USA > California > A picture of pioneer times in California, illustrated with anecdotes and stores taken from real life > Part 14
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As to this statement about wages, divide it by two and it will be about the truth. As to merchandise, the whole statement is an absurdity. I did business in San Francisco all that time, and ought, therefore, to know what I am talking about. The only foundation for the statement that a large quantity of tobacco and other merchandise was thrown in the streets as valueless, is that the first rains of 1849 destroyed a large quantity of tobacco not properly protected, belonging to White, McGlynn & Co .; and some other importing houses also lost heavily in the same way. These goods were sent to auction, but at that time Califor- nians would buy nothing damaged where goods in perfect order could be had, so not a bid was offered; and the goods were finally pitched into the street to fill up mud-holes. There never
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was a day in San Francisco when good, merchantable goods did not bring at least a reasonably good price. There were times, of course, when sales were very slow and profits very light, as there were other times when sales were quick and profits very large; but the "Annals'" account of these fluctuations is incor- rect to absurdity. Undoubtedly, immense losses and sacrifices on goods often occurred in the early days of California to Eastern shippers, through the incapacity and bad management of the consignees, if not by their dishonesty.
I cannot but think that a famous English firm, S., J. & Co., doing business on the corner of California and Sansome streets in 1849, was an example of this sort. They had a large stock of English imported goods. The building in which they did busi- ness was a remarkably good one for '49. The whole first story was filled to the ceiling with merchandise, and besides there was an immense pile of unbleached sheetings and shirtings in the in- closure belonging to the store. I should think there must have been 2,000 bales of these goods piled up in this lot, close to the store. These gentlemen did business in the old English style. Their counting room was in the second story, a large room, with a part of it partitioned off for a private office. The store was opened every day precisely at nine o'clock, and closed precisely at half-past three each afternoon. When a customer made his appearance, the salesman, an intelligent young Englishman, whose name, I think, was Frederick Ayers, received him and with politeness conducted him to the presence of one of the firm in the private office, where the customer was expected to lay aside his hat while he talked over his business.
Of course, no Californian would submit to this sort of non- sense, and the consequence was that poor S., J. & Co. did no business worth speaking of. Their clerk, as I have said, was a bright young man. He soon discovered his employers' difficulty, and did his best to open their eyes; but he might just as well have proposed to them to turn Mahometans as to adopt the Californian style of doing business. I recollect he once gave me an amusing description of a scene that occurred in the counting-room of this firm. It was about as follows:
Just as we opened in the morning, in walked a good hu- mored, well-built man, in manners and rig the California miner to the life. As he entered he exclaimed: "Here, chap, where are the two old cocks they say keep this shebang. I have been
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here twice this morning, but your door was closed. Is any one dead in the diggings, that you keep shut up so ?"
" No, sir; no one is dead. What do you wish, sir ?"
"Oh, I am glad of that, for when a fellow dies here in Cali- fornia, there is always a great loss of time in burying him. What a pity it is that when a fellow does die he cannot manage to bury himself. It would save the living so much; for time, you know, here in California, is too precious to be thrown away on dead men. Well, but, just as I was saying, my business is this: I met Bartol the other day-you know Bartol. He says he is a sort of clerk of yours, as well as being a Custom House officer, and besides a city Alderman. Well, he told me that these old English coons who keep this shanty had just received a consignment of handsome bowie-knives from their country. I am in the trading business in the southern mines, and I think the knives, from what Bartol says, will do our boys first rate. I will take a few dozen, and perhaps all they have, if the cost don't outsize my pile."
" I will inquire," said I, as I turned towards the door of the office. Just then Mr. S. appeared in the doorway, dressed of course in the old English gentleman's style, and holding in his hand a copy of the London Times, the only paper he considered worth reading. Before I spoke he said : "Frederick, tell that person that the English cutlery will not be ready to expose for sale until twelve o'clock to-morrow."
