USA > California > San Francisco County > San Francisco > Colville's San Francisco directory for the year commencing 1856-1857 > Part 5
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At the previous fire every newspaper establishment in the city, except that of the " Alta California," had been entirely, or partially destroyed. At this, that office shared a similar fate. Coming so soon upon the destruction of the May fire, this conflagration was a very disheartening one. But the life and energy of the people soon arose above even this stunning blow, and although some were financially ruined and disheartened, there were others who gathered up hope and energy even from the ashes, and commenced the world anew. Yet it was a longer time than ever before, ere new buildings covered the desolate track made by this tornado of fire. Since then there have been numberless fires, but none to rank with the six already named. The best Fire Department in the world has saved the city from such misfortunes.
The Vigilance Committee executed James Stuart, previously mentioned, on the 11th of July, and on the 24th of August re-captured two men-Whittaker and Mckenzie-who had been taken from them by the authorities and locked up in the County Jail, and hung them within twenty minutes from the time they were taken from the Jail. In about two weeks from that date the Committee suspended their operations, having hung four men, shipped away quite a number of other bad char- acters, and frightened from the city many more. Robberies, assaults, thefts and crimes generally had become less frequent, and comparative quiet now ruled in the city. Those only who had been residents during the previous reign of terror, could correctly judge of the action of the Committee. Had the courts been what they should have been, it never would have existed.
XXV
HISTORY OF SAN FRANCISCO.
Theatricals took a new position on the 4th of October, by the opening of the Jenny Lind Theater, now the City Hall. It was the fourth or fifth theater built on the same spot, all the others having been destroyed successively by fire. It was a beautiful temple for the dramatic muse, externally and internally. On the 20th of the same month the American Theater was opened. It was a large and commodious building, and was built on Sansome Street, at some distance beyond where had been the shore of the harbor a year or two previously. During this year the tide of human influx by sea fell considerably below that of the previous year, when it reached thirty-six thousand. Many of the arrivals were from China. But as yet few of that most degraded and beastly of all the human creatures yet located on the continent- the female Chinese-had come. That was an accursed nuisance left for a future judgment. The city was, nevertheless, progressing in population and improvements ; hills were removed into the harbor, houses were erected forty feet below where the surface of the sand had been, and stores were built where ships had floated a year before. Comfort, and even luxury, were supplanting the exposure and hard fare of the previous years. The markets were abundantly supplied with meats wild and tame, game and vegetables. The place was fast becoming an American city, with phases, to some extent, unlike any other-the large foreign population having engrafted upon its character and appearance not a few of their own national char- acteristics. It had the shrewd business air of the Yankees ; the French vivacity; the laborious, plodding and intelligent industry of the German ; the dreamy and improvi- dent idleness of the Mexican ; the unique, pig-tailed, narrow-eyed Chinese, to make people wonder that nature and custom should so combine to manufacture so much individual ugliness.
On the 30th of January, 1852, the last great sale of city property, under the Peter Smith judgments, took place. During the previous year Dr. Peter Smith had obtained judgments against the city on the scrip which he had received on his con- tract for keeping the city sick, and uuder those judgments, during that and the present year, disposed of nearly all the city's property in wharves, water and upland lots, worth several millions of dollars, for prices that did not pay his claim, which was less than $65,000. It was not believed by the public at large that the sale was legal, and only a few persons had the nerve to bid, and of course the property was sacrificed. The Supreme Court subsequently confirmed the sales, and thus the princely inherit- ance of the city was lost to her forever. This was the result of a great conspiracy, or an ignorance little less than villainy, on the part of some persons. Who were they?
Notwithstanding the property of the corporation was thus sacrificed, the reck- lessness of expenditures, and consequently taxation, did not diminish. The city had paid, during the fiscal year ending on the 31st of May, 1852, more than one million seven hundred thousand dollars as taxes, in the form of licenses, taxation for City, County and State purposes, and as Custom House dues; besides which, there were some three hundred thousand dollars yet to be collected. An additional two hundred thousand dollars was added to the city debt by the purchase of the Jenny Lind Theater for a City Hall, on the 4th of June. A very large amount, besides, was expended subsequently to fit it up, and yet at this day there is a mortgage on the lot upon which it stands, for some thirty thousand dollars, unless it has been redeemed within a few weeks.
xxvi HISTORY OF SAN FRANCISCO.
