members of the legishiture, whereas it had
previously only one tenth.
Sec. 163. Bakers Oration. On the twenty-ninth
of October, a few days before the presidential election
that was to give the federal government to the repub-
lican party, and put a stop to the advances of slavery
on our continent, there was a great gathering of peo-
ple at the American theater to welcome Edward D.
Baker, who, long a resident of San Francisco, had in
the previous spring gone to Oregon for the purpose of
being elected federal senator, and while on his way to
Washington with his commission in his pocket had
stojDped to spend a few days in the city which he con-
sidered his home, though he declared that his legal
residence was in Oregon. He was a great orator, and
on this occasion had great topics to discuss — the rights
of freedom, the duty of sincere republicans to elect
their candidates in defiance of the threats of the
slavery extensionists, and the course which he should
pursue as senator. The following passage in his ora-
tion deserves quotation here :
We are a city set on a hill. Our light cannot be hid. As for
me, I dare not, I will not be false to freedom. "Where the feet
of my youth were planted, there, by freedom, my feet shall
stand. I will walk beneath her banner. I will glory in her
strength. I have watched her, in history, struck down on an
hundred chosen fields of battle. I have seen her friends fly
from her; her foes gather round her. I have seen her bound to
the stake; I have seen them give her ashes to the winds. But
328 HISTORY OF SAN FRANCISCO.
when they turned to exult, I have seen her again meet them
face to face, resplendent in complete steel, brandishing in her
right hand a flaming sword, red with insufferable light. I take
courage. The people gather round her. The Genius of Amer-
ica will at last lead her sons to freedom.
The orator was not a native of our city, nor even
of our continent, having been brought to the United
States when an infant by his English parents, but it
was here that he found inspiration and appreciation
for a passage which is one of the glories of San Fran-
cisco. It will survive the English language, if that
can ever die; it will be repeated, cherished and ap-
pealed to until freedom in every form, the most pre-
cious of all the triumphs of humanity, and the struggle
for it, the most sacred of all duties, shall have lost their
interest. It surpasses any paragraph in Demosthenes,
Cicero, Burke, Mirabeau, Brougham, Webster, Sum-
ner, or Gladstone; it more than complies with Ma-
caulay's definition of eloquence. It is the soundest
reason (deduced from numerous famous experiences,
going back as far as history over a field as wide as civil-
ization) on a subject appealing to the strongest sym-
pathies of our common nature, white hot with the
justest and most generous enthusiasm, and expressed
in the highest polish of rhetoric. The large auditory,
enthusiastic on account of theirnumbers, their zealous
devotion to their party and its principles, confident of
their victory, as assured by every premonitory sign,
and about to take part in the ballot battle that was
to decide the policy and fate of a great nation, received
THE GOLDEN ERA IN DECLINE. 329
Baker's outburst with keen appreciation, thrilling ex-
citement, and thundering applause.
Sec. 164. Seven Years. The period of seven
years, from 1854 to 1860 inclusive, was marked by
the decline in the yield of gold, then the chief product
of the area tributary to San Francisco, which ceased
to gain population and wealth so rapidly as in the
previous era, and in some of her leading branches of
business suffered severely, though she continued to
prosper, building many houses every year, opening
new streets, paving old ones, building sewers, and
grading streets to the newly adopted official levels.
Many families arrived from the east, society improved
notably, and communication with the Atlantic slope
was greatly facilitated by the Panama railroad, the
overland stage, and the pony express.
While the gold yield and the number of mines de-
creased, the state was making far more progress than
it had done in the preceding five years. It changed
the bulk of its population from a migratory to a fixed
condition. The titles of many of the Mexican grants
were settled; considerable areas of federal land were
surveyed and occupied ; numerous farm buildings,
fences, roads and bridges were constructed; orchards
and vineyards were set out with the best varieties of
fruit; horses, neat cattle and sheep of the best blood
were imported; and a still greater addition was made
to the wealth of the state by the arrival of the wives,
children, sisters and mothers of men who had lived
for years without their families. The regions about
330 HISTORY OF SAN FRANCISCO.
San Francisco, San Pablo, Suisun and Monterey bays
were especially prosperous; the towns of Sacramento,
Stockton and Marysville improved ; and in the mining
regions, while the shallow placers were giving out,
many hydraulic camps, including Yankee Jim, Todd's
Valley, Michigan Bluff, North San Juan, Campton-
ville. Brandy City, La Porte, Port "Wine, the drift
mining towns of Iowa Hill, Forest Hill, Forest Cit}^,
Alleghany, and the quartz mining towns, rose in im-
portance. The growth of the state secured the continu-
ance of the prosperity of the metropolis.
THE SILVER ERA. 33X
CHAPTER YI.
THE SILVER ERA.
Section 165. 1861. Soon after the inauguration of
Lincoln, California was called upon to decide whether
she would adhere to the cause of the Union, or set up a
Pacific republic, the latter course being the one recom-
mended by the majority of her representatives in con-
gress. On the eleventh of May, San Francisco held an
immense public meeting, or rather collection of meetings,
for the day was converted into a holiday. The streets
were filled with flags, and a multitude of speeches were
made and resolutions adopted, in favor of sustaining the
federal government in its policy of preserving the na-
tional unity by force. The demonstration was so
empliatic, and showed such an immense prej^onderance
of feeling in favor of the Union in the metropolis, that
the policy of California and Oregon was decided. Six
days later, the legislature adopted resolutions in favor of
the Union ; but it had previouslj^ shown its feeling on
the same side by electing James McDougal a Union dem-
ocrat to succeed Dr. Gwin as federal senator. The
last political duel in which a northerner was shot by a
southerner in California soon followed and resulted in
the death of C. W. Piercy, a Union man, shot by Daniel
Show^alter, a secessionist. At the election in September,
San Francisco gave more than twice as man}^ votes for
the republican ticket as for the two democratic tickets
332 HISTORY OF SAN FRANCISCO.
together. The republican party carried the state for the
first time, electing Leland Stanford governor. As a
consequence of the war, the southern overland mail was
abandoned, and a daily overland mail was established
by way of Salt Lake. By the completion of the tele-
graph across the continent, important changes were made
in mercantile business, banking, journalism and social
life.
Sec. 166. 1862. For eight years from 1853 there
had been a steady decline in the yield of the precious
metals on the Pacific slope, until in 1861 the exporta-
tion had fallen to forty million dollars, a decrease of two
million dollars a year on an average ; but now it began
to rise again. The Comstock lode in 1862 turned out
six million dollars, and gave promise of doing far better
in the future. A number of mills were at work on its
ores, and experience in extracting silver had made
enough progress to enable the trustees of the mining
companies to form a definite idea of the business. The
general opinion among them was one of high satisfaction
with the profits of working the better quality of ores.
The method of reduction by amalgamation in iron pans
holding a ton or two of pulverized ore was new ; and
though there was a large waste, varying from one third
to one half of the precious metal, yet as the working was
expeditious, while the other processes were slow and
more costly, it was maintained, while all attempts to
reduce in wooden barrels like those of Freiberg, or in
Mexican heaps like mortar beds, were abandoned. The
production of silver having been three times as large as
THE SILVER ERA. 333
in the previous year, with confidence of a still larger
yield in the near future, there was an active demand for
the stocks of the silver companies, and their sale now
became a prominent feature in the city's business, to
which it gave a highly speculative tendency. The San
Francisco stock and exchange board was organized to
accommodate the dealers in the shares of silver mining
companies. Although the gold mines of California pro-
duced four times as much as the Comstock lode, they
had a very inferior place as spheres of investment in
the general opinion, partly because most of the gold
mines were w^orked on a relatively small scale, and re-
quired the daily attendance of the owners, so that there
would have been little profit for companies organized in
the metropolis. The largest gold mine ever worked in
California is a small affair financially as compared with
the leading mines of the Comstock lode. Gold stocks
were in 1862, as they still are, of little importance as
compared with silver stocks in the San Francisco
market.
The civil war w^hich oppressed the Atlantic slope stim-
ulated business on the Pacific side. The increased risks
of the voyage round Cape Horn caused a rise in freights,
and aided the establishment or enlargement of many
manufacturing houses. Agricultural produce commanded
good prices. Congress, to reward and confirm the loy-
alty of California, and to provide a quicker and more
secure communication between the eastern and western
coasts of the country, passed a bill to aid the construc-
tion of a railroad from the Missouri to the Sacramento
334 HISTORY OF SAN FRANCISCO.
river. While certain classes of people were prevented
from coming to California, others fled to the Pacific to
avoid the tumult of hostilities or the draft. The check
upon travel had a strong influence in favor of economy
and stability of population. A flood which exceeded
an}^ other before or since within the observation of
American residents, drove thousands of people from the
lower portions of the Sacramento and San Joaquin val-
leys, many taking refuge in San Francisco, and contri-
buting to its wealth. For several days the state house
in Sacramento was not accessible without the aid of
boats, and the legislature moved to the metropolis for
the remainder of the session. More than one thousand
houses were built. The rapid growth of the city gave
rise to an active speculation in town lots, and numerous
homestead associations were organized to help poor people
in exchanging their money for little patches of land in
remote places. The Russ, the Lick and the Occidental,
finer and more spacious hotels than any of their prede-
cessors, were built and opened. The waters of Pilarcitos
creek were brought in with a larger supply than the city
had had before, and at a better elevation. The cars of
the Omnibus street railroad began to run, and the work
on the Xorth Beach and Mission road was commenced.
The republican party, wdiich had carried the state in
the previous 3'ear, withdrew from the field, so as to per-
mit a fusion of its members with the Union democrats in
the Union party— the Californian political organization
which sustained the administration of President Lin-
coln till the close of the war, against the democrats, its
enemies.
THE SILVER ERA. 335
Sec. 167. Sanitary Fund. While the rebels were
seeking to divide the country into two nations, which
would probably have been hostile to each other for ages,
and w^ould necessarily have maintained standing armies
objectionable on account of their danger to libert^^, as
well as of their cost, many patriotic citizens of San Fran-
cisco, unable to leave their families and business and
make the long voyage to the Atlantic side, at an expense
greater than that of hiring a substitute there, felt some
twinges of conscience that they had not borne arms in
defense of the starry flag. Others, who could conveni-
ently go, went. Among those who reached high com-
mands in the Union army were not less than a dozen
who had been residents of California. Sherman, Ilal-
leck and Hooker, stationed as officers of the army at
San Francisco, had long before resigned to engage in
civil business. McPherson had been one of the army
engineers at San Francisco for years before he was ordered
east at the outbreak of the rebellion. Grant and Sher-
idan had been stationed in the state. Others of less
note were numerous; and many of the military leaders
on the southern side had also been in California.
The time came, however, when patriotic citizens could
render valuable service to the Union without talking up
arms. In the disastrous campaign of 1862, large num-
bers of soldiers were stricken down hy wounds or dis-
ease, and the government was unable to take the best
care of them. Some philanthropic and patriotic Xew
Yorkers organized the Sanitary Commission, under the
leadership and presidency of Dr. Bellows, the distin-
336 HISTORY OF SAN FRANCISCO.
guished Unitarian clergyman and pulpit orator. He
wrote to his friend Starr King, who started the move-
ment for a subscription in San Francisco, and gave his
zeal and eloquence to the cause. Here was a chance for
the people to show their attachment to the Union, and
their response was magnificent. San Francisco sent three
hundred thousand dollars in gold in the last half of
1862, and other portions of the Pacific Slope supplied
one hundred and eighty thousand dollars. The secre-
tary of the committee which collected the money,, in a
report of its work, said :
All private business Avas ignored, for the time, by tlie gen-
tlemen composing the committee, and the chief hours of the day-
given to this new and noble work. The whole city seemed to be
thrilled as with an electric shock, and the talk of the groups on
the streets, the merchants on 'change, boys in the gutter, of
men, women and children, was the movement for the relief of
our sick and wounded soldiers; and every loyal man's heartbeat
in active sympathy with the work. The soldiers' needs took such
an energetic hold on the people that the committee, on their
rounds, were not treated as unwelcome beggars, but greeted as
men who were doing a work which it was each man's pride to see
well accomplished; and they gave — all citizens gave — with such
enthusiasm as one might expect from recipients of good gifts,
instead of givers of the wealth they had toiled for; and there
was such singular unanimity as men see in no other great public
undertaking. There was alive, to interrupt their action, no bias
of political feeling, no conflict of religious opinion, no difference
on grounds of nationality. Men gave their gold as the overflow
of great patriotic love. It was the blood of their giant pro-
tector, their country, native or adopted, that was flowing, and
they came forth readily to stay its stream. Men of every politi-
cal party gave, whether Democrats, Kepublicans, or even seces-
sionists; and there was no sect or religion that was not repre-
THE 81 L VER ERA. 337
sented in this noble army of givers. The Christians gave with
loyal self-denial; the Jews, as earnest sympathizers with the
suffering; heretics, as citizens of a republic to be saved; and
men of no religion, with an ardor worthy the humblest religious
devotee. The representatives of every nation living in our
midst, English, German, French, Irish, Chinese, Italian, Hun-
garian, Russian, Spanish, gave with the fervor of native citi-
zens.
The large sum thus supplied by California gave im-
portance to the Sanitary Commission, which had pre-
viously done little, and had been almost unheard of in
most of the Atlantic states ; but with this help, it became
a prominent feature of the war. The money subscrip-
tions from the other parts of the Union were compara-
tively small, and in October, 1863, Dr. Bellows sent the
following telegram to San Francisco:
The sanitary funds are low. Our expenses are fifty thousand
dollars a month. We can live three months, and that only,
without large support from the Pacific. Twenty-five thousand
dollars a month, paid regularly while the war lasts, from Cali-
fornia, would make our continuance on our present magnificent
scale of beneficence a certainty. We would make up the other
twenty-five thousand dollars a month here. We have already
distributed sanitary stores, of the value of seven million dollars,
to all parts of the army, at a cost of three per cent. To aban-
don our work, or to allow it to dwindle, would be a horrible
calamity to the army and the cause. AVe never stood so well
with the nation; but California has been our main support in
money, and if she fails us we are lost. So organize, if possible,
a monthly subscription, and let us feel that California trusts and
will sustain us in her past spirit to the end.
A response sent that San Francisco would supply
two hundred thousand dollars in 1864, and that there
22
338 HISTORY OF SAN FRANCISCO.
was reason to hope that other parts of the state would
give one hundred thousand dollars more, called out the
following acknowledgment, which, read with high local
pride and tears of emotion on the morning of its recep-
tion at the tables of manj^ of the contributors, was a re-
ward for past and a stimulus for future contributions:
Brothers: I wonder that your life-giving telegram, charged
with two hundred thousand dollars, did not find me in my
travels, and shock me into immediate consciousness of the S2:»len-
did news. But just returned to New York, I see my table illu-
minated with this resplendent message, and in my haste to
acknowledge such a glorious and patriotic continuance in well-
doing, I can only stutter: Noble, Tender, Faithful San Francisco,
city of the heart, commercial and moral cajDital of the most
humane and generous state in the world ! If God gives to you,
so you give to others. Your boundaries will not hold the riches
and the blessings in store for you; they must needs overflow
into the hands of the needy and suffering, and make your name
the balm and cordial of want and sorrow. "I was sick, and ye
visited me." This is the nation's thought, as she sees herself
wounded in every hero that languishes in her hospitals, and
then gazes at the Pacific, at California, with San Francisco at
the head — the good Samaritan for the first time appearing in
the proportions of a great city, of a whole state, of a vast area.
A monthty subscription was organized, and the sum
of twenty-five thousand dollars a month — nearly one
thousand dollars for every business day — was sent by
San Francisco, which then had not more than one hun-
dred and ten thousand inhabitants. The final report of
the commission, published after the close of the war,
showed that out of four million eight hundred thousand
dollars cash received, California had supplied more than
one million two hundred thousand in currency. The
THE SILVER ERA. 339
gold value of the latter amount was about nine hundred
and forty thousand dollars, and of this sum San Fran-
cisco supplied about half. The Christian Commission of
California organized for purposes similar to those of the
Sanitary Commission, sent thirty-four thousand dollars
in gold to the central organization in Philadelphia.
Sec. 168. 1SG3. The flood season of 1862, which
brought forty-nine inches of rain, w^as succeeded by the
drought of 1863, when there were only fourteen, or less
than two thirds of the average ; but as agricultural pro-
duce commanded high prices, and the Comstock lode
yielded twelve million dollars, or twice as much as in
the previous year, San Francisco was prosperous. The
opening of the railroad to San Jose extended the sub-
urbs of the city for a distance of thirty miles, and helped
to enrich San Mateo and Santa Clara counties. The
North Beach and Mission, and the Central street-rail-
road to Lone Mountain, were completed, and also the
Oakland railroad wharf, twelve hundred yards long, so
that access was given to that town at regular hours, in-
stead of being dependent on the tides as before. The
Cliff House road was finished, and the legislature passed
acts to authorize the widening of Kearny street, and to
transfer the control of the water front of San Francisco
from private corporations to state officials. The new
houses of the year numbered twelve hundred.
Sec. 169. Silver Panic. The production of silver at
Washoe, and the distribution of large dividends, made
an intense excitement in the metropolis. Mining for
silver, and the management of silver mining companies,
340 HISTORY OF SAN FRANCISCO.
were as yet comparatively new, and people did not know
what to expect or believe. The books on Mexico, Peru,
and Bolivia, were ransacked for information about the
Guanajuato, Zacatecas, Cerro Pasco, and Potosi argent-
iferous lodes which were similar in many of their min-
eralogical features to the Comstock ; and the continued
productiveness of these mines for centuries had a strong
influence to encourage speculation in the silver stocks of
San Francisco. The shares, or feet, as they were gen-
erally called, for at that time it was customary to have
one share for each lineal foot, had in some leading mines
been rising in price at the rate of about one hundred
dollars every month for a year, until in June, Gould k
Curry sold for six thousand three hundred dollars; Sav-
age, four thousand dollars; Ophir, two thousand seven
hundred dollars; Hale & Xorcross, two thousand one
hundred dollars, and Chollar, one thousand dollars.
These figures indicate that the aggregate value of the
lode was about twenty-five milhon dollars, of which a
large part had been gained or added by speculation with-
in the year. The market was then sustained chiefly by
the Gould & Curry, which was working a highly profit-
able bonanza. Some of the richest stockholders, learn-
ing that the limits of the rich deposit had been reached,
and that the dividends to be expected would not justify
the price, sold out. A panic followed, with a swift dis-
appearance of much of the imaginary wealth, and great
losses to thousands of poor people, for by this time all
classes of the population had become holders of feet, and
the stock board was one of the chief centers of business
in San Francisco.
THE EIL VER ERA . 341
So long as the bodies of silver ore in the Comstock
lode had appeared to grow larger as greater depth was
reached, and inexperience and hope knew not where
they should limit their calculations of profit from the
dividends of the mining companies, so long there was
increase of excitement upon a basis that had no per-
manence. After the panic, unscrupulous speculators
began to make changes in their mode of doing business,
so that they would be sure of gains whether their mines
should pay dividends or not. The laws had been loosely
drawn, and all the permissible privileges that could be
turned to their pecuniary advantage were taken. The
increase in the number of shares was a great conveni-
ence, and almost a necessity, for companies whose shares
had sold for as much as six thousand dollars each ; but
as there was no proper restriction upon the increase or
the disposal of the new shares, it sometimes happened
that they were issued to pay for adjacent property, of
which the managers directly or indirectly owned a large
part. So the mining companies contracted at good prices
with mills to crush ore in large quantities, and though
the ore did not pay the expense of extraction and reduc-
tion, the mill yielded a large dividend to its owners,
who were at the same time directors of the mine. The
mining directors, as a class, looked not to the dividends
from the mine, but to their mills and the purchase and
sale of the stock for the bulk of their profits. For the
purpose of hiding their transactions, they held perhaps
a score of shares in their own names and thousands in
the name of a trustee — the name of the principal not
342 HISTORY OF SAN FRANCISCO.
being given — so that there was nothing on the record of
the company to show the ownership, and no one save
the trustee could tell on whose account the sale or pur-
chase was made. The shares were not numbered, and
could not Ije traced ; the certificates were evidences that
so manj^ shares had been sold, but did not indicate
which special ones. The superintendents were selected
by the directors, and were expected to consult their
wishes .and interests. In a rich mine the quantity and
quality of the ore produced and the appearance of the
stopes must be regulated by the desire of the directors
to buy or sell. The rich deposits were concealed when
the stock was to be bought up, or worked with every
energy when it was to be thrown on the market. The
superintendent of every prominent mine conducted on
such principles had his book of ciphers, so that he could
send secret messages to his masters and let them know
whether the ore was growing richer or poorer, enlarging
or diminishing in quantitj-. Mines were systematically
treated as combinations^ in which the managers were to
be enriched at the expense of the mass of the stockhold-
ers. Secret di'ifts, winzes and crosscuts, and at a little
later date, the boring of the diamond drill, gave them
important information weeks and even months before it
was accessible to others. A decent regard for the rights
of the company required that mining engineers of high
reputation for abihtj-, learning and integrity, should be
employed in the richer mines to make a comprehensive
report to be submitted at every annual meeting, showing
the quantity and quality of the ore in sight, the condi-
THE SIL VER Eli A. 343
tion of the shafts, drifts and stopes, and the prospect for
further working, but such reports would have prevented
the trustees from swindUng the public. Some of the
most important checks upon dishonesty were never
adopted; while every trick that cunning could devise
to make the many pay the expenses, securing to the few
the bulk of the profit, was practiced on an extensive
scale, in the most active of all the stock markets. On
such a basis not less than a dozen of the millionaire for-
tunes of San Francisco have been built.
Sec. 170. Conness. The election of John Conness
to the federal senatorship was a singular turn in events.
A year and a half before, as the candidate of the Doug-
las democrats for governor, he had used his influence to
prevent a fusion of the Union men, and had thus ex-
posed the cause to defeat. But he was so badly beaten
at the polls that his faction were demoralized, and they
were glad to accept the invitation of the republicans to
form the Union party, which then became dominant and
held control of the state government for several years.
The course of Mr. Conness in 1861, in trying to prevent
a combination of the Union men, his ardent advocacy of
the bulkhead bill and his position as the favorite of the
lowest class of professional politicians in the state, were
serious drawbacks to his advancement, but he had his
zealous supporters, and he appeared as an aspirant for
the senatorship in 1863. His principal rivals were T.
Gr. Phelps and A. A. Sargent, both old republicans and
then members of congress. The caucus of union mem-
bers of the legislature balloted many times before any
344 niSTOBY OF SAN FRANCISCO.
candidate could obtain a majority. While matters were
in this situation, a friend of Mr. Phelps tried to buy
one of Sargent's men. The proof of the attempted
bribery was conclusive, and it destroyed Mr. Phelps'
chances for that occasion, and as his adherents generally
were bitter against Sargent for the exposure, enough
went over to Conness to give him the prize, and he thus
obtained the chief control of the federal patronage for
the next six years. His senatorial colleague during
most of that time was- James A. McDougal, who, on ac-
count of his adherence to the democratic party and his
dissipated habits, had little influence in political affairs
at Washington.
For the purpose of strengthening his own influence at
home, Mr. Conness undertook to manage the distribu-
tion of the state as well as the federal offices. The first
election of a state administration for a term of four years
under the amendments to the constitution adopted by
the people in 1862, was now to be held. Mr. Phelps
was not a candidate, and Mr. Sargent wanted to be gov-
ernor, and was fairly entitled to the place, but Mr.
Conness, by the help of his senatorial position, obtained
control of the state convention and made up a ticket so
as to leave as little influence as possible for Mr. Sargent.
Among the republican friends of Mr. Sargent claiming
seats in the convention was Frank Pixley, an old repub-
lican and a brilliant orator. He held a proxy from San
Francisco; but Mr. Conness, for the purpose of excluding
him, secured the adoption of a rule that no person should
hold a proxy without the consent of the majority of the
THE SILVER ERA. 345
delegation from the county. The majority were against
Pixley, and he was exchided. A considerable part of
the business of the convention had been transacted when
Pixley presented himself with a proxy from San Ber-
nardino,
The Conness faction then tried to adopt a rule that no
person should hold a proxy, except from a county of
which he was a resident. This trick in convention man-
agement was new and base, but did not succeed. Pixley
took the platform to speak upon the question, as his
rights were involved. The large delegations from San
Francisco and Sacramento, consisting in considerable
proportion of low ruffians, stamped and yelled so that
the speaker's voice could not be heard. After saying a
few words he ceased to make a noise, but continued to
work his mouth and gesticulate as if he were delivering
an oration. Exhaustion and curiosity got the better of
the rowdies, and as their noise declined Pixley began to
speak about the civil war, and that topic had such an
overwhelming interest, that even those, who hated him
most, wanted to hear his remarks. The national cause
then, two months before the victories of Vicksburg and
Gettysburg, looked very dark, and whoever could say an
encouraging word to the Union men was welcome. Pix-
ley' s eloquence soon restored order and commanded ap-
plause. Having secured a hearing, he spoke wittily of
the situation of himself and other original republicans,
who were excluded from a Union convention represent-
ing a party of which two thirds were republicans, organ-
ized to sustain a republican national administration, and
346 HISTORY OF SAN FRANCISCO.
he soon had the convention in a roar of laughter. Then
he turned his attention to business. Pointing to the
ruffians who had drowned his voice, he said he knew
them ; he recognized among them men who had thrown
rotten eggs at him when he dehvered republican speeches
before his part}- obtained control of the state govern-
ment ; they were professional ruffians, and not too good
to murder for money ; their admission to a state con-
vention was a disgrace to the cause; and the}- were
fit tools to be used against him as the}' had been.
This invective was notoriously true, and was answered
with howls of rage, and even threats of violence, by the
subjects of it ; but they were soon subdued by the over-
whelming applause of the majority. Pixley's triumph
was one of the greatest that orator}- could achieve ; but
the oration itself had much reference to circumstances
that could not be appreciated by readers generally with-
out long explanations, and even if it had been reported
in full, as it was not, would not have much interest now,
though to those present at the convention and familiar
with the previous political history of the state, it showed
wonderful mastery of many varied and strong passions.
Sec. 171. 1864. The winter of 1863-4 brought only
ten inches of rain, or less than half the average, and as
the previous season had not brought two thirds of the
average, the crops of grass and grain in 1864 were very
scant. More than one fourth of the farm animals in the
state died of starvation, and several southern coast counties
saved only one in three of all their neat cattle. This
was a great disaster to the farmers; but San Francisco
THE SILVER ERA. 347
had her compensation from other sources. The silver
yield of Nevada was $16,000,000, an increase of nearly
one third over the previous ^ear. Besides, the placers
of Idaho and eastern Oregon attained high activity,
producing together $6,000,000; and with these helps,
the exportation of treasure reached $55,000,000, a gain
of $9,000,000 over 1863, and of $15,000,000 smce 1860,
when nearly the whole supply of the precious metals
passing through San Francisco came from California.
The population of the state increased 9500 by immigra-
tion, and 1050 new houses were erected in the city.
Among the prominent buildings of the year were Dono-
hue, Kelly k Co.'s bank, on the south-east corner of
Sacramento and Montgomery streets ; Maguire's Academy
of Music, on the north side of Pine street, below Mont-
gomer}^; and the Toland Medical College, on Stockton
street, near Chestnut. The long bridge, extending a
mile across Mission Cove, on the line of Fourth and Ken-
tucky streets, was completed ; the grading of Broadway,
])etween Kearny and Montgomery, with a cut in one
place sixty feet deep through the rock, Avas finished at a
cost of $30,000 for that one block ; an ordinance was
passed to widen Kearny street; a wharf, a thousand
yards long, extending out from the shore at Alameda
Point to deep water was built to connect the town of
Alameda by cars and ferry-boat with the city ; and the
Bay View turnpike gave convenient access to South San
Francisco.
The legislature of 1863 had authorized San Francisco
to give $600,000 of her bonds for an equal amount of
348 HISTORY OF SAN FRANCISCO.
stock in the Central Pacific Railroad and $400,000 for
so much stock in the Western Pacific ; and the proposed
gifts, when submitted to popular vote, were approved;
but the companies were not under the control of San
Francisco capitalists; the Central Pacific threatened com-
petition to the road from Sacramento to Folsom, owned in
San Francisco, and there was a general behef that the
Central Pacific w^ould never be built, and that conse-
quently the stock would never be worth anything, and
might even bring heavy pecuniary liabilities on the city.
The supervisors, under the influence of such opinions,
stubbornly refused to issue the bonds in compliance with
the act of the legislature, and as the city had the means
to carry on a protracted litigation, and might even suc-
ceed in getting the next legislature to repeal or modify
the previous action, a compromise was agreed upon by
which the supervisors should give $450,000 to the Cen-
tral Pacific, and $250,000 to the Western Pacific and
get no stock or other compensation. Subsequent events
proved that this compromise was a great mistake, for the
stock in the Central Pacific would have been worth four
times its cost.
Sec. 172. Gold Currency. This year saw also the
end of the struggle in the legislature to force a currency
of legal tender notes upon the state. In 1863 the spe-
cific contract act had been passed, providing that a writ-
ten agreement made for the payment of money in any
particular kind of currency recognized as legal tender
by the government of the United States might be en-
forced specifically by judicial decree. The object of this
THE SILVER ERA. 349
was to enable business men to conduct their transactions
in gold coin, and it succeeded. There was much hosti-
lity to this statute, under the supposition that it was
inconsistent with patriotism, and many speculators com-
plained that the state was seriously injured by excluding
cheap money ; but the general judgment of San Francisco
rejected these ideas as unsound, and by the influence of
the city the specific contract act and the gold currency
were maintained. Some attempts for repeal were made
in later years, until the federal supreme court, in one
of its decisions, laid down the broad principle that a con-
tract for payment of any kind of legal tender money
must be enforced in all parts of the United States,
whether in writing or not, thus superseding the specific
contract act of California.
Sec. 173. Lincoln Re-elected. The presidential elec-
tion of 1864 awakened a strong feeling in San Francisco.
The democrats demanded peace, which it was generally
believed could not be obtained by diplomacy without a
division of the country into two nations, and all the
great evils that must necessarily follow such a result;
and when, on the eighth of November, the republicans
learned that they had carried every loyal state, the city
was filled with enthusiasm, which was increased by the
news of the capture of the rebel cruiser " Florida."
When evening came, there was a grand celebration.
Numerous bonfires, illuminated windows, torches, roman
candles and rockets, filled the streets with a blaze of
light, and a brilliant moon beamed in an unclouded sky,
while a procession of four thousand men, with flags,
350 HISTORY OF SAN FRANCISCO.
transparencies and numerous bands of music, marched
twenty abreast through the principal streets, singing
patriotic songs, cheering the newspaper offices, the dwell-
ings of prominent republicans, and the ladies who, upon
the sidewalks or in the windows, waved their handker-
chiefs in congratulation. A cannon at the head of the
procession halted at brief intervals to add the roaring of
its thunder to the general rejoicing. It was a scene
never to be forgotten bj those who witnessed it. Its
participants believed the victory won at the polls was
not less important to the future welfare of the country
than an}^ yet won in the field of arms; and when they
were sure it had been won, their exultation was intense.
