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SAN FRANCISCO
IN THE SPRING OF 50
Gc 979.402 Sa519ba 1722305
M. L.
1
REYNOLDS HISTORICAL GENEALOGY COLLECTION
1
ALLEN COUNTY PUBLIC LIBRARY 3 1833 01114 9967
GENEALOGY 979.402 SA519BA
٠
MEN AND MEMORIES
OF
SAN FRANCISCO,
IN THE
"SPRING OF '50." ¿
BY
T. A. BARRY AND B. A. PATTEN.
"Forsan et hæc olim meminisse juvabit."-VIRGIL.
SAN FRANCISCO: A. L. BANCROFT & COMPANY, PUBLISHERS, BOOKSELLERS AND STATIONERS. 1873.
Entered according to Act of Congress, in the year 1873, by A. L. BANCROFT & COMPANY, In the Office of the Librarian of Congress, at Washington.
1722305
PREFACE.
-
Years ago it was no unfrequent thing for old resi- dentes, who, in the course of conversation, had arrived at a point of doubt or difference upon the location of some building, or the names of its occupants, their personal appearance, profession, or peculiarities in the "Spring of '50," to come to us for information on the mooted point, believing that our long continued residence and peculiar opportunities for observation, together with unusually good memories, rendered our decisions worthy of consideration. As Time's incessant revolution whirls us on and on, still farther from those days, and looking back upon the long vista of years, the once familiar spots and well- known forms and faces fade in the distance. These inquiries increase day by day, and so often have we been correct, that many of our friends have said: "Write some of the reminiscences of those old times, and we will read them." Disclaiming all merit in these pages, save their mnemonic faithfulness, we offer them to the kind consideration of our friends and the public.
B. & P.
SAN FRANCISCO, May, 1873.
MEN AND MEMORIES
OF
SAN FRANCISCO IN THE SPRING OF '50.
MEN AND MEMORIES
OF
SAN FRANCISCO IN THE SPRING OF '50.
CHAPTER I.
THE man who has lived in San Francisco for nearly a quarter of a century ; who has never been absent from it longer than two weeks in all these years ; who can recall vividly all the old and once familiar streets and buildings, and the men who lived in them, can always com- mand attention from those whose memory, less active and retentive, is ever latent and easily awakened with an eager and peculiar pleasure to listen to the reminiscences of the early days.
Disappointment may await the reader who expects any literary merit in these pages; but we think that he who searches them for facts long laid away and forgotten in the dusty folios
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MEN AND MEMORIES
of memory's by-gone years, will find but few paragraphs that will prove uninteresting.
There is a romance attached to the early days of San Francisco's history, a real interest cling- ing to the men who lived here, and to the inci- dents of their lives during those strange, event- ful days-something not so easily explained to those who were not here -- a kind of freemasonry, binding fraternally all those who lived here in a time when the very sense of remoteness and isolation from all the rest of the world brought men closer together; made men who knew each other merely by name, and who had never spoken together, grasp each other's hands and form life-long friendships, born of a sympathy in men so similarly circumstanced, drawn to one field by eager, adventurous enterprise, such a long, weary way from home and loved ones, having something in common, so different from any previous experience known or read of by men.
Although nearly a quarter of a century has elapsed, the kindly sentiment still burns in the hearts of these men. Even the scapegrace and vagabond of to-day, who happened to be here in the early days, retains, somehow, a place in the hearts of his more fortunate and respect- able pioneer brethren, who never forget that he
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OF EARLY SAN FRANCISCO.
is a ' 49-er, or, better still, more remotely dates his advent. A resident of those days will linger and courteously endure the bore of the most dilapidated specimen of humanity, with a for- bearance bordering on the marvelous in the eyes of those who were not here, and to whom the whole thing is more mysterious than freemasonry. If a man who came to San Francisco subsequent to 1850 should venture a hint that time and money given to such objects were worse than wasted, he will be met with a "Yes, yes, exactly! but you don't quite understand it, and it isn't to be expected that you should! you were not here in those days, you know! You see, there's a kind of feeling toward the men of that time, however unfortunate since, which-eh, well !- we can't see those men in want, and what little we give them is of no consequence." And with a wave of the hand, and a half apologetic, half deprecatory shrug of the shoulders, our friend
too gladly dodges the truth. Still, he never will-not if he lives for a century to come-turn the cold shoulder upon one of the "Old-time boys," should Time permit the venerable loafer's lingering so long. While we may smile con- temptuously-we of later days-still, we must admire this spirit, more than friendship, created
10
MEN AND MEMORIES
under such peculiar circumstances and enduring through so many years.