Though far away from the East, the people of San Francisco were still close to their patriotism, and their admiration of genius, eloquence and statesmanship had not diminished. This was evident upon the 10th of August, which was solemnized by an immense procession and other marks of homage and affection for the great man, Henry Clay, news of whose death had recently reached the city. All parties, sects and callings forgot, for the time, their rivalries and contentions, and united to pay the last sad, grateful honors to one of the greatest and best of orators, citizens and statesmen. The city was draped in mourning. Over the tomb of greatness and worth, the dissentions of politicians grew silent; the soul was dumb; the heart was sad. Nationalities were forgotten in honor to him whose broad humanity had embraced all the earth. The great man was no more. The great Whig Party lay in his honored grave !
The sad news of the death of Clay, and the solemnities which followed, were suc- ceeded, on the 21st of November, by the news of the death of that other great man of the Whig party, of the nation and the world, Daniel Webster. All suitable and possible honors were paid to his memory. In all which constitutes a great man, a great statesman, a great orator, Daniel Webster possessed as much, if not more, united in the same individual, than any other man whose mental glory has illumi- nated the continent and shed undying luster on his name. These notices of those two statesmen are not strictly of the current history of San Francisco, but the influ- ences of their death upon its people, are. And, besides, it may be said that notices of such men are seldom out of place. Whatever illustrates the tone of society, may aptly be considered an historical event.
The progress of the city was somewhat illustrated, during December, by the publi- cation of a Directory, by Mr. James A. Parker, of nearly one hundred and fifty octavo pages, containing some nine thousand names. It was a creditable work, and was the third or fourth, in point of time, published in the city. On the 10th of the month the first legal execution within the city took place, upon the body of José Forni, who was hung upon Russian Hill, for the murder of Jose Rodriguez. He persisted to the last that the homicide was committed in self-defense. Many thousand persons were present to witness the sad affair. In all countries, communities and ages, a great portion of the people are possessed of a large amount of morbid curiosity, which, as in this instance, can extract pleasure even from death itself. Hazlitt enumerates a . funeral among his subjects for laughter.
Nearly seventy thousand persons arrived by sea, in San Francisco, during 1852, and but little more than one-third of that number departed seaward. This left a large margin of increase for the city, after making due allowance for those departing for the mines and other parts of the State. They embraced representatives of nearly all the nations of earth. Of the number, a large portion-twenty thousand, at least- were Chinese. People differ upon the question whether their influx is to be a bless- ing or a curse. The census of the city and county returned over thirty-six thousand as the population, or nearly one-seventh of the whole State. The entire population, as reported, of both city and State, was undoubtedly too low. The city was steadily improving as the last months of the year passed away.
The arrivals in the port during this year amounted to eleven hundred and forty- seven, with a tunnage of over half a million, against eight hundred and forty-seven
HISTORY OF SAN FRANCISCO.
xxvii
arrivals for the year 1851, with a tunnage of less than one-half that amount. Clear- ances exceeded in number, but not in tunnage, those of 1851. The generosity of the mines may be inferred from the shipments of gold dust, which, during the year, amounted to over forty-six and a half millions of dollars.
One of the first notable events of 1853, as marking the advance of the city in intellectual progress, was the establishment of the Mercantile Library Association. This institution, which has received the warm support of the community, is in a very flourishing condition. It has a large and increasing library of valuable books, and the influence it is exerting upon the minds and morals of the community, is beyond cal- culation. Like the churches, schools and benevolent associations which have been formed, public libraries operate not only upon the intellect, but upon the morals, the heart. The essentially animal nature may not be won by them ; but to him who possesses a soul above that of the beast in its propensities, these means of pleasure and improvement have charms superior to the degrading course of amusement to which the ignoble nature resorts, as much more powerful as virtue is more beautiful than vice. Viewed in this light, the formation of the Mercantile Library Association seems a blessing more valuable as an encourager of virtue, a winner from demoral- izing pleasures, than for its intellectual influence, or the great convenience it proves to the people at large no less than to the scholar.
