A history of the city of San Francisco; and incidentally of the state of California, Part 1

Author: Hittell, John Shertzer, 1825-1901
Publication date: 1878
Publisher: San Francisco, A. L. Bancroft & Co.
Number of Pages: 514


USA > California > San Francisco County > San Francisco > A history of the city of San Francisco; and incidentally of the state of California > Part 1


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Part 1 | Part 2 | Part 3 | Part 4 | Part 5 | Part 6 | Part 7 | Part 8 | Part 9 | Part 10 | Part 11 | Part 12 | Part 13 | Part 14 | Part 15 | Part 16 | Part 17 | Part 18 | Part 19 | Part 20 | Part 21 | Part 22 | Part 23 | Part 24 | Part 25 | Part 26 | Part 27 | Part 28 | Part 29 | Part 30 | Part 31


HISTORY SanFrancisco,


CALIFORNIA.


GEN /


ALLEN COUNTY PUBLIC LIBRARY 3 1833 01149 0577


GENEALOGY 979.402 SA519H


To une U. S. Jackson with the complements 8 Johns. Hittell


June 12. 1882 1


A HISTORY


OF THE


CITY OF SAN FRANCISCO


AND INCIDENTALLY OF THE


STATE OF CALIFORNIA.


BY JOHN S. HITTELL,


llistorian of the Society of California Pioneers ; Author of " The Resources of California," " A Brief History of Culture," etc., 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


THIS


VOLUME IS DEDICATED


TO THE


SOCIETY OF CALIFORNIA PIONEERS


BY ITS


HISTORIAN.


Tosenatork 45.00


PREFACE.


THIS 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 Pacific 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 have overtaken the 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 help, 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


7


PREFACE.


solid earth was moved out to give an everlasting foundation to the 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 provide 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 which 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 Rome 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, espe- 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


9


PREFACE.


before attached to so small a community within so brief a period.


It would be a mistake, however, to ascribe the pride of the pioneers exclusively to their opinion of the importance 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 people 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 the 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 spread of many of the most formidable epidemics elsewhere, and the possession of remarka- ble advantages for sanitary 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 hope 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 without 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-


11


PREFACE.


lation. Whatever has 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.


SAN FRANCISCO,


October 1, 1878.


J. S. H.


CONTENTS.


CHAPTER I.


INDIAN ERA.


SECTION.


PAGE.


SECTION. PAGE.


1. Aborigines 19


2. Discovery of California. 25


3. Drake 26


9. First Missions. 39


4. Vizcaino. 29


5. Missions Projected. 30


11. Privations


42


6. Franciscan Order. 33


CHAPTER II.


MISSION ERA.


12. Visiting Expeditions 45 20. No Education 56


13. First Settlement. 47


21. Number of Indians 58


14. Mission Authority 49


22. Great Mortality 59


15. Indian Women. 51. 23. Friars 62


16. Indian Men


53


24. Mission Buildings 64


17. Savage Life


54


25. Mission Income


66


18. Convert Life. 55


26. Decay of Missions


68


19. Indian Work. 55


CHAPTER III.


THE VILLAGE ERA.


27. Secularization 70 | 34. Hudson Bay 88


28. Land Grants


72


35. Predictions 91


29. Pueblo 76 36. Morrell 93


30. Leese


79 37. Beechey 93


31. Yerba Buena.


82 38. Wilkes, etc. 95


32. First House 84 39. American Longing. 98


33. First Survey 86 40. Larkin 99


7. Junipero Serra. 33


8. First Expedition 39


10. Discovery of Bay 41


14


CONTENTS.


CHAPTER III .- Continued.


SECTION.


PAGE. SECTION. PAGE.


41. Fremont's Blunder


100


48. O'Farrell's Survey 114


42. Bear Flag. 102


49. Sale of Lots. 116


43. American Flag.


103


50. Census of 1847


117


44. Effect of Conquest.


106


51. Leading Town


118


45. Mormons


107


52. Shipping in 1847


118


46. Change of Name.


110


53. Puff for California


120


47. Stevenson's Regiment.


112


54. Peace


121


CHAPTER IV. THE GOLDEN ERA.


55. Gold 124 | 78. Admission 159


56. Trade Stimulated. 126


79. Rejoicing. 160


57. Excitement in the East. 129


80. Clipper Ships 162


58. 1849 132


59. First Great Fire.


133


134


83. 1851


166


61. Edward Everett


135


62. First Steamer


136


85. Vigilance Committee, 1851 .. 172


86. Coroner's Verdict


174


87. Execution of Stuart 175


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


97. City Slip Sale. 199


75. 1850 155


98. Filibuster Walker


200


76. Second Great Fire


156


99. Six Year's Work.


206


77. Legislative Work


157


CHAPTER V. THE GOLDEN ERA IN DECLINE.