There is a genuine regret, a kind of Pioneer- pity, in the hearts of some of the unmitigated '49-ers, for those unfortunate men whom cruel fate denied the ineffable glory of arriving in San Francisco in the memorable year of 1849; or who were not within three marine leagues of California's auriferous shores previous to the midnight of December, 31, 1849. Time cannot soften the hearts of these otherwise good old men towards those unhappy individuals who arrived here subsequent to that momentous period in the world's history. Messrs. Winant, Bond, Clark, Stout, M. D., and a very few others, are obdurate, and our only hope is in the liberal faction, headed by Messrs. Holland, Von Schmidt, Donahue, et al. The man who is hardened enough to confess that he did not see the tra- ditional mule, foundered in the slough on Mont- gomery street, between Clay and Washington- the man who admits that he never saw the tide half way across Montgomery at the corner of Jackson-who has not walked on sidewalks made of sacks of flour and boxes of Virginia's finest tobacco-that man, we say, has no reason to expect the slightest consideration (in a Pio- neer way) from those inexorable men of the ' 49
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OF EARLY SAN FRANCISCO.
faction. We never could see the sense of the Pioneer Association, in celebrating the anniver- sary of California's admission into the Union. Why should such a body of men sanction the admission of California into the Union, when she didn't arrive there before midnight of the thirty-first of December, 1849? It is simply ridiculous, absurd, for them to notice the ninth of September, 1850 ; almost as inconsistent as electing to the presidency of the association a man who had the hardihood to delay his arrival in San Francisco until after the midnight of December 31, 1849.
The atmosphere becomes very foggy at times in the social room of the Pioneer's Association ; and it was so most likely when Capt. Johns was elected to preside over men who left the east more suddenly, and arrived in the west on better time than he did. Some grave, deliberate bodies are comical without intention.
All just and fair-thinking men agree that everybody who was in California on the ninth of September, 1850, should be eligible for mem- bership in the association of California Pioneers. Every man, woman or child who were here be- fore the Territory became a State of the Union, is a pioneer. It is amusing to notice the stick- lers for cesta among the '49ers, just among
12
MEN AND MEMORIES
those who came in that year ; among the earlier comers, the feeling does not exist.
The De Witts or Harrisons of '48 are not in the least jealous of those who came between January 1st, 1850, and September 9th, 1850. Col. Stevenson, James L. Wadsworth, Dr. Par- ker, Mr. Nuttman, are not ; J. C. Denniston (peace to his memory) never was, being the per- sonification of generosity; Messrs. Russ, father and sons, Alcalde Hyde, Alcalde Leavenworth, Judge Botts, nor any of those men of '46 and '47. The same may be said of the late Robert Parker, the late Judge Blackburn, and the late Harry Spiel, of Santa Cruz; of Major Snyder, Charley Southard, the late Major Hensley, John Sullivan, the Murphys and Mr. Thomas Fallon, and all the men of '44 ; or of Josiah Belden, Don José Thompson, Henry F. Teschemacher, and those of '41-'2-'3; of the late Thomas O. Larkin, the late Wm. D. M. Howard, and those of '39-'8-'7 ; and farther back to Jacob P. Leese, Don Juan Foster, Mr. Stokes, of Monte- rey, Mr. Branch, of San Luis Obispo ; and still farther back, to Charley Brown, of Mission Do- lores, who came here in '29; Captains Wilson and Dana, David Spencer and Captain Cooper, who came somewhere between the years '23 and '29; and we do not believe that Mr. Gilroy,
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OF EARLY SAN FRANCISCO.
who settled in California in 1814, would have voted against any pioneer of 1850.
In the following editorial, clipped from the San Francisco Evening Bulletin, Feb. 6, 1873, wc find our own and the general public sentiment well and truly expressed. It was written by one who has earned the right to give his opinion upon the subject-one who arrived in San Fran- cisco on the eighth of July, 1849, and worked for two or three months after his arrival as a boatman in the harbor, and subsequently served a full apprenticeship in the mines of our State; one who can handle rocker or cradle; is a good oarsman; a linguist; and a genuine connoisseur in art. As to his ability in journalistic matters, the subjoined editorial may be offered in evi- dence :
"WHAT MAKES A PIONEER" ?