They now counted confidently on the near approach of
the ultimate triumph over the rebellion that had been
prepared for years in advance ; that had been on the
verge of success, and that had required for its defeat,
exertions the like of which had never been made before.
But the presence of one man was especially missed — one
whose voice had encouraged them in the beginning of
the contest, had cheered them in the dark daj-s of disas-
ter and defeat, had opened their hearts and their purses
for the sanitary fund, and had always been read}' with
inspiriting eloquence when liberty or union demanded
his service. Starr King had died in March, and was
buried in the yard of his church on Geary street, the
city ordinance forbidding burials in the midst of the
city being set aside in that special case, so that the
sight of his tomb might serve as a daily reminder of him
and of his words and works to the people.
THE SILVER ERA. 351
Sec. 174. 18G5. The capture of Ricbraond, the
overthrow of the rebellion, the restoration of the federal
authority over all the southern states, and the final ex-
tinction of slavery in our continent, were received with
great rejoicing in San Francisco, and when, a month
later, the great-souled president, who had saved the
Union, was assassinated by a southern fanatic, a mob
collected hastily in the streets and, before the police
could prepare for them, entered several democratic news-
paper offices, scattered the type and broke the cases.
This was the first mob to injure property in San Fran-
cisco, and the city treasury had to pay for the damage
afterwards. jS^o person was attacked.
The influx of people from the Atlantic states to avoid
the dangers, the excitements, and the disagreeable sights
common near the seat of war, ceased, and in its stead, so
many Californians went east to look after their relatives
or property-, that for the first time since the American
conquest the number of passengers departing by sea ex-
ceeded that of the arrivals. The confidence in the future
of the Comstock mines declined. The silver 3'ield of
Nevada Avas about as much as in the previous year, but
no new bodies of ore were discovered, and those pre-
viously opened were certainly approaching exhaustion.
At the end of the year the aggregate market price of the
mines on the Comstock lode was little more than $5,-
000,000, or about one fifth of what it had been two years
and a half before. Besides, though the yield was large,
the dividends were scanty, and the assessments exceeded
them in amount.
352 HISTORY OF SAN FRANCISCO.
In many respects, however, the business of the city
was highly profitable. The placers of Idaho and eastern
Oregon had nearly reached their highest productiveness.
The rainfall of the winter of 1864-5 was twenty-four
inclies, and the grain crop w^as so abundant that Cali-
fornia gained recognition as an important source of sup-
ply for the bread of Europe. The exportation of mer-
chandise amounted to $15,000,000, more than three
times as much as it had been ten years before. There
was a large increase in the clip of wool and in the plant-
ing of new vineyards. Many new houses were built,
including important additions to the Lick, Occidental,
and Cosmopolitan hotels, which, in their size, as well as
in the convenience of their plans, the elegance of their
furniture, the management of their servants, and the ex-
cellence of their tables, were superior to a like number of
hotels in any other city save New York, and equal to that.
The bridge across Mission Cove, on the line of Fourth
and Kentucky streets, nearly twelve hundred yards-long,
was built, at an expense of sixty thousand dollars, thus
furnishing access by a short, level, clean and solid road
to Potrero Point, which had previously been reached by
a detour of several miles, passing near the Mission, on a
hilly road, dusty in summer and muddy in winter, along
the southern shore of Mission Cove. The construction
of this bridge was an important advance towards filling
in mud flats covering five hundred acres.
Sec. 175. Fire Telegraph. The electric fire-alarm
telegraph was established, to give notice of fires more
precisely as to place and more promptly as to time than
THE SIL VEE ERA. 353
could be done by the watchmen who had been main-
tained, and who could not see the flames inside of houses,
nor when they broke out beyond the hills, nor even on
the low land near the City Hall, when the city was cov-
ered with dense fog, as it is a hundred evenings or more
in the year. This was an important step towards the
overthrow of the volunteer fire department, and was re-
sisted by strong political influences, and by numerous
crimes such as incendiary fires, false alarms, breaking
the fire-alarm boxes, and cutting the wires; but they
failed in their purpose.
Sec. 176. Railroad Purchase. The Central Pacific
railroad company commenced work in 1863, at Sacra-
mento, finished its road to near Dutch Flat, and found
that the Sacramento valley road, from Freeport, fifteen
miles below Sacramento, to Folsom, where it connected
with the road to Shingle Springs, was a troublesome
competitor, taking much of the Washoe freight and nearly
all the passengers to or from Virginia City, and exer-
cising a dangerous political influence. A bill introduced
in the Nevada legislature to give one million dollars to
the railroad which should first reach from the Sacramento
river to the state line, was welcome to the capitalists in-
terested in the Folsom road, who were confident that
they would gain the prize; and was opposed by the
friends of the other route. If the first railroad to Vir-
ginia City had come from Folsom, the Central Pacific
would have lost much of its profitable traffic, and to
secure protection against the numerous dangers of this
rivalry, the directors of the Central Pacific bought up
23
354 HISTORY OF SAN FRANCISCO.
the majority of the stock of the Sacramento valley road.
The transaction was considered a great triumph for
them.
Sec. 177. Earthguaheof 1865. An earthquake, more
severe than any felt in thirty j^ears before, visited the
city on the eighth of October, cracked the walls and
plastering of some weak buildings, frightened mimy per-
sons, some of them so much that a hundred or more re-
turned to their former homes in the eastern states, for
fear of something w^orse next time, and caused an uneasy
feeling in the real estate market for several months.
Sec. 178=. City Slip Debt. In this year the city was
burdened with a debt of a million dollars, imposed be-
cause of official blunders committed in the management
of the city slip sale in 1853, and in the litigation about
it two years later. Yery soon after the sale, a serious
panic struck the real estate market; the winter was not
favorable either for mining or farming; the receipts of
gold and the arrivals of passengers fell ofi ; shipj)ing de-
creased ; rents fell ; business was dull as compared v/ith
previous briskness ; and the purchasers were soon sick of
their bargains. But they had made their first payment
of nearly three hundred thousand dollars, and w^hen the
second payment of about six hundred thousand dollars
fell due two months after the sale, they still hoped for a
revival of business, and besides they did not see how
they could avoid payment without sacrificing all that
they had paid. After the lapse of another period of two
months, when the last payment of three hundred thou-
sand dollars was to be made, they generally refused,
THE STL VER ERA. 355
though nearly all had taken possession of their lots.
Their lawyers told them there was a flaw in the title;
that the ordinance ordering the sale was never legally
passed ; that Avhen the full board of assistant aldermen
consisted of eight members, four affirmative votes could
not pass an ordinance, even when one of the seats was
vacant by resignation. The city tried to cure this de-
fect, by confirming the ordinance, and as possession had
been taken and most of the price paid, a valid confirma-
tion was all that the purchasers had a right to demand ;
but they preferred to get their money back. Their
policy was to wait to be sued for the last payment
claimed under their notes given to the city for the lots;
and their plea in defense was that they had received no
consideration, the title being void, and that a void title
could not be confirmed. Tlie legislature could have
remedied the defect, but the money was wanted. This
litigation rendered it certain that these lots would not
be filled in and built upon as expected, and injured the
value of lots on Commercial street — which ran through
the middle of the city slip — between Davis and San-
some. The construction of wharves elsewhere had ac-
commodated shipping; other streets, wider than Com-
mercial, had been built up later, and were provided
with better houses ; the buildings on the lower part of
this street put on a look of ruin and decay; many of
them were vacant; and instead of being, as it had been
a few 3-ears before, the liveliest and the most cheerful,
it became the most disconsolate part of San Francisco.
The purchasers having gained the decision that no
356 HISTORY OF SAN FRANCISCO.
title passed J brought suit for the money paid; and though
they were not entitled in justice to recover, yet the
supreme court, after five or six years of litigation, gave
decrees in their favor. But before the matter was closed
up, a new era of prosperity had commenced, and the
purchasers agreed to compromise, taking the lots and
something more than they had paid — allowance being
made for interest monej'. Bonds for one million dollars
were issued to thirty-five of the purchasers who recov-
ered judgment. Six others commenced suit subse-
quently; but the city lawyers made a plea not tried
before — they averred that the city had never legally
received the money, though the supreme court had
assumed in the previous judgment that the city council
had appropriated the monej'. But proof was furnished
that the ordinance appropriating the money received
from these sales had been passed by both boards of alder-
men on the same day, and in the second board had not
obtained unanimous consent, whereas such consent was
necessary if passed on the same day; and the supreme
court held that as the money had not been appropriated
in compliance with the technicalities, therefore it had
never legally come into the possession of the city treas-
urer, and that when paid out it was not the money of
the city but of the city slip purchasers, and they might
follow it if they could. This decision saved one hun-
dred and ninety thousand dollars to the citj^, and when
considered from the standpoint of justice and reason,
was as absurd as the other. In one case the purchasers
who had paid three fourths of the price and had taken
THE SILVER ERA. 357
possession of the lots were permitted to refuse the offer
of the city to make a perfect title to the property; and
in the other, citizens were told that the payment to the
city treasurer was void, because the ordinance appro-
priating the money to various purposes was defective.
The city creditors paid with money thus illegally appro-
priated ought to have sued the city for second payment,
on the ground that they had never been paid legally;
and a judgment in their favor against the city would
have completed the circle of absurdity and injustice.
Sec. 179. 1866. The year 1866 was marked by
the tearing down of the buildings on the west side of
Kearny street, for the purpose of widening it; by the
success of the state harbor commissioners in getting
possession of the entire water front from the wharf
corporations, which had held control there for fifteen
years; by the construction of the extensive wharves
and other improvements of the Pacific Mail company,
at the foot of Brannan street, to accommodate their
steamers, running to China and Panama; by the cut-
ting down of a hill containing 300,000 cubic yards on
Rincon Point, to obtain material for filling in water
lots near the Pacific Mail wharves; by the opening of
Woodward's garden as a pleasure resort for the gen-
eral public; by the completion of the Sutter street
railroad, giving convenient access to a considerable
area in the Avestern addition; and by the establish-
ment of the paid fire department and the abandon-
ment of hand fire-engines, those drawn by horses and
driven by steam being substituted. The Bay View
358 HISTORY OF SAN FRANCISCO.
railroad and the stone dry-dock on Hunter's Point
were commenced. Building in the southern part of
the city, and land speculation, were very active. The
sum of the sales of land within the city limits Avas
$13,000,000. The rainfall, though not above the
average, was so distributed as to time that the crops
were large. The exports of merchandise were $17,-"
000,000, nearly $3,000,000 more than in any previous
year. The yield of the Comstock lode was $15,000,-
000, but only one tenth was dividend; and as no new
bodies of ore were opened, speculation in silver shares
was dull, and the sales in the San Francisco board
amounted to only $32,000,000, or about two thirds as
much as in 1865. The state gained 4,800 inhabitants
by the excess of arrivals over departures.
Sec. 180. Subsidies. The numerous subsidies given
at 2:)revious sessions of the legislature to railroads, and
the division of the profits among relatively few indi-
viduals, stimulated schemes for getting more money
from the public treasury in the same way. One of
these created a lively excitement throughout the state,
and led to the overthrow of the republican domination
in the state government. A bill was passed by the
legislature to pay $52,000 annually as interest on
bonds of the Sacramento and Placerville railroad, and
$90,000 on the Western Pacific. The former road,
only thirty-six miles long as projected, and twenty-six
were already completed, had already obtained $300,-
000 in Ell Dorado and Placerville bonds, and to give
$1,000,000 from the state treasury for building only
THE SIL VER ERA. 359
ten miles additional road of no service save to a small
district, inhabited by not one twentieth of the inhab-
itants of California, was outrageous. The proposed
gift to the Western Pacific was scarcely less objection-
able. That company had already obtained a loan of
$2,000j000 in federal bonds for thirty years, a gift of
800,000 acres of federal land, $250,000 from San
Francisco as a gift, and $400,000 in Santa Clara and
San Joaquin county bonds in payment for an equal
amount of the company's stock. These subsidies
might be jxit down as worth certainly $2,500,000 in
cash, and as the route was only one hundred and
twenty-six miles long, nearly level, through a well
settled part of the state, and was the western termi-
nal section of the transcontinental railroad, the aid
already supplied by the government was abundant.
The daily press protested against requiring the people
to pay $2,850,000 for the benefit of a few individuals,
under the pretense of securing the construction of
roads that would be built without further subsidy, or
that if built would render no benefit to the state gen-
erally; but the legislature was under the control of a
corrupt lobby, and the bill Avas adopted by both
houses. Now, as on other occasions, the public inter-
ests were saved by the veto power. Governor Low
protected the state treasury against this excessive lib-
erality of the legislature.
Sec. 181. Paid Fire Department. The volun-
teer fire department had rendered great service to the
city, and had even been indispensable for its preserva-
360 HISTORY OF SAN FRANCISCO.
tion, but the time had come when something better
was needed. In early years, when families were few,
when the rich men were young and active, when
nearly all the merchants had their homes in or near
their stores, and when all their property was exposed
to the flames, the fire companies had included many
of the best citizens, but when those men advanced in
age, moved out to the suburbs, and put their money
in lands, mines, canals, railroads, steamboats, insur-
ance companies and banks, they retired from active
service with the fire companies, and other less scrupu-
lous men took their places. The engine houses be-
came the homes of a disreputable class, always ready
to run with the machine in payment for free lodgings.
As the city grew, and fires became more numerous,
the conduct of these men became more troublesome,
and the danger from the insubordination greater, so
the people's party purchased steam fire-engines and
discharged the volunteers, not without bitter opposi-
tion from those, who liked the old system for the
plunder or political influence which it gave them.
Sec. 182. Kearny Street Widened. The most not-
able change in San Francisco in the course of 1866 was
the work done in widening Kearny street, Avhich had
been previously forty-five and a half feet wide, and
now thirty feet more taken from the western side
were added, from Market to JBroadway, a distance of
nearly a mile. At that time the district west of
Dupont and north of Washington was much more
important in the business of the city relatively than
THE SIL VER ERA. 361
it is now, and people going from that district to any-
place south of Bush street went by way of Mont-
gomery street, which, because of its wide sidewalks
and level grade, was the preferred route for persons
passing between the two leading residence districts of
"North Beach" and "South Park," as the northern
and southern parts of the city were sometimes desig-
nated, and for that reason Montgomery street had in
1853 become the fashionable promenade, and after-
wards acquired the most elegant shops, and leading
hotels, and its lots became the most valuable in the
city.
It did not offer room enough, however, for the busi-
ness that thronged it, and the rapid growth of the city
demanded more space for the future. The legislature
passed a general act to authorize the widening of
streets in San Francisco, with special reference to
Kearny street, though without mention of it; in 1865,
commissioners were appointed to assess benefits and
damages, and a suit to restrain them from acting was
defeated, and there was a lively demand for Kearny
street lots at improved prices. The next year their
report was adopted, and the demolition of the houses
along the western side of the street and the construc-
tion of others in their places were commenced. When
the assessments were made lots near Washington
street were worth twice as much a front foot as near
Market, but before a year had gone by it was evident
that the southern part of the street would get much
more than an equal share of the benefit, though this
3C2 HISTORY OF SAN FRANCISCO.
result could not have been foreseen with sufficient con-
fidence to serve as a basis of the official estimates.
The new street had some important advantages over
Montgomery. It had a greater length of level ground;
it was six feet wider; it was nearer the residence dis-
tricts; its buildings on the west side were more ele-
gant, as a class, and better adapted for the sale of
elegant merchandise; it was certain that the eastern
side of the street would be rebuilt in equal, if not
superior style; it was exempt from the throng of
stockbrokers who filled the sidewalks on Montgomery
street, and it connected directly with Third street,
which might thus be considered as an extension of it.
Under these influences, Kearny superseded Mont-
gomery as the preferred Ji'treet for promenaders and
fashionable shops. The accounts for widening the
street were closed in 1868, and the total expense was
five hundred and seventy-nine thousand dollars, while
the aggregate pecuniary benefit to the lot owners
directly interested was not less than three million
dollars.
Sec. 183. Outside Lands. The title of the city to
about four thousand acres of land west of Larkin
street having been perfected, ordinances were passed
to convey it to the parties in possession and to give
them deeds for it. In 1853, the city as successor of
the pueblo of Yerba Buena, presented its claims to
the federal land commission for four square leagues,
about seventeen thousand acres, under the Mexican
law, giving so much for common or other public pur-
THE SIL VER ERA. 363
poses to every pueblo or town. The claim was con-
firmed in 1854 by the land commission for about ten
thousand acres, including all that part of the penin-
sula north of the Vallejo line, which started near the
intersection of Fifth and Brannan streets and ran
through the summit of Lone Mountain to the ocean.
Both parties, the city on one side and the land agent
of the federal government on the other, appealed from
this decision, and in course of time the case reached
the federal circuit court, which on the eighteenth of
May, 1865, filed a decree confirming the claim to the
city to four square leagues above high water mark,
"for the benefit of the lot-holders under grants from the
pueblo, town or city of San Francisco, or other com-
petent authority, and as to any residue, in trust for
the use and benefit of the inhabitants of the city." An
appeal was taken from this decision on behalf of the
federal government to the United States supreme
court: but on the eig^hth of March, 1866, cono-ress
passed an act confirming the decree, and granting to
the city all the title of the United States to the tract
described in the decision of the circuit court, with the
exception of lands needed for federal reservations,
subject to the conditions that all of this land not
needed for public purposes, or not previously disposed
of, should be conveyed to the persons in possession.
The only opposition to the city claim recognized by
the law was that by the United States, and when
congress granted the federal title to San Francisco,
there was no basis for litigation, so the United States
364 HISTORY OF SAN FRANCISCO.
supreme court dismissed the appeal, and the decree of
the circuit court stood as the true basis of the title. That
decision gave the land not already disposed of "in
trust for the use and benefit of the inhabitants of the
city;" the act of congress gave it for the benefit of
"the parties in the bona Jide SiCtndX possession thereof "
The inhabitants were many; the people in possession
were few, but they had money, political influence, or-
ganization, and the legislature passed an act providing
that everybody in possession of not more than one
hundred and sixty acres, should keep it all. The
supervisors passed the Clement ordinance recognizing
the ownership of the people in possession, and the
McCoppin ordinance, giving deeds to them. Thus a
domain which might have been sold for millions of
dollars, or given in small lots to ten thousand poor
citizens, anxious to secure homes, was bestowed upon
a few. The giving of such large areas was not in har-
mony with the town system of Mexico, and the posses-
sory titles within the limits of the pueblo claim were
void under the American law; nor Avas their recogni-
tion consistent with sound public policy, but it re-
ceived the sanction of the legislatures, councils and
courts. The city out of all this vast domain reserved
a park of one thousand acres, mostly drifting sand,
and some lots for public squares and buildings.
Sec. 184. 1867. The winter of 1866-67 had
brought nearly one half more than the average supply
of rain, and among its consequences were a very abun-
dant crop of wheat and the exportation of merchan-
THE SILVER ERA. 365
dise to the value of $22,000,000 — an increase of $5,-
000,000 over 1866, and $8,000,000 over 1865. The
merchandise exports of San Francisco had now reached
a level with the gold production of the state. The
gold yield of Idaho had commenced to decline, but
it was still about $5,000,000 annually, and the
loss was more than compensated by the rise of the
silver yield of Nevada to $18,000,000, and the distri-
butions of $3,800,000 silver dividends in San Fran-
cisco, the last figure being twice as great as in 1866.
The large bonanza at Gold Hill came into view, and
gave birth to the hopes, which were realized a few
years later, that the profits obtained by the Gould &
Curry and the adjacent mines from 1863 to 1866
would be surpassed. The sales of mining stocks were
twice as large in the aggregate as in the previous
year, and the San Francisco board found it necessary
for the accommodation of its customers to move to
new rooms in the Merchants' Exchange on California
street. The completion of that building and of the
Bank of California, and the transfer of the business
connected with the two stock boards, fixed the finan-
cial center on California street, between Battery and
Montgomery, where land soon rose to be worth $3000
per front foot, a price considerably greater than that
demanded previously. The work of rebuilding the
west side of Kearny and relaying the pavement and
sidewalk had now advanced so far, the street had at-
tracted so much trafific, and its lots advanced so much
in value, that the improvement of widening it had
become an assured and high success.
366 HISTORY OF SA^ FRANCISCO.
The fever of land speculation was so active that
the old steam excavator could not keep pace with the
demand for grading, so a new one was imported and
set to work. The bridge a mile long across Islais
Cove, and the Bay View railroad, were completed,
thus furnishing cheap access to an extensive district
on the southern water front. The stone dry-dock at
Hunter's Point was finished at the same time. The
growth of the city was most active south of Market
street, and the steam cars which had been running on
that street to the Mission for seven years, Avere now
stoj^ped in accordance with the general demand, and
horses were substituted. The sale of the Beideman
tract of one hundred and sixty acres, north of Turk
street and west of Larkin, at auction in small lots,
enabled hundreds to buy homesteads at prices much
less than the land commanded a few years later.
The claim of the De Haro family to the Potrero was
defeated in the United States supreme court, and the
people in possession were protected in their titles. A
contract was made for a sea wall of stone along part
of the water front, at the rate of $278 per lineal foot,
implying that the entire cost of the projected wall
would be about $1,500,000 a mile. In this year the
Almshouse, Trinity church, and the Howard Presby-
terian church on Mission street near Third, were fin-
ished.
Sec. 185. Railroad Progress. The progress of the
Central Pacific railroad became a matter of great in-
terest in 1867 to San Franciscans, who had previously
THE SILVER ERA. 367
believed that it would not in many years surmount the
Sierra Nevada. Now they saw a strong probability
that the iron track would be finished across the conti-
nent within a few years, thus reducing the time
between San Francisco and New York from twenty-
four to seven or eight days for ordinary travel, and
relieving passengers from the discomforts of a long
sea voyage, including two weeks in the tropics. This
was the great work to which they had long looked for-
ward as necessary to the proper development of the
industry and commerce of California, and as the time
for its completion drew near they were filled with
confidence that the city and state were about to enter
a new era of prosperity more brilliant than any
known in the past. Their confidence, stimulated all
kinds of business, and the general feeling, especially
in the real estate market, was one of high exhilara-
tion.
Sec. 186. Democratic Victory. The republican
party which had held control of the state government
for six years, and had a majority of 18,000 at the
presidential election in 1864, lost its power by nomi-
nating George C Gorli^m for governor. At the pre-
ceding session of the legislature he had urged the
adoption of the bill to give $2,850,000 to the Western
Pacific and Placerville railroad companies, and thus
had given serious offense to influential republican
journals and to many of the voters; but, on account
of his talent for public speaking and partisan man-
agement, he was the favorite of the professional poli-
368 HISTORY OF SAN FRANCISCO.
ticians in the party, and they thought they could defy
all opposition. They over-estimated their power.
An independent republican ticket hostile to railroad
subsidies was nominated; the democrats adopted a
platform denouncing subsidies as a great danger; a
campaign pamphlet was published with a colored
map, showing the immense areas of land in Cali-
fornia granted by congress to aid the Central Pacific,
the Southern Pacific, and the California and Oregon
railroads; and though these lands were for the most
part of little value, and the grants of them were
moderate aids to enterprises of much service to the
development of the industry and commerce of the
state, still the maps were well fitted to increase the
popular discontent provoked by the un^'easonable
plans for money subsidies. The republicans allowed
themselves to be put in the position of advocates of
subsidies, and they were defeated. H. H. Haight,
democratic candidate for governor, and a legislature
of the same party, were elected on the platform of
''economy, purity and reform."
For the first time in ten years the democrats suc-
ceeded in defeating the candidate of the taxpayers
or people's party for mayor. At the preceding ses-
sion of the legislature the municipal election had
been transferred by the republicans from the spring
to the fall, so that it was held on the day fixed for
choosing state and federal officers. The pretext for
making the change was that there were too many
elections; but a strong, if not the predominant, motive
THE SILVER ERA. 369
was the desire to increase the influence of the na-
tional party organization in the choice of the city
officials, and thus break down the local people's party
in San Francisco. The republicans altered the law,
expecting to be the gainers by it, as for years their
ticket had been the chief rival of the taxpayers';
but the blundering of the state republican convention
in its platform and nominations, and the skillful use
by the democrats of the opportunity offered to them,
gave to the latter party the lead in San Francisco (as
well as in the interior of the state), and Frank Mc-
Coppin, their candidate for mayor, became the head
of the city government, the only person elected to
that place between 1857 and 1874 inclusive, under
nomination by a convention wearing the name of a
national political party.
Sec. 187. 1868. The exhilaration which had filled
the San Francisco real estate market in 1867 became
an intoxication towards its end, and so continued
through the next year. Land speculation, especially
in the southern part of the city, was extremely active.
The real estate sales ran up to twenty-seven million
dollars, an increase of ten million dollars over the pre-
vious year. Several scores of homestead associations
bought up large tracts, going, in some cases, six miles
out on the peninsula, or nearly as far beyond Oakland,
and sold the lots at double or treble the cost to igno-
rant and deluded purchasers, who made their payments
in small monthly installments, while two or three spec-
ulators usually divided the bulk of the profits. It
24
370 HISTOEY OF SAN FRANCISCO.
was now certain that the railroad across the continent
would be finished before 1870. Two great corpora-
tions, endowed by congress with immense grants of
land and loans of bonds, means that were not availa-
ble until considerable distances had been built, work-
ing from the opposite ends, and entitled to all they
could build respectively, were running an unexampled
race in laying track at the rate of a mile a day or
more. The attention of the nation was fixed upon the
race, the road, and California. The gain of the state
by immigration in the twelve- month was thirty-five
thousand, surpassing anything since the first few years
after the gold discovery.
The railroad from Vallejo to Sacramento was fin-
ished, and the journey between the metropolis and the
political capital of the state was reduced from eight
hours to four and a half This road was also connected
by a track four miles long from Adelante to Suscol
with the Napa valley road, thus giving continuous
steam communication from San Francisco to Calistoga,
which thus became a prominent pleasure resort — for a
time the most prominent on the coast. The comjDle-
tion of the railroad from Sacramento to Marysville, and
the subsidy of three hundred thousand dollars in the stock
of the San Jose railroad, given by the city of San Fran-
cisco to the southern Pacific railroad company to aid the
construction of thirty miles of road from San Jose to
Gilroy, and the completion of the stone dry-dock at
Hunter's Point, all contributed to the land excitement.
Sec. 188. Earthquake of 1868. The year 1868
THE SIL VER ERA. 371
is memorable for the severest earthquake felt in the
city since the American conquest. It came on the
twenty-first of October, about eight a. m.; killed five
persons by throwing loose bricks from the tops of
buildings upon them as they were Avalking in the
street^ and led as many more to break bones by jump-
ing out of second and third-story windows. No
person was severely injured in a house, nor was the
better class of structures damaged, but a dozen brick
buildings which had weak foundations, on the made
ground were cracked so as to be untenantable; and
many people affected by the news of the great Peru-
vian earthquake on the thirteenth of the previous Au-
gust, with its tidal wave that swept a city to destruc-
tion, were seriously frightened, so that hundreds slept
in the public squares for several nights. Fears were
entertained that there would be a serious decline of
real estate and a decrease of population, but the scare
passed off in a few weeks ; and since that time earth-
quakes have been less frequent and severe than before.
Sec. 189. San Joaquin Valley. The winter of
1867-68 brought a rainfall of thirty-eight inches, or
half as much more than the quantity necessary for a
good crop, and the consequence w^as an exceptionally
good harvest. The state had now had abundant rains
for four successive seasons, giving great profit to the
farmers, and leadins^ to a doubling of the area under
cultivation. The spread of tillage was especially notice-
able on the eastern side of the San Joaquin valley, be-
tween the Stanislaus and Merced rivers, a region previ-
372 HISTORY OF SAN FRANCISCO.
ously considered almost valueless for any purpose save
pasturage. The soil is a sandy loam, and the rainfall is
one third less than in San Francisco; so that in dry
years the grain crops if not irrigated are poor, but for
four seasons the rains had been so abundant that the
clay soils near the coast had been almost unmanage-
able on the account of the excess of water, and the
farmers were driven to try the sandy plains. Lands,
which for years had found no purchasers at the federal
price of one dollar and twenty-five cents an acre, were
now in demand at twenty dollars. Half a million
acres were bought up in two years. Instead of being
worthless, as was supposed, it was found to be in some
respects the best wheat land in the state ; for, though
not so rich as some other, it would produce more in
proportion to the labor devoted to it. A single plow-
man, with a gang plow, with six shares, and six spans
of horses, could work eight or ten acres a day; whereas,
on heavy, hilly land, one plow is as much as a man
can manasfe. The cultivation of this land made it
necessary to build a railroad to get access to it, and
the increase in the value of the farms exceeded the
cost of the road. In 1866, Stanislaus county was the
seventeenth wheat county in the state, producing only
one hundred and fifty thousand bushels; and in 1868
the first, producing two million three hundred thou-
sand bushels.
Sec. 190. 1869. Among the notable events of
1869 were the completion, in May, of the connection
by rail between Sacramento and New York; the com-
THE SILVER ERA. 373
pletion four months later of the Western Pacific road
from Sacramento to Oakland; the culmination of the
real estate excitement in the spring, and a consequent
grand panic in real estate; an intense excitement
about the newly discovered silver mines at White
Pine, and the disappointment of nearly all the ad-
venturers who went thither to make their fortunes;
the failure of a scheme to extend Montgomery street
in a direct line from Market to the Potrero; the open-
ing of New Montgomery street parallel with Third;
the cutting of Second street through Rincon Hill;
the sale by the state of the tide and submerged lands
on both sides of Hunter's Point; the introduction of
free postal delivery ; the building of the Grand
Hotel, the Pacific bank, the Savings and Loan bank,
Friedlander's block, the rolling mill and the Cali-
fornia theater; and the transfer of the slaughter
houses from Brannan street beyond Mission creek to
the present Butchertown, built on piles near the south
shore of Islais Cove,
Sec. 191. Pacific Railroad. The driving of the
last spike of the Central-Union Pacific railroad near
Salt Lake, on the ninth of May, giving a continuous
iron track from Sacramento to New York, was recog-
nized and celebrated as one of the great events of the
asfe, but to San Francisco it did not brinsr the antici-
pated benefits. Her citizens had calculated upon too
much, and had invested their money on the basis not
of realized results, but of extravagant expectations;
and when the completion of the road compelled a
374 HISTORY OF SAN FRANCISCO.
comparison between results and expectations, it was
found that the prices of land generally, and especially
in the suburban districts, were far beyond any perma-
nent demand. Everybody had wanted to sell, and
nobody to buy; and a general and severe panic en-
sued. Many of the losers gave vent to their vexa-
tion by complaints that the Pacific railroad was a
damage to San Francisco; that the peninsular posi-
tion of the city did not permit her to profit by rail-
roads; that she had been built up by steamboat traflSc
and could not prosper after it was destroyed; that the
cars from the Atlantic states could not be expected to
come round the southern arm of San Francisco bay,
that therefore some town on the eastern or northern
shore of the bay — either Vallejo, Benicia, Oakland
or Saucelito — must be the main terminus of the rail-
ways of the Pacific slope; and that as the network of
tracks would extend every year, so would the relative
importance of San Francisco decline. For thirteen
years the prices of real estate and the amount of sales
had risen steadily and rapidly; and now so soon as
the great road for which California had prayed as
necessary for the proper development of her natural
wealthy and for the foundation of a new era of pros-
perity to surpass that of the gold discovery, was
completed, there was a panic more severe than that
which accompanied the decline of the placers after
1853. The opening of the railroad between Sacra-
mento and Oakland by way of Stockton, in Septem-
ber, made no perceptible improvement in the situa-
tion.