Many had been the obstructions to the city's progress. None had been more so, not even the great fires, than the unsettled nature of land titles. There were so many claimants under different titles for the same lots, that he who bought, despite all the care expended in examination and inquiry, was pretty certain to buy from one to several lawsuits when he purchased land. During February, the famous claim of Limantour, for a large portion of the city's site, was presented before the Board of Land Commissioners, and notwithstanding all which was said against it as being fraudulent, was finally confirmed by that tribunal. Limantour's claim professed to be in virtue of a grant by Governor Micheltorena, in consideration of moneys ad- vanced the agents of the Mexican Government by the claimant. Abuse and ridicule followed his claims, which were enormous in extent, covering, besides those in the city, and which were of four leagues in extent, numerous other localities, islands in the bay and in the Pacific Ocean, and vast tracts of land in other parts of the State. But as the lawyers and the courts must decide this question, it is passed over to their tender care. The suit, when brought, threw additional doubt upon land titles, already as deep over the land as was the drifted sand over the original soil.
An election of three delegates from each ward to revise the city charter, occurred on the 16th of February; and, among other names of those elected, are found, for the first ward, those of Harry Meiggs, Edward McGowan and William Carr. The first, for forgery, voluntarily sailed away ; the second, for safety from various charges and an indictment for murder, gladly run away ; and the third, for ballot-box stuffing and other villanies, involuntarily was sent away by the Vigilance Committee of 1856.
The efforts of Governor Bigler and his sympathizers to extend the water front of the city, met with determined opposition from its inhabitants, and during April, the city government took strong ground against the proposed measure, and memorialized the Legislature upon the subject. The bill, however, passed the Assembly-two of the San Francisco members voting for it. The five who opposed it, resigned, returned to
xxviii HISTORY OF SAN FRANCISCO.
the city, and were re-elected by an immense majority. The opponents of the measure argued that the front line of the city had been fixed by the State as a permanent one by a previous legislative act; that rights had accrued under it, and that it would be an unjust violation of the implied contract to change that boundary, to the great injury of the city, nominally to raise revenue for the State, and particularly to enrich a few speculators who were the instigators of the measure. The bill came to a vote in the Senate on the 26th of April. The vote stood thirteen for, to thirteen against it, when Lieut. Gov. Purdy, as presiding officer, gave his casting vote against it, and thus strangled the monster. Subsequently, attempts to pass the bill, or similar ones, although urged by Gov. Bigler, ingloriously failed.
The corner stone of the United States Marine Hospital was laid on the seventh of April, on Rincon Point. It is a very fine building, nearly two hundred feet long, and almost one hundred feet wide, and is capable of accommodating from five to eight hundred patients. It cost nearly or quite a quarter of a million of dollars. Thus the first public building erected. by the United States Government within the city is one of benevolence, for the benefit of that most useful, though improvident class, the mariners.
As said before, many of the foreigners who settled here, brought with them and instituted in their new home some of the customs of their father-land. Perhaps none of the Europeans more firmly adhere to the associations of their youth than do the Germans. On the 1st of May their society of Turner Gesang Verein celebrated the institution of their association, in great numbers, by a procession, athletic exercises, music and dancing, at Russ' Garden, with much spirit. The associations and pleasures of early life, by the Vistula, the Rhine, the Danube, the Oder and the Zuyder Zee, were renewed by the sports and enjoyments of the day, and the grand old harmonies which had sprung from the souls of Handel, Mozart and Beethoven, and had rung amid the palaces and castles of classic Germany, found voice and echo on the Pacific shore, in a new land, but with the original sound and accent. Music, in itself, is the universal language. All can understand the nightingale, whether she rise from the meadows of "merrie" England, or from Sweden's rugged land ; and so the harmonies which delight a court in Berlin, or an Italian diet, are understood and felt in the cities of Washington and of Montezuma; by the dweller at Melbourne, or by the Bay of San Francisco. So the Germans thought of their father-land, listened to its grand symphonies, and were happy. On the next day-Monday-the school children celebrated May Day by a procession and various ceremonies, having and crowning their May Queen, and enjoying themselves greatly. There were about a thousand children, male and female, in the procession, dressed for a holiday, and probably a healthier collection of juveniles was never before seen. No spectacle in the city had ever given more pleasure to those who wished it prosperity.