"Malvolio, musing in the garden, is incited to attempt his lady's favor by these oracular words : ' Some are born great, some achieve greatness, and some have greatness thrust upon them.' The world has worshipers enough for all these sorts of greatness, but as the larger number of people who desire its notice are not so lucky as to belong to either the first or last of the speci- fied classes, they are compelled to earn distinc- tion by some act of their own. Various are the roads to fame. Some men write poems, while
14
MEN AND MEMORIES
others stand on their heads for it. Some 'wade through slaughter to a throne,' while others tread on hot iron and swallow flaming liquor. There was a genius in the California mines who made a national repute by biting through six pies at once on a wager. But this conquering man of jaw met his Waterloo when some wretch inserted a tin plate between the layers. En- gland, which produced Shakespeare, also pro- duced the phenomenon who drew and etched admirably with his toes. Punch tells us of a gentleman who thrilled society by giving his mind to the tie of his neckerchief. We have often seen an ephemeral reputation made by writing for the newspapers, and have even known a very few cases in which people were distinguished for quiet, unostentatious useful- ness.
"It was reserved for the Golden State to make a peculiar merit of a man's arrival here within a certain time. If he was fortunate enough to cross the boundary or touch the shore before the last minute of the last hour of the last day of 1849, he is a Pioneer, entitled to honor as such, and especially entitled to a handsome no- tice in the newspapers when he dies, under the attractive caption of 'Death of a Forty-Niner,' or 'Another Pioneer Gone,' or, more succinct and pathetically suggestive, 'Passing Away.' If, in addition to the felicity of reaching Cali- fornia just when he did, he is banded in a so- ciety composed of men like himself, he will en- joy-if a caput mortuum can enjoy anything-
15
OF EARLY SAN FRANCISCO.
the proud satisfaction of having his virtues re- hearsed in a preamble and resolutions, a copy of which will be duly forwarded to his family, if he have one; and he may even be followed to Lone Mountain by a procession of his late associates, wearing white gloves and gold or silver effigies of the grizzly bear, dear to every Pioneer, in rosettes upon their black coats. Thus an accident in a man's life is made a source of distinction above the multitude who toil and strive around him. And here we are reminded on what narrow contingencies greatness often depends. Had a fog delayed one hour outside the Heads the ship in which our Pioneer ar- rived-had one of the oxen which drew his wagon 'across the plains' given out just before he reached the State line, and caused him to camp beyond it one night more than he expect- ed, his arrival might have been in 1850, instead of 1849, and he would thus have remained one of the unhonored mob. We knew one poor fellow who missed his opportunity by being detained at Valparaiso, for some unconventional excess of high spirits, repugnant to local pre- judice and law, until after his ship had sailed for California.
"When we reflect how few out of the million can achieve distinction in any way, although the longing for it is so nearly universal, it seems a peculiarly happy circumstance that the Cali- fornia hegira afforded so many a chance to rise by a chronological accident. Byron says:
"Tis pleasant, sure to see one's name in print ;
A book's a book, although there's nothing in't.
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MEN AND MEMORIES
And so the honor worn by our 'Pioneers of 'Forty-nine,' although so fortuitous and unpre- meditated, is something to exult in and to be jealously guarded. Men who obtained it by perilous consumption of ligaminous and pachy- dermatous diet, by reckless expenditure of two Spanish reals on a stimulating beverage, by couching on poles and sand-beds, and by rigidly eschewing 'boiled shirts' until woman, like an angel, came to sew on the buttons, are entitled to a monopoly of their hard-earned glory. Yet there are envious people, who arrived here in the first minute of the first hour of the first day of 1850, who presume to dispute for the title of pioneer with these veterans! They even insist that the society founded by their illustrious predecessors shall be opened to them as equals -that the period to be known as the New Ar- gonautic in the far future, to be sung as Virgil sung the arrival of Æneas in Italy, shall be ex- tended by a whole twelvemonth, so as to admit to fame the tardy multitude who followed on the heels of their betters. Forbid it, spirits of adventure and romance! Forbid it, ghosts of Yerba Buena! Forbid it, ye noble army of can- vas-backed heroes, wherever ye may be, in the flesh or out of it, who smoked together over the camp fires of 'Forty-nine, and dug deep for the glittering ore.
" There is a class of pioneers who put in no chronological claims to distinction, who have come here at various times during the last hun- dred years, and are still coming, who are con-
17 .