THE SILVER ERA. 375
The Central Pacific company was considered hostile
to San Francisco, whose capitalists had refused to
subscribe to its stock when it was about to commence
work, whose representatives had opposed county
subsidies to it in the legislature, whose council had
refused to issue the bonds ordered to be given to it by
the legislature, and whose public journals had been
cool or unfriendly to it. The company had its chief
office at Sacramento, and had acquired a large tract of
land, supposed to be valuable for terminal purposes, at
Oakland.
While business was in confusion on account of the
extravagant over-speculation in lots — a mistake that
deprived a large majority of the industrious, well-to-
do people of a considerable part of their imaginary
wealth, and reduced to poverty many of those who
had gone into debt, there were serious disturbances in
various branches of business, in consequence of the
transition of transportation from steamer to rail.
Much of the travel and freight between New York
and the interior of the state ceased to pass through
San Francisco, which thus lost a considerable part of
her revenue.
Sec. 192. Vallejo Railroad. There was an oppo-
sition to the Central Pacific railroad between San
Francisco and Sacramento, but it came from Vallejo.
The California Pacific railroad from that place to the
state capital had been opened in February, and a fast
boat had been purchased to run between Vallejo and
the metropolis. In time, cost and comfort, this route
376 EISTOBY OF SAN FRANCISCO.
was preferable to any other; but the influence of this
opposition to the Sacramento railroad company was
not less dangerous to San Francisco, in the opinion of
many business men. Distinguished engineers in the
army, navy, coast survey and civil life, had publicly
expressed the opinion that there was a much better
place for a city at Vallejo or Benicia than at San
Francisco. The soil in the neighborhood is richer;
the anchorage more secure; the natural site and water
front better; access to the heart of the Sacramento
valley more convenient, and the water deep enough
for large vessels. That place grew rapidly; there
was a lively demand for its lots; the construction of
the railroad wharves and warehouses gave facilities
for shipping wheat, and in the crop year of 1869-70
thirty-three vessels were loaded there for Europe.
The bold and active men controlling the California
Pacific company, supported by the European capital-
ists who had advanced the money to build the road,
spoke loudly and confidently of the other roads they
would construct to make Vallejo the great railroad
center of the state, of the factories to be built, of the
combinations to be made with steamship companies
whose ocean steamships should have the terminus of
their route at Vallejo. Fears that these assertions
might be verified helped the panic.
Sec. 193. Silver Mines. The production of silver
by the state of Nevada was only fifteen million
dollars in 1869, the same as in 1868, and four millions
less than in 1867; but there was some compensation
THE SILVER ERA. ^77
for this in the discovery of the mines at White Pine
in the previous year, of a large deposit of argentifer-
ous chloride, some of it yielding ten thousand dollars
a ton, surpassing in richness and facility of reduction
the croppings of the Ophir mine when the wealth of
the Comstock w^as opened. Before much exploration
could be done on Treasure Hill, the intense cold of
winter at an elevation of nine thousand feet above the
sea checked the work while the miners were still
drifting in an immense mass of silver ore as rich as
any mentioned in the records of Mexico or Peru; and
California and Nevada waited impatiently for spring
to permit an active resumption of labor and the re-
moval of the doubt whether the Comstock lode was to
be reduced to relative insignificance — a result pre-
dicted confidently by some of those who had visited
the new place. So soon as the roads were open for
travel there was a rush of adventurers to White Pine,
where they found promises of a wonderful silver yield.
This district had made more progress in three months
than Washoe had in three years, and the ore was
more than three times as rich. The production of the
year was four million dollars. Those who were too
late to get hold of rich mines looked to city ix)ts for
their profits. Treasure City, Hamilton and Sherman
became important towns, and leading speculators in
real estate were millionaires in the general estimation
for a brief period; but they and the mine owners were
soon doomed to disappointment. The chloride depos-
its did not last long. Mining engineers said there was
378 HISTORY OF SAN FRANCISCO.
no fissure vein; there was no lode running far and
deep like the Comstock. The miners cut through the
few large ore bodies into the barren rock; the smaller
deposits promised little profit; the towns collapsed;
the throng of adventurers ceased, and White Pine
suddenly sank from the second place among the silver
districts of Nevada to the fourth.
Sec. 194. Street Changes. The success in widen-
ing Kearny street having, at an expense of less than
six hundred thousand dollars, added more than four
million dollars to the value of lots on Kearny and
Third streets, led to various schemes to bring up
Montgomery street. The first of these was to extend
it in a straight line to the Potrero, a distance of a
mile, cutting diagonally through the blocks on the
line. This scheme was carried through the supervis-
ors and passed over the mayor's veto; commissioners
w^ere appointed, and they made an elaborate report,
with estimate of the expense, but the engineer, in
laying off the map of the work, assumed incorrectly
that the blocks intersected w^ere exactly of the size
proposed in the original survey. The consequence was
that the line of the new street w^as not straight, but
show^ed a little offset like a saw-tooth at every street
crossing. This defeated the enterprise, causing serious
loss to those who had bought property on the line, in
the expectation of the completion of the work.
So soon as the project of extending Montgomery
in a straight line was abandoned, another scheme came
to the surface. This was to open New Montgomery
THE SILVER ERA. 379
street, between Second and Third, and parallel to
them from Market street to the bay. A company of
capitalists bought up the land on the line from Mar-
ket to Howard, opened the street so far, and built the
Grand Hotel to give value to the adjacent property
and attract business men to the street ; but the enter-
prise was unprofitable. They had expected that the
land would be worth fifteen hundred dollars a foot,
and it did not bring as much as its cost to them, which
was four hundred dollars, besides lying idle for a long
time. One result of the opening of this new street,
and of the Second street cut was that the value of
Second street, between Howard and Market, previ-
ously a good street for fashionable shops and a favorite
promenade, was injured seriously — almost destroyed.
The idea of extending New Montgomery street south-
ward from Howard was abandoned when the first sec-
tion of it proved unprofitable.
Another street scheme was the Second street cut.
John Middleton, a prominent dealer in real estate, and
owner of a large lot on the corner of Second and
Bryant, believed that if Second street were cut down
through Rincon Hill to such a grade that heav}^
teams could pass over its line to the vicinity of the
Pacific Mail wharf, the southern end of the street
would become the site of an active business, and real
estate there would greatly advance in price. To carry
his enterprise through, he secured an election to the
assembly, and there, by his influence as a member of
the legislature, notwithstanding the protests of the
380 HISTORY OF SAN FRANCISCO.
lot-owners on Rincon Hill against being assessed for
the cost of work which would do them, serious dam-
age, the bill was passed for reducing the grade be-
tween Folsom and Bryant — that is, cutting a deep
ravine through Rincon Hill. The work was done,
but the predicted benefits failed to make their appear-
ance. The cut or ditch, at one place sixty feet deep,
has ugly steep banks, which have slid down in wet
weather ; the falling dirt has destroyed the sidewalks;
the despoiled lot owners have refused to keep the
pavement in repair ; heavy teams have found it more
convenient to pass through other streets in going to
and coming from the Pacific Mail wharf; Rincon Hill
has lost much of its beauty and all its pre-eminence
as a district for fashionable dwellings ; the most active
advocates of the scheme made nothing by it ; and the
direct expense of the improvement was three hundred
and eighty-five thousand dollars, while the loss to
citizens beyond all benefits was not less than one mill-
ion dollars. Many had to pay for the errors of judg-
ment committed by a few.
A scheme still wilder in its character was brought
forward and urged by meetings of lot-owners upon the
legislature as a highly meritorious measure. This
was to make a nearly uniform grade on Stockton
street, from Geary to Clay, for the purpose of giving
convenient access for promenaders on that street, be-
tween the northern and southern parts of the city.
This scheme implied the cutting of a ditch the width
of the street for a distance of half a mile, with a depth
THE STL VER ERA. 381
in one place of eighty feet, in the heart of the city,
leaving the houses along the line, not only without
access from the street, but on the edge of a c] iff which
would probably tumble down after the first good soak-
ing in the rainy season. The scheme was defeated
and then abandoned.
Sec. 195. 1870. San Francisco built 1200 new
houses, gained 10,000 inhabitants, and prospered in
many ways in 1870, but there was general complaint
of hard times, because the real estate market had not
recovered from its panic of the previous year, and
serious fears were felt of the powers and purposes of
the two great railroad companies. The average
monthly sales of real estate, which had been $3,500,-
000 in the first half of 1869, fell to $1,300,000 in
1870. There was a lack of confidence in the ability
of the capital invested in San Francisco to overcome
the combinations and influences that misfht be brought
to the aid of Vallejo and Oakland, the advocates of
which towns claimed that, as they had at the begin-
ning of their career taken a large share of the loading
of wheat for exportation, so they would in a few years
receive cargoes from abroad, and would continue to
gain business indefinitely. The California Pacific
road was run with such speed that it took nearly all
the local traflfic; and the company owning it, sup-
ported by prominent European capitalists, was recog-
nized as a formidable rival of the Central Pacific.
These were now the two great inland transportation
companies of California. One was confessedly work-
382 HISTORY OF SAN FRANCISCO.
ing to build up Yallejo; the other composed of
citizens of Sacramento, was suspected of an in-
tention to make its chief terminus at Oakland. A
metropolis without control over, or even an interest
in any of the great transportation companies bringing
trade to it — a trade for which ambitious rivals, not
without power, were making greedy bids — was in an
awkward situation.
Among the new buildings of the year were St.
Patrick's church (to which Peter Donahue gave a
chime of bells, the first in the city), Bancroft's build-
ing, and the White House. The grading of Yerba
Buena square was commenced as a preparation for
the erection of a new city hall; and a beginning was
made in the improvement of the Golden Gate Park.
A lottery for the benefit of the Mercantile Library
was authorized by the legislature in defiance of the
constitution, and conducted to a successful termina-
tion with a net profit of half a million.
The city took a holiday to witness the blowing up
of Blossom rock, a submarine reef, the top of which
was five feet below high tide, on the line of Davis
street, and three quarters of a mile from North Point.
A coffer-dam or hollow cylinder was built on the reef;
the water having been pumped out, a shaft was sunk
down into the rock and galleries were dug for a length
of one hundred and forty feet and a width of forty
feet, at a depth of thirty-seven feet below low tide.
The miners having completed their part of the work,
and twenty-one tons of powder having been distrib-
THE SILVER ERA. 383
uted in the drifts, on the twenty-third of May, in
accordance with public notice, and within sight of
myriads of people in boats and on the hills, the charge
was exploded, a column of water one hundred feet in
diameter was blown several hundred feet up into the
air, and that was the end of the most dangerous ob-
struction to commerce in the bay of San Francisco.
The method of submarine excavation used on Blossom
rock, invented by A. W. Von Schmidt, a San Fran-
ciscan, was first applied in making the entrance of
the Hunter's Point dry-dock, and is an interesting
addition to the science of engineering.
The rainfall of 1869-70 had been nineteen inches,
less than the amount needed to make a good crop; so
the harvest was scanty and the farmers generally did
not prosper. Railroads were built from Petaluma to
Santa Rosa, from Marysville to a point twenty-five
miles beyond, on the California and Oregon route,
and from Los Angeles to Wilmington. The silver
mines of Eureka (Nevada), and the borax deposits
found at various places in the same state, attracted
much attention in this year, and offered opportunities
for the profitable investment of several millions of
capital.
Sec. 196. Census of 1870. The federal census
taken in this year reported a total population of 149, -
473 in the city, though a year before the estimates in
the directory had made out a population of 170,000.
There was a common opinion that the census agent
had omitted many persons, but his work was ofllcial,
384 HISTORY OF SAN FRANCISCO.
and in various respects more carefully done than the
other. It showed that of the entire number of in-
habitants, 75,754 were natives of the United States,
73,719 foreigners; 136,059 whites, 12,022 Chinese,
1330 of negro blood, 54 Indian, and 8 Japanese.
About ninety people in a hundred were white, nine
Asiatic, and one African. The number of whites
born in California was 36,565, or more than a fourth
of all the whites; but most of them were minors, for
only two years before, among 25,000 registered voters
there were not half a dozen natives of the state.
The two sexes were about equally divided among the
children under sixteen; but over that age there were
52,102 males and 38,316 females, or three to two, and
if a count had been made of those over twenty-one
the disproportion would have been found considerably
greater.
Sec. 197. French-German War. The war between
Germany and France, for the military and political
leadership of continental Europe, excited an intense
interest in San Francisco, where the former country
had thirteen thousand six hundred and the latter three
thousand five hundred of her natives. The Irish,
generally, and some Americans, sympathized with the
French; while the Italians, and many of the Ameri-
cans of the Anglo-Saxon stock favored the Germans,
so there were large parties on each side. When it
became evident that France was badly beaten, the
French residents poured out their money with great
devotion to aid their country, and gave about three
THE SIL VER ERA. 385
hundred thousand dollars — far more in proportion to
their number than the Californians had given to the
sanitary fund in the American civil war. These con-
tributions astonished France by their liberality, and
were acknowledged by the government repeatedly.
Madame Mezzara, a French lady long resident of San
Francisco, who, having gone east to serve as a nurse
of the sanitary commission in the American civil war,
and upon the invasion of her native land had gone to
its assistance in the same capacity, was made the
direct recipient of some of the Californian contribu-
tions; and her representative character, as well as her
experience and efficient labor, gained for her a recog-
nition from the government, which gave her a special
gold medal and other honorable decorations; and the
San Francisco Art Association, in which her husband
was a director, received from the French government
a present of a large and valuable collection of plaster
casts, taken from the original marbles in the Louvre.
The Germans did not feel the necessity of making
sacrifices so great, the losses being less on their side,
and their government better able to provide for its
sufferers, but they collected one hundred and thirty-
eight thousand dollars. A number of young men of
both nationalities gave up lucrative positions to join
their relatives in arms.
Sec. 198. 1871. The California Pacific railroad
company, having completed its branch road to Marys-
ville, annexed the Napa Valley road, and announced
its purpose of building roads through Sonoma Valley to
25
386 HISTORY OF SAN FRANCISCO.
Kussian Hiver, and from Woodland northward on the
west side of the Sacramento river to Red Bluff, now
acquired the boats of the California Steam Navigation
company that controlled nearly all the traffic of the
inland navigation of the state, and also bought the
Petaluma Valley railroad. About the same time the
capitalists of the California Pacific road formed a com-
pany to build a road to run from the northern part of
the Sacramento Valley to Ogden, and thus compete
with the Central Pacific. It is impossible to find out
how -much of this plan was seriously meant, but be-
fore anything further could be done, the directors of
the Central Pacific, to rid themselves of a bothersome,
if not a dangerous rival, bought the majority of the
shares in the California Pacific company, which then
ceased to give trouble as a competing road. In the
winter of 1871-72 portions of the railroad w^est of
Sacramento and south of Marysville were washed
away by a flood, and the interruption of the traffic
was a serious damage to the road and its terminus.
The Marysville branch has never been restored, and
Vallejo, which had grown with great rapidity for the
preceding four years, came to a standstill, and has not
yet regained its former prosperity.
When the time approached for electing a governor
and other state officers, the republican leaders, taking
a lesson from their defeat in 1867, nominated Newton
Booth, an enemy of railroad subsidies, for the head of
their ticket, and under his lead they recovered power;
but, on account of a difierence of opinion in reference
THE SILVER ERA. 387
to the policy to be pursued by the state towards the
railroad companies and other corporations, before the
close of his term he became the leader of the Inde-
pendent or Dolly Varden party, which, elected him to
the federal senate.
On account of the uneasy feeling among the citizens
in reference to the terminal business of the railroad,
inquiries were addressed to the directors frequently
whether they intended to bring their cars into the city,
and they replied that they could not afford to run
seventy miles round the southern arm of the bay with
their regular trains from the east ; but if the means to
build a bridge at Kavenswood were supplied^ so that
the distance would not be greater than by way of Oak-
land, the cars would come into the city. Thereupon
a proposition was introduced into the board of super-
visors to take a popular vote upon the question
whether three million dollars should be given as a
subsidy to aid the construction of a bridge, but the
ordinance was voted down.
The Ravenswood scheme having been abandoned,
for a time at least, a plan was brought forward for
the construction of a bridge from Potrero Point or
Hunter's Point to Alameda, a distance of five miles.
The bay is there in mid-channel fifty feet deep, and
the current strong ; and it was estimated that a perma-
nent bridge would cost fifteen million dollars ; and as
neither the company, the city, the state, nor congress,
wished to spend any such sum, that idea came to
nothing, although it was urged persistently by sev-
eral public journals.
388 HISTOBY OF SAN FRANCISCO.
Sec. 199. Heaves. Horace Hawes, a millionaire,
died in March. Some months before his death, he
had made a deed, giving nearly all his property, val-
ued at several millions, for the endowment of a uni-
versity at Kedwood, and a school of the mechanic arts
in San Francisco. The gifts were accompanied by
complex and burdensome conditions and, being sub-
ject to modification by the grantor at any time dur-
ing his life, were in the nature of bequests, and sub-
ject to the same need of confirmation by a probate
court as a will. He was a stingy, quarrelsome, sus-
picious, unpopular man ; and in his will allowed out of
his large fortune not more than enough to his wife
for a merely comfortable maintenance of herself and
son, though the latter was to receive about thirty
thousand dollars after he should reach the age of
thirty years. More than ninety-five per cent, of the
estate w^as to be given for public purposes. Mrs.
Hawes was esteemed as much as he was disliked, and
when she contested the will, the jury promptly ren-
dered a verdict that he was not of sound mind, though
he was in no respect insane. His deed was in keeping
with its conduct for the previous twenty-five years,
durinof all of which time he had been a successful
business man, an acute lawyer, a prominent citizen of
San Francisco, considered worthy to be intrusted with
difficult and important public aflPairs. He was ap-
pointed prefect in 1849, and elected state senator in
1856 and 1864 ; and as senator he was author of the
consolidation bill or city charter of 1856, and of the
THE SILVER ERA. 389
act for the registration of voters — two of the most
original and beneficent statutes ever enacted in Cali-
fornia. His superior capacity was recognized and his
influence accepted in the legislature by his associates,
notwithstanding their indifference or dislike to him.
Sec. 200. 1872. The continuation of the real
estate panic, the popular agitation against the grant
of Goat Island to the Central Pacific railroad com-
pany for a terminus, and a greater excitement in the
mining stock market than any before observed, were
among the events of 1872. The legislative appor-
tionment required by the constitution to give repre-
sentation in the legislature proportioned to the num-
ber of inhabitants in the various counties, as shown
by the census of 1870, was defeated by the mining
counties with help and encouragement from Sacra-
mento and Stockton; and San Francisco, which was
entitled to one fourth of the members of the senate
and assembly, had to wait two years before the bill
could be passed, and she could obtain justice.
Sec. 201. Goat Island. The relation of the city
to the Central Pacific company continued to be a
matter of absorbing interest. The supervisors having
refused to give a subsidy for a bridge at Pavenswood,
the company urged its application previously made to
congress for a permission to occupy Goat Island.
Little attention had been given to the idea of making
a terminus at the island; but now the opinion pre-
vailed that the establishment of the terminal busi-
ness there, with a bridge to the Oakland shore,
390 HISTORY OF SAN FRANCISCO.
and numerous warehouses and wharves on the island
would result in serious, if not immense damage to
San Francisco. The press and public meetings de-
nounced the scheme, and a committee of one hundred
prominent citizens was organized to take proper meas-
ures for protecting the public interests supposed to be
endangered by the bill.
Goat Island had been reserved by the government
of the United States for military purposes, and the
federal army engineers in response to an inquiry
whether there was any objection to the occupation of
the island as a railroad terminus, replied that such
occupation would seriously diminish the military value
of the position which might become very important
if some hostile vessel should succeed in passing
through the Golden Gate. The coast survey engi-
neers, when requested to give their opinion, said that
any bridge or solid causeway from the Oakland shore
to Goat Island would check the currents along the east-
ern shore of the bay, cause the deposition of a large
amount of sand and mud, diminish the tidal area,
reduce the amount of tide water flowing out of the
Golden Gate with the ebb, and lead to a shallowing
of water on the bar, thus injuring the value of the
harbor.
While matters w^ere in this condition, a delegation
of citizens from St. Louis, interested in the Atlantic
and Pacific railroad, Avhich had a franchise and land
grant from congress to cross the continent about the
thirty-fifth parallel of latitude, came to San Fran-
THE SILVER ERA. 391
cisco to solicit a subsidy for their road, which they
promised should enter the city by the peninsula.
This party was warmly welcomed, and the committee
of one hundred received their propositions with much
favor; but after a few weeks the idea began to prevail
that the Atlantic and Pacific company had no sub-
stantial foundation, and that the subsidy of $10,000,-
000 demanded by them would be thrown away. A
division of opinion in the committee followed; the
minority adhered to the plan of aiding the Atlantic
and Pacific company indirectly if not directly; the
majority advised a compromise with the Central Pa-
cific. It was agreed that the latter company should
abandon the application for Goat Island, build a
bridge at Ravens wood, and construct a road along
the bay shore east of San Bruno mountain to Mission
cove within eighteen months, make the main termi-
nus of the Trans- Continental, San Joaquin Valley and
Southern Pacific roads in the city, and when author-
ized by law extend a track from South Beach to
North Beach, and deliver merchandise along the ex-
tension without extra charge. The city, on the other
hand, was to give a subsidy of $2,500,000 in her
bonds to the company. This compromise, failing to
command the favor of the people or of the supervisors,
was abandoned, and in its place a scheme was brought
forward to give $10,000,000 for the construction of a
railroad to the Colorado, where it should connect with
whichever company should first reach that river from
the other side. After an acrimonious campaign both
392 HISTORY OF SAN FRANCISCO.
parties were defeated, a result with which the citizens
generally have since been well pleased; for the cars
now run to the Colorado without help from the city,
and the eastern companies which made loud promises
in 1873, that they would build hundreds of miles of
road every year on the southern routes across the
continent, have for years done nothing.
Sec. 202. Belcher Bonanza. The greatest excite-
ment known up to that time in the San Francisco
mining stock market was caused in the beginning of
1872 by the discovery of the large size of the rich
ore deposit opened in the Crown Point and Belcher
mines in the previous year, and by the simultaneous
finding of a rich body of ore in the E-aymond & Ely
mine at Pioche. The consequence of these develop-
ments was an advance that far exceeded any thing pre-
viously observed even among the speculative Califor-
nians. The aggregate value of the silver stocks on
the San Francisco market was seventeen millions in
January, twenty-four in February, twenty-six in
March, thirty-four in April, and eighty-one in May,
a gain of sixty-four millions in five months — no slight
addition to the wealth of a city of two hundred and
twenty thousand inhabitants in so brief a jDeriod.
Unfortunately, this wealth did not stick. Suddenly
the fever was followed by a chill; in ten days there
was a decline of sixty millions, and hundreds that had
considered themselves rich found themselves bankrupt.
There was, however, no mistake about the new ore
bodies. The Gold Hill bonanza yielded altogether
THE SIL VER ERA. 393
over eighty millions, and the Pioche district turned
out eight millions in 1872. The stock sales of
the year ran up to two hundred millions, or about
twice as much as in 1871, and four times as much as
in 1870.
Sec. 203. Diamond Fraud. The latter half of
1872 was marked by another excitement which threat-
ened for a time to throw even the wonderful silver
mining stocks into insignificance. A report was cir-
culated that an extensive and wonderfully rich dia-
mond field had been discovered in the interior of the
continent, though the precise situation was kept secret.
One rumor said it was in Arizona, another in Utah.
The recent opening of the diamond fields of South
Africa, and the reports of the great wealth amassed
there by many individuals after a few months of labor,
prepared the public to be swindled by one of the most
adroit schemes ever devised to gull an ignorant or
excitable community. The schemers showed no haste
or lack of confidence. They went to leading capital-
ists of San Francisco, brought the alleged discoveries
before them, showed specimens of the rough diamonds
— they were stones from Brazil and South Africa,
bought for the purpose — and proposed the formation
of a company, with the understanding that the matter
was to be carefull}^ withheld from the public until the
federal mining law could be amended so as to recog-
nize the validity of mining claims for diamonds, and
to authorize the issue of patents for them. This
proposition demanded a very trifling advance of
394 HISTOUY OF SAN FRANCISCO.
money from the capitalists, left its expenditure in
their own hands, gave abundant time and opportunity
for investigation, and was so business-like that no
doubt was entertained of the good faith of the pro-
moters. The law in reference to patents for mines as
adopted in 1866 was amended on the tenth of May,
1872, so that in addition to ''gold, silver, cinnabar or
copper," previously mentioned, it should also include
"lead, tin, or other valuable deposits." Thus the
trap was ready, but some of the bait was still lacking;
so a couple of men went to London, bought a consid-
erable supply of rough diamonds, including large and
small, and even some of the diamond dust obtained
from South Africa, and salted the stuff in the place
selected in Colorado — for it was in that territory, and
not in Arizona or Utah that the scene was laid — and
came on to San Francisco, where their friends had
got up a party, including several gentlemen who
pretended to be mining experts, and Henry Janin, a
mining engineer of good repute for honesty, capacity,
and knowledge.
The party having arrived upon the field found the
diamonds where they had been salted, and found them
with an ease that should have provoked distrust.
Janin had no experience in diamond mining; his sus-
picions had not been aroused ; he assumed that he had
a diamond field before him, and wrote his i^eport on
that basis. He did not explain the formation or the
precautions to prevent deception by salting, but de-
voted much of his attention to the discussion of the
THE SIL VER ERA. 395
question whether with a field so extensive as tliat over
which the diamonds had been found, and their abun-
dance, as shown by the fact that for the time employed,
without any facilities for washing, the value of the dia-
monds obtained was one hundred dollars for every hour
of each person, the price would not fall to a trifle when
working should be commenced on a large scale with
every needful preparation. The capitalists interested
believed the report, and the stock of the diamond com-
pany, which was not to be put upon the market until
all doubt of any mistake had been removed, was nearly
ready to be offered to a highly excited public, when the
exposure came. Information of the situation and char-
acter of the diamond diggings had been sent to Clarence
King, who, under order of the federal government, had
made a hasty geological survey of the country along
the fortieth parallel of latitude, including the diamond
region, and as he had seen none of the diamond-bear-
ing rock formation there, he suspected a fraud, visited
the jDlace without delay, and after a brief examination
satisfied himself that the ground had been salted. He
found diamonds where the ground had been dug, es-
pecially about large stones that served as marks, but
none elsewhere. Some of the Colorado diamonds, hav-
ing been previously shipped to London, were there
recognized as African stones. The story of the pur-
chases of African and Brazilian diamonds months be-
fore was published. The exposure coming almost sim-
ultaneously from two sources threw a chill upon the
excitement, and the fraud came to an end before the
396 HISTORY OF SAN FBANCISCO,
general public could be victimized. Those who suf-
fered were nearly all rich men. It was so managed
that there was no judicial investigation of the affair ;
but three or four prominent mining speculators had
the credit with the general public of being parties to
the plot, though they protested that they had been
deceived.
Sec. 204. 1873. The transfer of the residence of
the Californian directors of the Central Pacific rail-
road from Sacramento to San Francisco, the expendi-
ture of a large sum for filling in the railroad terminal
lands in Mission cove, and the construction of a large
boat to transport laden freight cars across the bay,
were accepted as conclusive evidences that the appre-
hensions previously entertained for years, of hostility
on the part of the directors to the metropolis, were
greatly exaggerated, if not baseless. The men who
owned a controlling interest in the twelve hundred
miles of railroad having become citizens of San Fran-
cisco, their interests were considered as identified with
those of the city. A large part of the opposition
shown by the officials and press of the city towards
them had been the result of distrust; a natural effect
of ignorance of the men, perhaps not unmixed with
chagrin that such an immense enterprise had fallen
into the hands of residents of a provincial town, while
the capitalists of the metropolis had refused to take
any part in it, and had predicted ruin for those en-
gaged in it.
Five years had now elapsed since the completion of
THE SIL VEIi EBA. 397
the road, and the fears of the friends of San Fran-
cisco, and the predictions of ruin by its enemies, had
made no progress towards fulfillment. The city never
grew more rapidly. According to Langley's estimates,
there was an average gain of about eight per cent, a
year in the population; bnt no reference to statistics
was necessary to get conclusive evidence of the gen-
eral prosperity. New buildings, larger and more costly
than any before erected were numerous. Though some
of the outside land could not be sold for the prices
paid in 1868, yet lots in the leading business streets
and in the preferred residence districts commanded
higher figures than ever before. While San Francis-
co thus flourished, the towns for which rivalry had
been claimed gained no metropolitan character. Val-
lejo, Benicia, and Saucelito, lost the importance gained
in public estimation by a brief excitement among a
portion of the community. Oakland grew rapidly,
but its business was suburban, though many of its
property holders did not give up the hope of an inde-
pendent traffic, to come with the completion of their
artificial harbor.
Sec. 205. Oakland Harbor. The protest of San
Francisco against the grant of Goat Island to the rail-
road company was so emphatic that the bill, after
adoption in the lower house of congress, was aban-
doned in the senate. For the purpose of providing a
terminus without sending the cars across the bay in a
boat, congress ordered a survey of San Antonio creek
at Oakland, to ascertain whether a deep harbor could
398 HISTORY Or SAN FRANCISCO.
be constructed there. The army engineers made a
favorable report, and submitted a plan for an artificial
harbor three miles long, three hundred yards wide,
and about twenty-five feet deep, and this project then
adopted has since then advanced far towards comple-
tion, appropriations having been made for it nearly
every year out of the federal treasury.
Sec. 206. Dolly Varden. The approaching elec-
tion of another federal senator to succeed Cornelius
Cole, whose term was to expire in March, 1875, gave
an additional interest to the political canvass of 1873,
when all the assemblymen and half the senators were
to be chosen. The republican leaders committed
blunders similar to those of 18G7, when the state
went over to the democrats; but the result now was
the triumph of a third party, self-styled Independent,
and nicknamed the Dolly Varden, which promised to
protect the state against monopolies, to regulate the
fares and freights on railroads, to establish a state
system of irrigation, and to manage the government
for the benefit of the people. The new organization
received much aid from the secret order of grangers
or patrons of husbandry which, though almost un-
known before suddenly spread through the agricul-
tural districts; and notwithstanding its denial of parti-
san purposes and its exclusion of partisan subjects
from the proceedings of its lodges, became indirectly
the source of a strong political influence. The inde-
pendent party proved to be stronger than either of
the others in San Francisco, and the state generally;
THE SIL VER ERA. 399
but failing to get complete control of the state govern-
ment, could not carry out its favorite reforms, and two
years later it finally dissolved, leaving its members to
return to the national parties with which they had
previously associated. It succeeded in electing Newton
Booth, its most eloquent speaker, to the federal sen-
atorship.
