USA > California > San Francisco County > San Francisco > A history of the city of San Francisco; and incidentally of the state of California > Part 9
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been closed that the contract thus offered could find a responsible bidder, but the Pacific Mail steamship company, having been organized on the twelfth of April, 1848, finally took it, with the promise of two hundred thousand dollars annual subsidy, and the ob- ligation of maintaining three steamers on the route between Panama and Astoria, by way of San Fran- cisco. The three steamers, the " California," " Ore- gon " and " Panama," each measuring about one thou- sand tons, were all built without delay and started promptly, though the last had an accident soon after getting to sea, so that she was compelled to return and refit. All rendered long and good service on the Pacific coast. The " California " brought no passen- gers round the Horn, but when she touched at Panama she found there the passengers of the steamer " Fal- con," which had left New York on the first of Decem- ber. Most of them had engaged passage before much was said about the gold discoveries, and they attached little importance to the story until they arrived at Panama, where they found some of the dust and saw the excitement that had reached all the western coast of the continent. Among the passengers were Gen- eral Persifer Smith, who was to have chief command of the American forces on the Pacific coast; Major Canby, Eugene Sullivan, Alexander Austin, E. T. Batturs, Alfred Robinson, Malachi Fallon, Pacificus Ord, R. M. Price, Wm. Van Voorhees, H. F. Will- iams, Dr. A. B. Stout, Rev. O. C. Wheeler, Rev. S. H. Willey, and others since prominent in the history or business of the state.
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The "California" was immediately deserted by her crew, so she had to lie in the harbor for several weeks before entering upon her regular mail service. The " Oregon " arrived on the thirty-first of March, with John W. Geary, first postmaster at San Francisco. He brought the first mail sent by the post-office de- partment to the Pacific coast, and he had authority to establish the post-offices and to make contracts for carrying the mails.
SEC. 63. Immigration by Sea. The average dura- tion of the voyages made under sail from the Ameri- can Atlantic ports was about five months, many of the ships sent out being old tubs which had been built with more regard for solidity than speed, and not a few of them so old that they would never have made another voyage but for the extraordinary demand of the gold excitement. In April two vessels arrived from the Atlantic, having started in November; in May only one came ; in June, eleven ; in July, forty ; in August, forty-three; in September, sixty-six ; in October, twenty-eight; in November, twenty-three; and in December, nineteen, a total of two hundred and thirty-three in nine months. In addition to these, three hundred and sixteen vessels arrived in that peri- od from other ports, making a total of five hundred and forty-nine arrivals, and an average of two vessels a day. The passengers of the year arriving by sea numbered thirty-five thousand, including twenty-three thousand Americans. Besides these passengers, three thousand sailors deserted their ships, and in the be-
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ginning of August two hundred square-rigged vessels were lying in the bay unable to get sailors. The number of immigrants who arrived overland in the course of the year was estimated to be forty-two thou- sand, including thirty-three thousand Americans. The large proportion of Americans secured their predom- inance in the mines where previously the aliens, mostly Spanish-Americans, had a majority. At the close of the year it was estimated that the population of Cali- fornia numbered one hundred thousand souls.
SEC. 64. Call for Convention. As population and business increased, the want of a better government was felt in many ways. It was already clear in the fall of 1848, that California would soon have enough inhabitants for a state, but it was understood that there would be difficulty in securing its admission. The members of congress from the south were dissatisfied upon finding that California would demand admission as a free state, thus destroying what they called " the balance of power,"-the thirty states then composing the union being equally divided between free and slave. It was with the anticipation that the next year would surely bring a large immigration, and that congress might be unable to provide for a government, that on the twenty-ninth of December a public meeting in San Francisco requested the election in January of dele- gates to a constitutional convention which should meet in March ; but many of the districts held no election, and the time for holding the convention was post- poned. When in the spring of 1849, there was no
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longer any doubt throughout the union that California must soon be a state, and that the ill feeling between slavery extensionists and their opponents would prob- ably be embittered by delay, the cabinet sent word to General Riley, military governor, that California should not wait for preliminary action by congress, but should adopt a constitution and thus save the ad- ministration from much bother. In accordance with the suggestion of his superiors, sent to him unofficially, Governor Riley, on the third of June, issued a proc- lamation calling a constitutional convention, to consist of thirty-seven members, five of them from San Fran- cisco, to meet at Monterey on the first of September. This document made no mention of the previous pop- ular movement for a convention, and did not recognize those gentlemen who had been chosen delegates. There were some angry protests, but they amounted to nothing.
