USA > California > San Francisco County > San Francisco > Colville's San Francisco directory for the year commencing 1856-1857 > Part 4
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This year had added a large increase to the previous population of the town. More than thirty thousand persons had reached San Francisco by sea-more than two-thirds of whom had come within the latter half of the year-for the Atlantic States and Europe were now pouring their adventurous population into California. The city now contained at least twenty thousand inhabitants, and besides these, prob- ably more than ten thousand transient persons on their way to the mines, or returned from them, for business, pleasure, or health. It was a town of men-few women and fewer children being of its population. At this period men's homes were at the eating houses, or in their miserable cloth tents, and almost the only comfortable places of resort were the gambling saloons, which were warm and dry, though fœtid with the fumes of tobacco, gin, and other liquors, and the poisonous air which had done its duty in turn to a hundred sets of lungs. In such places men needed not drink as a prelude to intoxication. They could absorb it through nostrils and pores of their skin, and, in addition, bands of music helped the excitement and diverted the self- examination and reflection of those who stood within those alluring hells. Few could see the heaps of gold upon the gambling tables and breathe the air, and resist the influences around and before them. Men entered to avoid the rain and get warm, , or through curiosity, saw, bet, and were ruined. Most men gambled in those days. It is fashionable and right now to denounce the habit. But some, ay, many who do so, when they do it, denounce their own conduct in 1849. The fox who lost his tail is not likely to admire the trap, nor them who set it. And the temptations now to gamble, it must be confessed, are vastly less than then. But although that vice is now deservedly unpopular, charity and consistency should not be.
Those closing months of 1849 were the golden age of the town. Nearly every- body had money, and few were there who did not assign a large tenement in their minds to the smiling goddess, Hope. There was enough to do, wages were high, gold was plenty. "On with the dance, let joy be unconfined," seemed the motto of all. Everything was high-rents, interest, goods and pleasures. Men lived a year in twenty-four hours, for events are a truer chronicler of life than days and years. To this bright picture there was a dark side, for there were some destitute and sick even in the midst of so much plenty; and woe to the invalid, whose sick-bed was
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probably the ground, with only a blanket between it and his body, a thin cloth tent above him, and neither wife, sister, doctor nor nurse, to soothe, to administer, to nourish. Strangers in a strange land, many a poor creature sickened and died in destitution, whose previous life had been passed amid the comforts, pleasures and luxuries of society. Ever thus is it in life. At the side of the palace totters the hut. The hovel leans against the gorgeous cathedral. The groans of the sick and dying penetrate the wall and windows of the ball-room; the beggar is jostled in the street by the millionaire. Rags and ribbons, poverty and wealth, sleek comfort and squalid misery, lamentation and laughter, mourning and rejoicing, bridal robes and weeds of sorrow, sickness and health, life and death, fill up the Pandora's box in which we dwell. San Francisco, in its best days, has not been free from the common lot. Yet, amid all its recklessness, many of its people were not unmindful of the obligations of a common humanity. They gave freely for the cause of the distressed when appealed to. But the trouble was that nearly all the well were too busy to think about the destitute-strangers and aliens to each other.
On the 3d of Jan'y, 1850 by order of the ayuntamiento, a sale of four hundred and thirty-four water lots brought nearly six hundred and fifty thousand dollars, averaging nearly one thousand five hundred dollars each, an evidence of prosperity truly astonishing, when those prices are compared with sales of similar property less than two and a half years before, being from fifteen to twenty times as great. On the eighth of January an election for State Senator, Member of Assembly, First Alcalde and other officers was held, which resulted in the choice of D. C. Broderick for Senator, Samuel J. Clarke for Assembly, and John W. Geary for Alcalde. About this time, viz : on the 22d of January, another evidence of the progress of the place was the issuing of the "Alta California " newspaper as a daily. The next day a new paper, the "Journal of Commerce," was published as a daily, in accordance with a prospectus previously issued by Mr. W. Bartlett. The proprietors of the "Alta" anticipated the issue of the "Journal " by a " snap judgment," bringing out their paper as a daily one day in advance of it without previous notice. The issuing of news- papers, and generally their demise, subsequent to this time were so frequent, that they may be passed over as unimportant facts. The first " squatter" difficulty occurred on the 28th of February, on Rincon Point. The United States Reserves at this point had been leased to Mr. Alexander Shillaber, who upon attempting to take possession, was resisted by the squatters who had settled upon the land. They were dispossessed by Capt. Keyes of the U. S. Army with a small force of troops. He was sustained by the Courts. During March the contest about the "Colton Grants " between the ayuntamiento and the prefect, Horace Hawes, came to a climax, by the former preferring charges against the latter who was restrained by the Governor, from exercising the duties of prefect. He had previously authorized Mr. G. Q. Colton, a Justice of the Peace, to sell the lands of the city and account to himself for the same. Many lots were under such authority, sold for a song, and the authorities of the city had not even the benefit of the music. On the 1st of April Col. "Jack Hays, the Texas Ranger," was elected Sheriff of the county at its first clection for officers. There was much enthusiasm for "Jack" on this occasion, and there was no resisting his popularity.