Sec. 207. 1874- The year 1874 was marked by
a large immigration from the East ; by the opening up
of the consolidated Virginia bonanza in the Comstock
lode; by a stock excitement that surpassed those of
1863 and 1872; by the publication of James Lick's
deed giving nearly all his property for public pur-
poses; by the removal to San Francisco of the chief
offices of the Central Pacific railroad company from
Sacramento; and by the commencement of work on
the Palace Hotel. Among the minor events of the
twelvemonth were the discovery of serious and dis-
graceful frauds in the offices of the license collector,
coroner, public administrator, and assessor, and the
increase of the police force from one hundred to one
hundred and fifty men.
Sec. 208. Large Immigration. The gain of the
Pacific states and territories by immigration was
forty-six thousand — eleven thousand more than in
1873 or 1868, when the number of passengers had
been greater than in any year since 1852. The main
causes of this throng were the depression of business
on the Atlantic slope, the stimulus given to industry
in California by the large production of silver in
400 HISTORY OF SAN FRANCISCO.
Nevada, and the favorable condition of agriculture.
Such prostration of business in the eastern states had
never before been suffered. Thousands of manufac-
turing establishments had closed or discharged some
of their workmen ; the construction of railroads had
almost ceased; wages had fallen; the supply of labor
far exceeded the demand at the current rates ; the
market price of land had declined greatly; and there
had been a decrease of one third in the immiofration
from Europe. On the other hand, California was
in the midst of exceptional prosperity. Within
three years there had been an increase of nearly one
half in the area under cultivation. The extension of
the railroad to the southern end of the San Joaquin
valley had given facilities for transporting to market
the products of a large region practically inaccessible
before; and farmers w^ere now convinced that good
crops of grain could be grow^n on large areas previ-
ously supposed to be almost worthless. The winter
of 1873-74 brought a good supply of rain, and was
followed by an abundant wheat harvest. With the
help of this stimulus, one hundred and forty miles of
railroad were built in this year.
Sec. 209. Consolidated Virginia Bonanza. The
Gold Hill bonanza had now reached the height of its
splendor, and the Crown Point and Belcher were pay-
ing immense dividends. In three years and a half the
two mines had taken out more than forty million dol-
lars, a result previously unapproached in the experi-
ence of Washoe. While they were still at the flood
THE SIL VER ERA 401
tide of their prosperity, the still greater bonanza of the
Consolidated Virginia was found near the northern
end of the lode, and in May it began monthly div-
idends of three hundred thousand dollars. Every
week brought news from the advancing drifts, cross-
cuts and winzes, and proved the ore body to be larger
and richer. Experienced miners, who were repre-
sented as trustworthy experts, expressed the belief
that the ore in sight would yield fifteen hundred
million dollars. The excitement was intense: the aof-
gregate value of the Comstock shares, as indicated by
the quotations of the market, rose at the rate of a
million dollars a day for nearly two months, and the
year closed when this fever or frenzy of speculation
was near its culmination.
Sec. 210. Flood and O'Brien. The sudden rise
of the firm of Flood & O'Brien to great wealth, was
one of those events which could scarcely occur out of
San Francisco. J. C. Flood and W. S. O'Brien, had
for many years kept a saloon, patronized by mer-
chants and brokers. A good lunch was spread with-
out charge in the middle of the day for customers;
and the partners, men of respectable intelligence,
character and manners, attended in person behind the
bar. Thus they had lived for ten or fifteen years,
when they obtained a small interest in a mine at Vir-
ginia city. Having been introduced to the market,
customers familiar with the management of the min-
ing companies gave them good advice, they began to
make a profit on stock operations and formed a part-
26
402 HISTORY OF SAN FRANCISCO.
nersliip with J. W. Mackey and J. G. Fair, who re-
sided at Virginia city, and were miners by occupa-
tion. Mackey had worked as a blaster for four dollars
a day. The firm, the name of which continued to be
Flood & O'Brien after the admission of the two new
partners, obtained possession of most of the stock of
the Consolidated Virginia mine, at a time when the
shares were worth only nine dollars — for some they
paid only four dollars; and as there were only 10,700
shares, the Avhole mine was then worth less than
$100,000. Its length was 1310 feet, so the cost to
them was less than $100 a lineal foot; and that ap-
peared enough to people who considered that, though
more than a quarter of a million dollars had been
spent on the property in the previous ten years, it
had never returned a cent of dividend; that no ore
worthy of notice had ever been found within its
limits ; and that if it had any ore, the fact could not
be ascertained without an additional expenditure that
might run into the hundreds of thousands. The
future proved that $212,000 were required in assess-
ments before there was any return.
Instead of continuinof the sinkin2: of the old shaft
that had reached a depth of only 400 feet in the Con-
solidated Virginia ground. Flood and O'Brien took
the cheaper and more expeditious course of running a
drift from the Gould and Curry shaft, only 800 feet
from their line and 1800 feet deep. This drift, 1200
feet below the surface, led to the discovery of the
bonanza extending the whole length of their mine.
THE SIL VER Eli A. 403
The property, after having 10,700 shares in 1871,
was divided into two mines, the Consolidated Virginia
and California, each of which has now 540,000 shares.
The two mines, at the prices paid in January, 1874,
were together worth $150,000,000, equivalent to a
profit of more than 3000 fold upon the shares for
Avhich four dollars a share had been paid in 1871.
The limits of this bonanza, or ore deposit, have not yet
been found, and it is impossible to predict how much
longer this wonderful stream of treasure shall pour
into the pockets of San Francisco, though it has
already yielded more than $100,000,000.
Sec. 211. James Lick. The publication of the
deed in which James Lick conveyed nearly all his
property, estimated to be worth several millions, to
trustees, for the benefit of the people of San Francisco
and California, was received with general satisfaction.
The gifts were distributed, with much knowledge and
judgment, for the advancement of astronomy, the es-
tablishment of a mechanical arts school, a free bath-
house, an old ladies' home, other institutions for the
relief of suffering indigence, and the erection of various
works of art; and after the payment of the specific
appropriation, including some to his relatives, the res-
idue of the estate was to be equally divided between
the San Francisco Academy of Sciences, and the soci-
ety of California Pioneers. Regret was felt that the
sum allowed to the relatives was not greater, only
twenty-six thousand dollars being given in all to his
son, his sister, his two half-brothers, his two nieces and
404 HISTORY OF SAN FRANCISCO.
a nephew, all of whom needed his bounty and had
good claims upon it. Though the deed was absolute
in form, it was changed in the following year.
Sec. 212. 1875. The year 1875 was eventful for
San Francisco. It brought the culmination of the
stock excitement that began in the previous summer;
a new deed from James Lick, giving his estate to the
people in a new form; the defeat of the Calaveras
water scheme; the failure of the bank of California;
the death of Mr. Ralston; the destruction of Virginia
City by fire; the completion of the Palace hotel; the
establishment of the bank of Nevada; the opening of
Montgomery avenue; the advancement of Market
street near Third to a rivalry with Kearny as a fash-
ionable promenade; and an immigration larger than
any since 1850.
Many circumstances concurred to stimulate immi-
gration to the Pacific states, and among these the con-
tinued prostration of nearly all kinds of business on
the Atlantic side was prominent. Myriads of families
who had never known want before were now pinched
for the ordinary comforts of life. The young men, seeing
no satisfactory future before them in their old homes,
when looking for new ones were dazzled by the account of
the marvelous production of the Comstock lode, the
rapid growth and accumulation of wealth at San
Francisco, the recent extension of railroads into large
districts of fertile soil previously inaccessible, and the
successful establishment in California of various
branches of industry not practicable in other parts of
THE SILVER ERA. 405
the United States, on account of adverse climatic
conditions. Under such influences, one hundred and
seven thousand people came to California in 1875,
leaving a net gain of sixty-four thousand.
Sec. 213. Calaveras Water Scheme. On account
of general, or at least very loud complaint, in several
influential newspapers, that the prices of the Spring
Valley company, which furnished all the water dis-
tributed through the city by pipes, were oppressive
and extortionate, the legislature had passed an act
authorizing the municipal administration to provide a
supply of water, and an elaborate report was made
upon the sources from which it could be obtained.
Calaveras valley, situated between two ridges of the
Coast mountains, in Santa Clara and Alameda coun-
ties, had been bought up by sjjeculators, and was offered
to the city for ten million dollars, of which nearly
half would have been profit to them. The scheme
was defeated by the board of supervisors, and that
was the end of it.
While the Calaveras scheme was under considera-
tion, and when it Avas supposed that a majority of the
officials who were to decide upon it were disposed to
favor it, the daily " Call " and " Bulletin," in the
course of their opposition, asserted that W. C. Bal-
ston, president of the bank of California, was the
head of the scheme to force the bad purchase on the
city treasury. This charge, not supported at the time
by any evidence that could be verified by the public,
gave much offense, provoked angry recrimination, and
406 HISTORY OF SAN FRANCISCO.
was followed by other attacks upon Kalston, who was
accused of having abused his position at the head of
the leading bank of the state to exercise a corrupt in-
fluence in political affairs. In many respects Mr.
Kalston was personally popular, especially with the
merchants and capitalists generally, and nothing but
strong confidence of other classes in the good motives
of the editorial management of the offending journals
could have saved them from ruin, so fierce was the ani-
mosity provoked against them.
Sec. 214. Bank of California. On the twenty-sixth
of August, the city was about noon astonished by the
news that the Bank of California had closed its doors.
So strong was the confidence in its wealth, that peo-
ple said its only trouble was a temporary scarcity of cash
which would end so soon as the mint could coin the
bars of bullion in its vaults. Even when Mr. Kalston
said the bank had failed completely, and could never
re-open its doors, credence was denied to him. Ac-
cording to the reports made not long before, it had a
<?apital of five million dollars, and deposits amounting
to as much more, besides almost unlimited credit. It
had regularly paid its dividends of about one per cent,
a month. The public, even the capitalists, who Avere
its customers and directors, had not heard of any seri-
ous losses; failure under such circumstances appeared
impossible.
■ When the directors met after the closing to examine
the situation, they were dissatisfied with Ralston, and
requested him to resign his position as president. They
THE SILVER EBA. 407
found that the financial condition of the bank was not
what they had supposed it to be, nor what he repre-
sented it to be. They had the fullest confidence in
his capacity and honesty; they knew that he had
made large sums by speculations and investments with
different friends before he became president of the
bank in 1872 (these were the only great financial suc-
cesses of his life); they did not know that in company
with less reputable men, he had afterwards lost all his
individual fortune, and much more; and they supposed
that his great wealth placed him above the reach of
any temptation to defraud the bank. He had been
president three years; the business, the records, and
the clerks were under his control; and at the meetings
he submitted false statements, and exhibited money
borrowed for the occasions, as property of the bank.
The executive committee being large stockholders,
had much to lose and nothing to gain by a failure to
discover his systematic frauds; but suspecting noth-
ing, they did not employ detectives, and without
such help they could not have discovered anything.
When they found that the bank was insolvent, that
the president had used millions of its money in his
personal speculations, and had made an over-issue of
stock, thus committing a number of felonious offenses,
they could not do less than immediately request him to
resign. By any other course, they would have made
themselves morally, perhaps legally, responsible for
his misdeeds. Nor did he dare to refuse.
In the afternoon of the same day, in accordance
408 HISTORY OF SAN FRANCISCO.
with his usual custom, he took a bath in the bay at
North Beach, and while swimming out into the chan-
nel, seemed to be taken with a fit, and commenced to
flounder about in the water. A boatman not far off
rescued him and took him to the shore, while still warm
and breathing, but he was unconscious, and soon died.
It was generally supposed that he committed suicide,
but a chemical analysis of the contents of his stomach
discovered no poison, and the post mortem examination
of his body indicated congestion of the lungs and
brain; so it was officially declared that deatJi was the
result of his entrance while very warm into the cold
w^ater. The coroner's jury rendered a verdict mr ac-
cordance with that supposition ; and the life insurance
companies, Avhich might have saved a considerable
sum to themselves if they could have proved that he
committed suicide, made no contest. Death was most
opportune. His frauds were numerous, and the proof,
though then know^n to only a few individuals, conclu-
sive; the punishment would inevitably be severe, as
the failure of the bank and the consequent panic had
caused serious loss to the community, and had des-
troyed many fortunes in and out of San Francisco ; he
was so extensively known, that under the circum-
stances it would be almost impossible for him to escape
alive ; and his great pride would not permit him to
submit to the degradation from the highest social
honor to the state prison. There was no other se-
cure refuge, save death. It came to his relief at the
right moment, and common opinion assumed that it
THE SIL VER ERA. 409
did not come by mere accident, though there has been
no satisfactory explanation how it did come.
Sec. 215. Ralston, Mr. Ralston, a native of Ohio,
born in 1825, received a good common school educa-
tion, worked for several years at the trade of ship-
carpenter in building river steamboats, and left that
occupation when nineteen years of age to become
clerk in a Mississippi steamer. In 1850 he started
for California, but stopped at Panama, having found
profitable business there. He became the agent of
Garrison k Morgan, owners of a line of steamships
connecting New York with San Francisco; filled that
place for several years, and was in 1853 promoted to
San Francisco, where he was agent for the same firm,
which then had the steamers " Winfield Scott," "Yan-
kee Blade " and " Uncle Sam," on the Pacific side.
His employers were so well satisfied with him that,
when they opened a bank with Mr. Fretz, they took
him also as a partner, and all the names appeared in
the firm of Garrison, Morgan, Fretz and Palston.
After a lapse of a year the first two drew out, leaving
the firm of Fretz & Ralston. This house had been
in existence a very brief time, when a panic came and
brought embarrassment upon a bank in which many
leading merchants made their deposits, and to which
they looked for advances. This business was beset
by serious risks, and the house which had held it re-
fused to continue in that line. Most of the bankers
would not face the danger, and others could not com-
mand the confidence. The position was a difficult
410 HISTORY OF SAN FRANCISCO,
one in a city in which there was so much speculation
and excitement; rare courage, tact, decision and
knowledge of men and business were needed. Rals-
ton had them; and the merchants discovered that he
had. Soon he had the bulk of the mercantile busi-
ness, and the more they observed him the stronger
was their trust in him.
The firm changed to Donohoe, Kalston & Co. in
1858, and in 1864 E-alston, with others, planned and
organized the Bank of California, which immediately
took rank as the chief bank of San Francisco, and
one of the loading financial institutions of the United
States and of the world, for its fame and credit ex-
tended to Europe and to the commercial cities of
Asia. It was supposed that he was fairly entitled to
the oifice of president, and could have obtained it
without difficulty, but he gave his influence to elect
D. 0. Mills, whose reputation, experience, capital and
influence were not unworthy of the place. Mr. Mills
being a very reserved man, Ralston had the credit of
being the leading man in the institution. It was a
magnificent success from the start, possessing the un-
limited confidence of the community, and doing an
immense business. It paid dividends of one per cent,
per month or more, and its stock was in great de-
mand among capitalists. Among its stockholders
were a number of millionaires. Their wealth and
enterprise, the efforts which they made to protect
their property, and the competition into which they
were often brought with others by their undertakings
THE SILVER EH A. 411
led to much denimciation by rivals and defeated op-
ponents, who complained, usually without a particle
of reason, that the bank ring controled the finance
and legislation of California and Nevada.
On account of the large capital controlled by Mr.
Halston, and the encouragement given to them, espec-
ially after the withdrawal of Mr. Mills from the presi-
dency and business of the bank in 1872, it was the
custom of men who wished to undertake industrial
enterprises to go to him. Every day, competent men
and schemers coming from abroad, brought letters of
introduction, recommending them to his favor. All
these he received and heard; some he assisted. He
was largely interested in the Mission woolen mills,
the Kimball carriage factory, the Cornell watch fac-
tory, and many other manufacturing establishments.
He contributed much to the San Joaquin irrigation
canal, and to reclamation dykes. He furnished cap-
ital for opening New Montgomery street, and for
building the California theatre. He projected the
Palace hotel, devised its general plan, and with the
help of his friend Mr. Sharon, built it. It is the
remarkable monument of a very remarkable man, but
like most of his other investments, more showy than
profitable.
When transacting business, his speech was short
and sharp. He asked a brief question, insisted upon an
explicit answer, gave his decision in a word or two,
and turned to somebody else. The first impression
was not favorable upon those who had an abundance
412 HISTORY OF SAN FRANCISCO.
of leisure ; but if a man impressed him favorably, he
was most kind. He was habitually considerate ; and
for those whom he liked, and they were numerous, he
was obliging. No banker in San Francisco had so
many warm friends and admirers. He regarded it as
one of the duties of his position to entertain much
company, and he did this in a princely country man-
sion, where he had accommodations for a hundred
guests at a time. He had a dozen carriages, with
fast horses — fast, but not of the fastest, for he would
buy no racers or very dear horses — to carry them to
and from his house, and to serve them when they
wanted to drive for pleasure. Shortly before his death
he erected a mansion on Pine street, near Leavenworth,
for the purpose of keeping up similar style in the city.
It is doubtful whether the like of such hospitality was
ever seen before. A rumor, unfounded of course, was
started in the east that the bank allowed him one
hundred and fifty thousand a year for the entertain-
ment of strangers — a report that could never have got
such a start upon the hospitality of any country save
California. He gave largely and secretly to many
charities. The general estimate of him was that he
had in an eminent degree many of the virtues most
desirable in a citizen, a neighbor and a friend.
Sec. 216. Eulogy. It was not until six months
after his death that certain material facts about his
management were proved in a judicial investigation,
in which it appeared that he owed the bank about
four million five hundred thousand dollars; and that
THE SILVER ERA. 413
the failure of the institution was caused by his use of
its moneys for his private purposes, without the
knowledge of the directors. These private purposes
were nearly all large enterprises, designed to enrich
the state, furnish employment to labor, or beautify
the city, but they failed to yield a prompt return, and
carried him down to bankruptcy, though they re-
mained important and beneficent public improve-
ments.
As Mr. Kalston had been the financial Caesar of
San Francisco, his death was followed by bitter indig-
nation amono- his friends as^ainst those who had
attacked him, and his assailants were now accused of
having driven him to suicide by their vile slanders.
The "Bulletin" and "Call" undertook to justify them-
selves and were in the awkward position of making
war on a popular favorite just after his death ; and were
at the disadvantage of being unable to prove facts, of
which, as it afterwards appeared, they had confi-
dential and trustworthy information. A great public
meeting was held to vindicate the memory of Ralston,
and brilliant orators paid eloquent tributes to his
genius and generosity. Thomas Fitch, one of the
speakers of the occasion, said:
Eulogy! "What part of human speech can fitly eulogize the
man we have lost. "What brush of artist or pen of dramatist
can depict the benefactions of his generous life and the bravery
of his heroic death? His deeds speak for him in tones that
sound like the blare of trumpets; his monuments rise from
every rood of ground in your city; his eulogy is written in ten
thousand hearts; commerce commemorates his deeds with her
414 HISTORY OF SAN FRANCISCO.
wbitening" sails and Ler laden wharves; philanthropy chimes
the bells of all public charities in attestation of his liberality;
patriotism sings pseans for him who, in the hour of the nation's
struggle, sent the ringing gold of mercy to chime with the flash-
ing steel of valor. Unnumbered deeds of j)rivate generosity
attest his secret charities. Sorrow has found solace in his
deeds. Despair has been lifted into hope by his bounty.
There are charities whose heaven-kissing spires chronicle his
donations to the cause of religion. Schools claim him as their
patron. Hospitals own him as their benefactor. Art has found
in him a supporter. Science has leaned on him while her
vision swept the infinite. The feet of progress have been san-
dalled with his silver. He has upheld invention while she
wrestled with the dead forces of nature. He was the life of all
enterprise, the vigor of all progress, the epitome and the repre-
sentative of all that is broadening and expansive and upliftiug
in the life of California. Would you show honor and hospi-
tality to travelers, renowned in letters, arts or arms? Ralston
was the princely host. Did jo\x Avish to forward a public or a
private charity? Ralston headed the subscription list. Would
you develop a new industry to enlarge the resources of the city,
start a new manufacture, add wealth to the state, and furnish
hundreds of husbands and fathers with contented and well paid
toil ? You went to Ralston for advice and assistance. He im-
pressed you with his power; he infused you with his energy;
he touched you with his princely generosity; he conquered
you with his magnetism; his vitality was like the flash of
steel; his enduring energy was like the steady and swift flow
of a cataract; his beneficence was like the copious and search-
ing philanthropy of the summer rain. Of all her public pos-
sessions the commonwealth of California never owned any more
valuable than this man's life; of all her jDublic disasters she has
had none greater than his death.
Sec. 217. Bank Reorganized. Mr. Ralston sup-
posed that, as the capital of the bank had been lost,
the institution had reached its end: but he did not
THE SILVER ERA. 415
fully appreciate the situation. Among its directors
and stockholders were many leading capitalists, includ-
ing perhaps a dozen millionaires, who were personally
responsible for their share of the debts, from which
they could not escape if it wont into bankruptcy; be-
sides in that event its large assets would be greatly
reduced by expensive litigation, and the surplus would
be tied up in the courts for years. The desire to main-
tain the bank as a protection to the business of the
city, and a belief that its good will Avas valuable, and
that no other bank in the city w^ould accommodate
them and many friends among the merchants so well,
contributed to induce them to form a syndicate, which
opened the bank five weeks after it closed, supplied by
assessment the lost capital, provided for paying all its
debts with no abatement of interest, and restored it
to its former credit and favor. Such a re-establish-
ment of a bank that was undoubtedly bankrupt for a
large sum is said to be without its like elsewhere.
Sec. 218. Virginia Fire. The destruction of Vir-
ginia City by fire was felt very keenly in San Fran-
cisco, where much of the burned property was owned,
Avhere the money to rebuild had to be raised, and where
one result was an immense and immediate decline in
the prices of stocks. The aggregate depreciation was
$35,000,000. This disaster, with its direct loss of
$5,000,000, coming within six weeks after the failure
of the great bank, gave a rude shock to many for-
tunes; but backed by the bonanza which witliin the
year paid nearly $11,000,000 in dividends, the city
416 HISTORY OF SAN FRANCISCO.
soon showed no signs of its trials, and its business
went on as steadily as though it had never been dis-
turbed.
Sec. 219. Lich's Trustees Changed, Mr. Lick had
selected as his trustees to administer his benevolent
gifts seven of the richest and most respectable citizens
of San Francisco; and in his deed, made when he was
feeble and expecting the approach of death within a
few months, or perhaps even weeks, he had given them
absolute control. He soon gained in strength, and
thouo-h not able to walk about much, his mind was
active, and he undertook to give directions to the
trustees, sending for them frequently when they were
eno-aged in other business, and issuing instructions to
them without inquiring about their views. This
method of procedure did not suit them. They had
assumed a large responsibility without compensa-
tion, and now looked with apprehension to being
placed in an awkward position before the public,
whether they yielded or not. While such thoughts
were under consideration among them, Mr. Lick took
offense at something said by Mr. Selby, one of the
number, and requested him to resign. He expressed
his willingness, but the others objected on the ground
that they had accepted partly because Mr. Selby was
to be with them, and they prevailed upon him to
withdraw his consent. The result .was the institu-
tion of a suit in which, without opposition from them,
judgment was rendered removing the first board of
trustees, and appointing a new set, including his son,
THE SILVER ERA. 417
John H. Lick, who was thus made a participant in
the trust. James Lick executed a new deed to the
new set of trustees, giving one hundred and fifty thou-
sand dollars to his son, in addition to the pitiful three
thousand dollars before, and making reductions in the
amounts for art purposes.
Sec. 220. 1876. San Francisco enjoyed more
than her usual amount of prosperity through 1876.
The rains of the winter were abundant, the crops good,
and towards the close of the year grain commanded
high prices on account of the expectation of a great
war in eastern Europe. The Southern Pacific company
built several hundred miles of road, completed the
connection with the net work centering at Los An-
geles, and ran out into the Colorado desert; thus giv-
ing facilities and inducements for the settlement of a
large region of new country, bringing the city into
more intimate association with the southern part of
the state, and making it certain that no railroad
should cross the continent on a southern route in
American territory without finding a terminal con-
nection with San Francisco ready for immediate
use. This was a check upon the supposed inten-
tion, attributed probably without good cause to
leading men in the Texas and Pacific Pailroad, of
using their influence in trying to build up a rival
to San Francisco on the southern coast. The mining
production, as well as the agricultural yield was unu-
sually large. The dividends paid in the metropolis
in the course of the year were $39,000,000, including
418 HISTOBY OF SAN FRANCISCO.
$24,000,000 from mines. The mining stock market
was considered dull, but the sales in one board
amounted to $226,000,000. Numerous new buildings
were erected; and among these were Baldwin's build-
ing, comprising a hotel and theater, a large and splen-
did structure.
Sec. 221. Liclcs Death. James Lick appointed a
third set of trustees, and soon afterwards died; leav-
ing a benefaction that promises to be among the
greatest on record for the advancement of knowledge
and the alleviation of poverty. A native of Penn-
sylvania, bred with scanty education to the trade of
cabinet-maker, he emigrated when a young man to
South America, Avhere he had in 1847 accumulated
thirty thousand dollars. Coming with that sum to
San Francisco, he invested it in town lots, paying
three hundred dollars for the land occupied by the
Lick House, now worth three quarters of a million.
He was industrious, sharp-witted, simple in his tastes,
stingy, and almost miserly in his mode of life, though
capable of much liberality for certain purposes that
suited his fancy. The value of his property rapidly
increased, and he was soon reckoned one of the rich-
est men of the Californian metropolis. His profits
came almost exclusively from the increase in the value
of land. He never speculated in anything else. It
had long been his intention to leave the bulk of his
estate for the benefit of the people of his favorite
city. For their sake he refused to give to his rela-
tives, drove hard bargains with his servants and
THE SILVER ERA. '410
neiofhbors, stinted himself, and lived in a hovel not
worth two hundred dollars. When, by the defeat of
the adverse claims to the site of the Lick House, he
acquired a clear title there, he, with the help of an
able architect adopted an original and highly meri-
torious plan for a hotel, designed to accommodate
wealthy families in permanent boarding as well as
travelers.
Sec. 222. Centennial Celebration. The centennial
anniversary of the declaration of national indepen-
dence occurred on Tuesday, and was celebrated with
festivities that began on Monday morning and ended
on Wednesday evening. The people of San Francisco
believed that the fourth of July, 1876, should be ob-
served with great rejoicing. In the hundred years of
existence, the nation had grown beyond all previous
example or even conception. It had increased its area
and population more than ten fold, and its wealth a
hundred fold. Its people had been happier than those
of any other country. It had been the leader of the
world in general education and social and political lib-
erty. It had exerted a mighty influence in diffusing
higher ideas of the capacity of the multitude for ex.-
ercising rights never before conferred on them in
Europe. It had done niuch to aid men to believe iti
themselves. It had made wonderful contributions to
progress by inventions that gave greater control over
the forces of nature. It planted the highest civiliza-
tion securely over half a continent. Even in its weak-
ness and mistakes it became the teacher of other
420 HISTORY OF SAN FRANCISCO.
nations. It had done enough to furnish material for
one of the most attractive and impressive divisions of
universal history.
While the whole people had so much reason for cele-
brating the centennial anniversary, San Francisco had
additional motives, on account of the local circumstances
of the city, which for nearly three quarters of a cen-
tury had remained stationary, insignificant and un-
known under Spanish dominion and then imme-
diately after its transfer to the United States started
upwards with a speed that soon led to a high place
in the metropolitan list. The citizens who had shared
the excitements and had been enriched by the profits
of San Francisco's growth could sincerely celebrate
the hundredth birthday of the nation.
A large committee of citizens, under the presidency
of General James Coey, had made arrangements for a
demonstration worthy of the occasion and of the city ;
and all classes of her inhabitants showed their desire
to do their part. Across the main streets, especially
Kearny and Montgomery, were stretched banners
with patriotic inscriptions, and ropes upon which were
strung the stars and stripes; and the houses generally
were not only decorated, but were almost hidden by
the flags. Kearny street at Sutter was spanned by a
large arch, built by French residents in commemora-
tion of the participation of France in the establish-
ment of the government of the United States.
On Saturday, the solemnities commenced with pa-
triotic sermons in the synagogues ; and the Protestant
THE SIL VER ERA. 421
clero-ymen followed in the same strain the next day.
On Monday forenoon there was a sham battle by the
federal troops, and a review by Governor Irwin of the
second brigade of the national guard of California,
under command of Brigadier General McComb, at
the Presidio; in the afternoon there was firing at a
target-boat in the bay by several war-ships and forts,
and a regatta of the master mariners' association, with
forty-three boats; and in the evening a torch-light
procession.
Tuesday was ushered in with salutes from heavy
guns, and with national airs chimed by the bells of
St. Patrick's church. Mass and Te Deum in special
honor of the day were celebrated in all the Catholic
churches. A procession in which ten thousand men
took part, marched under direction of the Hon. D. A.
Macdonald, grand marshal, through the principal
streets to the Mechanic's Pavilion, where an oration
Avas delivered by the Rev. H. Stebbins, and a poem
by J. F. Bowman. In the evening many houses
were illuminated, and there was a large masquerade
ball ; and on Wednesday there was a regatta on the
bay under the management of the San Francisco
yacht club, twenty-nine boats participating.
The centennial anniversary of the consecration of
the mission of San Francisco was celebrated on the
eighth of October, by a large procession, and oration
by Archbishop A.lemany, John W. Dwinelle, and M.
G. Vallejo.
Sec. 223. 1877. A great depression of business,
422 HISTORY OF SAN FRANCISCO.
resulting- from a severe drouo^ht, and a fear that tHe
ricli deposit of ore in the Consolidated Virginia and
California mines would soon be exhausted, the organ-
ization of the workingmen's political party, the com-
mencement and rapid prosecution of the work in
widening Dupont street from Market to Bush, the
opening of the Hall of Records in the new City Hall,
and the construction of a large part of the main build-
ing; the adoption of a new line of w^ater-front by the
harbor commissioners, the completion and occupation
of the building of the San Francisco stock and ex-
change board on Pine street, the failure of Duncan's
savings bank, and the discovery of the great frauds
committed by its manager, were among the most
notable events of 1877.
Sec. 224. Hard Times. The scantiness of the
rainfall of 1876-77, the amount being less than ten
inches at San Francisco, and less than that of any
other season within a quarter of a century, caused a
general failure of the grain crop, a large mortality in
the herds of cattle, and a serious decline in the yield
of the placer mines. The direct pecuniary loss to the
state by the drought was estimated at twenty million
dollars. The southern part of the state was especially
depressed, notwithstanding the completion of the rail-
road connection between San Francisco and Los An-
geles in September, 1876, and the extension of the
road to the Colorado river in the April following.