" I hear what he says, Fred.," said the miner, as he walked past me straight into the private office, and threw himself, in a careless way, into a vacant easy chair, just opposite to the one in which Mr. S. was now seated. Of course he did not remove his hat, and Mr. S. continued to read his paper, without once looking towards the intruder, who now said : "Say, friend, I cannot wait until to-morrow. I have been in San Francisco now nearly a whole day, and that is a d-d long time to be away from my business, so I must be back to my camp to-morrow sure; and I would just as leave pack home some of those 'ere English knives Bartol told me about if they are the right sort, for I have dust left after purchasing my other goods. It is down here at Burgons & Co.'s bank, and I hate to take it back home, and I know the boys want the knives; so, if you have a mind to, friend, Fred and I will knock open one of these here packages while you take a squint at the English invoice, and we can tell
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in two minutes if it is a trade or not; so what do you say, friend ? I am in a d-d big burry, as I told you."
The merchant now slowly raised his eyes from the newspaper, and let them fall on the miner, with a cold, severe expression, in which disgust had a share, as he said, in a tone of voice suited to his indignant feelings : " The goods you speak of, sir, will be opened for inspection to-morrow, precisely at twelve o'clock, as I have already told Mr. Frederick Ayers to tell you."
" And that is your answer, Mr. S .? "
" Yes, sir," slowly replied Mr. S.
" And what the devil use will it be to me, when I will not be here to see them ?" said the miner, as he arose from his seat and walked out.
When passing me, he beckoned me to follow him. I did so, and, just as we reached the stairway, he turned round to me and said : "Fred, I never saw you before in my life, but I like you, and I just want to tell you to keep a sharp look-out for your pay, for these old cocks of yours are sure to bust up. Nothing can save them, not if they had Queen Victoria and the Bank of England at their backs."
When I returned to the counting-room, Mr. S. called to me, saying : "Frederick, where did you know that impudent Yan- kee that has just left here ?"
" I never saw him before, sir."
" Why, he called you Fred ?"
" Yes, sir; he heard you call me Frederick, so he caught up the name and used it in his own familiar way, as though he had always known me."
" Well, well; how can a gentleman live and do business here in this town, and put up with such confounded Yankee impu- dence ?"
In the early part of 1849 there was but little demand for unbleached sheeting, or drilling, or in fact for any kind of cotton goods. It was only used for lining cheaply constructed houses, and, as almost every importing house had a few bales on hand, S., J. & Co.'s large stock of these goods remained for a long time almost unbroken. Suddenly the demand became immense. The miners found that by using it they could dam almost any stream in a very cheap and quick way. They made bags with it, and filled the bags with earth, and with them constructed a dam that would turn the largest stream in half the time and with half
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the expense it would cost in any other way. S., J. & Co. found no notice of this sudden demand for sheeting in the London Times, so they remained totally oblivious of the fact. Not so the firm of T., Mc. & Co., doing business on Sacramento street at that time. These young merchants were bright and sharp and attentive to their business. One or two of them had been edu- cated to business by that prince of merchants, Eugene Kelly, now in the banking business in New York and San Francisco. The first large order for sheeting that came from the mining region told the story of the new demand to the Sacramento street firm. So Wm. T., the head of the firm, without the loss of a single minute, found himself quietly ascending the stairs that led to Messrs. S., J. & Co.'s lonesome counting-room in California street. He approached the merchants in true English style. They asked him to be seated, and were very friendly. He com- menced talking over the late news from Europe, in which he appeared much interested. He explained that it was a sort of a dull day with his firm in Sacramento street, and that he liked the English way of not rushing things as the Yankees did here in California, and he thought, besides, a chat between merchants now and then was very advantageous.
" Yes, yes, my dear sir; you are right. Frederick, hand me that box of extra Havanas."
The cigars came, and then began a social smoke. Then came a bottle of nice port wine, and, after half an hour of chat of every sort, T. arose to go, but just then he suddenly exclaimed:
" Oh, I was near forgetting that my partners wanted I should ask you for what you could let us have, say, twenty bales of those sheetings, as we find ourselves in a position to job them out in the mining districts."
" Oh, my dear fellow," exclaimed Mr. S., " you would do us a world of accommodation if you would help us to work off those sheetings. They are a most unfortunate importation. We will put them to you at home cost, Mr. T. Frederick, bring me the invoice book."
