USA > California > San Francisco County > San Francisco > A history of the city of San Francisco; and incidentally of the state of California > Part 5
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produce to foreign vessels, and provided no market for their labor. Such was the situation of the Spanish- Americans, or, as they were called, gente de razon- " people of reason "-on the peninsula of San Fran- cisco in 1835. To these citizens, the official announce- ment in that year that the Missions were to be secularized was very welcome, and they soon began to apply for grants of land. The residents at the Mis- sion, most of them formerly soldiers at the presidio, were the grantees of a large part of the land on the peninsula. In some cases years elapsed after the first application before the grant was made in absolute terms.
The first title issued for land on our peninsula, was that of the Rancho Laguna de la Merced-two thou- sand two hundred and twenty acres-given in 1835 to J. A. Galindo. The San Pedro rancho, eight thousand nine hundred and twenty-six acres, about four miles south of lake Merced, was given to F. De Haro, later in the same year. The Buri-Buri ran- cho, of fifteen thousand seven hundred and ninety- three acres, south of the San Bruno mountain, was given to Francisco Sanchez. It was in 1840 that José C. Bernal received the grant of the Potrero Viejo, including Hunter's Point and the basin of Islais creek, with an area of four thousand four hun- dred and forty-six acres ; Jacob P. Leese, the only foreigner among the grantees of ranchos on our penin- sula, in 1841 obtained the Visitacion rancho, of eight thousand eight hundred and eighty acres, adjoining
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Bernal on the south; and the San Miguel grant, of four thousand four hundred and forty-three acres, in- cluding the Mission hills and extending southward nearly four miles, was given in 1845 to J. J. Noe.
Beside these grants, which were confirmed and have become the foundation of the present titles, various other grants were solicited, but the titles were not perfected. Angel Island was given in 1838 to A. M. Osio, but he never occupied it and the claim was re- jected. The archives contain the petition of Joaquin Piña for a square league of land at Point Lobos, and also a favorable report from a local official to the effect that the tract was vacant and could properly be granted; but no grant was made, and the claim was never presented to the courts. Francisco Guerrero and H. D. Fitch made an application on the thirteenth of May, 1846, for two leagues and a half west of Yerba Buena, but before action could be taken the country had been conquered. A petition by Benito Diaz for a league of land at the presidio was in the same condition. F. De Haro obtained leave to pasture his cattle on the potrero, including several thousand acres between the Mission creek and Mission cove, on the north and Islais cove on the south, and his heirs laid claim to the land as theirs in fee-simple, but the United States supreme court rejected the title. One of the most troublesome claims to land, within the city limits, was that of Peter Sherreback; purporting to be a grant for two thousand two hundred acres, seven hundred and twenty yards square, including most
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of the land bounded by Third, Sixth, Howard and Bran- nan streets. The title was confirmed by the United States district court in 1859, but a new hearing was granted, and the testimony indicative of fraud in the matter of the boundaries was so strong that the claim was abandoned.
A third class of claims consisted of those rejected under suspicion or proof of fraud. No records pertain- ing to them were found in the archives. Among these were a grant for Goat Island, purporting to have been made to Juan Castro in 1838; a grant for a square league west of Yerba Buena, purporting to have been made to Fernando Marchena, on the fourteenth of August, 1844; the Santillan and the Limantour grants. The Santillan, based on a paper dated on the tenth of February, 1846, conveyed to Prudencio San- tillan, at that time parish priest at the Mission, all the vacant lands that formerly belonged to the Mis- sion, south of Yerba Buena and the presidio. Under the Mexican customs, priests were considered incompe- tent to become grantees of ranchos, and this grant was unheard of until four years after its date. The federal supreme court rejected it as a fraud. J. Y. Liman- tour presented to the United States land commission two papers purporting to grant lands within the present limits of the city of San Francisco. One, dated on the twenty-seventh of February, 1843, gave to him the tract between California street and Mission creek, extending out to the westward till it made two leagues; and, also, a second tract of two leagues, west
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of Yerba Buena. The other gave to him Goat and
Alcatraz islands. Both documents were proved to be forgeries. It is worthy of remark, that the fraudulent claims of Santillan and Limantour covered about twelve thousand acres of the same land, and within the limits of both claims, Sherreback wanted his two thousand two hundred acres. The invalid Mexican grants were three deep over a considerable area.