Business generally, and especially land speculation,
Jiad reached a highly inflated condition on the south-
THE SIL VER ERA. 423
ern coast in 1874, and four years elapsed before the
debtors generally could get out of their embarrass-
ments. The failure of the Texas and Pacific railroad
company to do any work west of the Rocky mountains,
its confession of inability to cross the continent with-
out further aid from congress, and the refusal of that
body to guarantee the payment of interest as solicited,
were felt as disasters at San Diego. In 1876 the
number of pleasure seekers in California from the
eastern states was reduced by the rush to see the
centennial fair at Philadelphia, and it was still more
unfavorably affected the next year by the report that
a great drought had for the season diminished the at-
tractions and prosperity of our state. At the same
time, there was a decline of confidence in the bonanza
mines. The Consolidated Virginia, in January, sus-
pended its monthly dividend of a million dollars, which
it had been paying for nearly two years. The market
value of the mine, calculated from the number of
shares and the price at which they sold in the stock
boards early in January, 1875, was$80, 000, 000; that was
at the climax of the excitement, when the credulous
public were assured by men represented to be compe-
tent mining engineers that the mine had ore enough
in sight to yield $700,000,000; while a prominent
government official thought he would be entirely safe
in fixing the sum at $150,000,000 as the lowest possi-
ble figure. If this estimate had been correct, the
price of $80,000,000 would not have been too high,
for two thirds of the yield was profit, and the limits
424 HISTORY OF SAN FRANCISCO.
of the ore body had not been found, and since that
time it has been traced two hundred feet deeper. Nev-
ertheless the opinion spread that the lowest of these
figures was far too high, and so the prices continued
to fall, till at the close of 1877 the mine represented
a market value of about $10,000,000. The California
mine declined at the same ratio; and as these were the
two great dividend-paying mines, the stock market,
which had played a large part in the business of Cal-
ifornia, and especially of San Francisco, was greatly
depressed. It had been estimated that at the begin-
ning of 1875 there were one hundred millionaires in
California, many of them worth more than $5,000,000
each, but in 1877 half of the number ceased to be
millionaires, in the common estimation, and a score or
more of them were reduced to bankruptcy or its verge,
while among the laboring classes times were harder
than ever before. Within three years there had been
a shrinkage of $140,000,000 in the market value
of the two leading mines, nearly all of whose shares
Avere owned in San Francisco, or $1,000 on an average
for every white adult in the city; and though a large
majority had never owned any of these shares, all were
afiected indirectly, if not directly, by the decline.
Sec. 225. Workinqmen. Such was the condition
of affairs when the railroad riots began on the Atlantic
slope in July. They met a prompt response in San
Francisco. The hostility among the white laborers,
who believed that, if it were not for the Mongolian com-
petition, they could generally get employment at bet-
THE SILVER ERA. 425
ter wages, broke out in a riot on the twenty-third of
July, when one Chinese laundry was burned, and
several were sacked. The police with difficulty dis-
persed the mob, but the rioters were defiant, and
threatened to drive out the Asiatics with fire and
pistol at no distant day. As among the tAventy-seven
thousand houses more than four fifths were wooden,
and three hundred Chinese laundries were scattered
through all the wards, this threat caused much uneasi-
ness. If an anti- Chinese mob should get control for
a few hours, the destruction of San Francisco might
be the result. To counteract this danger, a committee
of safety, organized under the presidency of W. T.
Coleman, who had been president of the vigilance com-
mittee of 1856, with six thousand members, prevented
the enemies of the Chinese from resorting to force.
Then the workingmen's political party arose, adopted
the motto " The Chinese must go," held public meet-
ings nearly e^^ery Sunday, and applauded speakers
who clamored for hemp to be used in hanging monop-
olists; who exhibited pieces of rope as part of their
platform; y/ho declared that the Mongolians must be
driven out, even if all the manufacturing industry of
the city should cease; who talked of the burning of
Moscow as a lesson for the oppressors of white labor;
and who advised their followers to arm themselves and
organize in military companies for the purpose of re-
sisting the police and state and federal troops.
This party suddenly rose to formidable proportions.
It promised to protect the rights of laboring men, and
426 HISTORY OF SAN FRANCISCO.
denounced the democratic and republican parties as
corrupt, and accomplices of the monopolists in oppress-
ing the poor. Dennis Kearney, the leader of the new
organization, became an effective popular orator, draw-
ing large crowds of hearers, and commanding loud
bursts of applause when he spoke; but his success was
evidently due mainly to the high passions of his hear-
ers, and his understanding of them, and not to superior
judgment, learning, or rhetorical skill. His influence,
however, was sufficient to attract the support of a
majority of the voters in the city; and to cause much
uneasiness among rich men and the leaders of the old
parties.
Sec. 226. 18'/8. The year 1878, which has not
reached its end when this paragraph is written, has
so far been prosperous. The rainfall was abundant,
the grain-crops large; and though the Consolidated
Virginia and California mines reduced their monthly
dividends from $1,000,000 to $500,000 each, and
then suspended them, still hopes were entertained
that they would soon resume, and also that equally
large dividends would at no distant time be obtained
from the Sierra Nevada, and Union Consolidated
mines, in which a body of very rich ore was found.
In this year six men classed among the millionaires
residing in San Francisco or its suburbs, died. Mark
Hopkins, one of the directors of the Central Pacific
railroad company, left an estate of $10,000,000;
Michael Reese about $8,000,000; W. S. O'Brien,
$6,000,000; and Isaac Friedlander (who had been
THE STL VER ERA. 427
greatly embarrassed by the drought of 1877), $400,000.
The value of the estates of D. D. Colton and Wm. Watt
has not been published. All these men were poor
when they arrived in California; all were men of rare
business capacity and industry, save O'Brien, and he
was a general favorite among his acquaintance; all
had the reputation of keeping their contracts; and all
were public spirited save Reese, though he was liberal
enough to purchase Francis Lieber's library at a cost
of $3,000 for the State University. The loss of so
many millionaires by a city of three hundred thousand
inhabitants, within a year, is an evidence that the'
claim of exceptional abundance of that class of popu-
lation has much foundation.
Sec. 227. Eighteen Years. The distinguishing
feature of The Silver Era, the period from the begin-
ning of 1861 till the present time, has been the in-
fluence of the mines of Nevada, which, by their divi-
dends and the selling of their shares in the stock
boards, have done much to enrich San Trancisco, and
give character to her business. No other product of
her tributary area is equal in value, or belongs to her
so much as the silver. The wheat, gold, wool, wine
and fruit must yield precedence to the metal of the
Comstock. By the boldness with which she invested
her capital, and her power in attracting those who
had made fortunes elsewhere without her help, she
became the owner of nearly everything worth owning
in the silver mines, which Avere then worked mainly
for her benefit. Three great "pay chutes," as they
428 HISTORY OF SAN FRANCISCO.
are styled by the miners, each containing several
large and distinct but related masses of rich ore, were
found and worked out with an energy, skill and ex-
cellence of mechanical appliances, to which the great
mining industry of Potosi, Cerro Pasco, Guanajuato
and Zacatecas had made no approach. The first of
these 23ay chutes to be exhausted so far, commencing
at the surface in the Gould and Curry mine, and run-
ning downwards and southwards, through the Savage
and Hale and Norcross, yielded $40,000,000 gross
before 1869. The second in the order of date of ex-
haustion, beginning at the surface in what is now the
Consolidated Imperial, and running southwards and
downwards through the Yellow Jacket, Kentuck,
Crown Point and Belcher, yielded $90,000,000 before
1874. The third and greatest pay chute so far
worked made its appearance in the Ophir at the
surface, and after having been lost for more than ten
years was again struck three hundred yards distant
in the Consolidated Virginia, and has yielded $110,-
000,000. The bottom of the ore body in this pay
chute has not been reached, and the miners are search-
inof for new ore bodies in each of the others. In the
summer of 1878 a body of rich ore was found in the
Sierra Nevada, and is supposed to be the beginning
of a new bonanza, and of a still larger production of
bullion. The average annual yield of the silver
mines for the five years preceding July, 1878, w^as
$35,000,000; the dividends more than half as much,
the assessments half as much as the, dividends, the
THE STL VER ERA. 429
average daily fluctuations several millions, and the
averaofe annual sales in the mininsf stock boards,
$200,000,000. Most of the San Franciscans are in-
tensely interested in the rise and fall of the silver
stocks, while relatively few read the market reports
of the sales of wheat.
The speculation in mining shares became the most
prominent business in San Francisco, and as a field
for the investment of money had more frequent and
greater fluctuations than those of any other stock
market, making and marring many fortunes in a day.
The excitement is more attractive than that of the
gambling table, because it is accompanied by the pro-
duction of immense quantities of bullion, and there
are times when the opening of new ore bodies add to
the national wealth, and enable buyer and seller alike
to make good profits on their transactions.
The district south of the line of Bush street gained
fifteen or twenty fold; Kearny and Market streets
rose from relative insignificance to leading positions
in retail business; and California near Montgomery
became the chief center of the money market. The
construction of eight street railroads gave cheap and
speedy access to the suburbs, and added five perhaps
ten times as much as their cost to the value of the
land in the city, giving to extensive districts, previ-
ously suburban, an urban character. The concentra-
tion of street railroad terminations at the end of
Market street, the slips there enabling ferry-boats to
make quick landings, the half-hourly trips across the
430 mSTOBY OF SAN FRANCISCO.
bay, the reduction of the single fares to fifteen cents,
the sale of commutation tickets, and the construc-
tion of the wharf, the steam railroads, the street rail-
roads, and the artificial harbor at Oakland, contributed
to raise that town to a city of forty thousand inhabit-
ants, in very intimate suburban relations with the
metropolis.
The population of the state had increased to 850,000
in 1878, and the annual gain since 1860 was not less
than ten per cent., or more than three times as much
as the average gain in the United States. After a
large part of the damage done by refusing to sell the
federal land in the mineral regions had become irrep-
arable, the policy was modified, without, however,
enabling settlers to acquire titles under the same lib-
eral conditions as in the agricultural districts. As the
gold }■ ield declined, many of the miners became farm-
ers, and others discouraged by the high expense of
transporting their grain and fruit to market, moved
from the Sierra Nevada to the valleys and coast mount-
ains. The counties near San Francisco and those on
the southern coast, attracted most of the new settlers.
California ceased to be mainly a money-making resort,
and became a health and pleasure resort. As the
*' Westminister Review" said, after having been the
treasury, she became the garden of the world. The
enterprise of her inhabitants, the activity of her busi-
ness, the fertility of her soil, and the genial warmth
of her climate, enabled her to make her valleys bloom
suddenly with most beautiful and luxuriant perennial
THE SIL VER ERA. 431
verdure. Her markets had the most abundant and
varied supply of home-grown fruit to be found any-
where. The resources of the state were carefully
studied; the geology, botany, zoology, meteorology and
scenery, were diligently compared with those of other
countries, explained in comprehensive books, and made
the subject of frequent comment in the public journals.
The construction of two thousand miles of railroad
within her borders, the completion of the iron track
across the continent, the establishment of lines of
steamers to China and ^Australia, contributed vastly
to her trade, prosperity and population.
432 HISTORY OF SAN FRANCISCO.
CHAPTER VII.
GENERALITIES.
SectiOx\ 228. Natural Site. The site of San Fran-
cisco has been changed wonderfully within thirty years.
In 1846 the only place apparently suitable for town
purposes was an area of perhaps forty acres surrounding
Portsmouth square. Elsewhere no considerable expanse
of land level or nearly level was to be found without
going to the presidio in one direction, or the Mission in
the other. Hill and ravine, chaparral and sand, high
rocky bluff, mud flat and swamp, covered thousands of
acres now densely populated, and seeming by their flat
or gently sloping surface to have been admirably fitted
by nature to be the heart of a great city. But the hand
of art is hidden in this vast plain. Eastward from the
line of First street, between Folsom and Broadway, are
three hundred and twenty acres now covered by houses
occupied for purposes of commerce and manufactures,
])ut in 1848 occupied by the anchorage of Yerba Buena
cove. North of Broadway, including North Beach,
there are forty acres, and south of Folsom street, includ-
ing part of Mission cove, there are one hundred and
fifty acres of ground made in the bay. A swamp head-
ing near the corner of Mission and Seventh streets ran
for a mile eastward to the bay, with an average width
of three hundred yards, and a parallel marsh, not so
wide, had its head near the crossing of Mission and
Eighth streets. These were called swamps; but they
GENERALITIES. 433
seem to have been for part of their area at least, subter-
ranean lakes, from forty to eighty feet deep, covered by
a crust of peat eight or ten feet thick. These marshes,
with another along the border of Mission creek, had an
area of three hundred acres and are now filled in.
About eight hundred acres that were swamp and bay in
1868 are now solid land, and are occupied for business
purposes.
The peat in the marshes that had their heads near the
site of the new city hall was strong enough to sustain a
small house or a loaded wagon, though a man, by swing-
ing himself from side to side, or by jumping upon it,
could give it a perceptible shiver. There were weak
places in it, however, and a cow which in searching for
sweet pasture undertook to jump from one hard spot to
what appeared to be another, made a mistake, for it gave
way under her, and a gentleman hunting near by was
surprised to see her go down, and still more to observe
that she did, not come up again. A puddle of muddy
water was all that remained to indicate her burial place.
After that the hunter did not jump about in the swamp
so boldly as before. Many ludicrous scenes occurred in
filling up the swamps. When streets were first made
the weight of the sand pressed the peat down, so that
the water stood where the surface was dry before. Some-
times the sand broke through, carrying down the peat
under it, leaving nothing but water or thin mud near
the surface. More than once a contractor had put on
enough sand to raise the street to the official grade, and
gave notice to the city engineer to inspect the work, but
28
434 HISTORY OF SAN FRANCISCO.
in the lapse of a day between the notice and inspection,
the sand had sunk down six or eight feet; and, when at
last a permanent bottom had been reached, the heavy
sand had crowded under the light peat at the sides of
the street and lifted it up eight or ten feet above its
original level, in muddy ridges full of hideous cracks.
Not only was the peat crowded up by the sand in this
way, but it was also pushed sidewise, so that houses and
fences built upon it were carried away from their orig-
inal position and tilted up at singular angles by the up-
heaval.
While San Francisco was unfortunate in having such
wide areas of marsh and mud fiat along her water front,
she had some compensation in the possession of numer-
ous and high sand hills. It having become evident that it
would pay to fill in water lots, even when a man with a
horse and cart was paid fifteen dollars per day, James
Cunningham saw that here was the place for a steam
shovel, or steam paddy, as it was commonh^ termed.
This was a scoop which at one move would dig up a
cubic yard of sand or gravel (equivalent to a ton and a
half in w^eight, and nearlj^ twice as much as could be
hauled by a single horse in a cart), then swing it round
by a crane over a railway car into which the load was
discharged. The steam paddy was at w^ork from 1852
till 1854, and from 1859 till 1873 almost constantly,
sometimes moving two thousand five hundred tons in a
daj', and for a while two were employed.
The steam shovel could not w^ork anywhere save in
sand, but there were five thousand acres of it that
GENERALITIES. 4*35
needed leveling, though over a considerable part of this
area the work could be done more cheaply with horse
and cart. The steam paddy could not be used with ad-
vantage unless the sand was to be carried a considerable
distance. Market street, for half a mile from the water,
was a wide ridge of sand, part of the way sixty feet
above the present level, and nothing but the steam paddy
and railroad could have moved it without ruinous ex-
pense.
Sec. 229. Grades. In 1850, under urgent pressure
from citizens who wanted to build and needed some offi-
cial guidance for fixing the level of their houses, the city
council, without ordering any careful study of the city's
topography or future interests, adopted grades for the
most busy streets, and under this order, Montgomery,
from Pine to Pacific; Kearny, from Sutter to Pacific;
Dupont, from Clay to Broadway; Stockton, from Clay to
North Beach, and Powell, from Broadway to North
Beach, were graded at various times from 1850 to 1853.
Most of these streets, as well as the cross streets from
Commercial to Broadway inclusive, were planked soon
after the grading was finished. Oregon fir planks, three
or four inches thick, furnished a cheap material for a
smooth and strong road-bed that could be put down
quickly at little expense, and taken up readily whenever,
as frequently happened, any digging in the street was
necessary ; and though not permanent, still it could be
replaced at the end of five years for less than the inter-
est on the extra cost of any stone pavement.
If the shore line had remained where it was in 1850,
436 HISTORY OF SAN FBANCISCO.
the grade then adopted would have been sufficient ; but
the filling in of Yerba Buena cove, and the pushing of
the water front from near its natural position between
Montgomery and Sansome on Clay to a place a thou-
sand feet farther east, made it necessary, for purposes
of drainage, to raise the levels of many of the streets
as fir3t established. In 1853, the city council under-
took to provide for the future by a comprehensive sys-
tem, and employed Alilo Hoadley and W. P. Hum-
phreys to prepare a system of grades. The table pre-
sented by them was adopted by the council on the
twenty-sixth of August ; and though changed afterwards
in many minor points, it was well devised, for the
greater part of the area which it covered, and especially
in what was then the business part of the cit^'-, where
there was general discontent because the levels were
raised above the former official grades, in many places
as much as live feet. This new grade of 1853 imposed
a heavy expense upon those who had already' built of
brick, and so many citizens were dissatified that another
board of engineers was organized to revise the table.
The new board refused to alter "the Hoadley grades,"
as they were called, in those places where they most
seriously afiected the value of buildings. On the hills
great changes were made by the new board. Hoadley
had proposed more cutting of rock than the lot-owners
could afford. He required the removal of one hundred
and thirty-nine vertical feet at the intersection of Mont-
gomery and Union streets, and one hundred and thirty-
three feet at the crossing of Kearny and Greenwich.
GENERALITIES, 437
The summit of Telegraph hill, in the middle of the
block bounded by Filbert, Greenwich, Kearny and Mont-
gomery streets, would have to be cut down two hundred
feet to bring it to the level of the surrounding streets.
The lots there were then worth about ten cents a square
foot, and the grading, as proposed by Hoadley, would
cost from three to six dollars per square foot. It was
his idea that this work would be done in the course of
years, and that the rock taken from the hill would be in
demand for filling water lots and for ballast. It was
then considered especially important to provide ballast,
for ships came full and went away empty, and the time
when they would come empty and go away full, as they
now do, was considered too remote for any business cal-
culation. The new board of engineers was however
not entirely adverse to deep cutting, for it required an
excavation on Sansome street of forty feet at Vallejo,
one hundred and twenty at Green, thirty-four at Union,
and fifty-six at Filbert. The grades thus recommended
were accepted by the council, and have with slight
changes been adhered to since, though after a lapse of
more than twenty years Sansome street has not yet been
cut through the base of Telegraph hill on the modified
grade.
Sec. 230. Amount of Grading. No official table
shows the amount of grading actually done. The depth
of the cutting was calculated from the center of the
street crossing, which was in many places on a steep
hill-side. The council determined the grades of the
streets, and the lot-owners, for their own convenience,
438 HISTORY OF SAN FRANCISCO.
were compelled to put their lots on the same level with
the street in front of them. About one fourth of the
area was in streets. We may assume that the present
level of three thousand acres is on the average nine feet
above or below the natural surface of the ground, and
these figures imply the transfer of twenty-one million
cubic yards from hill to hollow.
A necessary result of the change of grade after houses
had been erected, was that they had to be adapted to the
new level. In some cases, new stories were put under
or upon old houses, which, though only one or two
stories high when first built, are three or four stories
high now. In the business part of the city, a large pro-
portion of the houses were raised to conform to the
lioadley grade, and as many of them were large struct-
ures of brick, this raising was no small undertaking.
A machine based on the principle of the hydraulic press,
for lifting up houses, was invented and used for raising
about nine hundred brick houses in San Francisco, one
of them covering an area of one hundred and thirty-
seven and one half feet square.
Sec. 231. Sources of Buildings. Common rumor
tells us of the sources of the money invested in many of
the prominent buildings of San Francisco. The Crown
Point and Belcher bonanza furnished Mr. Sharon with
the means for becoming the owner of the Falace hotel.
Baldwin's hotel was the result of lucky speculations
in Opliir and Mexican stock. The Nevada block was
built with bullion from the Consolidated Virginia. The
two buildings on the eastern corners of Pine and Mont-
GENERALITIES. 439
gomery grew out of the Gould and Curry and Savage
bonanza. Three brothers, who had worked the Sierra
Buttesgold quartz mine with success, became proprietors
of the Cosmopolitan hotel. Hay ward's building at No.
419 California street, was built with the profits of the
Hayward gold quartz mine at Sutter creek. Pierce's
building at No. 317 California street was washed out of
the blue gravel hydraulic claim at Smartsville. Watts' s
building on the south-east corner of Clay and Kearny
was stamped out of the auriferous quartz of the Eureka
mine at Grass Valley. The large wooden building on
the north-west corner of Stockton and O'Farrell, was
built with money saved from the Plato mine, now part of
the Consolidated ImjDerial. The foundation for the Occi-
dental hotel was laid in the first foundry established in
San Francisco. The Nucleus building, on the east cor-
ner of Market and Third, was, if not made out of the
profits of the first steam-shovel, at least built by its im-
porter, who did a large part of the grading of the city.
The law firm of Halleck, Peachy & Billings obtained
much of the money to pay for Montgomery Block out of
their business as counsel in cases before the United
States land commission. The rents from a couple of lots
bought in 1847 by a private soldier in Stevenson's regi-
ment for about thirty dollars, furnished the means for
putting up the Russ House. The Lick House was in
like manner the outgrowth of a small but fortunate in-
vestment in town lots before the gold discovery. Fried-
lander erected the building on the north-eastern corner
of California and Sansome streets, out of the profits of
440 HISTORY OF SAN FRANCISCO.
wheat speculation. The Odd Fellows' Hall, on the north-
west corner of Montgomery and Summer streets was
built by J. W. Tucker, who had made his money out of
a fashionable jewelry store, when great profits were
charged in his business. Bancroft's building owes its
existence to a large business in books and stationery.
The house on the north-east corner of California and
LeidesdorfF streets was built by the Pacific insurance com-
pany, which was bankrupted by the Chicago fire in 1871.
Certain people had so much confidence in Stephen A.
Wright, who had opened a shop as a banker, that they
deposited one hundred and fifty thousand dollars with him
in 1854, and he made a permanent investment for them
by putting up the brick and granite building on the
north-west corner of Montgomery and Jackson streets.
So long as they did not demand their principal, all went
well, but w^hen the financial panic came in February,
1855, nothing was left for them — save the privilege of
looking at the architectural pile which belonged to
somebody else. The house of the Real Estate Associates,
at 228 Montgomery, was made out of the profits of buy-
ing land in large lots, dividing it up into small ones,
putting houses ou them, and selling them at a credit.
The buildings of the San Francisco Stock Exchange and
the Pacific Exchange are monuments of the passion of
San Franciscans for taking the chances in wild specula-
tion. The houses at 400 and 420 Montgomery street
were erected by Samuel Brannan in 1853 out of profits
of real estate investments, and were then considered
ornaments of the city and signal evidences of confidence
GENERALITIES. 441
in her future prosperity and importance. W. T. Sher-
man brought the capital from St. Louis to build the
house on the north-east corner of Montgomery and Jack-
son for the bank of Lucas, Turner & Co.. of which he
was the manager. The Mercantile Library building
was paid for by a grand lottery, authorized by statute
in violation of the constitution, but no worse in prin-
ciple, though larger in scale, than the raffles frequently
held at church fairs. The Central Pacific railroad com-
pany built the house on the north corner of Fourth and
Townsend streets ; and four of the residence palaces on
California street, not far from Mason, were built by di-
rectors of the same companj-, in which three of them
accumulated nearly all their wealth. On Taylor street,
between Washington and Clay are a couple of magnifi-
cent dwellings built out of profits on money managed
with capacity. The buildings erected by associated cap-
ital, such as those of banking and charitable institutions
are numerous.
Sec. 232. The Press. After the return of its editor
from the mines, whither they went in the first excite-
ment, the " Californian" resumed publication on the fif-
teenth of August, 1848, and having been consolidated
with the " Star," appeared on the eighteenth of Novem-
ber as the -'Star and Californian." On the fourth of
January, 1849, it changed its name to the '' Alta Cali-
fornia." It was published as a weekly till December 10,
then appeared three times a week, and on the twenty-
second of January became a daily, anticipating a rival
M'hich appeared as a daily on the twenty- third. In
442 HISTORY OF SAN FRANCISCO.
1851 the "Herald," and in 1854 the "Chronicle," took
considerable shares of business from the '*Alta," but
both lost much of their favor -with the public in May,
1856, because they did not sustain the movement for a
vigilance committee, and both of them died in conse-
quence of the losses then sustained, Avhile the "' Alta,"
by advocating the popular side, became very profitable.
The "Bulletin" began on the eighth of October, 1855,
speedily gained a large circulation, and has enjoyed a
steady prosperity ever since. The "Morning Call"
was founded on the first of December, 1856, as the
first permanent cheap daily journal. The present
" Chronicle," not related in any manner to the old " Chron-
icle" which died in 1858, appeared as an advertising
sheet for the theaters in 1865, and having been success-
ful for three years was developed into a general news-
paper. The "Examiner" dates from 1862, and the
"Evening Post" from 1871. These are the daily
English journals devoted to general news that have sur-
vived ; and there are besides more than a score of others,
weekly, or devoted to special branches of business, or
foreign — German, French, Italian, Scandinavian, Span-
ish, Chinese ; and not less than two hundred have started
and expired. In ability, learning, careful editing, and
enterprise in collecting news, the San Francisco press
compares not unfavorably with that of other American
cities.
Sec. 233. Amusements. San Francisco has devoted
a considerable share of her attention to the pursuit of
pleasure. The greater part of the territory of which
GENERALITIES. 443
she is the metropolis is poor in resources for enjoyment.
Large areas in Nevada, Arizona, Southern California,
Oregon and Idaho are occupied by deserts ; western Ore-
gon and Washington are enveloped for much of the year
in rain or mist ; the mining counties of California are
declining as their placers are exhausted ; the Sacramento
and San Joaquin valleys suffer with intense heat in the
summer, and have not been satisfactorily protected
against Hood and drought. Partly for these reasons,
most of the luxury of the slope has collected in and
about San Francisco. The people from the wide region
between the British and Mexican lines west of the
Rocky mountains have come hither for twenty years to
seek compensation for the toils and privations of frontier
life, and have contributed much to refine and enrich the
city. From early times the theaters have ])een large,
good, and relatively numerous. Celebrated actors and
singers came half around the world to share the golden
harvest of California. The chill temperature of the
evenings throughout the year stimulated dancing, Avhich
is more common in San Francisco than in any other
city. The German, French, and Italian population each
contributed features of its own to the general character.
Concerts, masquerades, picnics, processions, and excur-
sions were frequent.
For three years after the gold discover^-, the people
had fevf opportunities to make pleasure excursions to the
country ; and those wdio w^anted to enjoy the open air
away from the throng of business usually contented
themselves by walking to the tops of Russiiui or Tele-
444 HISTORY OF SAN FRANCISCO.
graph Hill, which latter was visited by thousands, who
sat on its sides for hours every pleasant Sunday and
looked down over the busy baj-. Russ garden, on the
south corner of Sixth and Harrison streets, was opened
as a popular resort in 1853, and "was liberally patron-
ized, especially on Sunday, until 1860, when the Mar-
ket street railroad gave facilities to reach the "Willows,"
a public garden between Seventeenth, Nineteenth, Va-
lencia and Mission streets, ^ilie surface of the ground
was then about twenty feet below its present level, and
the name was derived from the trees, which gave an
abundance of shade. A year later Hayes' park, which
had a large pavilion on Laguna, near Hayes street, be-
came a favorite place for picnics and Sunday gatherings;
and in 1866 it was superseded by Woodward's garden,
which has since maintained its place in popular favor.
The large population of the city supplied a liberal
patronage to excursions. Picnic parties went in great
numbers to the various grounds at Belmont, Oakland,
Alameda, Saucelito, San Rafael and Berkelej^, when
they were successively made accessible conveniently by
improved steam communication. The street railroads of
San Francisco and Oakland, the ferry boats crossing the
bay in various directions, the roads to the cemeteries, the
park, the beach, the Mission peaks, and Mount San
Bruno offer so many facilities for getting out into the
country, that though three times as many go into the
country on Sunday as went fifteen years ago, yet the
throng is not anywhere now so great.
- Sec. 234. Churches. No house of worship had been
GENERALITIES. 445
maintfiined at Yerba Biiena under the Mexican domin-
ion, and soon after the American flag was hoisted Pruden-
cio Santillan, Mexican Catholic priest at the Mission, left
the place, which had had no regular religious services for
several years, though occasionally a priest would come
from San Jose. The Mormons who arrived in the
"Brooklyn" met for worship every Sunday in some pri-
vate house, the congregation being called together by a
hand bell, which, though not very large, when rung on
Portsmouth square could be heard by all the residents
of the village. Elder Samuel Brannan usually con-
ducted the services. Protestant worship was held oc-
casionally by different clergymen from April, 1847, till
November 1, 1849, when the first Protestant church was
opened by the Congregationalists, with the Rev. T. D.
Hunt as their pastor. In the course of the next year,
Presbyterian, Baptist and Methodist churches were or-
ganized on permanent bases. J. S. Alemany was conse-
crated Catholic bishop of California at Rome in 1850,
and W. I. Kip, of the Episcopal church, missionary
bishop of California at New York three years later, and
both have continued to labor in the same field ever since,
the former having been promoted to the rank of arch-
bishop. San Francisco abounds with churches, with at
least one for nearly every phase of Christian faith, be-
sides Jewish synagogues and Boodhist joss-houses. The
cosmopolitan character of the population has a liberaliz-
ing tendency, and California will never be noted for
high regard of sectarian lines, or strict observance of
ceremonial or disci^olinary rules. The church property
446 HISTORY OF SAN FRANCISCO.
is valuable, some of the buildings are large and costly,
and there is no lack of pulpit eloquence or of sincere
devotion.
Sec. 235. Charities. Charitable associations are
numerous in San Francisco, and large sums are con-
tributed every j-ear to alleviate poverty and suffering.
The secret associations which undertake to aid members
in sickness, and their widows and orphans, have proba-
bly 20,000 members. There are two dozen benevolent
societies organized on the basis of nationalitj', and as
many more on the basis of creed or church associations.
The expenditure of the Catholic churches of San Fran-
cisco in 1877 for charity was $42,000, and that of other
churches not less. The total annual expenditure of the
city and its citizens for charitable purposes is not less
than $1,000,000, and probably considerably more. No
city has contributed so much relatively to be spent at a
distance. No great disaster can befall any European or
American state largely represented by its native resid-
ents in California without an expression of sympathy
from San Francisco. Liberal subscriptions have been
given to British, French, German, Italian, Hungarian,
Swedish, Swiss, Slavonian, Peruvian, and Mexican char-
ities ; and the sums collected for the relief of distant suf-
ering have probably amounted to more than $2,000,000.