The Legislature passed on the 15th of the month the first City Charter of San
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Francisco. By the boundaries fixed by this charter the city covered a space of about three miles, north and south, by nearly two east and west. It.divided the city into eight wards. The Charter was approved by the people on the first of May, and J. W. Geary elected Mayor, together with seven Heads of Departments, eight Aldermen, eight Assistant Aldermen and eight Assessors.
We now approach the date of the second great fire of San Francisco, viz : the 4th of May, 1850, at which time property valued at four millions, was destroyed. It commenced at about four o'clock A. M., and in five hours laid three blocks, of six fifty varas each,-more than seven acres-in ashes. The fire was supposed to be the work .of incendiaries. Great however as was the disaster, the young and hopeful energy of the citizens which knew no such feeling as despair, or even despondency, commenced rebuilding ere the cinders of the conflagration had cooled. This has ever been a marked characteristic of the people and place under all similar afflictions. Instances have occurred where bargains for new buildings have been made ere the fire reached the old ones, and the timber for the one to be built begun to be landed on the lot ere the smoke from the burned building had ceased to rise. Set the mind and energies of man free, and fire his soul with hope, and there is no bound to what he may accomplish. The city government was organized on the 9th of May by the meeting of the two Boards of the Council, election of officers, appointment of com- mittees, and reading the message of the Mayor. The finances were reported to be'in a favorable condition. Another terrible fire occurred on the 14th of May, more destructive than either of the preceding, the damage being estimated at over five millions of dollars. It destroyed nearly every building, and almost all the goods located within the bounds of Clay, Kearny and California Streets and the harbor. This was a severe shock. But so elastic was the public feeling, that persons who left the city just preceding the fire, and returned in July, saw no signs of the conflagration save the absence of the buildings which they left standing, and the same sites occupied by entirely new structures. The burned district was entirely rebuilt.
The members of the Council soon begun to discuss the propriety of voting them- selves salaries. This created much discussion among the people and through the press. The Council fixed high salaries for the Heads of Departments, and four thousand dollars each to themselves. Indignation meetings were held, the Council were requested to reduce those salaries or resign, and finally the salaries of the municipal officers were reduced, and the ordinance allowing the members of the Common Council four thousand dollars each, was vetoed by the Mayor. Some idea of the business and commerce of the place about this time, may be inferred from the fact that by July of this year, over five hundred vessels were lying in the harbor, by far the greater portion being ships. It was very difficult to ship a crew at that time, the mines and high prices of labor offering enticement enough to induce most seamen to desert, and to prevent them from reshipping. So, when a vessel once reached the port she was very effectually anchored for a long time, more through lack of crew than by her "ground tackle." The searchers after the Northwest Passage found not the Polar ice a more certain barrier, than did masters and consignees of vessels, the temptations which took Jack from the forecastle and changed him into a land crab. About this time many of those who had come early to California, commenced discussing the propriety of associating themselves as a society for social enjoyment, etc.
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and the "Society of California Pioneers " was in consequence formed during August. Wm. D. M. Howard was elected the President of the Society. News reaching the city that squatter riots had occurred at Sacramento and Brighton resulting in the death of several persons, the California Guard and Protection Fire Company, No. 2, in response to a proclamation of the Mayor, repaired to Sacramento on the 15th of August. The disturbances had been quelled before their arrival. The 29th of this month was observed as one of sorrow for the demise, and respect to the memory of President Taylor. A very large funeral procession, in which the military and fire companies and other associations joined, proceeded through the streets, and to the Plaza, where it was addressed by Hon. Elcan Hydenfeldt, who pronounced an eloquent eulogy upon the departed hero. The Chinese, who had on the previous day been presented with tracts, books and newspapers printed in Chinese characters, by the Mayor and others, on the Plaza-formed a curious and picturesque feature in the procession. They were richly and gaily 'dressed in their national costumes, and excited much interest.