The electric telegraph sent its first California flash along the wires on the 22d of September, between San Francisco and Point Lobos, on the Pacific Coast. It was built by Messrs. Sweeny & Baugh, proprietors of the Merchants' Exchange, to facili- tate their business of ship reporting. This was the first link in those wire lungs which now enable the citizens of the principal cities and towns of the State to converse together, as if they sat side by side. In the month of October Judge Hey- denfeldt, of the Supreme Court, gave a decision in favor of grants by Alcaldes-the
HISTORY OF SAN FRANCISCO.
xxix
other Judges concurring. This was a very important decision, for although it prob- ably covered many fraudulent grants, it went far towards quieting titles and putting an end to certain classes of squatter difficulties. It was one step towards per- manency.
On the 24th of October the mountains spoke to the sea with a lightning flash over the wires from Marysville to San Francisco, a distance by the telegraph line of over two hundred miles. Charge for the first ten words, two dollars. Even at these prices the privilege of the telegraph was thought a great acquisition.
Filibustering which had been inaugurated some years before by American adven- turers on the Atlantic side and around the Gulf of Mexico, took form and name here during this year, and received its baptism on the thirteenth of December, when the bark Anita sailed from San Francisco with two hundred and forty men, to join a small party which had already landed in Lower Califorma under Col. Wm. Walker. The first party had been a mere investiture of the infant-these dressed it in long robes and took it to the ocean font. Although not much was effected in that expedition by its god-fathers and sponsors, except to chalk out on paper a new " Republic of Sonora," yet it was the pioneer movement which has led to the virtual conquest of Nicaragua by the parent of the excursion, and may yet result in completely revolutionizing all Central America, and supplanting its effete people and government, by those of greater energy, if not greater justice. It has ever been the fate of nations as of the lower races of animals. The weaker have given way to the stronger. The partition of Poland is not a solitary instance. Nearly all southern Asia has passed a similar ordeal. In all such changes policy has had more to do than justice, and strength more than right. Similar agencies may effect similar results in the five States of Central America.
The Drama was honored on the twenty-fourth of December by the opening of the Metropolitan Theater, internally one of the handsomest and most comfortable theaters on the continent. During its first season it had a wonderful run, and the amount of money received during a year and a half was enormous. Nor is it strange, for Madame Anna Thillon, Kate Hayes, the Bateman Children, Madam Anna Bishop, James E. Murdock, the Monplaisir Troupe, Clothilde Thorne, Miss Heron and other celebrities played engagements as soon as they could be obtained. But the greatest success which has yet occurred, probably, was that which was achieved by Julia Dean Hayne during the present year. Her four weeks' engagement was a continual triumph. And yet the proprietors of this splendid theater, they who owned it, lost their entire investment, the architect and chief stockholder being completely ruined by the veuture. While several of the "stars" realized fortunes of from twenty to thirty thousand dollars each by their engagements of a few weeks at the Metropolitan, the projectors and builders who had added so beautiful a place of resort to the public places of the city, and those who catered for the public taste so lavishly in talent and in spectacle, saved nothing from the gross receipts.
The city's interest in her water lots was sold on the twenty-sixth and twenty-eighth of December. The two sales amounted to more than one and a half millions of dollars. Some of these lots brought sixteen thousand dollars, although the title sold was only the city's interest in them after 1951. The gold dust shipped from the city during the year as noted by the Custom House, reached nearly fifty-five millions.
XXX HISTORY OF SAN FRANCISCO.