OF EARLY SAN FRANCISCO.
tent to work without special recognition, to do all the good they can without making a fuss about it, and to die without a newspaper notice or society resolution. These men are not con- cerned in this ungracious rivalry, and these men we do not address. Whether they came in one year or another, and whether anybody knows or cares when they came, is nothing to them. When we find people so indifferent to the noblest passion of the race, it is the best to let them toil on in their unnoticed way. Like the coral insects in the sea, they may, however, be building monuments, that will rise and speak for them when they are gone where dates are unknown and where fame is not."
The old resident who will stand to-day on the corner of Montgomery and Sacramento streets, or even at the corner of Leidesdorff, and look to the corner of Sansome, can hardly real- ize that Dall & Austin's store was no farther down Sacramento street than the northeast corner of Sansome. It used to seem a long way across the water to their store, standing on the little pier which was the commencement of San- some, at the corner of Sacramento; and, when one had walked the length of Howison's Pier (now Sacramento street) to Hoff's store, on its extreme end, at the corner of Battery street, he seemed well on the way to Contra Costa. Many
2
18
MEN AND MEMORIES
people cannot remember the appearance or po- sition of the buildings as they stood in '49 and 50, unless refreshed by verbal description, or some lithograph of that time. It would be very interesting to look over a collection of all the old lithographs that have been made in the last twenty-four years. Some of the houses of '49 are standing exactly where they were origi- nally built, and some have been moved to new locations.
The two-story wooden house on California street, north side, corner of the alley just above Kearny street, was built in 1849 by Dr. Jones, who may be remembered by the old residents. The doctor was an eccentric individual. He wore a long, velvet-lined voluminous cloak, with the air of a Spanish Grandee. It was said in those days, that the doctor had more gold-dust than any man in California. Those who knew him most intimately, used to tell a story of his spreading sheets over the floor of his sleeping apartment, pouring his gold-dust upon them, and walking upon it, pushing his feet through it, taking it up in his hands, and pouring it upon his head and shoulders, and rolling in it -performing Jupiter and Danæ, with Dr. Jones in both characters. During his sprees, and the doctor was often under the influence, he was
19
OF EARLY SAN FRANCISCO.
fond of indulging in great absurdities. The doctor sold at one sale seventy-one lots, and liberally treated his friends at " Our House," on Washington street, just above Dunbar's Alley. Dr. Wallace purchased and occupied for many years the Dr. Jones house.
"Our House" was kept by Peter Sherrebeck, on the lower portion of the fifty-vara lot on the southeast corner of Washington and Kearny streets, the same formerly occupied by the El Dorado, now by the Hall of Records. There was no bar or counter for the dispensing of liquids. There was a table in the middle of the room,
upon which the wines and spirits were placed, as in a private house. The name of Sherrebeck has been famous in our law courts in litigation for the property on Folsom and Second streets. Sherrebeck was a German, and came to San Francisco in 1846 or ' 47.
Montgomery street was not graded in the spring of '50. It was like any hill-side, with a gradual slope. Not that it was so very gradual either, for the western side was several feet higher than the eastern. Long Wharf, now Commercial street, opened into the eastern side of Montgomery, but was not then cut through the other side of it, as it now is, to Kearny. A large wooden building, with a very high, broad
20
MEN AND MEMORIES
,
roof, the eaves of which projected over the benches, ranged against the side wall on Mont- gomery street, now the northwest corner of Commercial street. The front of this house faced the south, and on these benches sat or lounged Mexicans and Chilenos, in their native cos- tumes, rolling up cigarettes, and smoking phil- osophically over their losses-for the building was used on the lower floor as a gambling sa- loon. A large American flag was displayed over the door ; strains of music-good music, too- floated upon the air; crowds of men of many nations were passing in and out. Within, many tables were spread with games: faro, monte, roulette, chuck-a-luck, etc., around which men were standing as closely as possible-betting, winning and losing, as quietly and earnestly as typos setting up copy. The music of the band, the tinkle of the dealers' bells, calling the waiters for drinks and cigars, and the subdued click of ivory checks, and clink of coin, went on inces- santly, but a man's voice was rarely heard. The players reached out their stakes, laying them upon the card on which they wished to bet, or, if it were beyond their reach, handed it to some one to place for them, indicating by a sim- ple monosyllable, spoken scarcely above a whis- per, the card whereon to place it. The dealer
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OF EARLY SAN FRANCISCO.
sat, with unmoved features, until all had staked their money, and, with a nod, dealt the chances.