SEC. 65. Ayuntamiento. The governor had also given much offense by his action in reference to the city affairs. The people were dissatisfied with the administration of Alcalde Leavenworth, who did not efficiently preserve order or administer criminal jus- tice. They felt the want of a deliberative body, and af- ter a preliminary meeting, on the twenty-seventh De- cember, they held an election for a town council, but the old council or ayuntamiento appointed by the alcalde declaring the election void, on the ground that the votes of aliens had been received, refused to surrender the books; and ordered an election for the fifteenth of
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January. The number of voters at this second elec- tion having been so small that the council thus chosen did not command general confidence, a public meeting passed resolutions requesting both councils to resign, and ordering an election on the twenty-first February of a legislative assembly which should take chief man- agement of the government of the city. This election was held and the two councils disbanded; but Leaven- worth, the alcalde, would not surrender his office, which controlled the sale of town-lots, then the chief source of revenue, thus depriving the Assembly of much of the importance which they expected to enjoy. They took measures with little delay to eject him by legal pro- cess from his position, but before they could accom- plish that purpose, Governor Riley issued another proclamation declaring the legislative assembly an illegal body, forbidding the payment of any money to them or their subordinates on municipal account, recognizing Leavenworth as still in authority, and or- dering an election to be held on the first August- the day for choosing delegates to the constitutional convention-for a prefect, first alcalde, second alcalde, and an ayuntamiento. The legislative assembly de- nounced the governor, and desired the people to ex- press their wishes through the ballot-box on the ninth July. Only one hundred and sixty-nine votes were then given in favor of the legislative assembly, and though but seven were cast on the other side, the decision was regarded as favorable to the Governor's course, and further opposition was abandoned.
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SEC. 66. City Government. On the first of August, fifteen hundred and sixteen votes were polled; Edward Gilbert, Myron Norton, W. M. Gwin, J. Hobson, W. M. Stewart, F. J. Lippitt, A. J. Ellis, R. M. Price, W. D. M. Howard and Francisco Sanchez, were elected delegates to the constitutional convention, the last five as alter- nates, and the last two did not serve. J. W. Geary was unanimously elected first alcalde, an official similar in authority to that of mayor. At the first meeting of the new ayuntamiento, Mr. Geary sub- mitted a message reviewing the general condition of municipal affairs, informing them that there was no office room for the transaction of government busi- ness, no police, no provision for the care of the indi- gent sick, and no fund for the burial of the pauper dead. He advised them that, in the absence of any state legislative authority, they were supreme in the district; and if they confined themselves within the legitimate sphere of their duty, their acts would be approved by the governor and confirmed by the leg- islature when it should be organized. He recom- inended the licensing of gambling-a piece of advice which was soon adopted and adhered to for nearly five years. The new administration went to work vigorously, especially in the matter of levying license taxes on business, and soon supplied all those things, about the lack of which Mr. Geary had complained. The first public building purchased for the purposes of the city government was the hulk of the brig
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" Euphemia," anchored in the bay at the crossing of Jackson and Battery streets, for use as a prison.
