USA > California > San Francisco County > San Francisco > A history of the city of San Francisco; and incidentally of the state of California > Part 28
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For three years after the gold discovery, the people had few opportunities to make pleasure excursions to the country ; and those who wanted to enjoy the open air away from the throng of business usually contented themselves by walking to the tops of Russian or Tele-
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graph Hill, which latter was visited by thousands, who sat on its sides for hours every pleasant Sunday and looked down over the busy bay. 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. The 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pavilion on Laguna, near Hayes street, be- came a favorite place for picnics and Sunday gatherings; and in 1866 it was superseded by Woodward's garden, which has since maintained its place in popular favor.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 Berkeley, 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
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maintained at Yerba Buena 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 José. 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 disciplinary rules. The church property
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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 year 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 nationality, 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- cring 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 ransom 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
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sufferers in 1878, $100,000; for the Virginia City fire in 1875, $60,000; for the Kansas grasshopper scourge in 1875, $37,000; for the Marysville 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 any 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
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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-that is, those born in the United States-dislike to have many children, and those who have been married fifteen or twenty years have not on . the average 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 clerk, 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 offspring of native parents, while 45,922 were
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born of foreign parents. The children of native parents are twenty-four per cent. of all thechildren, 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 pres- ent bank of California, had the patronage of the army officers; and the International, a brick house on the
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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, was accompanied by the construction of larger and finer hotels than any 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 year. 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
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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 very 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.
was an engineer on an ocean steamship, established the Peter Donahue, owner of the Petaluma Valley railroad 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. Wm. 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-
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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 Crown 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 was 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 Hayward, made some millions out of the same stock. Hayward had previously become a millionaire out of a gold quartz minc at Sutter Creek, where he had strug- gled for years in poverty before he succeeded in getting at the buried wealth. E. J. Baldwin kept 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 years, but managed to catch the tide of fortune at its flood, and is credited with possessing half a dozen millions.
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D. O. 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
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of J. L. Folsom and Thomas O. Larkin have disap- 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. Nearly 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 his friends when he was prosperous, will give him aid in his need. It is not
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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 luxury, 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
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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
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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 proverb, 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 are 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
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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. Nowhere else will such bad manners be found in
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families possessing so much 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 wealth, or at least comfortable ease, arc necessary to confer a high social polish on some families. This inheritance is lacking among our mill- ionaires, as a class, and so far California is at a dis- advantage.
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