The gifts to the sanitary fund and Christian commission
in the civil war were $974,000; to the sanitary and
rxansom fund of France in 1870-71, $299,678; to the
sufferers by the Chicago fire in 1871, $144,761; to the
German sanitary fund, $138,383; to the yellow fever
GENERALITIES. Ul
sufferers hi 1878, $100,000 ; for the Virginia City fire in
1875, $60,000; for the Kansas grasshopper scourge in
1875, 137,000; for the Marj-sville flood in 1875, $22,-
000; for the Sacramento flood in 1862, $20,000, and
large supplies of clothes and provisions ; for the Sacra-
mento fire in 1852, $30,000; for the Peruvian earth-
quake in 1868, $15,500; for the yellow fever in 1853,
$10,000; and smaller sums for the Italian patriotic
fund, for destitute immigrants by land in 1847 and
1851, and suffering by famine among jews in Morocco
in 1860; by a Swiss flood in 1868, by a French flood
in 1867, by a Hungarian flood in 1876, by the Inyo
earthquake in 1876, and the Washoe Indian war in 1860,
San Francisco contributed about one half of the sums
exceeding $60,000, and nearly all of the smaller sums.
Sec. 236. Home Life. Ever since the gold discovery
the home life of San Francisco has been different from
that of any other city. The composite character of its
population, the long journeys taken by ninety-five out
of one hundred of its adult inhabitants before they
could make their homes here, the remarkably specula-
tive and fluctuating features of its business, and the
peculiarities of its climate, imply peculiarities of custom.
The climate has a great effect upon domestic life every-
where ; in San Francisco it is unlike that of ivay other
great city. The coolness of the summers demanding ac-
tive exercise for comfort in July, the warmth of the
winter, which has neither ice nor snow, the multitude
of clear days — nearly three hundred in a year — and the
rarity of rain from April to October inclusive, render
448 HISTORY OF SAN FRANCISCO.
the shelter of a house less needful than in other climes,
and drive people into the open air. Home is less and
the street more for the San Franciscans than for the
citizens of New York or Charleston.
In a temperature always cool, there must be much
physical activity and intellectual energy; and it is not
improbable that a peculiar race will grow up near the
ocean shore on the middle coast of California; a race
bred to a great extent in the open air, where the
sunshine is not uncomfortably warm more than a dozen
days in the year ; a race marked by large size, healthy
bodies, industrious habits, and clear complexion. Cer-
tainly nature and art never combined elsewhere so many
circumstances favorable for the physical and mental
training of children than will at no distant time be found
in or near San Francisco. Families generally are small ;
the American women — tl\at is, those born in the United
States — dislike to have many children, and those who
have been married fifteen or twenty 3'ears have not on
the a\'erage more than two living. Among the women
of foreign birth, especially those of Irish blood or Jew-
ish faith, it is common to have six or eight children ;
but their daughters are not so prolific.
According to a table prepared by the county cleric,
22,636 natives and 25,042 foreign citizens were regis-
tered as entitled to vote in San Francisco in 1876, the
natives being forty-seven out of a hundred in the entire
number. The school census of the same year reported
15,288 children between five and seventeen years of age
were the ofi'spring of native parents, while 45,922 were
GENERALITIES. 449
born of foreign parents. The children of native parents
are twenty-four per cent, of all the children, or only one
third so numerous relatively as those of foreign parents.
Sec. 237. Hotels. Many circumstances have con-
tributed to give hotels and boarding houses a prominent
place in San Francisco life. The large proportion of
unmarried men, the numerous married women without
children, the unsettled character of the population in
early years, the multitude of men engaged in risky spec-
ulations, and the high wages of domestic servants, drove
people to hotels, boarding-houses and restaurants in
early times, and stimulated the development of high
excellence in their management. This excellence is still
maintained, and many of the influences potent against
housekeeping twenty years ago still continue nearly as
powerful as ever.
The City hotel, a building of adobe a story and a half
high, on the south-west corner of Clay and Kearny,
erected in 1847, was the first house of the kind in San
Francisco. It was superseded in 1849 by the St. Fran-
cis, a three-story wooden structure, on the south-west
corner of Clay and Dupont. This was for nearly two
years the most fashionable hotel, and after it came a
multitude of houses, among which the Oriental, a four-
story wooden building on the south-west corner of Bush
and Battery, in 1851 gained the favor of wealthy fami-
lies, and managed to maintain it for ten years. The
Tehama house, a two-story frame on the site of the nres-
ent bank of California, had the patronage of the army
officers; and the International, a brick house on the
29
450 HISTORY OF SAN FRANCISCO.
north side of Jackson street, where Montgomery avenue
now runs, had the favor of travelers. The Rassette
house, of wood, burned down in 1853, was rebuilt, then
changed to the Metropolitan hotel, torn down, rebuilt,
and called the Cosmopolitan, not a hotel now.
The rapid growth of the city after 1860, in conse-
quence of the settlement of the land titles south of Cal-
ifornia street about that time, w^as accompanied by the
construction of larger and finer hotels than an}' before
seen in California. The Russ, the Lick, the Cosmopol-
itan, and the Occidental, were finished and opened within
three years. The Grand was completed in 1869, the
Palace in 1875, and the Baldwin in 1877. The Palace
is reputed to be the largest, most costly, and most com-
modious hotel in the world, and if it does not deserve
the repute, has at least few equals. Together, the six
hotels last mentioned can accommodate about four thou-
sand guests.
Many of the patrons of these houses are families who
remain as permanent boarders from year to year. All
save the Russ are now considered first-class hotels, en-
titled to rank with the best in New York. These and
seven second-class hotels had 2614 new guests arriving
in a week in March, 1875, equivalent to 136,000 in a
3'ear. The boarding-houses are numerous, and many of
them large and commodious.
Sec. 238. Millionaires. San Francisco has prob-
ably more millionaires in proportion to the number of
inhabitants than any other city, and at the same time
has fewer paupers, more land-owners, and more comfort
GENERALITIES. 451
in the homes of the multitude. The remarkable accu-
mulation of wealth in the hands of a few has not impov-
erished their immediate neighbors. Leland Stanford,
C. P. Huntington, Charles Crocker, and the late Mark
Hopkins, were merchants in Sacramento in verv mod-
erate circumstances when congress gave its vast sub-
sidies to the Central Pacific railroad company, and laid
the foundations of their fortunes. The late D. D. Col-
ton, associated with them, began life in California as
deputy-sheriff of Siskiyou county, then became a lawyer,
but made much of his wealth by the increase in the
value of land bought at the sale of the Broderick estate.
Peter Donahue, owner of the Petaluma Valley railroad
was an engineer on an ocean steamship, established the
first foundry of San Francisco; and after the great fires
of 1850 and 1851 obtained at very low prices large quan-
tities of old iron that was afterwards sold at a great ad-
vance. J. C. Flood and the late W. S. O'Brien kept a
bar until accident led them into the stock market, and in
less than five years after they sold out their bar they
were among the richest of men. J. W. Mackey and J.
G. Fair, their partners, had been miners. Wra. Sharon
had lived in San Francisco fifteen years before he became
wealthy, and within a few years after he became agent
of the Bank of California at Virginia City, he was re-
ported to be worth $25,000,000. At that time the bank
loaned large sums on mining stocks, and Ralston, the
manager, being engaged in stock speculations, wanted an
acute man at the mines to send him confidential inform-
ation. Sharon had all the qualities needed for the posi-
452 HISTORY OF SAN FRANCISCO.
tion, and was lucky in having obtained a local reputation
for capacity, as well as control of a large capital belong-
ing to the bank before the opening of the Crowri Point
and Belcher bonanza, of the discovery of which he was
one of the first to hear and of the progress of which he
had the earliest information. The finding of a large
deposit of rich ore makes a demand for money among
the miners and others acquainted with the facts, and
when these men solicit loans the capitalist to whom they
apply is usually made their confidant.
John P. Jones had been a miner, and was superin-
tendent of the Crown Point mine when its bonanza w as
discovered. He bought thousands of shares at three
dollars, and held them till they sold for a hundred times
as much. By his advice his brother-in-law, Alvinza
Hay ward, made some millions out of the same stock.
Ha^'ward had previously become a millionaire out of a
gold quartz mine at Sutter Creek, where he had strug-
gled for years in poverty before he succeeded in getting
at the buried wealth. E. J. Baldwin l^ept a livery sta-
ble before he tried speculating in mining stocks, and for
a long time fortune did not smile on him; but he was
lucky enough to get hold of a large number of shares in
the Ophir and Mexican mines just before the opening of
the Consolidated Virginia bonanza in 1873, and he
made millions by selling at the right time. James R.
Keene, now in New York, sold milk as a boy in Shasta,
and afterwards had a hard time as a curbstone broker in
San Francisco for 3'ears, but managed to catch the tide
of fortune at its flood, and is credited with possessing
half a dozen millions.
GENERALITIES. 453
D. 0. Mills, now president of the bank of California,
is one of the oldest and most prudent bankers in the
state, and owes eight or ten millions to strict observance
of sound business rules. John Parrott, American con-
sul at Mazatlan when gold was discovered at Coloma, is
one of the few millionaires of California who brought
much money with him, though he has increased his cap-
ital probably fifty fold in the meantime. M. S. Latham,
ex-manager of the London and San Francisco bank, was a
lawyer, has been collector, governor, and federal sena-
tor, and is the most scholarly of those who have been
San Francisco millionaires, for he holds that position no
longer. Lloyd Tevis, J. B. Haggin, and the late
Michael Reese have made much of their fortunes out of
loans. Charles Lux and Henry Miller commenced life
as butcher-boys, and now have landed estates that
princes might envy. W. S. Chapman bought large areas
of the plain in Stanislaus and Merced counties, east of
the San Joaquin river, from the federal government
about 1867, just before the general public discovered that
that region was destined to be one of the chief centers
of agricultural wealth in the state, and much of the
land then bought with scrip at a cost to him of less than
a dollar in coin an acre, has since been in demand at
twenty dollars, and has in the meantime paid a large
interest for pasturage or tillage. J. M. Shafter obtained
large tracts of land as payment for legal services, and
his ranch at Point Reyes is the finest dairy estate in
America. John Sullivan was a bricklayer, and was en-
riched by the rise in city land. The millionaire estates
454 HISTORY OF SAN FRANCISCO.
of J. L. Folsom and Thomas 0. Larkin have disajD-
peared.
The law and custom of California do not favor the
perpetuation of large estates. There is no law of
primogeniture or practice of entail, nor is any favor
shown by public opinion to either. Without them, es-
pecially in a country where there is so much speculation
as here, the maintenance of great wealth in any family
for many generations is not probable, and the people
accept the situation. J^early all the rich men are proud
of the fact that they have made their own fortunes, and
they are willing that their remote descendants should
commence life as they did. They do not worry them-
selves about their inability to transmit their wealth in a
lump to distant times as the support of a family to wear
their own names in honor.
Sec. 239. Extravagance. Of all people, the most
extravagant are the Californians. They not only spend
more absolutely because they earn more, but they spend
more relatively. The great motive of economy, fear of
the future, is much weaker here than elsewhere. A
large part of the population are solitary men, who think
that no matter what pecuniary loss may overtake them,
they can always earn a living and soon accumulate a
little money again. Poverty is not accompanied by the
same privations or the same social discredit here as in
older communities. The Californian who has conducted
himself as a gentleman, knows that many of his old ac-
quaintances, even if they were not liis friends when he
was prosperous, will give him aid in his need. It is not
GENERALITIES. 455
in them to turn their backs ; sentiment and custom re-
quire them to be generous. The frequency of the great
and sudden changes from poverty to wealth, and from
wealth to poverty, breeds a feeling of obligation to one
another. Many unfortunates do not get the benefits of
this mutual helpfulness, but others do, and it influences
the general mode of life.
The high wages, the high rates of interest, the high
profits of many kinds of business, the great concen-
tration of wealth, the high average of intelligence and
the frequency of visits to the great cities on both
sides of the Atlantic, bred a fondness for luxur};-, in
which San Francisco far surpasses any city of equal size
anywhere. A San Franciscan lady who had an oppor-
tunity of seeing the private apartments of the Empress
Eugenie when abandoned by her after the battle of Se-
dan, said that in convenience and elegance of furniture
they were inferior to many bedchambers of our city ;
and yet they were reputed to be more costly than any
other in Europe. Each class here has better houses,
better furniture, better tables, better clothes than the
same class in American cities on the Atlantic slope. It
also spends more in amusements. This implies the
prevalence of extravagance, the custom of making sac-
rifices for appearances, and a notably inferior degree of
economy. Something of this is due to the habits estab-
lished during the early times when money was more
abundant among the multitude than now; and some-
thing also to the prominence of speculation, which stim-
ulates to immediate enjoyment, with little regard to
456 HISTORY OF SAN FRANCISCO.
remote contingencies. San Francisco, while confi-
dently claiming a great future, is pre-eminently, in its
spirit, a city of the present. In business, as in pleas-
ure, prompt returns are demanded.
The tendency of the business of California toward
speculation has the effect of stimulating people to im-
mediate enjoyment. Before the completion of the
telegraph across the continent, merchandising was full
of large risks and sudden turns. A few weeks might
see a change from a scarcity to a glut, or from a glut
to a scarcity. There was no regularity in prices or
supplies. After the opening of the Comstock Lode,
the shares were thrown into the San Francisco mar-
ket, and by their remarkable fluctuations, became its
most remarkable feature. The rapid rise in city lots
and agricultural lands, under the impulse of great ad-
ditions to the population, added to the fondness for
bold pecuniary ventures. Never did any country offer
baits so numerous or so seductive to the gambling ap-
petite, which is strong in human nature, and usually
breaks out fiercely wherever it has a chance.
The spirit of '49 has not died out. Many of those
who were here in the flush era of the early placer
mining have not freed themselves from its influence.
Our local experience has proved that nothing does so
much to ruin men, generally, as a sudden change to
high wages. There never was a more extravagant,
wasteful and dissipated set of men than the old placer
miners. They who had been sober and industrious,
and had saved money when they earned sixteen dollars
GENERALITIES. 457
a month, before coming to California, became idle and
drunken, and saved nothing when they earned two
hundred dollars. They spent as fast as they made
their money. This was not the universal rule, but the
custom was more common than elsewhere. Poverty
is the mother of economy. The barren soil of Scot-
land and New England, and the pitiful little farms of
France, are the best breeding places for thrift. Wel-
lington said that a French army could subsist in com-
fort, and a Spanish army in luxury, with supplies on
which an English army would starve.
The evidences of Californian extravagance are to be
seen on every side. The dwellings, furniture, tables,
and dress of the people, indicate very liberal expendi-
ture. San Francisco has the reputation of buying
the most costly wines, cigars and silks. A saying,
not deserving to be dignified as a j^roverb, declares
that "New York dresses better than Paris, and San
Francisco better than New York." The magnificent
hotels and the palaces of a dozen millionaires arc un-
surpassed, if equaled by anything short of royalty in
the luxury of their appointments. There is a large
demand for the best that can be had. California con-
sumes twenty thousand dozen of genuine sparkling
wine annually, and the Atlantic slope, with fifty times
as many people, does not consume seven times as
much champagne. California uses sixty pounds of
sugar to the person in a year, the Atlantic slope
twenty-five, Great Britain forty, France and Holland
each twenty, and Italy seven. Coffee is sold to the
458 HISTORY OF SAN FRANCISCO.
extent of one pound each for the inhabitants in Great
Britain and Italy, three pounds in France, seven in
Holland and the Atlantic states, and ten in this state.
Of tea, the average Californian drinks six pounds in
a twelvemonth, the other American two; the Briton
four; the Frenchman and Italian less than a quarter
of a pound. The figures for the consumption of many
other articles of comfort and luxury are incomplete, a
large proportion of our imports coming through New
York, and paying duty there, and being forwarded to
California under circumstances that leave no oppor-
tunity to ascertain their value or amount. Though we
consume largely of foreign goods imported at New
York, with one fiftieth of the population, we pay one
thirtieth of the customs at San Francisco; and the
average consumption of foreign products is at least
twice as great here as on the Atlantic slope. The
extravagance is not confined to a few ; it is character-
istic of the community generally ; and it is worse, rela-
tively, among the poor than the rich. Many of the
wealthy families owe their wealth to simplicity of
life more than to large gains.
Sec. 240. Social Spirit. As we have little hered-
itary wealth, and most of our great fortunes have
been made for their present possessors within a brief
time, by bold investments or lucky speculations, and
not by occupations requiring much erudition or re-
finement, so the millionaires and their families are in
some cases ignorant of many fashionable usages.
Nowliere else will such bad manners be found in
GENERALITIES. ' 459
families possessing so mucli wealth. Refinement is
the growth of time. People bred in poverty are gen-
erally ignorant of many habits familiar to the rich,
and when they acquire wealth, the rudeness of their
early life often sticks to them. Several generations
of inherited wealtli, or at least comfortable ease, are
necessary to confer a high social polish on some
families. This inheritance is lackino;- amono- our mill-
ionaires, as a class, and so far California is at a dis-
advantage.
High education is not prized so much here as it is
in many Eastern cities. In Boston a circle of nabobs
feels uncomfortable unless it has some literary celeb-
rities. Fashion demands a few authors at a social
gathering as a needful spice. The man who can write
a taking book or magazine article, or deliver a scien-
tific lecture is regarded as one of the attractions of the
city, and of any circle which he may favor with his
presence. High education there is usually the prop-
erty of those who have good social positions; and it is
often the means of obtaining a large income. Literary
and scientific eminence have less pecuniary and social
value here than in the East,
Nevertheless, money is less worshipped, and the
man is more respected for his moral and intellectual
worth here than anywhere else. The charge against
California, as compared with the Atlantic states, is a
repetition of the one made against those states by
European writers. They complained of the almighty
dollar; they accused the Americans of being a sordid,
460 HISTORY OF SAN FRANCISCO.
grovelling, money -getting, grossly material nation,
but they have become tired of the accusation. They
see that the Americans are the most extravagant of
all people, the most remote from miserly feeling. The
charge of money worship is based on misconceptions.
The natural wealth of the country, the relative sparse-
ness of population, the extensive use of machinery,
the large tide of immigration, the general education
of the people, and the respectability of labor and busi-
ness, have given facilities for making fortunes much
more easily and rapidly than were to be found in the
old world; and, therefore, there was more inducement
for men to devote themselves to business. The
wealthiest people were occupied with money-making
in occupations which the wealthy people in Europe
had decided to be discreditable. That was the main
proof of the pretended sordidness of American societ3^
It was no proof; it was not even evidence; it did
not bear on the main point at issue. The rich Eng-
lishman assumed that commerce and mechanical trades
are sordid occupations, and that a country where they
are held in honor must be sordid. These assumptions
were narrow prejudices; and wherever they are ac-
cepted, there intellect and morals are relatively less
esteemed than where rejected. They are accepted in
Europe ; they are rejected to a great extent in the
Atlantic states ; they are rejected to a still greater
degree in California. European society is divided
into half a dozen different strata, based mainly on
occupation; and the members of each strata refuse to
GENERALITIES. 461
associate with those below them. Tlie position of
these strata is regulated to a large extent by the esti-
mate of their general pecuniary conditions. The in-
dividual counts for little; the class counts for much.
In Europe, and to a considerable extent in the
Atlantic states, manual labor excludes a man from
fashionable society, and he who once supported him-
self by hard work can never get rid of its stigma in
the opinion of fashionable people, no matter how
rich he may become. Wherever such prejudices pre-
vail, there the man is measured by a false standard.
They have less influence here than anywhere else.
The sand-shoveler and the millionaire may change
places to-morrow, and they know it; so the former
does not usually cringe nor the other strut when they
meet. They measure each other fairly; each has had
his ups and downs; each pays the respect due to the
character rather than to the money of the other.
Nearly all the rich men and their wives commenced
their adult lives with little save a common school edu-
cation, some without even that; and they had to learn
of late years what luxury is, and how it is enjoyed else-
where by those accustomed to it from childhood. They
have traveled; their money has secured admission to
the homes of the fashionable in the Atlantic states
and Europe; they have observed closely and imitated
well; and while here and their one has shown a weak
vanity and made a vulgar display of riches, as a gen-
eral rule the Californian millionaires have worn their
wealth modestly, and have not been ashamed of their
4G2 HISTORY OF SAN FRANCISCO.
early poverty, or forgetful of their early friends. So
many are now poor who a few years since were rich,
and so many rich who a few years since were poor, so
man}^ rich people have near relatives among the poor,
and there are so many possibilities, if not probabilities,
of great change in the future pecuniary positions, that
social lines are not drawn according to wealth and
occupation, or are drawn less strictly here than else-
where. The man counts more, and the occupation,
family and wealth less socially here than elsewhere.
Sec. 241. Swarming Out. San Francisco early
became a central hive from which men swarmed out
to other places in the basin of the Pacific, and carried
progress and powerful influence with them. Har-
greaves who had sailed back through the Golden Gate
to his former home discovered the placers of Australia.
From San Francisco went bands of adventurers to ex-
plore the placers of Peru, New Granada, Hondut-as,
various parts of Mexico, British Columbia, Idaho and
Arizona. Meiggs, who became the leading railroad
builder of South America, was a graduate of the
Californian metropolis. The same city furnished E.
D. Baker, a federal senator to Oregon, and J. P.
Jones and Wm. Sharon to Nevada in the same capa-
city, and many of their leading men to Arizona,
Washinofton, Utah, British Columbia and the
Hawaiian Islands. In the civil war, the former
residents of the golden city held some of the highest
positions on both sides. Virginia city is half colony
and half suburb of the sunset metropolis.
GENERALITIES. 463
Sec. 242. Governmental Defects. Although the
municipal administration while under control of the
people's or taxpayer's party for nearly twenty years
after the reform introduced by the influence of the
vigilance committee of 1856, had its admirable feat-
ures, and both democrats and republicans elected
many able and honest men to federal, state and city
office^ still when we look back, the general impres-
sion remains that the American government, as ob-
served in its workings in San Francisco for the last
quarter of a century, abounds with most serious de-
fects. The management of the conventions of both
the national parties has been to a great- extent con-
fided to men, many of whom were con'tsidered suspi-
cious, if not notoriously dishonest. Most of the
federal senators who reached a dictatorship, more or
less qualified in their respective parties, and controlled
or tried to control the federal patronage of the state,
regarded the maintenance of their power and the gain-
ing of influence to aid them in re-election or in other
political advancement as the first consideration, in the
distribution of the federal honors and profits, and were
ready to turn out the oflEicial wdio refused to pay his
personal court, or to render his personal service at
needful occasions. The positions that could not be
properly filled without experience and without the
permanence that is one of the first demands of
prudent business, have been treated as public plunder,
the enjoyment of which by any one individual for
more than four years was a wrong to others who had
464 HISTORY OF SAN FRANCISCO.
done as much work for the party, often dirty work,
and could not be deprived of their equal share of the
spoils without danger of a revolt. Wherever the
national political organizations have had control, no
matter w^iat their name or who their leader, we see
the same management of the primary elections or
ward meetings by a few professional politicians; a
similar large proportion of absolutely disreputable
men in the conventions; the same submission to such
associations as if they were inevitable, by men of su-
perior capacity; the same distribution of the offices as
rewards for partisan service; the same brief tenure;
the same disposition to shield from exposure any
fraud committed by an official of their own party; the
same silence among the leaders about the corrupting
influence of rotation, and the other features of the
spoils system; and the same tendency to distribute
the profitable offices among those who would be use-
ful lackeys, or at least submissive followers of the
leader, or a small ring of leaders.
The average legislator and member of congi'ess in
California have favored every abuse that would
strenofthen their influence in the conventions of their
party, or pay a large revenue to their intimate friends.
They fawned upon the powerful, assisted fraud in
plundering the treasury, and oppressed the helpless
victims of popular prejudice at every opportunity.
Whenever two classes of the population had conflicting
interests which could be af!ected by legislation, and
which were introduced as issues into the political cam-
GENERALITIES. 465
paign, and one of the classes had no votes, or rela-
tively few, the politicians sided with the other. No
senator, no governor, no congressman ever raised his
voice in protest against the wrong to individuals, or
the injury to the state, unless there was a fair prospect
that he would gain more votes at the near elections by
his speech than by his silence. In the course of years
the hostility to the French miners, to the Spanish
grant holders, to the equal taxation of mining prop-
erty, to the sale of the mines, and to negro testimony
in cases affecting white men, were exhausted by the
the change of circumstances, and then leading politi-
cians denounced the wrongs, when they coula indulge
their sympathies without losing votes, or pretend to
have sympathies that would add to their popularity.
There has always been great zeal for freedom and the
common rights of humanity when its exhibition would
catch votes.
In no case has the legislature shown any magna-
nimity or high devotion to justice ; though it has often
made loud pretensions when it saw a prospect of profit.
It devised plans of oppression which the governor, the
state courts, or the federal government frustrated.
Not less than fifty times within a quarter of a century
it has attempted great frauds upon the people, and has
been defeated by the gubernatorial veto or by judicial
decree. The governors of California have usually been
men without any very high moral or intellectual
character, but they were so far above the predominant
level of the legislatures, and were held to such a direct
30
466 HISTORY OF SAN FRANCISCO.
and undivided responsibility by public opinion, that
the veto power entrusted to them has been of inesti-
mable value in the protection of the community against
leofislative fraud and recklessness.
Sec. 243. Literature and Art. The elements of
literary activity are numerous in San Francisco, and
a good foundation has been laid for successful author-
ship in the future. The children are well educated;
the habit of reading much and in good books is gen-
eral; the predominant tone of society is intellectual;
much of the original as well as of the extracted matter
in the daily journals is well written, so that a good
standard of taste has been established in the popular
mind; and the public libraries are large, well selected
and well patronized. An academy of sciences, a
microscopical society, and various other scientific as-
sociations have for years been accumulating knowl-
edge, and much study has been given to the geology,
botany, zoology and meteorology of the state. The
wealth of the city has made a market for pictures, and
half a dozen painters of much merit have established
their permanent homes here; most of them giving
their attention to landscape, for which abundant
material is offered by the grand and varied scenery of
the state. A few good figure pieces have been pro-
duced here, and many have been obtained from Eu-
rope, Few American cities are relatively better pro-
vided with distinguished modern paintings. The art
association gives two exhibitions annually.
Although San Francisco has no native authors, the
GENERALITIES. 467
city has produced meritorious works in the depart-
ments of history, science, jurisprudence, prose romance,
poetry, travels, and humorous essay; but they are not
high enougfh in general merit to deserve special men-
tion in a brief historical record like this. As a class
the humorous writers have made the most fame, and
among these are F. B. Harte, Samuel Clemens (Mark
Twain), and G. H. Derby (Phoenix). Harte gained
his reputation beyond the limits of California by "The
Heathen Chinee," some verses wdiich owed their suc-
cess not to their poetical merit, for they had none, but
to their satire of the popular prejudice against the
celestial immigrants. They called attention to better
things that had been allowed to pass without notice,
and in a few months he became one of the celebrities
of the time and the founder of a new school of slangy
fiction.
One of the most meritorious literary works done in
California, though not the likely to be appreciated at
a distance immediately, or ever by general readers, is
the codification of the civil, penal and political law of
the state. Most of the sections are copied from the
codes framed, though not adopted, in New York, but
there is enouofh new matter based on careful researches
and original thought to give a genuine Californian
character to the legal system, which will probably be
copied in many of the other states.
California, and especially San Francisco, where
nearly all the authors reside, has made valuable con-
tributions to many branches of literature. Among the
468 HISTORY OF SAN FRANCISCO.
names of the law writers are H. W. Halleck, Gregory-
Yale, John ProfiPatt, A. C. Freeman; among the med-
ical writers, L. C. Lane and H. H. Toland; among the
historical writers, John W. Dwinelle, Franklin Tut-
hill, and H. H. Bancroft; among the writers of books
of travels and adventure, John F. Swift, C. W. Stod-
dard, Dr. Stillman, Theodore H. Hittell, and Josephine
Clifford; and among the humorists, Bret Harte, Sam-
uel Clemens (Mark Twain), and George H. Derby,
who first wrote over the signature of Squibob and
afterwards of Phoenix; and among the descriptive
Avriters, B, P. Avery, B. E. Lloyd, and C. B. Turrill.
"The Native Races of the Pacific States/' by H. H.
Bancroft, is an archaeological work upon which a vast
amount of research has been expended; and the "Amer-
ican Decisions," a compilation of the reports of the
supreme courts of all the American states from 1775
to 1869, to fill seventy-five large volumes, edited by
John Proffatt, and published in San Francisco, is one
of the leading literary enterprises of our time; and
H. H. Bancroft is now engaged upon another of still
greater magnitude in the amount of literary labor re-
quired, an elaborate history of the western slope of our
continent.
Edward Pollock combined vigorous poetic fire with
correct taste, and several of his pieces deserve to be
counted among the best produced in our state, if not
in our continent. Though " Evening " is inferior to
many of his other poems, we make an extract from it
on account of its local character: ■^
GENERALITIES. 469
The air is chill and the day grows late,
And the clouds come iu through the Golden Gate;
Phantom fleets they seem to me,
From a shoreless and unsounded sea;
Their shadowy spars and misty sails,
Unshattered, have weathered a thousand gales;
Slow wheeling, lo! iu squadrons gray,
They part and hasten along the bay,
Each to its anchorage finding way.
Where the hills of Saucelito swell.
Many in gloom may shelter well;
And others — behold! unchallenged pass
By the silent guns of Alcatraz;
No greetings of thunder and flame exchange
The armed isle and the cruisers strange.
Their meteor flags, so widely blown,
"Were blazoned in a land unknown;
So charmed from war, or wind, or tide,
Along the quiet wave they glide.
Frank Soule, whose name and writings are familiar
to Californians, especially the early residents, has
written much that has been received with high favor.
" Watching beside Him " is one of his best pieces:
The leaves turn yellow on the mournful willow,
November's waves are sighing on the shore;
And there's a fading cheek upon the pillow,
That shall feel health no more.
The leaves are falling and my friend is dying,
Comes the destroyer nearer day by day.
And like the leaves on Autumn's breezes flying,
His poor life flits away.
But now the foliage and his life were vernal.
How soon their Spring and Summer glow hath fled !
I would have had their beauty made eternal —
Ah me! but dust instead!
470 HISTORY OF SAN FRANCISCO.
The leaves have fallen ! on the Autumn eddies,
The last pale si)ectx-es float and disappear,
And one poor body — there his quiet bed is — ■
Is all that's left me here.
All that is left me of his manly powers,
All that is left of life so good and brief,
All faded like the first frost-bitten flowers,
And Autumn's withered leaf.
In night's dark hours his spirit spread her pinions.
Left in our clinging arms alone his form,
Heaven lighted through the dark's obscure dominions,
The starless gloom and storm.
While by his faded form so sad and lonely,
I sit, O mighty Monarch, I implore:
Tell me, is life but this, this tell me only
This and no more ?
A few fair hopes, that never can be real,
A few joys passing like the fleeting breath?
Is immortality but an ideal
That terminates with death?
Of all I loved so much, so dearly treasured,
His manly beauty and his comely grace,
By this dear faded form may life be measured.