SEC. 67. Constitution. The constitutional con- vention, composed of forty-seven members, of whom eight were from San Francisco, three of the alter- nates having been admitted as full members, met at Monterey on the first of September, and after com- pleting its work, adjourned on the thirteenth of October. Nearly all the sections were quoted, word for word, from the constitutions of other states. There were few questions that excited much inter- est. The convention was almost unanimous in accept- ing the ideas that slavery should be forbidden; that the people had the right to settle the slavery ques- tion; that the people had the right to form a consti- tution without the intermediation of congress, or of a territorial government; and that the coast, from Ore- gon to Mexico, should be one state. These proposi- tions were all the subjects of much debate afterwards in congress; but in the convention little was said against them. The question which excited more feel- ing than any other was the mode of raising the reve- nue. The people along the southern coast were afraid that all the taxes would be put on the land and cattle, and none on property in the mining districts; and they succeeded in carrying the clause that "all prop- erty shall be taxed according to its value," intending to deprive the legislature of the power of exempting any large class of property to the injury of any portion of the state. There was also much dispute about
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the eastern boundary, many of the members desiring to include Salt Lake.
The new constitution was submitted to the people on the thirteenth of November, and accepted by a large majority, with only five negative against two thousand and fifty-one affirmative votes in San Fran- cisco. These negatives were doubtless cast by advo- cates of slavery, against which the general sentiment was emphatic, and had been expressed at several public meetings held in the city in the previous summer. The first legislature was to consist of six- teen senators, including two from San Francisco, and thirty-seven assemblymen, including five from the city. The capital was transferred from Monterey to San José. As there was no time to be lost, and there was no prospect of having any proper government till the state authorities should assume power, the people, when voting on the constitution, also elected a full ticket of state officials and two congressmen, though the population was not large enough for more than one. Peter H. Burnett was chosen governor, and Edward Gilbert and George W. Wright, congressmen. The constitution provided that in case of its adoption the administration chosen at the same time should enter upon its duties without waiting for the action of con- gress. This course superseded Governor Riley, who, in accordance with the spirit of his instructions, or confidential advices from Washington, on the twentieth of December issued an order relinquishing the admin- istration of civil affairs in California to the state
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administration, which had been installed five days before.
SEC. 68. Summer of 1849. In the summer of 1849 San Francisco was a remarkable town. It cov- ered an area of about half a mile square, the bounda- ries being California, Powell and Vallejo streets, and the water line, which for nearly a quarter of a mile south of Jackson street was near Montgomery street. Many of the people lived in tents, and most of the remainder in shanties or mere shells of houses. The tents and shanties were in some places built along the sides of trails or roads over the hills, without regard to the lines of the streets. The hill from Vallejo to California street, above Stockton, had much chapar- ral. There was no grading, planking, or paving in any of the streets; nor was there any wharf extend- ing out to deep water. There were two small wharves, one about seventy feet long between Sacramento and California, its outer end being west of Sansome street and having five feet of water at low tide; the other, perhaps thirty feet long, on Commercial street, with not more than two feet of water at low tide at its outer end. This smaller wharf was used mainly for row-boats. The chief landing-place, besides the wharves, was at Clark's Point, near the intersection of Broadway and Battery streets, where the deep water came close up to the rocky shore. The beach along the front of the town was a sticky mud; south of Pine street it was sandy.
Among the notable buildings were the custom-
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house (an adobe building of one story on the south- western corner of Brenham Place and Washington street), the city hotel (an adobe of one story and a half on the south-western corner of Clay and Kearny), Mr. Mowry's dwelling (one story adobe on the north- eastern corner of Broadway and Powell), the adobe res- idence of Señora Briones (on the north-eastern corner of Powell and Filbert), a brick dwelling on the north- western corner of Washington and Powell, (originally of two stories, but now of four, two others having been added beneath, because the streets in front of it have been cutdown about sixteenfeet), and the Parker House (which was built at a cost of thirty thousand dollars, and rented at fifteen thousand dollars per month for a gambling-house), a two-story frame building on the site of the old city hall, fronting on Portsmouth Square. The south-eastern corner of Kearny and Washington streets was occupied by a large tent called the El Dorado, and that, too, was used for gambling. The Parker House was burned in December, 1849, and having been rebuilt, was converted into the Jenny Lind theatre, Thomas Maguire being the manager. It was burned again in May, 1850, and in June, 1851; and after the last fire the theater was rebuilt of brick with a stone front, which still stands as a part of the old city hall.