The book is opened; the cost is found to be very low. Mr. T. says, in a careless way: " Give me a bill for twenty bales, and I will give you a check for the amount."
While Frederick is making out the bill, T. falls into a conver- sation about an English lord, who had died some six months before, but interrupts himself to say: "If you wish you can
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note on that bill that we can duplicate it next week at the same price, as I am going to take some pains to help you out of this sheeting business."
" Thank you, my good fellow. Frederick, put that indorse- ment on Mr. T.'s bill, and if you wish, Mr. T., we will make a sale to you of the whole lot, to be taken and paid for at the rate of twenty bales a week at the same figure."
T. seemed to hesitate, but, after a puff or two on his cigar, he exclaimed: "Well, do so. I will take a trip into the mines myself, if it is necessary to push them; so you had better tear that bill up for the twenty bales, and give me a bill for the whole lot, and credit on it the money I have just paid you, and each week I will send you a check for the same amount until it is all paid; and I will take the goods away as fast as I make sale of them. I was hesitating because I thought I ought to consult my partners before making so large a purchase; but, if they grumble, I will take it on my own account."
The bill was duly made out and handed to T., who placed it with a trembling, excited hand, in his pocket-book. All was now satisfactory, and, with a warm shake-hands, they parted. After T. left, Mr. S. arose, and, rubbing his hands with evident satisfaction, exclaimed to his partner : " Well, J., that surely is a lucky transaction this morning."
" Yes, yes; so it is, S. I give you great credit for the way you drew T. into it; that port wine did no harm, either. I saw after he took a second glass that he became very sanguine as to what he could do with the sheetings; but there was nothing wrong in that little strategy of using the wine, as it is our duty to do the best we can for our consignors."
" Oh, yes; that was my view of it, J .; but I must say that T. is a most gentlemanly fellow. He would really pass among our English educated merchants. I do hope he will be able to struggle through after this transaction with us to-day."
" Well," said T., to his partners, as he reached his place of business in Sacramento street, " I have had a fine cigar, enjoyed a bottle of the best port wine in San Francisco, and got a bill of sale of every yard of sheetings that S., J. & Co. have on hand, at their home cost. What do you think of that ?"
" Think of it," said Mc .; I don't think anything about it; I know that you have made twenty thousand dollars by the trans- action."
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" Yes, more than that," said the other partner, M.
" The only drawback to my whole visit and trade," continued T., " was that I had to talk about half a dozen old English lords that the devil took to himself this last year or so."
That purchase is said to have been the foundation of T., Mc. & Co.'s great success in business, and perhaps the primary cause of the failure, which took place some months later, of S., J. & Co.
CHAPTER XIII.
JOHN W. GEARY-HISTORY OF HIS ADVANCEMENTS-AS ALCALDE AND AS MAYOR.
There is but one other subject worth attention treated of in the "Annals." It is the memoirs of the men who, in the esti- mation of their authors, were the great lights of 1849.
The first memoir is that of John W. Geary, with a handsome steel engraving of that gentleman. I dislike exceedingly to say of this memoir what the truth of history demands, for Colonel Geary managed his way through the world with consummate skill, and succeeded, some way or other, always to work himself into places of honor and profit. After he left California, we find him successful in his application to President Lincoln for a post of honor as a territorial Governor, and then we find him a General in the army, and then we see the great State of Pennsylvania placing him in her gubernatorial chair. All these honors con- ferred and worn well, it is claimed by his friends, should guard his memory, now that he is dead, from any examination as to his worthiness of the honors he succeeded in grasping. I have no disposition to make any such examination; but, in justice to us '49ers and to you, our children, I insist on my right to give a true and faithful picture of Colonel John W. Geary, as he was known to us in San Francisco in 1849. Even this I would not think necessary to do if the authors of the "Annals " had been any way moderate in their misstatements of facts with regard to his life in San Francisco. They are not satisfied, however, in this memoir, with an exhibition of sickening, fulsome flattery, but to exalt Geary they insult and seek to degrade in the eyes of their readers the whole community in which he lived.