100. 1854 208 | 103. Staple Imports 214


101. Dillon and Del Valle.


209


104. Commercial Panic.


215


102. Mercantile Business. 210 | 105. Meiggs 218


88. Whittaker and 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


65. Ayuntamiento 141


84. Fourth and Fifth Fires. 168


63. Immigration by Sea


139


64. Call for Convention


140


82. Wharf Contracts 164


60. Telegraph Hill.


81. Pioneer Society


164


15


CONTENTS.


CHAPTER V .- Continued.


SECTION.


106. Forged Warrants. 219


107. Other Frauds 222


137. Campaign of 1853 284


138. Hammond Denounced 286


139. Grab for Senatorship 287


140. Chivalry Triumph. 289


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 Stuffers 251


121. Law and Order Party 253


122. Arrest of Terry 254


123. McGowan


257


153. Conversion into a Hero 309


124. Hetherington and Brace


257


258


155. Reward for Service 312


126. Work of the Committee


60


156. Veracity 316


127. People's Party


262


157. Chase for Senatorship 318


128. 1857


266


158. 1860 319


129. Crabb


268


159. Prosperity 321


130. 1858


269


160. Bulkhead 323


131. Mining Excitements. 271


161. Pony Express 324


132. Fraser Fever 273


162. Election of 1860. 325


133. 1859 278


163. Baker's Oration 327


134. Early Politics 279


164. Seven Years


329


CHAPTER VI.


THE SILVER ERA.


165. 1861 331


166. 1862


332


172. Gold Currency 348


167. Sanitary Fund. 335 173. Lincoln Re-elected 349


168. 1863 339


174. 1865 351


169. Silver Panic 339 175. Fire Telegraph 352


170. Conness 343


PAGE. SECTION. PAGE.


136. Hostility to Slavery 283


108. Meiggs's Flight 223


109. 1855 226


110. Adams & Co 227


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. Reception of Gwin's Letter. 300 149. No Patronage to Broderick. 301 150. Insult to Buchanan 302


151. Campaign of 1859. 305


152. Deadly Duel. 307


154. Trading Capital 310


125. Disbandment


135. Broderick 281


|171. 1864. 346


176. Railroad Purchase 353


16


CONTENTS.


CHAPTER VI .- Continued.


SECTION.


PAGE.


SECTION. PAGE.


177. Earthquake of 1865 354


203. Diamond Fraud 393


178. City Slip Debt 354


204. 1873 396


179. 1866 357


205. Oakland Harbor 397


180. Subsidies


358


206. Dolly Varden. 39S


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


213. Calaveras Water Scheme 405


214. Bank of California. 406


215. Ralston 409


216. Eulogy. 412


192. Vallejo Railroad 375


217. Bank Reorganized. 414


193. Silver Mines 376


194. Changes


378


195. 1870 381


220. 1876


417


196. Census of 1870 383


221. Lick's Death.


418


197. French-German War


384


198. 1871 385


223. 1877


421


199. Hawes 388


224. Hard Times. 422


200. 1872 389


225. Workingmen 424


201. Goat Island. 389


226. 1878.


426


227. Eighteen Years


427


CHAPTER VII.


GENERALITIES.


228. Natural Site 432


237. Hotels 449


229. Grades 435


238. Millionaires. 450


230. Amount of Grading 437


239. Extravagance 454


231. Sources of Buildings


438


240, Social Spirit 458


232. The Press 441


241. Swarming Out 462


233. Amusements 442


242. Governmental Defects 463


234. Churches 444


243. Literature and Art 466


235. Charities 446


244. Condition in 1878.


475


236. Home Life


447 | 245. Conclusion 477


210. Flood & O'Brien 401


211. James Lick. 403


212. 1875 404


189. San Joaquin Valley 371


190. 1869 372


191. Pacific Railroad. 373


218. Virginia Fire 415


219. Lick's Trustees Changed.


416


222. Centennial Celebration 419


202. Belcher Bonanza. 392


207. 1874 399


208. Large Immigration. 399


209. Con. Virginia Bonanza 400


17


CONTENTS.


APPENDIX.


PAGE.


PAGE.


Authorities


483


Index


493


References.


4 86


Subscribers


499


Statistics.


488


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


21


THE INDIAN ERA.


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 spcar-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 with 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.




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