The population was not counted in 1849, but it in- creased rapidly. The number of inhabitants was esti- mated to be two thousand in February, three thousand in March, and five thousand in July. In November, at
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the election on the adoption of the constitution, and the choice of a full state ticket, an occasion that ex- cited much interest, only two thousand and fifty-six votes were cast; and as no previous residence was re- quired for voting, it is probable that more than one half the people of the city at that time were author- ized to vote. After making all allowances for lack of interest among new comers, and the unwillingness to neglect profitable occupations for the sake of going to the polls, the entire population probably did not ex- ceed eight thousand.
SEC. 69. Hounds. Before the installation of Geary as first alcalde, there was no systematic administration of justice, and criminals not content with exemption from public prosecution, organized themselves into an association called "the hounds," held parades and made attacks in open day upon Spanish-Americans, who were assailed under the pretext that they were for- eigners and were taking away the gold of the Ameri-
cans without any right. One excuse for this hostility was an unauthorized proclamation published by Gen- eral Persifer Smith, at Panama, in January, where he had been told that the aliens, especially the Spanish- Americans, were becoming so numerous in California that neither gold nor room would be left for Ameri- cans. Notwithstanding the animosity of "the hounds" towards foreigners, many of them were new-comers from Australia, and English sailors who had never been in the Atlantic states. These fellows were more zealous for the rights of Americans than the Ameri-
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cans themselves. At night they were ready to rob without regard to nationality, and at last they became so outrageous and the inefficiency of Alcalde Leaven- worth so manifest, that on the sixteenth of July a pub- lic meeting of citizens demanded the arrest and pun- ishment of the leaders. A popular court was organ- ized, attorneys for the accused were appointed, and after a fair trial two of the hound leaders were sen- tenced to ten years imprisonment and others to shorter terms; some were required to give bonds for keeping the peace, and all were frightened so that their or- ganization was abandoned and most of them fled, some of them going off by sea. Those sentenced to impris- onment were soon released, as the judgment was not authorized by law or signed by any official, but they understood that San Francisco was not a safe place for them and they avoided it.
SEC. 70. Auctions. There was a wonderful dispro- portion between the vast amount of merchandise daily arriving and the scanty room in the store-houses of the town; for this reason, and partly also because the mer- chants of San Francisco were unknown by reputation or even by name to many of those who shipped goods to California, it became a common custom to sell car- goes by auction, the master, supercargo, or consignee selecting the auctioneer soon after his arrival. A man occupying a shanty with a sign "auction " over the front door, would sell property worth millions in a year. As capital, credit and fire-proof store-room in- creased, the auction sales lost much of their relative
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prominence, but they still hold an important place in the business of San Francisco.
SEC. 71. More Lot Sales. While adventurers con- tinued to crowd in at the rate of several thousand every month, while the city grew and its trade in- creased with marvelous rapidity, while the harbor was filled with large vessels deserted by sailors, and while the gold dust, notwithstanding the large expor- tation, was accumulating by millions, the people were not indifferent on the subject of town lots. Nearly all the lots surveyed by O'Farrell had been sold before midsummer of 1849; and on the third of October the ayuntamiento ordered city surveyor Eddy to extend the survey north of Post street to Larkin street, and south of Post to Leavenworth and Eighth streets. The lots thus added to the city map, were soon offered for sale at auction, and some remaining unsold, the alcalde was authorized to sell them at private sale, the price for the hundred-vara lot being five hundred dollars, and for the fifty-vara lot two hundred dollars. These lots are now worth on the average several hun- dred times as much as they were in 1849, and some of them a thousand times as much. But the purchase did not look very promising then. Several of the buyers boasted of their prudence in examining the land in advance, so that they could get lots which had enough scrub oak for firewood to return the greater part of the price, and thus they could not lose much.