Look again at the quotation from page 719 of the "Annals," and judge if I am justified in what I say of the position of the authors in this memoir of Geary. It is a sort of a description, in brief, of the immigration to this State in 1849, from which
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you, children of California, sprung, and is in strict keeping with the representations of us all through this book-a book, too, that was dedicated to " the Society of California Pioneers." I have shown elsewhere clearly, I think, that San Francisco could justly claim the right in 1851 to be known throughout the Union as " the city of schoolhouses and churches," so that I will not now enlarge on this subject.
According to the "Annals'" account of the part Colonel Geary took in the reduction of Mexico, his name should have been known to us all as familiarly as that of General Scott. The fact is, if this "Annals' " account is correct, Geary was a little ahead of Scott in all that makes a hero on the battlefield. Be this as it may, I do not propose to discuss it here. If he won laurels in Mexico, there is no wish on my part to displace a leaf from the wreath that may be upon his brow. But it is a fact that when he appeared among us in 1849, in San Francisco, with the commission of Postmaster in his pocket, we were until then to- tally ignorant of the existence of such a man as John W. Geary, much less of this wonderful hero of the Mexican War. If the authors of the "Annals" had written truly the memoirs of Colonel Geary, instead of the fulsome nonsense they strung to- gether, the California chapter of it would have been about as follows:
Colonel John W. Geary, last American Alcalde and first Mayor of San Francisco, arrived here in the steamship Oregon on April the 1st, 1849, with the commission of President Polk as Postmaster of San Francisco in his pocket. He was accompanied by his wife and one child. Colonel Geary had served, it was said, with some credit in the Mexican War, as Colonel of one of the Pennsylvania regiments. As to money or property, he had not a dollar on his arrival in San Francisco. In personal appear- ance, he was a good-looking man, with quiet, unassuming man- ners. He was evidently desirous of pleasing, and, although he did not succeed in attaching to himself warm personal friends, yet, by a sort of Uriah Heepism in his way of talking to you, he disarmed all active opposition to any of his schemes. He had nothing of the bold, dashing Colonel about him. His voice was always low and passionless. His step was noiseless and cau- tious, and you would often hear him speak your name before you heard his footfall. If, from this sort of manner, you should get an idea that he was easily moved from an object he had in
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view that was personal to himself, you would soon be undeceived if you undertook to do so. He had scarcely got the Postoffice into running order when the news from Washington reached him that he was removed by General Taylor, who had become President. Geary was not sorry to throw up the Postoffice, as his pay was small to what he saw he could make in California in some other way, and then the department did not make provi- vision for half the clerk help that the San Francisco Postoffice required. He made an arrangement to go into the auction and commission business with Van Voorhees and Sudden. Just then, however, an opportunity was offered him to again take office. This time the prospect of remuneration was good, so he accepted the offer of his friends, and was elected Alcalde without opposition.
At this time he gave great offense to the real, bona fide Amer- ican Californians by sending his wife and two children, one born here, back to Pennsylvania. To those who remonstrated with him against this step, he gave assurances that he sent them away because he could not stand the expense they were to him here, but promised that just as soon as his prospects grew bright he would again bring them to California.
Geary served as Alcalde until the new city charter of May 1, 1850, required the election of a Mayor, when, by making earnest appeals to prominent citizens, he received the Democratic nomi- nation to that position, and was elected by a handsome majority.