SEC. 29. Pueblo. The Mexican congress had shown its purpose in the colonization and secularization laws and other enactments to encourage and aid the establishment of a pueblo, or town, near every Mission; and there was no Mission in California where a pueblo was more urgently demanded by public considerations than that of San Francisco. Although the population was not so large as at most other Missions, still it had already reached a respectable figure, and there was a certainty of a steady increase in the extensive and fertile valleys round the bay, and the value of the harbor for commerce and incidentally for military and naval purposes was universally admitted. The pueblos, which Gov. Figueroa intended to found, and which the law contemplated, were to be composed of white men and Indians together. Red men who had been bred at the Missions, and were disposed to live among the whites, and accept the mode of life common among them, were to be recognized as full citizens, with all the rights to demand lots in town and ranchos in the country, enjoyed by any other class of citizens. There was no provision for a white pueblo or an Indian
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pueblo; nor any discrimination in political rights on the ground of race, color or previous relation to the authority of the Missions. The Mission Indians were to be raised from the class of gente sin razon to gente de razon, from unreasoning to reasoning beings.
This purpose failed throughout California. No political or military leader attempted to secure to the Indians the rights offered to them by the law, and the reason was that they were so weak intellectually that the attempt would certainly have failed, and their ad vocate would have ruined himself without doing any good to them.
The governor who had announced secularization and promised the establishment of pueblos at ten of the Missions, died in September, 1835, before he could carry out his plans. After his death, the new gov- ernor felt less regard for the purposes of the law in reference to pueblos and the Indians, and in conse- quence of repeated revolutions, the business of the administration was in great confusion.
No order was ever issued establishing a pueblo at San Francisco, but it was assumed that one was to be established, though there was a question whether it was to be at the Mission or at Yerba Buena, or whether it was to include both places. In the sum- mer of 1835, Wm. A. Richardson, an Englishman who had settled in California in 1822, and had made his home at Saucelito, moved to Yerba Buena, set up a tent on the place now known as No. 811 Dupont street, and went into the business of collecting hides
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and tallow from various places on the bay. The Mis- sion of San Francisco and that of San José had each had a little thirty-ton schooner, which had been built by the Russians at Fort Ross. These schooners, after having been in service some time, got leaky, and sank in the creeks of their respective Missions. Both had been abandoned, when Richardson made his appear- ance, and offered to raise their schooners and carry the freight of the Missions free for the use of the vessels and Indian crews. The offer was accepted, and Rich- ardson had become regularly established in business before the end of the year. He charged one dollar per bag of tallow, and twelve and one half cents per hide for bringing those articles from the various land- ings on the bay to Yerba Buena cove, where they were transferred to American vessels, which had pre- viously anchored near the presidio or the Mission. Richardson induced them to come to Yerba Buena.
Acting under the general law of Mexico, which per- mitted towns to select their officials, the people at the Mission, on the twenty-seventh of November, 1835, held an election for alcalde, and chose J. J. Estudillo to the place of alcalde for a term of one year, with power to grant lots within the limits of the town, which limits had not been and were not afterwards authoritatively defined under Mexican law. The vil- lage was usually called Dolores, which was also the name of the creek, and was frequently substituted for Assis in the name of the Mission, indifferently called San Francisco de Assis or San Francisco de Dolores,
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to distinguish it from San Francisco Solano, the name of the Mission at Sonoma. Dolores is the Spanish for sorrows or sufferings, and is a favorite name in the Catholic church of Spain.
SEC. 30. Leese. In the winter of 1835-36, Jacob P. Leese, an American then residing in Los Angeles, and engaged in business there, was advised by some shipmasters trading on the coast to establish a store and commission house at San Francisco, where they thought he might thrive. The annual exports in- cluded twenty thousand hides, and two million pounds of tallow, and the ships lost much time for the want of some one to collect these articles. There was no store or commission house at the place; the business was increasing, and an American could succeed better than a person of any other nationality, because the ships were mostly from Boston and New York.
Mr. Leese determined to follow the advice of his friends. In March, he went to Monterey, commu- nicated his plans to his friends Nathan Spear and Wm. Hinckley, and induced them to join him in a partnership to establish a store. He returned to Los Angeles, where he closed up his business, and then started for San Francisco, which he had not yet visited.