A large amount left in private hands which could not be ascertaine
nactly, but which may be estimated to have exceeded five millions. There had been I ain inntion in the production of the mines. The character of the buildings during this ye. had been very much advanced, fire-proof brick being the prevailing kind, and the tyle had much improved. Granite and freestone fronts had become common, and eles "ce had been consulted as well as convenience in the architecture. The real estate o city was valued at about thirty millions of dollars. By the close of the year the a were eighteen churches, ten public schools, fourteen fire companies, one hundred and sixty hotels and public houses, fifteen flouring and saw mills, nineteen banking houses, six military companies, and many literary, social, benevolent, religious and professional societies, twelve daily newspapers, and various weekly, and monthly publications, six theaters, a music hall, and gymnasium. Importations during the year amounted to almost twelve millions of dollars, duties collected over two and a half millions, arrivals one thousand and twenty-eight vessels, departures sixteen hundred and fifty-three. From this limited statement some idea may be formed of the progress and commerce of the city. One of the best features of that progress was an increase in the arrivals of ladies. The effect of this all can appreciate. Woman's best eulogium is found in her influence. Without her presence there is no such thing as home, without home there is to a vast majority of the people, little which deserves the name of happiness. When at a public meeting the wife of Daniel O'Connell was toasted, the great orator said among other things in answer to the sentiment, " no man was prepared for great enterprises unless his nest was warm at home." As woman came, homes were formed, and men for the first time began to look upon California as their permanent place of abode. The beginning of 1854 saw San Francisco in many senses, a great city. One improvement had trod close upon the heels of the preceding, quite as rapidly as had misfortunes. Printing, steam, electricity had in turn been introduced, and on the eleventli of February of this year the city was lighted with coal gas for the first time. The muddy streets had been succeeded by planks and stone pavements, the darkness of 1849, and the, if possible, still greater obscurity of the oil lamps which subsequently glimmered blindingly, long distances apart, had passed away, forever. The clear light of the San Francisco Gas Company from three miles of pipe and hundreds of burners, illuminated the streets and the hearts of the people. The occasion was celebrated by a delightful reunion at the Oriental Hotel.
There are no great blessings unmixed with pain, and seldom or never a time of great commercial and business prosperity that is not followed sooner or later by reverses. By March of this year the effects of the large importations of the previous year began to be seriously felt in depreciation of prices to a ruinous rate, and in great financial distress. For some time this condition of trade had been foreseen, and felt considerably by many. A few had wisely prepared for the crisis, but by far the majority had held on to the hopes which the business of former years had taught them to entertain, and consequently not a few were ruined. As the State began to supply itself with breadstuffs and other provisions, and manufactures increased, much of the business of the city commercially had passed away, " good times " took a nap, high rates and rents, prices of real estate and goods decreased, and much distress ensued.
XXXI
HISTORY OF SAN FRANCISCO.
The B &h Mint of San Francisco commenced operations on the third of April. The' $) .. dlg of Curtis, Perry & Ward, U. S. Assayers, had been partially rebuilt, and pur sed by the U. S. Government, supplied with new machinery, and although alf gether too contracted in dimensions for the vast amount of work required, has }' th of immense benefit to the city and State. Instead of three hundred thousand N Hars, Congress should have appropriated one million at least to build a Mint worthy "15t the city, of the country, and of the mines whose treasures it was to turn into coin. In the little building appropriated now to the purpose, more coin and bars have been prepared for the currency, than in all the other Mints in the country, the "Mother Mint" of Philadelphia included. But our distance from the Federal Government is so great that the voice of our necessities can scarcely reach it.
The trial of the Mexican Consul, Don Luis del Valle, before the U. S. District Court, for breach of the neutrality laws, in enlisting, or sending emigrants to Sonora, was terminated the twenty-eighth day of April by a verdict of "guilty." This trial with its attendant circumstances, excited much feeling and discussion. The real injury done by the Consul in sending away persons who preferred Sonora to California, could not have been much, except as a breach of international etiquette. Monsieur Dillon, Consul of France, was subsequently tried upon a similar charge, the jury disagreed, and on the twenty-ninth of May a nolle prosequi was entered by the District Attorney and he was discharged. With regard to the Mexican Consul, further proceedings were suspended. M. Dillon had claimed exemption from any obligation to appear in Court as a witness, in virtue of the Consular Treaty existing between France and the United States, refused to so appear when required by the Court, and was sustained eventually in that position by his own, and the American Governments. On the twenty-ninth day of this month, a Chinese newspaper, entitled something which meant Golden Hills, the Chinese name for San Francisco, and printed in Chinese characters, was issued. This made the fifth language which had a newspaper mouth-piece in San Francisco.
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