The march of improvement was visible on all hands. Its steps were rapid and distinct. During September one of them appeared in the issue of the first "Directory " of the city, published by Charles P. Kimball. It contained about two thousand five hundred names, printed in a duodecimo pamphlet of one hundred and thirty-six pages. It may be interesting to compare that pamphlet with the present work, with its sixteen to twenty thousand homes, long list of schools, colleges, churches and public institutions, commercial establishments, foundries, miles of streets, wharves, roads, cemeteries, hospitals, benevolent societies, halls, fire department, presenting all the indications of a rate of progress scarcely conceivable in the short interval between the two publications.
The effects of the speculations of the past and present year began now to be felt. The reaction came, real estate and goods became a drug, prices fell, confidence was lost, a run was made npon the banks, merchants, bankers, contractors and others failed, and many from the hight of apparent prosperity and wealth, were ruined almost in a day. Immediately npon these events came the fourth great fire, on the 17th of September. It destroyed nearly four blocks lying between Montgomery, Washington, Dupont and Pacific Streets. Most of the buildings were wooden shanties, and probably the damage did not exceed half a million of dollars. It however ruined completely for the time, many industrions, but unfortunate persons. However, hope revived, and the smoking rnins soon gave way to new improvements. At this period, the city was advancing rapidly in improvements along the margin of the bay, on the eastern front. Not only were stores being erected upon piles, over the water, but to accommodate and facilitate commercial transactions, some ten or twelve wharves had been commenced, and had been extended, some of them thousands of feet into the bay.
The long suspense of the citizens in reference to the admission of California into the Union, was put at rest on the 18th of October, by the arrival of the steamship Oregon, which arrived that day, decorated with flags and firing salutes as an indication that the long agony was over. The delay of Congress had given much offense, and not a few had talked of an independent Pacific Republic. But at the sight of the Oregon with the news she bore, every other thought died out before the
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one feeling of patriotism, and hearts, hands and voices united in a most joyous welcome. Flags of all nations were hoisted, and little else than rejoicing was done during the remainder of that day. The 29th of the month was fixed upon as the one when the people unitedly in a public manner should express their satisfaction and joy at the result. On that occasion a very large procession was formed, and proceeded through the streets, Judge Bennett delivered an eloquent oration, bonfires and fireworks illumined the night, and more than five hundred persons attended a grand ball at the California Exchange. This day, too, chronicled the first steamboat explosion in California. The boiler of the Sagamore burst just as she was about leaving the wharf and some thirty persons lost their lives. Thus mingled are the scenes of life and death, joy and sorrow.
The proposition of Col. Wilson to construct a plank road to the Mission Dolores through the sand hills, was acted upon by the Council on the 18th day of November, and an ordinance granting the privilege, was passed. The road was commenced, and completed within five months, and has added much to the progress and convenience of the city, as well as to the value of its real estate. Generally the streets of the city had been much improved, graded, planked, and were in a very different condition for meeting the demand upon them during the rainy season, from what they had presented one year before. More than six hundred and fifty vessels had arrived in the port during the year, and the population had greatly increased. The influx of strangers and gold, had more than counterbalanced the effects of the great fires which had occurred. Thus ended 1850. There had been reverses, but still the city's course had been onward. The place had proved eminently healthy-even the cholera lost its terrors here for nearly all, except a few dissipated persons. Politically and financially, it cannot be said that much progress except backwards, had been made. The city was getting deeply in debt, and her credit growing worse. The courts were inefficient in most cases, and violations of law and order were frequently committed.