And this pale, silent face ?
There comes no answer, though my heart is crying.
No message from the sj)irit gone before,
I hear, instead, the yeasty waves rejDlying
In sobs upon the shore.
I hear the night-winds in the branches toning.
Or rustling with the sere and fallen leaf.
Their sad responses to my inward moaning.
In pity to my grief.
And so in loneliness, and doubt, and sorrow,
I listen to each night hour's lagging tread,
And silent wait the coming of to-morrow.
In watch beside the dead.
GENERALITIES. 471
Charles Warren Stoddard, who of late years has
neglected the muses, has shown in his earlier life de-
cided poetical talent, though there is always a promise
of more than he has yet accomplished. These lines
are his :
When my little love at purple dusk,
Trips out upon the lawn among the flowers,
The blushing roses quiver in their musk,
Love-smitten through; the feathery fragrant showers
Of snow-white blossoms drift upon the grass,
Kissing her whispering footsteps as they pass.
When my little love at evening's hush,
Goes dancing down the dell with laugh and song,
The slumbering echoes waken and a gush
Of silvery voices greets her, and along
The dewy clusters of the trailing vines
In music mingles, murmurs and repines.
Among our poets InaD. Coolbrithhas a high place,
and various pieces from lier pen will probably be pre-
served to distant times. The person who can read
without being touched her lines entitled " The Moth-
er's Grief," is not to be envied:
So fair the sun rose, yester-morn,
The mountain cliffs adorning!
The golden tassels of the corn
Danced in the breath of morning;
The cool, clear stream that runs before,
Such happy words was saying;
And in the open cottage door
My pretty babe was playing.
Aslant the sill a sunbeam lay —
I laughed in careless pleasure,
To see his little hand essay
To grasp the shining treasure.
472 HISTORY OF SAN FRANCISCO.
To-day no shafts of golden flame
Across the sill are lying;
To-day I call my baby's name,
And hear no lisped replying;
To-day — ah, baby mine, to-day —
God holds thee in, his keeping!
And yet I weep, as one pale ray
Breaks in upon thy sleeping;
I weep to see its shining bands
Reach, with a fond endeavor.
To where the little restless hands
Are crossed in rest forever!
Many pages of the most distinguished poets are
filled with lines inferior in depth of feeling and merit
of versification to that little piece.
Josephine Walcott longed in her early youth to visit
California, and having now made her home in the
state, thus addresses it:
It haunted me amid the sunrise splendor —
A golden dream of sunset and of thee;
'Mid dusky woodlands or by shining rivers,
On granite hilltops, or by Orient sea.
*****
Fair land of sunset, my young dream fulfilling —
For I have followed thy sweet thought, O youth!
And from thy purple hills and golden heather
Shall sing new bards, with grand prophetic truth.
Thy seas shall bear white ships to safest harbor;
Thy valleys yield sweet wealth of fruit and grain;
Thy regal hillsides glow Avith purple vintage;
Thy tender skies fall Summer sun and rain.
Thy sons shall be as gods of classic story;
Thy regal daughters noble, fair and strong.
From thy new world shall rise immortal heroes,
O golden land of labor, art and song!
GENERALITIES. 473
Emilie Lawson is another sweet singer of whom
Cahfornia may be proud. She writes with an even
inspiration, when she does Avrite, but, hke many oth-
ers, finds little leisure for the indulgence of poetic
fancy. The following, entitled "What Does it Mat-
ter ?" is from her pen:
"What does ib matter, clear, though I go soon,
Before the goldeu cups are gathered all;
Before the burning heat of Summer noon.
Or the cold storm of Autumii-time shall fall;
What does it matter ? If I sooner go,
"Wearing unfaded violets on ixiy breast —
With loaded wains, the reapers, tired and slow.
Will sighing pass the grasses o'er my rest,
And sighing, drop a tear —
"What will it matter, dear ?
"What will it matter, sweet, if I grow^ old,
And Summer's pleasant fields grow bleak and bare,
A few brief days of sunshine or of cold,
A few short hours of pleasure or of care ?
What will it matter if I wearier stay
To reap the fruitage of the sober Fall,
To put the earlier gathered flowers away;
What is the gain or loss if, after all,
A little longer stay my feet—
What will it matter, sweet ?
What matters it, dear heart, if far or near
Waits the Death Angel — noiselessly and dumb;
For, if I stay, love-fetters bind me here,
And, if I go, dear voices whisper. Come!
Though dark and thick the shadows intervene,
The clouds are sometimes rifted, and I see
The beautiful dim vale that lies between
The world that is and that which is to be —
Only a step apart —
What matters it, dear heart ?
474 HISTORY OF SAN FRANCISCO.
Joaquin Miller shows in many passages that he has
strong poetical talent; but his works are uneven, and
most of them are published prematurely, without the
patient polish. We have not at hand any of the pas-
sages that have seemed to us to be his best, and for a
quotation we must be content with the following trib-
ute to the local pride of our state :
Dared I but say a prophecy,
As sung- the holy men of old,
Of rock-built cities yet to be
Along those shining shores of gold,
Crowding athirst into the sea,
"What wondrous marvels might be told!
Enough to know that empire here
Shall burn her loftiest brightest star;
Here art and eloquence shall reign,
As o'er the wolf -reared realm of old;
Here learned and famous from afar.
To pay their noble court shall come.
And shall not seek or see in vain.
But look on all with wonder dumb.
Bret Harte has, in a high degree, some of the qual-
ities required for the successful poet, but most of his
verses are seriously defective in some material point.
About twenty years ago, when flumes (wooden
aqueducts carrying the water of mining ditches over
ravines sometimes two hundred feet deep) were prom-
inent features in the scenery and contributed much to
the wealth of the state, Mrs. Thomas Fitch (as her
name is now), wrote "The Song of the Flume," the
GENERALITIES. 475
best effort to throw the charm of poetry upon any
branch of Cahfornian mining industry. It says:
I sought the shore of the sounding sea
From the far Sierra's height,
"With a starry breast and a snow-capped crest,
I foamed in a path of light;
But they bore me thence in a Avinding way —
They fettered me like a slave,
And as serfs of old were sold for gold.
So they bartered my soil-stained wave.
******
Lift me aloft to the mountain brow !
Fathom the deep blue vein !
And I'll sift the soil for the shining toil.
As I sink to the valley again ;
The swell of my swarthy breast shall bear
Pebble and rock away.
Though they brave my strength, they shall yield at length,
And the glittering gold shall stay.
Many others have written verses in Cahfornia, at
least as good as some here quoted, but copies of their
best pieces are not within convenient reach. Among
the poets who are dismissed with a mere mention of
the name, are James F. Bowman, Daniel O'Connell,
F. H. Gassav»^ay, Mrs. E. A. Simonton Page and Ly-
man Goodman.
Sec. 244. Condition in 187S. The business of
San Francisco is very active. In 1877 the clearing-
house transactions amounted to $500,000,000; the
stock sales (for which it was a dull year) to $120,-
000,000; the exports (including $73,000,000 of treas-
ure, and $41,000,000 of merchandise) to $114,000,000;
/
476 HISTORY OF SAN FRANCISCO.
the coinage to $46,000,000; the real estate sales to
$18,000,000; and the taxes collected to $13,771,000,
inclading $6,700,000 of duties on imports, $1,900,000
of federal internal revenue, $3,423,000 for the support
of the municipal government and $1,754,000 con-
tributed to the state government. The street work
(grading, sewering, paving, etc.) cost $1,860,000, and
most of this sum paid by the owners of lots fronting
on the streets improved is not counted in the $3,423,-
000 of city revenue previously mentioned. One fourth
of the revenue of the city, and more than a fourth of
that of the state, is spent in maintaining free schools.
The city has a debt of $3,500,000, relatively one of
the smallest city debts in the United States.
California has a total area of 100,000,000 acres,
including 30,000,000 held under private ownership,
20,000,000 of unoccupied federal land valuable for
cultivation; only 4,000,000 under cultivation, 2,500,-
000 bearing temperate fruit trees, 300,000 bearing
sub-tropical fruit trees, 400,000 English walnut and
almond trees; 30,000,000 grape vines; 6,000,000
sheep; 200 gold quartz mills; 4,000 miles of
mining ditches ; private property worth not less
than $1,000,000,000, and an industry that adds $30,-
000,000 annually in the shape of houses, fences,
roads, canals, street improvements, orchards, recla-
mation dykes, and so forth, to the wealth of the
state. She has besides, what is Avorth more than all
her pecuniary treasuries, a population of about 875,000
people of the best blood and highest intelligence of
GENERALITIES. 477
the age; and her excellent school system and able
press give assurance that her inhabitants in the future
shall not be inferior to those in the j^resent. There
is a nominal state debt of $3,300,000, but $2,700,000
of this is due to certain departments of the state gov-
ernment, leaving a true debt of only $600,000. The
counties owe $12,000,000 of funded and floating debt,
and have public buildings and other property worth
considerably more.
Sec. 245. Conclusion. The first era of San Fran-
cisco was that of the Indians. They lived in a low
stage of savagism, and left no arts, no literature, no
legend, no institutions, no durable monuments of their
own designing, and no names worthy of perpetuation.
The red men who occupied the site of the city and its
vicinity in 1776, have, so far as we know, not a living
descendant anywhere, having died out entirely from
the face of the earth.
The Mission Era continued for forty-nine years, from
1776 to 1835, and was a period of ecclesiastical rule,
in which the chief purposes of life were worship, self-
humiliation, and quiet submission, to the church au-
thorities, without anxiety or oven effort to keep up
with the fashion, learning, or political or intellectual
progress of the age. The Indians learned little of the
arts of civilization, never adopted its spirit, and stead-
ily decreased in numbers, so that, unless there had
been a change in the ratio of births to deaths, the race
must have died out at no distant time even if it had
never been subjected to additional demoralizing influ-
478 HISTORY OF SAN FRANCISCO.
ences of the Mexican revolution, secularization, the
American conquest, American immigration, and the
reservation system.
The Villao^e Era beo^an when the control of the mis-
sion property, including the whole peninsula for thirty
miles from the Golden Gate, was taken from the
friars, and given to the civil authorities. The promise
of the government that land, agricultural implements
and cattle should be furnished to the Indians was not
kept; the personal property disappeared in an unex-
plained manner, and the red men made no application
for lots or ranches. Large tracts of land on the
peninsula were granted to the Mexican residents, who
lived in the pastoral condition on the produce of their
neat cattle, with little labor, ambition or education.
On the shore of Yerba Buena cove rose a village
which was the chief shijoping port of San Francisco
bay under the Mexican dominion, and from the time
when the stars and stripes were hoisted, the chief
center of American business and influence on the
western side of our continent.
Before the title of the United States to the new
territory on the Pacific had been fully acknowledged,
the Golden Era began. The yield of the mines rose
for five years until it reached about $60,000,000.
Several hundred thousand immigrants came from the
shores of the Atlantic, and gave to California a popu-
lation unsurpassed in enterprise and intelligence. A
government was organized; the state admitted into
the Union; a metropolitan city built; and commodi-
ous routes of travel established, connecting San Fran-
GENERALITIES. 479
cisco with the mines on one side, and New York on
the other. The mines being on pubhc land, were
thrown open to everybody, aliens as well as citizens,
without charge; and the government would not sell
homes to those who wished to buy for the purpose of
settlement, so that the population became migratory
as a matter of necessity, and the more numerous the
miners, the more the district was impoverished.
The period from 1854 to 1859 inclusive, called here
" The Golden Era in Decline," Avas marked by a
decrease in the gold yield, which was not arrested by
the discovery of the vast deposits of auriferous gravel
in the dead rivers of the Sierra Nevada, the invention
of the hydraulic process of washing, and its applica-
tion on an immense scale, and the construction of a
dozen great mining ditches, which in length, supply
of water, height of aqueducts and boldness of en-
gineering design might rival some of the most famous
water-works of old and populous empires. The in-
crease of agricultural production caused a falling off
in the shipping and imports of San Francisco, and a
depression in her business. The immigration to Cali-
fornia across the continent, after having numbered
twenty thousand as an annual average for four years
after the gold discovery, became insignificantly small,
and that by sea was much reduced, though the com-
l^letion of the Panama railroad made the trip cheaper
and more comfortable than before, thouafh a com-
parison of the arrivals and departures, showed a rela-
tively slight excess for the former, there was a great
gain in the quality of the population, for many soli-
480 HISTORY OF SAN FRANCISCO.
taiy men were replaced by women and children who
gave to California social attractions previously lack-
ino-. The political abuses which had been overlooked
in more prosperous times provoked the indignation of
good citizens and the vigilance committee of 1856,
the wisest, justest and most prudent association ever
organized to violate the law, held power for three
months, punished a multitude of criminals and puri-
fied the city government, which was then for fifteen
years placed in charge of ofl&cials selected under rules
that allowed little influence to the system of partisan
spoils. The southern part of the county was cut off
to make San Mateo, while " the city and county of
San Francisco," as now styled in law was organized
under the consolidation act. In 1858 it was reported
and extensively believed that gold mines, as rich and
extensive as those of the Sierra Nevada were in 1848,
had been discovered in the basin of Fraser river ; and
so large was the migration to that region, so exten-
sive the preparations of others to follow, and so
depressed many branches of occupation, that in the
opinion of many persons California and San Fran-
cisco were about to sink, for some years at least, into
subordinate places in the business of the western side
of our continent. The failure of Adams & Co., and
of Page, Bacon & Co., the frauds and flight of Harry
Meio-ofs, the election of D. C. Broderick to the federal
senate, and his death in a duel with D. S. Terry, who
had resigned his office as chief justice of the supreme
court of the state for the purpose of resenting a public
insult, were other events of this era.
GENERALITIES. 481
The last period in the history of San Francisco, from
1860 to 1878, is here called "The Silver Era," because
of the great influence exerted on the city's business b}^
the yield of bullion from the argentiferous deposits of
Nevada. The increase of grain fields, orchards, vine-
yards, dairies, sheep, irrigation ditches, manufactures,
and railroads, the connection by an iron track with the
Atlantic slope, the acquisition and diffusion of knowl-
edge about the scenery, salubrity and climate of the
state, and the general recognition of San Francisco as
one of the chief centers of luxurious enjoyment con-
tributed to give it a prosperity higher in many respects
than it had during the flush times of placer mining.
We have thus traced the growth of San Francisco,
this metropolitan prodigy, this young municipal giant,
from its small and rude beginnings, through a brief
career, to its present condition of magnitude and mag-
nificence, through a record without its like elsewhere
in the variety, multitude and startling character of its
impressive incidents. The city, as it now stands, is an
embodiment of the highest enlightenment of our time,
one of the most brilliant products and greatest tri-
umphs of the industrial art, commerce, wealth and
intelligence of the nineteenth century, and a splendid
illustration of the popular energy developed under the
free political institutions of the United States, — insti-
tutions which, seriously defective as they are in some
important respects, have yet given a stimulus to en-
terprise v/hich no people under a despotic government
have ever approaclied.
/ 31
APPENDIX.
^ AUTHOHITIES.
I give my authorities in this appendix rather than in foot-notes, but in
many places it is implied by the nature of events and the enterprise of the
newspaper press that full accounts can be found in the public journals of the
day. Some of my information is obtained from my own recollections, notes
and publications, and more from conversation with citizens who participated
in the events described.
Among those to whom I am indebted are Mrs. Carmen Bernal, a native of
San Jose, who came as a bride only fifteen yeara old, in 1819, to live at the
Mission, and Mr. Charles Brown, who came to San Francisco in 1829. These
are the oldest residents of San Francisco.
I must express my obligations to the chronological tables, extending from
1857 to 1877, in the directories published by H. O. Langley, and in the Sac-
ramento "Union " from 18G0 to 1878. Similar tables appeared from 1873 to
1877, in the "Alta Almanac."
The following is a list of books and periodicals to which I am indebted for
information:
" Daily Alta California, " newspaper; the " Alta Calif ornia Almanac, " 18GS
to 1879.
"Annals of San Francisco," by Frank Soule, J. H. Gihon and James
Nisbet. This work gives a history of the city in the form of a, diary from
January, 1847, to June, 1854. With many defects, it contains much interest-
ing information, Avell presented. Besides its text, it has engravings of many
of the notable buildings, portraits and brief biographies of pioneers, and
special chapters on the "hounds, the vigilance committee of 1851, cemeteries,
churches, schools, amusements, fires, lire department, hotels, and steamer
days.
"Native Races of the Pacific States," by H. H. Bancroft, 1875. 5 vols.
"Daily Evening Bulletin," newspaper.
"Men and Memories of San Francisco in the Spring of '50," by T. A.
Barry and B. A. Patten, San Francisco, 1878. Personal reminiscences of
men, buildings and events, with many amusing anecdotes, written in an agree-
able style.
"Narrative of a Voyage to the Pacific, under the command of F. W.
Beechey. London, 1831. Chapter XIII treats of the condition of the Mis-
sions in 1826.
"Daily Morning Call," newspaper.
484 HISTORY OF SAN FRANCISCO.
"Our Centennial Memoir Founding of the Missions, San Francisco de Asis
in its hundredth year. The celebration of its foundation," compiled by P. J.
Thomas, San Francisco, 1877.
' ' Daily San Francisco Chronicle, " newspaper.
Two journals of this name have flourished in San Francisco; tho first es-
tablished in 1855, by Frank Soulc, existed till the spring of 1S5S; the Cliroui-
cle now in existence was founded in 18G5, by C. t, M. H. De Young.
" Directory of San Francisco, 1857," by Samuel Colville. The introduc-
tion is a good historical sketch of the city from 1835 to 1S5G. The book con-
tains the names of the officers of the vigilance committee of 1S5G, and though
this list is declared on a sabsequent page to be incorrect, there arc few errors
in it.
" The Commercial Herald and Market Preview." This is a weekly com-
mercial paper, established in 1SG7, and still flourishing. The number issued
about the middle of January contains a, comprehensive review of the com-
merce and general industry of the state for the preceding year. ISIost of the
figures published in the statistical tables on a subsequent page are taken from
the "Herald."
"The Conquest of California," by J. M. Cutts, 1847. Mr. Cutts derives a
large part of the material of his work from the government records at Y7ash-
iugton, and gives copies of documents not easily obtained elsewhere.
"Colonial History of San Francisco," by John W. Dwindle. Mr. Dwi-
nsUe Mas counsel for the city in her suit for four square leagues of land in
the United States courts, and in that capacity gathered much of the informa-
tion hero presented. He devotes most cf his space to events that happened
between 1835 and 184G; and gives copies of many legal documents.
"Daily Examiner," newspaper.
"First Steamship Pioneers," edited by a committee of the association,
1874. A record of the voyage of the ateamshij) "California" from Panama
to San Francisco in February, 1849, and of the adventures of her passengers,
between Ncav York and San Francisco, and after their arrivals.
"Life Adventures and Travels in California," by T. J. Farnham.
" I'X. History of Upper and Lower California," by Alexander Forbes, 1839.
" A History of the Catholic Church in California," by Eev. Mr. Gleeson,
1874.
"Centennial Y^'ear Book of Alameda County," by William Halley, 187G,
pp. 590. This volume contains a lustory of Oakland.
"Picsourccs of CaUfomia," by Jolm S. Hittell. Gth edition, 1874. pp.
450. This book has comprehensive chapters on tho topography, climate,
salubrity, geologj', botany, zoology, agriculture, mining, manufactures, com-
merce and society of the state.
"Hutchings' Monthly ilagazine, 1857 to 18G0." This publication contains
chronological lists of the notable events of San Francisco ia 1859 and ISGO.
"Voyage Autour du Monde," par J. F. G. La Perousc, 1797. Ho speaks
of the condition of the Indians at tho Missions without praise.
"Directory of San Francisco," by H. G. Langley, 1858 to 1S7S. Mr.
Langley issued his iirst directory ia 1858, and followed it with new volumea
at intervals of about a year. Each volume contains a chronological table of
events for the previous year, and gives an estimate of tho population, and
new buildings, and descriptions of tho most notable improvements.
"Lights and shades in Saa Francisco," by B. E. Lloyd, 1876. Pp. 500.
A description of prominent features of San Francisco life as seen in 1876.
Stock speculation, the Palace Hotel, restaurants, the disreputable quarters,
W. C. Pialston, James Lick, street railroads, tho newspapers, the hotels, the
APPENDIX. 485
schools, the churches, the theatres, the chibs, the fortifications, the charities,
the markets, and the cemeteries, have each their special chapter.
"Missions." A series of eleven volumes of Spanish archives in the office
of the United States surveyor-general for California. The volumes contain
nearly all the statistics preserved of the Mission of San Francisco.
" Missions and Colonization. " Another series of volumes in the Spanish
archives.
"Hotels and Hotel Life at San Francisco," by W. L. Macgregor, 1S7G.
Pp. 45.
" Municipal Reports of the City and County of San Francisco." A series
of annual reports, commencin;^ in 1881, giving the information for each fiscal
year since. The volumes are designated in the references by mention of the
year in which published. If for 1805-86, for instance, it was published in
the latter year, and is styled the report of 1866. The following references to
these volumes may be of service: Gas supply, 1875, appendix. Table of
grades, 1874, C83; 1877, G33. Pueblo title, 1868. A list of railroad fran-
chises, 1874, C59; 1877, G04. Accepted streets, 1877, 967, 1009. Montgom-
ery avenue, 1873, 490. Widening Dupont tjtreet, 1877, 1025. List of city
property, 1873, 518; 1877, 929. Water rates, projects and litigation, 1877,
669, Outside lands, 1868, 549; 1869, 553; 1871, 429. City ofiicials from
1850 to 1867; 1800, 183; 1863, 2S5; 1867, 521.
•'Exploration du Territoirc dc L'Oregon, des Californies, etc.," par Duflot
do Mofras, 1844. This work has n, good account of California as it was ia
1842, but exaggerates the value of the missionary labor.
" Noticias de la Nueva California." A collection of Spanish records of the
movements of the friars in Upper California, between 1760 and 1787, with
much relating to the foundation of the ]^,Iission of San Francisco. Friar
Palou wrote most of their book.
"The Overland Monthly," from July, 1868, to December, 1875. This
magazine contains a number of carefully written articles upon San Francisco
and California.
" The Pioneer Magazine, " from January, 1854, to December, 1855. Be-
sides several good articles on local topics, this magazine published a chrono-
logical list of events for the two years of its existence.
"Daily San Francisco Evening Post." In December, 1876, the "Post"
contained a valuable series of articles on the harbor of San Francisco and the
work of tho harbor commission, and in the fall of 1878 a series of reminis-
cences by Judge McGowan.
"Provincial State Papers in Spanish Archives."
"Oration at the Annual Celebration of tho Society of California Pioneers
in 1860," by Edmund Piandolph. A long and able address, containing much
information about tho early history of California.
"The Appendix" to the journals of each session of the legislative journal
contains tho reports of executive officers of the state administration. The
"Adjutant-general's Report for 1865" gives the list of the members of tho
ten regiments of California volunteers who served through the civil war, most
of them west of the Rocky Mountains. The report for 1867 contains a his-
tory of the California battalion which Avent East and served there.
" Vida de Junipero Serra," por Fray Francisco Palou. The biography of
Junipero Serra, the president of missions of California from 1769 to 1784,
written by Francisco Palou, his companion and friend, includes an account of
the foundation of the missions.
"A Voyage Round the World," by Sir George Simpson. Simpson visited
San Francisco in 1841, and gives an account of it as it was then.
486 EISTOBY OF SAN FRANCISCO.
" Seeking the Golden Fleece," by J. D. B. Stillman. 1877. Pp. 340. This
volume gives an excellent account of the gold excitement in the Atlantic
states, the adventures of a shipload of adventurers coming round Cape Horn
in 1849, and life in San Francisco and the mines in 1849-50.
"History of the Public School System of California," by John Swett, 1870.
Pp. 250.
"The History of California," by Franklin Tuthill, 1866. Pp. 640. A
good history, and especially full in the chapter on the A-igilance committee of
1856.
"The Daily Sacramento Union," newspaper.
"Voyage of Discovery to the Xorth Pacific," by George Vancouver. Van-
couver visited San Francisco in 1 792, and described the condition of the
Presidio. Chapter XI treats of the missions, and conveys the impression
that the Indians were still in r. semi-savage condition.
" The United States Exploring Expedition," by George Wilkes.
EEFEREXCES.
Such a reference as this, "Alta, 1856, VI, 5," means "Daily Alta," 1856,
sixth month, fifth day; that is, June 5, 1856. The roman numerals after the
year indicate the number of the month, the Arabic the day. In the refer-
ences to books, unless otherwise marked, the roman numerals indicate the
volume and tlie Arabic the page.
For evidence that force was nsed in catching Indians for conversion, see
" Beechey," chapter XIII; " Forbes," chapter V; "Gleeson;" "Vancouver,"
chapter XI; and "Belcher," Vol. I, Ch. V.
Dwinelle in his address at the Centennial Anniversary of the foundation of
the Mission over-estimated the income.
Mofras (I, 320) and Dwinelle (44) in my opinion exaggerate the merits of
the missionary labor, and the evils of secularisation.
Dwinelle (26), in his "Colonial History," says there were at the Mission of
San Francisco, in 1794, 724 men and women, and 189 boys and girls; in 1800,
575 men and women, and 69 boys and girls respectively; in 1815, 913 adults
and 182 minors; and in 1830, 193 adulta and 26 minoi-s. These ligures imply
that there were never fewer than four adults for one minor, and sometimes
eight. In civilized nations generally there are at least five minors for four
adults. Mr. Dwinelle understands the Spanish word adultos, as given in the
mission records to mean adults. But this is a mistake. Adultos there sig-
nifies persons over eight years. If the proportion between adults and minors
were correctly represented, the figures would prove that the influence of the
missions upon the life of the Indians was much more destructive than it
really was.
Full information about nearly all the land grants is given in Dwinelle's
"Colonial History."
Dwinelle, on page 78 of his "Appendix" gives a list of the people living
at the Mission in 1842.
The best authorities upon the conquest are "Cutts" and the "Annals."
The "Call " of March 11, 1877, gives a list of the residents of Yerba Buena
at the time of the conquest.
Governmental affairs of the city from 1849 to 1854, are treated at consid-
erable length, and with general accuracy in the "Annals."
Hoffman's Beport contains a List of the land cases before the commission,
with the areas of the claim.s and disposition made of them. The squatter
law called an act to quiet titles was passed March 26, 1856. A copy of
G win's supplemental land bill may be found in the "Alta," 1856, XII, 12.
APPENDIX. 487
For an account of Broderick's early career see the "Chronicle" of June
IG, 1S7G.
The campaign speeches of 1859, published by the "Sacramento Union,"
contain most of the matei'ial required for a history of the senatorial election
of 1857. See speeches by Broderick, reported on the eleventh, nineteenth
and twentieth of July; and on the third, fourth, fifth, sixth, tenth, eighteenth
and twenty-sixth of August; l.)y Gwin on the fifteenth, eighteenth and twen-
ty-ninth of July, and on the first, second and fifteenth of August; by Latham
on the twenty-third of July, and on the third and twelfth of August, and by
Tilford on the fourth of August. A letter i)y Tilford that appeared on the
twenty-second of July, and one by Owin on the fifteenth of August, and a
pamphlet by Pixley on the twenty-sixth of August, were also part of the
campaign.
For the early history of the Comstoek lode see a series of papers published
in the " Mining and Scientific Press " for 187G and 1877. The i)recise dates
can be ascertained from the index published at tiie end of each year.
For the early history of the Consolidated Virginia bonanza, see "Post"
1876, I, 13.
The deeds of James Lick to liis trustees are given in the " Alta Almanac '"
of 1875, 187G and 1877.
A history of tlie press of the state and a list of nearly all the papers up to
that date is given in the "Sacramento Qnion," 1858, XII, 25.
For testimony in reference to I.lalston\s use of the money of the Bank of
California, over-issue of stock, etc., see the "Bulletin" of July 27, 1876.
The following arc references to cfimprehensive articles in ^•a^i()U.j publicn-
tions :
History of the California Steam Navigation Co., "Bulletin," 187G, X, 11.
Names of Ilesidents of Ycrba Bucna in July, 1S4G, "Call," 1877, III, 11.
Dividends of Gas and AVater Companies, 18G7-187G, "Bulletin," 1877, IV.
List of Stars at the California Theatre, 1869-77, "Spirit of the Timcy,"
1877, V, 5.
Blunders in the management of the public lands in California, "Alta,"
1877, XII, 5.
Number of votes cast by the leading toAvns of California at the Presidential
election, Nov. 7, 1876, "Alta Almanac," 1877, 37.
Histoiy of San Francisco Cemeteries, "C'all," 1877, IV, 19; V, 13.
Notable wrecks on tiio coast, 1849-1877, "Chronicle," 1877, IX, 23, 30.
In August and Se])tember, 1877, the "Chronicle" published a number of
carefully prepared articles, giving the liistory and production (;f tlie leading
Comstoek mines.
History of tlic Supreme Court of California, "Alta Almanac for 1874."
History of " Morning Call," newspaper; " Call," 1878, III, 10.
History of Savings Banks of San Francisco, "Call," 1877, VII, 22.
Officials of San Francisco and tlieir paj-, "Bulletin," 1877, VI, 23.
Millionaires of San Francisco, "Bulletin," 1877, VII, 21.
History and condition of San Francisco churches, "Bulletin," 1877, VII,
21.
History of banking in California, "Coast Beview," 1877, V. "Post,"
1877, III, 30.
History of Avholesale grocery business in San Francisco, "Bulletin," 1878.
I, 11.
Election frauds, "Bulletin," 1877, IX, 15.
History of Oakland waterfront, "Oakland Transcript," 1877, X, 26.
488 HISTORY OF SAN FRANCISCO.
History of elections of federal senators in California, "Bulletin," 1877,
XII, 10.
List of nominees at all state elections, 1849-1877, "Bulletin," 1877, XII.
History of Golden Gate Park, "Bulletin," 1878, I, 26.
The governors of California since its organization as a state have been the
following, with the dates of their installation: Peter H. Burnett, Dec. 23,
1849; John McDougall, Jan. 9, 1851; John Bigler, Jan. 8, 1852; John Bigler,
Jan. 8, 1854; J. Neely Johnson, Jan. 8, 1836; John B. Weller, Jan. 8, 1858;
Milton S. Latham, Jan. 8, 1860; John G. Downey, Jan. 14, 1860; Leland
Stanford, Jan. 8, 1862; Frederick F. Low, Dec. 2, 186.3; Henry H. Haight,
Dec. 5, 1867; Newton Booth, Dec. 8, 1871; Homualdo Pacheco, Feb. 27,
1875; and William Irwin, Dec. 9, 1875.
McDougall, Downey and Pacheco were elected to the office of lieutenant-
governor, but succeeded to the office of governor when Burnett, Latham and
Booth resigned. Tlie term before 1863 was two years; afterwards four years.
The following is a list of the chief executive officers of the town and city
since the American conquest, with the dates of their installation: W. A. Bart-
lett, July 9, 1846; Edwin Bryant, Feb. 22, 1847; George Hyde, June, 1847; T.