Shortly before he left Los Angeles, the first instance of lynch law in California occurred there. A young married woman named Verdugo deserted her husband for another man, whom she loved better. Señor Ver- dugo applied to an alcalde for an order that his wife
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should live with him, and, after a deliberate examina- tion, the order was granted. Thereupon Verdugo took his wife on his horse and started for his ranch, which he never reached. He was murdered on the road by the wife and her paramour. The proof was conclusive; the circumstances were revolting. Pop- ular indignation rose to a great height. There was a general demand for prompt punishment appropriate to the offense. That could be obtained by lynch law only. The Californian courts of jurisdiction in capital cases never had taken decisive action; a case intrusted to them never came to a decision. Homicides, though frequent, were never punished by law. If the murder of Verdugo should go unpunished, there could be no security. The people who spoke thus, therefore, took the law into their own hands, tried the offenders, con- victed them, and sentenced them to death. Every- thing was done in a very deliberate manner, and with every respect for the moral rights of the accused. A careful record was kept of the proceedings, and after the conviction, the accused were kept for two days, waiting for a priest to come from San Gabriel to con- fess them. The alcaldes, who happened to be Don Manuel Requena and Don Abel Stearns, favored the proceeding, or at least did not attempt any serious re- sistance.
Mr. Leese, as he intended to visit the capital of the territory, Monterey, where he might be arrested for a violation of the law, took a certified copy of the record of the trial, and of the agreement, by which the
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citizens engaged in it had bound themselves to stand by one another. When he reached Santa Barbara, he was told that a new governor had just arrived from Mexico, and was invited to call upon him. Mr. Leese went to the house of Don Carlos Carrillo, where he found Governor Chico, who had been appointed by the President of Mexico to succeed Governor Gutierrez, governor ad interim, after the death of Figueroa. Chico requested Leese to spend a day in Santa Barbara, and keep him company to Monterey. The young American, to whom a day was not of so much importance as the favor of a governor might be in a country where little attention was paid to written laws, waited for the new official, and thus had his company for several days. On the way, Chico asked him for an account of the affair at Los Angeles, of which Noriega, at Santa Barbara, had given him a very unfavorable opinion. Leese told the circum- stances, and produced the copy of the record, which entirely satisfied the governor, who promised that he should not be troubled about it. A desire to learn the particulars of the execution at Los Angeles was probably one of Chico's motives for requesting Leese's company; and the conviction in his mind, that the people acted properly, may have had some influence in inducing him to give a letter that assisted Leese in obtaining the order for laying out the town of Yerba Buena. In answer to questions about his plans, Leese replied that he was going to San Francisco to establish a mercantile house, which was much needed there.
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Chico said that he desired to encourage commerce, and he would give a letter to the local authorities, request- ing them to grant a lot to him. At Monterey, Leese was detained as a party to the Los Angeles vigilance committee, by the order of Governor Gutierrez, but was discharged so soon as Chico was installed; and then he came on to San Francisco.
SEC. 31. Yerba Buena. At Yerba Buena, Leese found nobody save Richardson. At least one Amer- ican trading vessel visited the harbor every year; four or five whalers put into Saucelito, and several vessels came in from Sitka to purchase wheat, maize, tallow and soap. The Russian trade then, or within a few years, amounted to about forty thousand dol- lars annually, and the purchases were paid for in drafts drawn by the Russian-American company, payable in St. Petersburg, which drafts were always taken at par by the American trading vessels.
One of the institutions of Yerba Buena was an In- dian sweat-house, or temascal, which stood at the south-west corner of Sacramento and Montgomery streets till 1842. The water from a ravine that ran down the hillside about the line of Sacramento street formed near Montgomery a little fresh water lagoon, which Richardson's Indians considered a convenient place for bathing; so they built their sweat-house near it, and after taking a good steaming, would rush out and plunge into the lagoon.
At the presidio there was no garrison, and only one resident, a gray-haired soldier, named Joaquin Piña.