The year 1851 was inaugurated during all the month of January by the Gold Bluff excitement. That " old sea loafer" the propeller Chesapeake, which had expended twelve or fourteen months in floating sidewise, stern foremost and otherwise, in reaching California from somewhere on the Atlantic coast, had taken a company of " prospectors" up the coast to a place where, near the point afterwards dubbed "Gold Bluffs," on the Pacific shore, the magnifying eyes, fancies and tongues of the party located in their reports, unheard of, incalculable amounts of gold dust in the sands of the sea beach. The reports run some people almost wild. The share holders in the expedition and discovery were assured that their claim would yield them at least fifty millions of dollars each. The old catch of "white sand gray sand," took a new form. It was now " black sand and gold sand." The writer saw one of these happy gentlemen, when the announcement was made to him, place his feet upon the mantel, and heard him exclaim, "Now I'll buy Rhode Island for my summer villa, and Cuba for my winter's residence." Extravagant as were these reports, many believed them, and invested all they had in expeditions got up for securing the immense treasure. The whole affair was a humbug, the stories lies, with the poor foundation of a little gold dust mingled with any quantity of sand washed from the " Bluffs " by the lashing waves of the ocean, and to gather which required risk of life for a very poor daily recompense. This was the last flickering blaze of glory in
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the expiring rocket of the pestilent "old sea loafer." The social condition of the city grew rapidly worse. Robberies, assaults and murders grew more and more common, until on the 19th of February audacity and crime reached its climax by an attack upon a Mr. Jansen in his own store on Montgomery street, early in the evening, by two villains, who knocked him down with a slung shot, robbed his desk of two thousand dollars, and left him for dead on the floor. This outrageous act created an intense excitement. Two men, Burdue and Windred were soon arrested and tried by the people outside of the law and the courts. An attempt was made to seize and hang these men by the people assembled by thousands around the City Hall. Speeches were made calling for their execution. However, a people's jury, judges, prosecutor, sheriff, and prisouer's counsel were appointed, and the prisouers were tried on the 24th of February. Nine of the jury were for conviction, three were opposed. Many of the people, much disappointed, cried aloud for their execution, but cooler counsels prevailed, and the crowd voted to adjourn. It was proved afterward that these two men were not guilty of the assault aud robbery of Mr. Jansen. They were afterward tried by the court, found guilty, and sentenced to fourteen years' imprisonment. Windred escaped from prison and left for Australia. Burdue, who had throughout all this excitement been believed to be one Stuart who had murdered Sheriff Moore of Auburn, was subsequently tried at Marysville for that offense, and sentenced to be hung. But before that sentence was carried into effect, the real Stuart had been arrested, tried, and found guilty by the Vigilance Committee which had been formed in San Francisco, had confessed the murder of Moore and the attack and robbery of Jansen, and was finally hung by them. Burdue was released in consequence. His personal likeness to Stuart was very remarkable, even to the loss of a portion of one of his fingers. Stuart's arrest aud punishment seemed to partake of the Providential. He had returned to the city, visited the Mission, returned to the city over the sand hills to avoid observation, but in doing so fell among some members of the Vigilance Committee who were searching among the bushes in the vicinity of a recent robbery, and was arrested by them as the robber. Instead of being guilty of that crime, it led to his arrest, trial, conviction and execution for having committed the others. Truly, " murder will out."
William Walker-now President of Nicaragua-then one of the editors of the "San Francisco Herald," baving commented pretty freely upon the conduct of Judge Levi Parsons of the District Court, so offended him that he had Mr. Walker brought before him, convicted him of contempt, fined him five hundred dollars, and ordered him into custody until the fine was paid. This aroused a storm of wrath among the people, who assembled upon the Plaza on the 9th of March, passed resolutions approving of the course of Mr. Walker and requesting Judge Parsons to resign. Mr. Walker was afterwards takeu before the Superior Court on a writ of habeas corpus, and discharged. Judge Parsons was afterwards impeached by the Legislature, but he was not pronounced guilty by that body.
The "First Water Lot Bill" which ceded for ninety-nine years the interest of the State in the beach and water lots of the city, was passed on the 26th of March. This act was succeeded on the Ist of May by the "Second Water Lot Bill" ceding. the State's right and interest to these lots forever. These two acts created much discussion and litigation. An Act to reincorporate the city, which enlarged its
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boundaries, was passed on the 15th of April. At the election on the 28th of April, the Whigs carried the city, electing Charles J. Brenham, Mayor, and the other Whig candidates generally. The city had previously gone Democratic. On the 1st of May the Legislature passed an act to fund the debt of the city. The expenditures had for a year and a half exceeded one hundred thousand dollars per month, and scrip had depreciated to a ruinous rate. The fact was apparent that the city had been swindled, her property sold, the proceeds squandered, her dehts alarmingly increased, her credit nearly ruined, and the corporation reduced almost to bankruptcy. She was in debt more than a million of dollars, and she had little besides taxes and licenses to look to for paying it. These had been found inadequate to meet her current expenses, as ber government was managed. To save her credit from ruin, the Legislature passed the funding act.