In this contest he was very much aided by Talbot H. Green, whose popularity was then at its height, though so soon to dis- appear forever. After his term of office as Mayor expired, he received what proved to him to be a much better office-the po- sition of Commissioner of the Funded Debt. This position he held up to the date of his departure from California, Febru- ary, 1852, when he left the State for good. Colonel Geary's career in California was a wonderful success, so far as he personally was concerned. He came to our State, accord- ing to his oft-repeated assertions, without a dollar. He was never engaged in any trading or business while he was here. The legitimate earnings of the offices he held could not have been over $10,000 a year, yet when he left the State, after a stay of two years and ten months, he was worth, at the very least estimate, $200,000 in coin, and most people estimated him as being worth a much larger sum. Unfortunately for him, he
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intrusted about $80,000 of this cash to Simmons, Hutchinson & Co., who failed while it was in their hands, and Geary lost most of it. Out of this circumstance a litigation grew which twenty years did not wholly terminate. Colonel Geary was never known to purchase even one city lot at any of the sales of property made by the authorities of San Francisco, for his doing so would have been illegal, as he was all that time an officer of the city government. Everyone, therefore, was taken by sur- prise when in the late months of 1851 he exhibited a map of the city with all the lots owned by him designated in bright colors, which he now offered for sale. The large number of these lots astonished people, so that the first exclamation on seeing the map was always: "Why, Geary owns a quarter of the city!" This vast property he sold at reasonably good prices, for they were choice lots, well located. He did not, it is believed, retain even one for himself, and, shaking the dust of California from his feet, he took his departure, a rich man, for his old home in Pennsylvania.
Had the " Annals" given the above as the life of Colonel Geary in San Francisco, I would not have troubled myself to say a word about him; but these authors have the impudence to deck Colonel Geary out as a political saint, who was endowed with wonderful talents, and who used those talents with gener- ous unselfishness in governing a community who were all known to be thieves, vagabonds and blacklegs-for this is the plain English of the quotation I made from page 719 of their book.
Let me draw attention to some of the swindles of the office- holding gang in San Francisco in 1849 and '50, and even later, and see where our saint Geary stood on such occasions. Almost the first act of the Ayuntamiento, as organized under Colonel Geary as Alcalde, was to pass what was called " An Ordinance for Revenue." This was as infamous an attempt to rob, under color of law, the newcomers, as could be devised by thieves. It is worth while to read Horace Hawes' " veto message" relating to this act. You will find it on page 224 of the proceedings of the Ayuntamiento, as published by order of the Board of Super- visors in 1860. It was no part of Hawes' duty, of course, to send " veto messages " to the Ayuntamiento, for he was only Prefect; but neither had that body the right to enact any such thieving ordinance, so he took the responsibility and did the best act of his life when he checkmated the gang in their villainous project.
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To understand exactly where the " little joker," as Hawes used to say, lay in this famous ordinance, you should recollect that in August, 1849, there were very few regularly established mercan- tile business houses in San Francisco.
The newly established houses were well supplied with goods, but the older houses were very badly supplied. To these older houses belonged nearly all the members of the Ayuntamiento. The emigrants were arriving in great numbers in San Francisco at this date, and many of them had small lots of merchandise- not enough to make it worth their while to rent a room, or even to pitch a tent to enable them to dispose of their stocks, so they sold them as best they could by peddling them around. This, of course, checked the business of the old crowd, so they con- trived this ordinance to prevent the newcomers, who had only small lots of goods, from selling them, in the only way they could sell them; and, if the ordinance had gone into effect, the law-makers could have bought those goods at their own prices. Hawes was upheld by us all, while Geary and the members of the Ayuntamiento were denounced bitterly. Soon a town hall was declared to be necessary. A man by the name of P. Dexter Tiffany came forward and offered a house and lot he owned on Stockton street, near Green street, for $50,000. This house was altogether out of the way, and utterly useless for such a purpose, yet we find (see page 110 of Ayuntamiento pro- ceedings) Sam Brannan and Talbot H. Green recommending its purchase, and it was purchased; Colonel John W. Geary pre- siding at the meeting and making no objection. As a matter of course, the building was never used as a City Hall. This was a plain, unvarnished swindle, with our saint looking on. At a Council meeting of April 1st, 1850, Geary presiding, a more in- famous swindle yet was concocted. A cobbledy high mount of a hotel called the " Graham House," on the corner of Pacific and Kearny streets, was purchased for $150,000 for a City Hall, $100,000 cash and the Tiffany property. This hotel was a dismal, ill-contrived, gingerbread, worthless sort of a shanty, unfit in every particular for a City Hall. The Council spent over $50,000 on it to try to put in shape for city use, but utterly failed in doing so. The location was bad-very bad-much more so than the same location would be now. At that time there was a sort of a swamp or slough between it and the Plaza. This purchase disgusted every one, and a sense of relief was felt
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