M. Leavenworth, April, 1848; J. W. Geary, Aug. 1, 1849; J. W. Geary, May
1, 1850; C. J. Brenham, April 28, 1851; S. 11. Harris, Sept. 8, 1851; C. J.
Brenham, Nov. 2, 1851; C. K. Garrison, Sept. 7, 1853; S. P.Webb, Sept. 3,
1854; James Van Ness, May 23, 1855; E. W. Burr, July 1, 1856; H. F.
Teschemacher, July 1, 1859— July 1, 1862; H. P. Coon, July 1, 1863; Frank
MeCoppiu, Dec. 2, 1867; T. H. Selby, July 1, 1869; Wm. Alvord, July 1,
1871; James Otis, July 1, 1873; George Hewston, Nov. 4, 1875; A. J. Bry-
ant, Dec. 4, 1875.
Before May 1, 1850, the title of the chief executive officer was alcalde;
from that day till July 1, 1856, mayor; then for six years, president of the
board of supervisors; and since July 1, 1862, mayor.
I have inserted in the text, without quotation marks several short passagC3
written by me and previously published.
Instead of " monkish, " on page 39, the word should be "monastic;" and
on page 55, " afternoon mass" should be "afternoon prayers."
STATISTICS.
The dividends paid by the mining companies incorporated iu San Francisco
had in the sixteen years ending with 1877, amounted to $118,003,000, and the
assessments to .$65,000,000.
The aggregate value of the shares listed in the San Francisco stock boards
was at the market rates §284,000,000, on one day of January, 1875, and |92,-
000,000, in a day of November of the same year, making a fluctuation of
.$192,000,000 in eleven months. The largest variation in any one month was
$139,000,000, the smallest 821,000,000; the average for each month counting
only from the highest to the lowest .$50,000,000.
The assessed value of the land and buildings within the city limits west of
Larkin and Ninth streets and south of Mission creek, was .$1,200,000 in 1860,
and in 1876 more than $50,000,000.
The number of street lamps increased more than tenfold from 1860 to 1876.
The banking capital of California at the close of 1876, as shown by full
statistics in the "Bulletin" of February 10, 1877, was .$182,000,000 (includ-
ing capital and deposits), and San Francisco had four fiiths of tlie whole.
APPENDIX.
489
At the end of 1S76 thero v/erc 27,OGO buildings in San Francisco, and of
these 4, 390 were of brick, and nearly all the others of v/ood. Of IGOO houses
erected in 1876, all cave 33 were of wood.
The following condensed statistics furnish in a small space much informa-
tion about the growth and present condition of the industiy and traffic ot San
Francisco and California. For explanation^ sec the remarks after each table:
i
MILLIONS 05- DOLLARS.
Population
in Thou-
Fancls.
Deposit ia
Sivings
Banks.
"3
ll
<
8
1
1
Central
Pacific Rail-
road.
YEAR.
o
St g
o
if
l-H
a
S
J8J8
Gl
73
1859
18GI
83
9ii
1C3
113
119
.
....
18G3
IG
23
49
33
5)
IIG
CO
51
L'8
190
14G
2C0
220
223
120
43
18G1
c
c
8
]0
11
13
19
22
27
t3
43
1073
'lojy
975
85J
900
828
coo
G71
1359
]38'.)
icoo
2
2
4
2
1
2
5
1
1
1
i
1
G
7
9
12
13
It
17
19
17
i"
3
4
4
5
5
5
7
17
15
10
17
22
27
31
37
42
52
55
C6
CO
13
18G7
18G3
1839
1870
131
143
170
1
1
2
7
9
11
li
U
14
""a"
n
245
111
173
110
1871
]87-2
173
173
18*
201
2;o
270
G>
195
1873
1S74
1875
187G
1877
20
20
30
39
C9
13
12
15
24
25
7
7
12
12
13
85
140
185
357
300
The population cf San Francisco for various years from 1S5S to 1870, a3
given above in thousands, and the number cf new buildings in the city are
taken from the estimates in Langley'o directories. The similar figures for the
population of Oakland arc from local cstim.ates. The amounts cf money de-
posited in the savings banks of San Francisco, and in those of other tov/ns of
California, the dividends by all companies and by mining companies, the
assessments levied by mining companies, and the earnings and expenses of
the Central Pacific railroad company, are in millions of dollars. The sta-
tistics on this table, cave those about Oakland, the interior savings banks,
and the miles of railroad built, relate to the business of San Francisco.
In the following table the taxable property of San Francisco, Oakland, and
the state, the amount of real estate sales in San Francisco and Oakland, the
suras collected as federal revenue, and those j^aid as freights on cargoes com-
ing from foreign and domestic Pacific ports (those from domestic Faciiic ports
are not included), arc in millions of dollars; the amounts of freight from
Panama and China, and by rail iDassing across the continent v/estward and
castv/ard, arc given in thousands of tons; and the expenses of the city gov-
ernment of San Francisco aro in thousands of dollars. The westvirard rail-
490
HISTORY OF SAN FRANCISCO.
road freight includes all received at Ogden from California; t>.e eastward
freight includes only that from San Francisco, Saia Jos5, Stockton, Sacra-
mento and Marysvillo for Ogden or points beyond. The year3 arc calendar
years.
MLLIONS OF DOLLARS.
FnEIGHT IN
Thousands op Tons.
Taxable Troparty.
Real
Fstatc
es.
a
1
«
1
1
Ml
0^
a
YEAK.
1
1
'6
1
i
1
8
a a
2
1850
2
2
2
1
2
2
1
6"0
1813
450
1831
1852
1853
18:4
1855
185(1
1857
1858
1859
22
14
18
'20
35
32
33
35
31
30
30
42
G7
81
88
07
109
106
115
1('6
105
209
212
261
ceg
254
" i"
\
1
3
4
5
5
7
19
20
22
25
53
49
C5
95
111
104
95
12j
121
131
118
148
100
171
130
184
201
212
237
261
278
i;63
037
529
Cll
517
595
12
5
4
5
3
1^-52
2640
850
353
4
7
y
. ...
481
11
18
28
31
25
33
32
68
38
11
18
27
22
29
27
18G1
18ti-2
1863
18(54
9
11
11
12
11
J3
27
GO
10
13
13
12
24
33
24
19
592
..
8
7
7
7
6
G
3
3
5
5
4
5
4
78 J
3
3
2
2
2
4
8
9
7
12
12
13
12
U
10
11
1)
10
10
10
9
136G
18C7
18CS
18G0
1870
1371
1372
1873
1874
1»75
187G
1877
1086
J315
13
19
20
'.9
30
20
35
42
57
C4
81
117
120
33
41
71
07
67
54
2295
2101
253S
2723
2906
3 93
3590
3471
In the table following, the rain- fall is given from the figures of Thomas
Tennent, for tho crop year extending from July 1st to June 30th, and the
number of tho j-ear is taken from the one in wliich the crop year t3rn:!inatcs.
Thus the crop year of 1852 is the year ending June SOth, of 18.32. The ex-
port of wheat is for a crop year, not a calendar year. The other figures are
for calendar years. Tho numbers of acres cultivated i:i all crops and in ^7hcat
of vines, of tons of shipping that arrive from coast ports, from American ports
on the Atlantic, and from all ports, of tons of wheat and of r.-ool and of fiasks
of quicksilver exported are given by the thousand. The number cf vines was
reported by the assessors in 1874, and since the number of acres in vines. In
1873 there were 82,6G1 acres in vines.
Vallejo loaded 37 ships with wheat and flour for Europe in tho crop year of
1873; 81 in the crop year of 1874; 79 in the crop year of 1875, and 90 in tho
crop year cf 187G. Oakland loaded 17 chips with v/heat in the crop year of
APPENDIX.
491
1871; 13 in 1872; 110 in 1873; 83 in 1874; 86 in 1875, and 44 in 1876. Val-
lejo and Oakland together, now load about two-fifths of all the wheat and
flour exported; before 1868 San Francisco loaded all.
IN THOUSANDS.
Aches Cul-
tivated
SHIPPING AKKIVED.
1851
3852
18o3
1854
1855
1857
1858
1859
1860
1861
1862
1863
1864
1865
]8i;6
1867
1869
1870
1871
1&72
1873
1874
1875
1S76
1877
1108
1504
1774
1758
2132
2597
2992
2-53
2477
3366
3541
383S
3576
G91
1119
1263
1479
1425
1739
2128
21 5G
2321
2352
20.001
20 000
22,000
23,000
26,C00
31,000
23 '00
30,000
35,000
In the following table the immigrants are given in thousands. Thus in
1854, 67,000 immigrants arrived, 23,000 departed, and there was a gain of
44,000. Those arc round numbers, and a thousand being the unit of measure-
ment, any fraction less than half a thousand is not counted; Avhilc a fraction
exceeding n half is counted as a whole one. Thus 43,600 is counted as 44,000;
v/hilo 43,400 is counted as 43,000. The exports, coinage and treasure yield
are given in millions of dollars. All the immigrants mentioned in the table
before 1869, came or went by sea. After April of that year, the figures in-
clude the statistics of the Central-Union Pacific Railroads. The arrivals
and departures in 1870, by rail, were 32,000 and 23,000 respectively; in 1871,
30,000 and 22,000; in 1872, 34,000 and 22,000; in 1873, 44,000 and 33,000; in
492
HISTORY OF SAN FRANCISCO.
1874, 56,000 and 25,000; in 1S75, 75,000 and
38,000, and in 1877, 47,000 and 31,000.
30,000; in 1876, 61,000 and
IMMIGRANTS, IN THOU-
SANDS.
MILLIONS OF DOLLAES
ESPOETS.
TEr.ASUEE Y
i
<
i
1
(5
Chinamen.
lELD.
TEAR.
i
a
|.|
3
.3
1
4
<
3
I
1
>
91
36
27
07
S3
43
29
28
23
41
38
31
31
28
34
32
26
27
33
CO
£8
52
42
f2
70
85
107
83
Co
5
28
46
43
f5
52
45
51
49
48
48
42
41
43
4G
57
45
44
42
35
37
33
17
29
25
£0
43
50
58
23
59
CO
69
63
04
59
53
51
47
50
48
47
45
40
35
35
26
25
22
23
25
20
19
18
20
13
19
18
] 8 J I ...
1
2
4
4
4
1
9
10
U
14
33
15
17
22
23
21
IS
H
24
31
23
31
31
39
47
47
57
51
49
C5
£3
54
51
51
54
fO
70
CO
CI
64
58
53
51
31
53
r.6
58
74
n
83
"lb'
21
29
13
19
14
12
13
6
19
20
19
18
19
17
14
20
20
16
22
27
32
43
5J
23
30
24
23
23
17
28
25
15
14
12
18
22
30
23
20
25
14
37
32
33
35
39
43
51
47
44
3
G
13
IJ
16
17
16
IG
10
-4
4
16
35
24
15
10
19
35
40
C4
35
18
20
4
16
3
5
6
5
3
7
8
8
G
3
3
2
4
10
15
11
5
10
18
17
18
16
13
2
4
3
3
2
3
3
2
4
3
3
3
2
3
4
4
5
4
3
5
7
8
7
8
8
]853
185J
18-8
1830
1831
1
2
1802..
18 ;3 . . .
C
13
17
1835
17
10
18G7
20
1868 . .
15
13
1870
16
1871
1872
1873
23
26
35
1874
36
1875
40
1876
49
1877
02
INDEX.
The following index is intended mainly to assist the reader in finding topics
not mentioned in the Table of Contents at the beginning of the book.
PAGE.
Abella. Friar Gl, 66
Aborigines 19, 25
Adama&Co 226,233
Admissiou of Btate 159, 162
Alameda, 1 :ridge to 387
Alameda wharf 347
Alcaldes 85, 488
Alemany, Archbishop 421, 445
Almshouse 366
Alta California 411
Altimira, Fiiar 64
Alvarado, Governor 90
Alvord, Mayor. 488
American, 15rig 223, 224
Anita, Bark 204
Anza, Caist 45
Aijportionments 327, 389
Archy Case , 270
Arrow, Brig 202
Art Association 385
Avery, B. P 468
Ayala 45,46.92
Ayuntamiento 141
Baker. E.D 310,327,462
Baldwin, E.J 452
Banks 267, 365, 373. 404, 406, 487
Bancroft, George 97
Bancroft, H. 11 468,483
Barry, T. A 483
Bartlett, W. A It7, 110,483
Boale. E. F 129
Bear flag 102
Beechey, F. W 57, 93, 483
IJeideman sale 360
Belcher bonanza 392
Bellows, U. W 335, 337
Beuicia Ill, 374
Bennett. Judge 162
Bernal 73,83,483
Bigler, Governor 184, 280,315,488
Blanco, General 189-191
Hlossom rock 382
Bluxomc,! 247
Boot!), Governor 386,488
Bowman. J. F 421,475
Brace, Philander 258
Brannan, 8 97, 103, 1l9. 440, 445
PAGE.
Brenham, Mayor 483
Bridge, Islais Cove 366
Bridge, Mission Cove 352
Brodirrick, D. C 281,319,487
Brooklyn 103
Brown, Charles 483
Bryant, Alcalde 97, 114, 488
Bryant, Mayor 488
Buchanan, President 301
Bulkhead bill 323
Bulletin 405, 413, 412
Buruett, Governor 145, 270, 483
Burdue 173, 177
Buri-Buri 73
Burr, E. AV 488
Butchertowu 373
Cabrillo 20
Calaveras water 404, 40'5
California discovery 20
California steamer 136, 138
California Star 1U9, 120, 125, 126, 441
Calif ornian 118, 125, 441
CaJistoga 370
Call, Morning 405, 413, 442
Cambon, Friar 47, 04
Carmel Mission 43
Caroline, Bark 203
Carrillo 81
Casey, J. P 244, 249, 250
Castro, Juan 75
Castro, Governor 90, 104, 105
Castro, Manuel 101
Cemeteries 184, 209, 219, 487
Centennial celebration 419
Centennial of mission j... 421
Central America, Steamer 267
Censuses 117, 321, 383, 448
Challenge, Ship 193-195
Champagne consumed 45
Chi
.440
Chico, Governor 81
Chiistian Commission 338
Chronicle 442
Churches 198, 322, 323, 366. 382,444,487
City Hjill 156, 184, o82
City Blip sale 199, 354
Clemens, Samuel 467
494
INDEX.
PAGE.
Clement Ordinance 364
Clifford, Josephine 468
Clippers .162
Coey, General 420
Coffee, coDSumed 457
Cohen, A. A 231-233
Colton, D. I) 427,450,451
Cole, Senator 398
Coleman, W. T 172, 246
Colville, S 484
Committee of Safety 425
Commission, Land 178
J. , . 1332,333-343,351,3)8
Comstock mines jggj^ 3^^^ 3y2^ gyg^ ^28
Conness, Senator 343-316
Consolidated Virginia 39'J, 401, 423, 428
Convention, Constitutional 140, 144
Coolbrith,Ina 471
Coon, Mayor 483
Cora, Charles 250
Cortes . . 25
Cotter-Nugent Duel 184
Crabb, H. A 268
Crespi, Friar 40, 41. 45, 4'J
Crocker, C 451
Cults, J. M 484
Cyane, Corvette 1*5
Dana, R.n 95,265
Danti, Friar 04
Davis, Jefferson 159, 202
Debt, City 354
Delia Torre 292
Del Vallo 193,209
Denver, J. W 184
Derby, O. H 46?
Diamond fraud 393
Diaz, Benito 74
Dillon 191,203
Dolly Varden party 387, 393
Donner tragedy Ill
Donahue, Teter 450
Downey, Governor ^ 324, 488
Douglas, S. A 303, 326
Drake 26
D wight 346
Dry dock 360, 370, 383
Duncan, J. C 422
Dwinelle, J. W 421, 468, 484, 486
Elections
Earthquakes C6, 354, 370
Edward Everett 135
( 144, 183, 262, 284. 292
•• \ 325, 331, 3i9, 367. 386
Estenaga, Friar 04
Estell. J. M 299,312,317
Kstudillo, J. J 78
Euphemia, Brig 114
Examiner 442
Extension bill 197, 313
Extravagance 454
Fages, r 39
Fair, J. G 407, 450
Farnham, T. J 484
Fillmore, President -280
Figueroa, Governor 70
Fires 133, 150, 108, 404, 415
PAGE,
Fire department 337, 359
Fitch, H.D 74
Fitch, Thomas 413
Fitch, Mrs. Thomas 474
Flood, J. C 401, 450
Florida, privateer 349
Flores, G 71
Foisom, J. L Ill, 454
Foote, H. S 293
Forbes, Alex 94, 98, 484
Fourgeaud,V 97, 120
Francesca 110,111
Franciscan order 33
Fraser fever 273
Freeman, A. C 468
Fremont, J. C 100, 106, 157, 167
French-German war .384
French immigration 185
French subscription > 384, 446
Friars 63, 64
Friedlander, Isaac 426
Galindo 73
Gambling, Public 143, 235
Garrison, C. K 239, 409, 4S8
Gassaway, F. H 475
Geary, J. W 143,155,488
German Subscription 384, 440
Gihou, J. H 483
Gilbert, Edward 117, 143, 145, 167, 184
Gleesoj •, Rev. Mr 484
Goat Islnnd 389
Gold Bluff. 272
Gold currency ; 348
Gold fever 120-132
Gold huuter 151
Goodman, J. T 475
Gorham, G. C 367
Gould and Curry 428
Governors, list of 488
Grading -i. .432-438
Graham House 15G
Greenhow, 11 9G
Guerrero, F 74,85
Gutif rrez, Governor 82
Gwin, W. M.143, 157, 167, 181. 253, 292-305, 487
Haggin, J. B 453
Haight. Governor 368,483
Halle.-k, General 335, 468
Hammond, U. P 280
Happy Valley 107
Hurt?, F. B 467,468
Haro, F. de 73, 74, 85, 3'JG
Harris, Mayor 488
Hawes. Horace 388
Hayes Park 444
HayesTract 278
Hayward, A 453
Herald 181
Hetherington, Joseph , 257
Hewston, Mayor 488
Hinckley, Wm 79. 87, 86
Hitchcock, General 202
Hittel, J. 8 4S4
Hlttell,T. H 4(:8
Hoadley, M 209,436
Hoffman, Judge 292, 486
Home Life 417
INDEX.
495
PAGE.
Eomesteaa lots 335, U69
Hooker, General 335
Hopkins, Mark 426,450
Hospitals 323
Hotels. . . .322, 323, 334, 352, 373, 404, 433, 419
Hounds, The 148
Howard, V. K 254.291
Hudson Bay Company 85, 88-CO
Humphrey, I 124
Huntington, C. P 450
Hunt.T.D 445
Hutctungs' Magazine 484
Hyde, Alcalde 114, 488
Ide.W. B 103
Inge, I. W 291
Irwin, Governor 488
Janin , H 394
Jenkins, J 173
Jenny Lind Theatre 109, 184
Jones, Commodore 95
Jones, John P 452, 4G8
Johnson, Governor 254, 481
Kearny, Gen 123
Kearny Btreet 339, 3C0, 365 , 378
Keene, James 452
Kemble, E. C 125
Kern River 273
King, Clarence 395
King,James 243,244
King, T. «tarr 330, 350
Kip, Bisjop 44)
Kotzebue 92
Lagoon at Mission 4G
Lane, Dr. L. C 4o8
Lands, Outside 3G2, 334,309
Langley, H. G 483,481
Larkin, T. O 99,105, 110, 454
Latham, M. S 29G, 299, 305, 317, 453, 483
Lawson, Mrs. limilic 473
Leavenworth, Alcalde... 141, 149, 488
Leese. J. P 73, 79-85, 103
Libraries 382, 441
Lick, James 399, 403, 404, 416, 418. 487
Lick, John H 417
Limantour 75
Lincoln, President ...320,349
Lloyd, B. E 468, 484
Lots, Sale of 110, 1"0
Low, Governor 488
Lux. Charles 453
Macdonild, Hon. D. A 421
Macgrcgor.W. L 485
Mackey, J W 402, 450
MaKuire, T 312
Mails. Overland 209, a26, 332
Marchena, F 75
Marshall, J. W 12 1
Martintz, Alcalde 85
Mason, Governor 123
McAllister, Judge 292
McComb, General 421
M -'Coppin, Mayor 369, 488
McCoppiu ordinance 364
McDougal, James A 331, 344
PAGE.
McDougal, Governor John 282, 488
McGruwan, E 257, 312
McKonzie, liobert 170
McKim 150
McPherson, (leneral 335
Mechanics' Institute 267
Meiggs, H 2;8, 226
Merced Itancho 73
Merchant.s' Exchange 3fi5
Merritt, Captain ]03
Merviue, Captain 104
Mezzara, Madame 385
Michel oreua, Governor 90
Miller, H 453
Miller, Joaquin 474
Millionaires 450
Mills, D. O 410, 453
Mission Buildings ..G4
Mis ion Indians 49-62
Mof ras 98, 96, 485
Montgomery, C iptain 104
Moiitjiomery Avenue 404
Montgomery stre t 378
Mont^'omery street straight 373, 378
Moraga 47,48
Morrell, Capt 93
Municipal Keports 484
Xew Montgomery ttreet 373, 3T4
Niantic 165
Nisbet. James 483
Noe, Alcalde 74, 83, 85
Nugent, J 184
Oakland 270, 339, 074, 381, 397, 487
O'Brien, W. S ■101,426, 450
O'Connell, Daniel 475
0'Farrel],J 114
Omnibuses 208
Oregon steamer 138
Oslo. A. M 74
Overland Monthly 485
Pacheco, Dolores ICO, 101
Pacheco, Governor 4S8
Pacific Mail Company 138, 235, 357
P..dill3, Alcalde 86
Pago, Mrs. E. A. S 475
Page, Bacon t Co 226
Palace Hotel 399, 404, 433
Piilmer, Cook & Co 232, 288
Palou, Friar 34,43,47,43,49,55,04,485
Panama steamer 138
Panama Eailroad 233
Panics 215
Park, Golden Gate 382,487
Parrott, J 453
Patten, B. A 483
Peacf, with Mexico 121
People's Party 262
Perkins, T. U 112
Perley, D. W 306, 307
Phelps, '1'. G 343
Pico, Governor 101, 104
Pi er e y . C . W 331
Piiia.J 74
Pioche mines 392
Pioneer Society 164
Pioneer Magazine 485
496
INDEX.
PAGE.
Pixley, F. M 344,310
Pollock, Edward 4G8
Pony express a24
Population Btatistics 489
Poitala, Governor 39, 43, 42, 47
Portsmouth, Sloop 107
Post 442
Post-office 109,373
Potrero 73, 3GG
Proff.tt, John 4r,8
Pueblo 76, 3C3
Purdy, S 315
( 333, 339, 348, 353, 338, 3G6, 3G7,
Railroads { 370. 372-376, 381, 386, 390-392,
( 422,
Piailroads, Street 320, 334, D39, 358, 3SG
Ealston, W, C 401-414
llaousset 187-19G
Ifavenswood Bridge iS?
Eay 89, 90
Ecese, M 4'2C, 427, 453
Eeq uena, M 80
BichardBon, W. A 77, 73
Eiley, Governor 141, 142, 145
Eincon Hill 380
Eivera, Governor 39, 48
Eoads. Toll 151, 19c!, o;j9, 347
Euss' Garden 198,444
S.ilesof lots IIG
ban Antonio 39, 40, 42
San Carlos 39,4,5
Sanchez, rrancisco 73, 8J, 85, 1:3
Sanchez, Jose ,.. . 83,80
San Krancisco Bay discovered 41
Sanitary Commission 335-339
San Joaqun Valley 371
San Miguel Eancho 74
San Pedro Bancho 73
Santa Anna 192
Santillau 75,320,445
Sargent, Senator 343,341
Siucelto 374
Seawall 30 J
Second street cut 373, 379
Securalization 70
Selby, T, H 410, 483
Semple, CD 110
Senator, Steamer 151
Serra, J unipero 32-39, 485
Shafter, J, M 453
Sharon, W 438, 4.50, 4G2
Sherman, W. T 253,335,441
[ihcrrebaclr, P 74, 320
Showalter, D 331
Simpson, Sir George 90, 96, 485
Site i32
Sloat, Commodore 97. 103, 104
Smith, Peter, title 1S4, 320
Social Ppirit 453
Soule, Frank 4G9, 4S3, 484
Spear, N 79,87
Stanford, Governor 451,483
Statistics 489-491
Steam Navigation Company 203, 487
Steamer, lii St 119
Stearns, Abel 80
Stebbins.H 421
PAGK.
sEegiment 112
Stillman, Dr 40, 131, 468,485
Stock Bt:ard 3J3, 365
Stockton, Commodore 105
Stoddard, C.W 468, 471
Stockton street cut 380
Stuart, J 172,175
Sugar consumed 457
Sullivan, James 251
Sullivan, John 453
Surveys 86
Sutter, J. A 89
Swift, J, F 468
Swett, John 486
Tea consumed 458
Telegraphs 198
Telegraph, Fire 352
Telegraph Hill 134, 185, 198. 443
'ierry, i •. S 254, 3.6-309
Tescliemacher, Mayor 488
Tevls, Lloyd 4ii3
Theatres 198,373.487
Thomas, P.J 484
Tide luna Bales 113, 199, 373
Tilford, F ;,17
Tuthill, F 468,433
Turrill, C. B 463
Union, Adherence to 331
Union Party 334
United States Frigate 95
Vallojo.M, G 103,421
Vallejo, town 370, 374, 375, 381, 380
Van -ouvcr 92, 483
Vandcibilt 239
V;:n Ness, Mayor 488
Verdug.) 79, 80
Vig. lance Committee of 1851 172-178
Vigilance Committee of 185G 245-262
Vi.)gct 80
Virginia City 415
Visitaciou Isaucho 73
Vizcaino 29
Von Schmidt, A. W 353
Walker. T.'m 192, 200-205, 237-239
"VValcott, Josephine 472
Washbu in, C, A 289
■Washington. B. F 289
Water supply 334
Watt. Wm 427
Webb. Mayor 483
Weller, John B 283, 291, 296, 483
Wharves 1C4, 209
Wh.te Pine 373, 377
Whittakcr, S 176
Wilkes, Commodore 94, 486
Willows, The 444
Woods. I, C 229-233
Woodward's Garden 357, 444
AVool, General 202, 253
Workingmcn'a Party 424
Wright, Congressman 145, 167
Yafiez, General 195
Young, C. & M. H.De 484
SUBSCEIBERS.
The following is an incomplete list of subscriptions to The Histoey op the
City of San Fuaucisco, and Incidentally of the State of Califoenia,
for the benefit of the Hebrew, Catholic and Protestant Orphan Asylums in
San Francisco, and the yellow fever sufferers in the Gulf Sffctes, for which
charities Col. Wm. Harney, under resolution of the auditing committee of
the Centennial Celebration, is the trustee:
Andrews, Col. A. (3 copies.)
Adams, W. J.
Alvord, Wm. (2 copies.)
Auderson, Mrs. H. F.
Ashe, C. L.
Abbott, L.
Bailey, R. S.
Bayley, C. A.
Bl..ke, Charles.
lii] lings, Harboume & Co.
Burges, T.
Bastheim, J.
Beal, Samuel.
Bradford, Wallace
Boyd, Calvin M.
Cotter, E. B.
Courtney, A. H.
Clinton, George A.
Conner, John.
Craig, Peter.
Curry, John.
Coey, Wm. J., Jr.
Cohn, J.
Cooper, George E.
Coleman, John E. W.
Conklin, Frank.
Chase, W. W.
Cima, V. L. de
Davis, John.
Butcher, J. M.
Duuker, C.
Devoe, B. O.
Bonohoe. Kelly & Co. (3 copies.
Day, Thomas.
Duncan, J. K. (Vallejo.)
Derbec, Etienne.
Ellis, Gen. John S.
32
Fairfax, Mrs. C. S.
Falconer, 11. S.
Firth, Joseph B.
Farrell. Mrs. E.
Flinn, Mrs.
Floyd. S. W.
Fox, Wm. 0.
Green, F. Du Brutz.
Good, A. J.
Glazier, S. W.
Godchaux.Myrtil.
Gibbons, H. Dr.
Geueben, B.
Green, J. C.
Harney, Col. Wm. (2 copies./
Himby, Heney S.
Hathaway, E.'V,
Harrison, J. V.
Hinckley, Speers & Hayes.
Hollander, S.
Huerne, P.
Harris, D.
Hagemann, F., Jr.
Jacquot, Giraudin A.
Jensou, T.
Jewell, A. M.
Jory Brothers.
King, H. Ij. (3 copies.)
Kennedy, Mrs. J. A.
Kiug, Cameron H.
Kane, John O.
Kennedy, James K.
Kenny, John.
Kavauaiigh. George.
Kneass, Dallas A. (2 copies.)
d98
SUBSCRIBERS.
liunt, W.H.
Lane, John J.
liow, Mrs. C. L.
Xazard ITeres (3 copies)
Leuekin, N.M.
LeBreton, Albert J.
Livingstone, lUualdo R.
McCarthy, Mrs. J. C.
McDougall, Admiral.
McLea, Donald.
Mallon, John.
Macdonald, D. A. (3 copies).
Marselas, G. W.
Ikliddlema8& Boole.
Jlontanya, Mrs. J. Do La.
TSdcKcw. John.
•Merle. V. V.
Metcalf, James B.
Mclunes, J. A.
IN^c&ath, John.
Mil s. D.O.
Mott, Kdward M.
Moore, Mrs. J. G.
Mcllwain, John.
Meagher, J. 1". (2 copies.)
>'ewman, Carlton.
Neustadter, D.
Osmer, C.
Ortiz, Celedonio.
Page, Robert C.
Piercy, John D.
Plank, L.
Plum, C. M.
Poultney, George "SV.
Phillips, G. M.
Eoundey, George D .
Eichardson, 11. W.
Richardson, W. L.
FkOach, Philip A.
Kosenbaum, M.
Read, EH.
Eoethe, C.
Eohn & Sherwood.
Ryan, Thomas.
Skelly, M.
Shaw, George T.
Station A, Post-office.
Staude, John.
Starr, W. M.
Seymour, Mrs. A. C.
Stroecker, H. H. W.
Scott, Richard.
Segehon, H.
Si-hcU, Mrs. G. L.
Stoddard, CharlesWarren.
Smith, Joseph.
Scott, Mrs. E. W.
Sloan, W.R.
Soker, D. L.
Schnoor, C. H.
Swetf, Daniel.
Schulte, J. G. W.
Thomas, Bailey & Co.
Taylor, P.
Toluud, H. H.
Thornton, H.
Tichenor, H. B.
Thornton, L. G.
tJpton, Mrs. J. P.
Van Duzen, A. P.
Wallace, W. T.
Weaver, P. L.
Wessell,John.
Wieland, John.
Weletsby, W.
Waddell, Mrs. H. H.
Wells, George R.
Weems, J. 1*.
Wannemach^r & Co.
Wheeler, Itichard.
White, D. W.
rnKmrnWi^sm
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