USA > California > San Francisco County > San Francisco > A history of the city of San Francisco; and incidentally of the state of California > Part 13
Note: The text from this book was generated using artificial intelligence so there may be some errors. The full pages can be found on Archive.org (link on the Part 1 page).
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
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could be received from Washington, it was rumored that he would be degraded, and in the following February he was superseded by General Wool, who was required to transfer his headquarters from San Francisco to Be- nicia, so that if any further filibustering expeditions should be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
203
THE GOLDEN ERA.
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 original purchasers 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 wanted some reasonable hope of compensation. They were willing to plunder the Mexicans, but the pros-
205
THE GOLDEN ERA.
pect of a long march through a desert, with the pos- sibility 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 camp 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 who 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 not 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 insignificant village, 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 bright 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
207
THE GOLDEN ERA.
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 FRANCISCO.
CHAPTER V.
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-
209
THE GOLDEN ERA IN DECLINE.
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 Valle. The arrest of Del Valle, 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
HISTORY 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 Valle guilty. In the case of Dillon the jury disagreed. Del Valle 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 cqual 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
.
211
THE GOLDEN ERA IN DECLINE.
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 by 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,
213
THE GOLDEN ERA IN DECLINE.
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 twenty-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, which 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 separately, 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 New 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
215
THE GOLDEN ERA IN DECLINE.
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 sheep 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 production 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, thoughi 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-
217
THE GOLDEN ERA IN DECLINE.
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 his 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.
Need help finding more records? Try our genealogical records directory which has more than 1 million sources to help you more easily locate the available records.