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A mile and a half eastward from the presidio was the residence of widow Briones and family. At the Mis- sion the chief Spanish residents were José Sanchez and his sons, Francisco and José de la Cruz, Cande- lario Valencia and Francisco De Haro (these two were sons-in-law of José Sanchez), Francisco Guerrero, Gumecindo Flores, José Galindo, Tiburcio Vasquez, José Antonio Alviso, José Cornelio Bernal, Vicente Miramontes, Padre Gutierrez, and José de Jesus Noe. All these, except the priest, were married, and many of them had large families. A few years later De Haro had two pairs of twins and six other children, the eldest being fifteen years old; Tiburcio Vasquez had ten children; and C. Miramontes had seven children, of whom the eldest was only nine years old. There were some other residents of less note, mostly bachelors. The people at the Mission lived upon their herds of cattle; their dwellings were all of adobe, and their furniture, food and clothing simple.
< Mr. Leese examined the shore, from the Mission to the presidio, and satisfied himself that the cove of Yerba Buena was the best place for a settlement. The anchorage, holding-ground and landing-place were bet- ter than at either the Mission or the presidio. The cove extended up to Montgomery street, to which point high tide always reached. The landing-place was at Clark's point, now the corner of Broadway and Battery streets, the beach being shallow near the middle of the cove. The district now bounded by California, Pacific, Montgomery and Dupont streets,
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was an open, grassy slope, and over most of its area had nearly the same level as at present. South and west of this bare tract were hills, covered with bushes and scrub oaks, like those which flourish at Lone Mountain. No wagon or cart had ever visited Yerba Buena cove, and the only roads from it were narrow horse trails, where the rider had to take constant care to save his person and his clothes from injury by the bushes and trees.
SEC. 32. First House. Upon the arrival of Mr. Leese, in June, 1836, he applied to the alcalde Estu- dillo, who had his office at the Mission, though his residence was on the bank of San Leandro creek, for a grant of a lot at Yerba Buena. The alcalde replied that he had no authority to grant a lot there, but he would give him a lot at either the Mission or the pre- sidio. Leese showed his letter from Chico, but Estu- dillo said there was no express authority for him to make a grant. The new settler thereupon went back to Monterey, obtained from the Governor a peremp- tory order for a grant, and returned with a little ves- sel; carrying enough lumber for a small house. He landed at the cove about the first of July, immediately proceeded to the Mission, showed his order, obtained permission to occupy a place south of Richardson's tent; and with the help of the sailors and sea captains in the harbor, succeeded in getting up his new house in time to celebrate the fourth of July, with a hun- dred guests or more, including the principal ranche- ros on the northern or eastern shores of the bay, whose
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trade and favor he was anxious to secure. The Amer- ican flag was on this occasion hoisted for the first time on the site of San Francisco. The rancheros were glad to see a commercial house established, for previously they had depended for making their pur- chases upon foreign vessels, of which the harbor might be destitute for two or three months at a time.
The house built in July, 1836, by Mr. Leese, was after the survey of the town, on the south side of Clay street, a few feet west of Dupont. The next year, Mr. Leese obtained from Señor Martinez, who was then alcalde, the right to occupy a hundred vara lot on the west side of Montgomery, between Clay and Sacramento streets, as they were afterwards laid out, with the understanding that the lines must be subject to the subsequent survey. On this lot, near the corner of Commercial and Montgomery streets, the first substantial frame building of the village was erected. It was known in later times as the house of the Hudson Bay company, to which association Mr. Leese sold it. Richardson built his adobe house No. 811 Dupont street; and in the same year Señora Bri- ones built an adobe house on the north-east corner of Powell and Filbert streets, the kitchen of which re- mained there about thirty years. In April, 1838, the first child of Yerba Buena, a daughter of Mr. Leese, was born.
The alcaldes elected under Mexican rule after Estudillo were Ignacio Martinez, Francisco de Haro, Francisco Guerrero, José Noe, Francisco Sanchez,
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Wm. Hinckley, J. N. Padilla and José Sanchez (these two in the same year), and José Noe, whose authority after six months of service was terminated by the American conquest. The alcaldes granted a lot fifty or one hundred varas square to every appli- cant ready to build a house; the first grant mentioned in the books being that to Richardson, dated in June, 1836. The record shows that the land was given to him partly because of satisfaction with his services as " bricklayer, surgeon and carpenter."
Between July 1, 1835, and July 7, 1846, that is the period of the Mexican town, the number of lots granted by the alcaldes of San Francisco was eighty- four. The grantees of thirty-four lots were of Spanish blood, as we infer from their names; the others were mostly Americans and English. One lot described in the alcalde's book as being in San Francisco, is at Dolores, the remainder at Yerba Buena. Sixty-four of the lots were each fifty varas square, the others fifty by one hundred varas, or one hundred varas square, each vara being thirty-three inches.