SEC. 72. Inland Steamboats. The arrival of the ocean steamer "McKim," on the third of October,
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was an important addition to the small steam fleet of the North Pacific. She was the first steamboat to run regularly between San Francisco and Sacramento, beginning her trips three weeks after she entered the Golden Gate. Previously most of the passengers and all the freight went by sailing vessels, which rarely made the distance in less than four days, and some- times required two weeks, especially in seasons of high water or contrary winds. Occasionally passengers would go to Benicia in a sailing vessel, and from there take a row-boat, or walk or ride across the country. There were no stages, and teamsters could find the most profitable employment in hauling from Sacra- mento to the mines. The "McKim" was a slow boat, but she could make the distance of one hundred and twenty miles in fourteen hours, going up one day and coming down the next. This was a matter of vast convenience and economy, even when she charged thirty dollars fare for the trip. She had been running only a few weeks when the "Senator," a faster boat and much better fitted for the business, arrived and began to run to Sacramento, taking alternate days, so that there was a boat each way every day. The two boats were able to carry all the passengers and most of the freight. The "Gold-hunter" arrived early in 1850, and being a superior boat replaced the "McKim."
SEC. 73. Plank Road. The demand for some communication with the Mission, better than the road over loose sand winding about to avoid some hills and crossing others which could not be avoided, led to the
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passing of an ordinance in November, 1850, granting a franchise for the Mission plank road, as it was called, running by Kearny, Third and Mission streets, from California to Fifteenth street, a distance of three and a quarter miles. The work was commenced within a few weeks after the passage of the ordi- nance, and was finished the next spring. The toll on it was half a dollar for a horse and cart, and a dollar for a four-horse team. Mission street was preferred for the route to Market, because the latter was occu- pied from Second to Fifth street by a high ridge, and Kearny was preferred to Montgomery because the latter would have required a longer and more costly route. The chief expense of the enterprise was the grading, including deep cuts through several sand hills crossing Kearny street. One of these was near Post street, and in that cut, as a place which team- sters could not avoid, the toll-gate was established. One of the features of the road was a bridge about a hundred yards long built across a swamp that ex- tended from near the corner of Mission and Seventh streets in an eastward direction to Mission cove. The road company made a contract for the construction of this bridge upon a pile foundation, but that plan had to be abandoned, because to the astonishment and dis- may of the contractor, the first pile, forty feet long, at the first blow of the pile-driver sank out of sight; indicating that there was no bottom within forty feet to support a bridge. One pile having disappeared, the contractor hoisted another immediately over the first,
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and in two blows drove the second one down beyond the reach of the hammer. It was supposed that the second pile had driven the first one under it, and if so, there was no foundation within eighty feet. The project of piling was abandoned, and cribs of logs were laid upon the turf so as to get a wider basis than that offered by piles. The bridge thus made always shook when crossed by heavy teams, and gradually settled till it was in the middle about five feet below the original level.
The cost of the road was ninety-six thousand dol- lars, about thirty thousand dollars per mile, a sum that would now be sufficient to supply a good rail- road. The stock of the company was one hundred and fifty thousand dollars, and the dividends amounted to nearly eight per cent. a month on the investment. As the city grew and the number of people at the Mission increased, they began to talk about opening a free road on a parallel street; and to ward off that danger, the plank road company obtained another franchise for a road on Folsom street, which could be graded at a much less expense than Howard or Mar- ket. The Folsom street road ran for nearly half a mile across swamps, between Third and Eighth streets, and the builders had serious difficulty in filling up with sand until a permanent road-bed was made. In 1854 a high tide overflowed the road between Fourth and Fifth streets, and floated off the planking. The tolls on the two roads paid about three per cent. a month net on the capital invested from 1853 to 1858, when they became free.
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