The scenes were just the same in the "Ton- tine," opposite, on. the corner of Long Wharf, in the Bella Union, La Sociedad, El Dorado, The Empire, Parker House, Veranda, and all the gambling saloons. Those upon the Plaza were more elegantly furnished and decorated; longer, and more gaily appointed bars, flanked by great mirrors, pictures, glass and silverware. · Cosmopolitan crowds flocked to the counter and around the tables, and in and out of the many entrances; the air was heavy with the odor of burning slow-match, or Chinese punk, for cigar lights, lying smoking in little minia- ture junks, at convenient distances, along the far-stretching bar; and incessant was the chink of golden ounces and Mexican dollars in the hands of the players at every table.
It was easy to tell the habitual gamblers, by the way they slid so skillfully, from hand to hand, the rolls of coin, smoothly and swiftly, with unerring certainty-pulling out the cylindrical piles, and gliding them again together, like lit- tle telescopes. Crowds of men, who never gam- bled a dollar in all their lives, came, led by cu- riosity, to pass the time and hear the music, which was well worth listening to. Everybody
22
MEN AND MEMORIES
went there-for homes, reading-rooms and good society were rare in San Francisco at that time.
The building which we have mentioned as standing on the place now known as the north- west corner of Commercial and Montgomery streets, was in 1848, and previously, the Hud- son Bay Company's House. It was a large wooden structure, two and a half stories, with a high, sloping roof, facing the south. In 1852, some laborers, digging a sewer in Commercial street, came upon a long, narrow wooden box, which, on the removal of the earth, proved to be a coffin. The awed workmen brushed the loose earth away from the oval glass, revealing, with ghastly distinctness, the grayish-white face of the dead. Singularly enough, the brow, the eyelids, nostrils, lips-all the features-retained their form, calm and peaceful, while, to the gazer's eyes, a sudden fancy seemed to catch upon the dead man's face-a look of sad remon- strance with the pressing throng's sacrilegious stare of vulgar curiosity, intruding even on the grave of the long-buried dead.
Crowds of people came to look; to turn away, wondering who this long-buried, silent sleeper, thus suddenly revisiting the glimpses of the moon, could be; how his grave happened to be there, exactly in the centre of that noisy, pop-
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OF EARLY SAN FRANCISCO.
ulous thoroughfare, resounding with the crou- pier's vociferous "Rouge perd et la couleur!" the ceaseless clink of coin at lansquenet ; the gay music of instrumental bands in the gambling saloons; laughter, song and imprecations, and the never-ceasing tread of eager and excited men, all unconscious of the silent form beneath their feet.
Among all the curious gazers, none knew those wonderfully preserved features, once so familiar to many-so dear, surely, to some. Who could explain this mystery? At last, Mr. Bond, the confidential secretary of Wm. D. M. Howard, came that way, and he knew that the ground was formerly the garden of the house occupied by Wmn. A. Rae, agent of the Hudson Bay Company, who rashly ended his life in 1846, and was buried in the then peaceful garden spot, where he had so long slept unmolested.
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MEN AND MEMORIES
CHAPTER II.
THE Custom House stood on the corner of California and Montgomery streets. It was built by Wm. H. Davis, in October, 1849. The stairs were on the outside, ending at each story, across which ran a veranda, or broad balcony. Collier was the Collector of the Port in 1849-'50, and Jesse D. Carr was the Deputy Collector. This building was built of brick, four stories in height, and the wood-work front painted white.
Kendig & Wainwright occupied the next building adjoining north. Wells, Fargo & Co's offices now stand on the ground where these buildings stood. Wainwright afterwards took a store on Montgomery, between Clay street and what is now Merchant street; and his auc- tion advertisements in the Alta California of that day informed the people that they could lighter goods directly from the back doors of his salerooms to the steamers, quite an inducement to those wishing to save drayage, which was no small item in the account of large purchasers.
·
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OF EARLY SAN FRANCISCO.
T. J. Poulterer's auction store was on the northwest corner of California and Montgomery, in Edward Vischer's building; the spot where W. H. Davies built the Custom House, in Oc- tober, '49, just where Wells, Fargo & Co's banking house now stands. Sam. Gower was with Mr. Poulterer then, and they paid twenty- five hundred dollars per month rent for their store, and rented the " up-stairs" to Mr. Crane, of the Courier newspaper, for one thousand dol- lars per month. Many of our old residents will remember Mr. Gower; he was a native of Aus- tria, a gentleman of the most agreeable manners and person-accomplished in music, languages, literature and mercantile affairs. Many years have gone since Mr. Gower left California, but his face would be very welcome should he re- turn to meet the men of '50.
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