The fifth great fire occurred on the 4th of May, the anniversary of the second. It commenced on the south side of the Plaza, in a paint shop, between eleven and twelve o'clock of the 3d of May, and in a few moments the building was in a blaze. It spread in all directions. Nothing could arrest its course. All night long it raged, and when the sun arose next morning, eighteen squares, some two thousand buildings, were in ashes. Not only wooden tenements were destroyed. So great was the heat, and rapid the progress, that nearly every brick building, previously considered fire-proof, shared the same fate. Many estimated the loss by this terrible conflagration at more than ten millions of dollars. But sadder than even this immense loss of property, was the destruction of human life, several persons having been burned to death. Before the fury of that fiery tornado, wood changed to flames and cinders in a flash, brick stores became furnaces, and buildings of iron rolled up like leather and crushed into ruins. It was a night of terror, a morning of desolation succeeding.
One of the greatest inconveniences which the inhabitants had felt was, the inadequate supply of good fresh water. To obviate it, a plan was formed to introduce water from the Mountain Lake, a body of water located amoug the hills, between the Presidio and the Pacific Ocean, at about four and a half miles from the Plaza. An ordinance granting the privilege to the company formed for the object named, was passed by the Council on the 3d of June, which has since been confirmed by the Legislature, amended by subsequent ordinances, and the time for completing the work extended. Difficulties have arisen to retard the work, but it is now in a fair way for being completed within the time specified by the last ordinance which allowed eighteen months from the nineteenth of March, 1856, for its completion. There had heen several hundred thousand dollars expended before the suspension of the work, which is now soon to be resumed. When completed, it will prove a great blessing to the city, and will doubtless be a paying investment for the capital expended in its construction. The great fires of the city, as well as the daily wants of its people, have taught the necessity of a work which shall be to San Francisco what the Cochituate works are to Boston, the Croton to New York.
Disorders and brutalities of all kinds continuing to increase, early in June a large portion of the active citizens formed themselves into a " Committee of Vigilance," and on the morning of the eleventh, executed John Jenkins, by hanging him to a cross-beam of the old adobe building then standing on the north-west corner of the Plaza. He had been taken in the act of conveying away a small safe of which he
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had boldly robbed a store, during the evening, and having been tried by the Committee, was taken to the place named, and executed between one and two o'clock in the morning. It was a solemn scene, and one which they who witnessed it, can never forget. Nothing less than a full conviction that the courts of the city were entirely incapable of punishing crime, and that some terrible example of justice was needed to check the wholesale disorders which were still increasing, could reconcile law- abiding people to the act. The majority decided for, or acquiesced in the action of the Committee, and the deed was done .. But the police and some private citizens endeavored to prevent it. Their numbers were not sufficient to effect a rescue. The crowd had indorsed the finding of the Committee's sentence, and were ready to assist in its execution. The thousands of the multitude swaying to and fro in the excitement of that scene in the darkness, the quiet determination of the Committee, the callous- ness of the prisoner, the dreadful sight of a human being swinging from a beam, indistinctly seen between the eyes of the gazer and the dim horizon, all these formed a picture which made an instantaneous impression upon the memory, like the action of light upon the daguerreotype plate, but unlike it, one which cannot be erased. It was hoped by many that this summary punishment of crime would check the career of the desperadoes within the city, especially as threats had been made by some of them to burn it again. It appears however not to have proved entirely effective. For on the morning of June 22d, just as the bells were ringing the hour for worship- it was Sunday-their invitations to prayer and praise, were suddenly changed to the clangor of a fire alarm. The hour of the sixth great fire had come. It commenced near the corner of Pacific and Powell Streets-undoubtedly the work of an incendi- ary-and within four hours, about fourteen blocks were in ashes. The destruction of property amounted to three or four millions of dollars.
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