SEC. 33. First Survey. The first survey was made in 1839, by Jean Vioget, the lots previously granted having been given at random, though they were after- wards swung round to conform to the new lines. Vioget's map was a ragged, irregular delineation of about half the district, within the limits bounded by Montgomery, California, Powell and Broadway streets. It gave no name to any street, and the two main streets on it were Kearny, shown as extending from
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Sacramento to Pacific, and Dupont from Clay to Pacific. Clay had two full blocks on each side from Dupont to Montgomery; Sacramento, Washington and Jackson, were not so long. The survey did not tres- pass upon the lagoon, that covered several acres, with its center near the intersection of Jackson and Mont- gomery streets. All the streets mentioned had nearly the same positions as at present, but one street ran north-westward from the crossing of Clay and Dupont, and on the west side of this street, Leese and Richard- son each had a lot one hundred varas square, the first two which were occupied in the town. The other streets crossed each other in directions two and a half degrees from a right angle. Of the eleven blocks, most of them fractional shown on Vioget's map, only three now have the original size and shape; not one exactly the position given by him.
In the previous year a wagon road had been opened from Yerba Buena to the Mission by cutting out the bushes and scrub oaks for a width of eight feet along the line; but as the only vehicles to use it were the Mexican carretas with solid wheels, the main benefit of the road was that horsemen could pass without the danger of being scratched or having their clothes torn by the chaparral. In 1840 there were four Americans, as many Englishmen, and six other Europeans, in Yerba Buena; and these owned and occupied most of the houses. The next year Spear and Hinckley, Ameri- cans, built a saw mill to run by horse-power, and brought redwood logs for it from Corte Madera, in
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Marin County. The boards thus produced were used for furniture and houses.
SEC. 34. Hudson Bay. About 1840, the Hudson Bay company had a dispute with the Russian-Ameri- can company about the exclusive right to hunt sea- otter and trade with the Indians, in Queen Charlotte Sound; and as competition in dealing with the warlike savages of the northern coast might have been ruinous to both parties, they made an agreement that the Hudson Bay company should have the exclusive trade of the Sound, and should deliver in Sitka, at certain fixed prices, all the wheat, tallow, soap and maize needed for that place. This last stipulation was made by the Russians, with the intention of abandoning their establishment at Fort Ross, to avoid trouble with Mexico. Their occupation of that place had been recognized by Spain; but the Russian emperor had made no treaty with the Mexican government, which considered the autocrat as an enemy, and feared that he intended to lay permanent claim to a portion of the coast. After the establishment of the Missions and settlements north of the bay, for the avowed pur- pose of heading off the Russians, General Vallejo was sent to break up the settlement at Fort Ross, but he soon came to the conclusion that discretion was the better part of valor; and from that time the hostility of the Mexican government was exhibited only on paper. The rancheros were friendly with the people at Fort Ross, and went there frequently to trade. At last, however, the sea-otter began to become scarce.
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the establishment at Fort Ross ceased to be profitable; the Russians had never intended to lay claim to the coast there, and they offered their establishment for sale. Mr. Leese proposed to give them twenty thou- sand dollars, five thousand dollars cash and five thou- sand dollars annually for three years. General Sutter bid thirty thousand dollars, to be paid on time, and he obtained the bargain. The Russians abandoned the country, and were replaced by the Hudson Bay com- pany, which, having undertaken to supply Sitka with such produce as could be obtained only from California, found it necessary to establish a permanent agency, and selected Yerba Buena as the place. Dr. Mc- Laughlin, then the head of the company on the Pacific coast, and a resident of Oregon, sent his son-in-law, Mr. Ray, to take charge of the new agency; and Ray saw that there was an excellent opportunity to monopolize the trade of the bay. The great capital of the company gave them an advantage over indi- vidual competitors, and the profits of trade would justify the attempt. Mr. Leese, unable to compete with them, sold out his store and business to them, and moved to Sonoma. The American merchants had paid for their hides and tallow on delivery, in mer- chandise, upon which great profits were made. Ray offered to pay half cash and half merchandise, and to pay the merchandise share in advance.
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