USA > California > San Diego County > San Diego > History of San Diego, 1542-1908 : an account of the rise and progress of the pioneer settlement on the Pacific coast of the United States, Volume I > Part 22
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Mrs. Carson can only recall one American woman who was living at Old San Diego when she came, 1864. That was Mrs. Robinson, the wife of J. W. Robinson. There were several American men, but most of them were married to Californian women.
GEORGE A. PENDLETON'S HOUSE Where Lieutenant Derby (John Phoenix) lived
The old road to the mission crossed the river at Old Town and went up on the north side, instead of the south side. as it now runs. It crossed the river again near the mission and went out by way of what is now Grantville. The San Diego River emptied into the harbor then, and for some years after. There were some houses on the west side of the river, and one man had a house and garden in its bed. People told him he would be washed away, but he did not believe it. One morn- ing, when he got up his house was floating down to the bay.
Lieutenant Derby, famous as "John Phoenix." made the foi- lowing delightful record of his first impressions of the place:
The Bay of San Diego is shaped like a boot, the leg forming the entrance from the sea, and the toe extending some twelve miles inland at right angles to it, as a matter of course, points
243
DERBY'S FIRST IMPRESSIONS
southward to the latter end of Mexico, from which it is dis- tant at present precisely three miles.
The three villages then, which go to make up the great city of San Diego, are the Playa, Old Town, and New Town, or "Davis's Folly." At the Playa there are but few buildings at present, and these are not remarkable for size or architectural beauty of design. A long, low, one-storied tenement, near the base of the hills, once oeenpied by rollieking Captain Magruder and the officers under his command, is now the place where Judge Witherby, like Matthew, patiently "sits at the receipt of eustoms. " But few customers appear, for with the exception of the mail steamer once a fortnight, and the Goliah and Ohio, two little eoasting steamers that wheeze in and out onee or twice a month, the calm waters of San Diego Bay remain un- ruffled by keel or cut-water from one year's end to another. Such a thing as a foreign bottom has never made its appear- ance to gladden the Collector's heart; in this respeet, the har- bor has indeed proved bottomless. Two erazy old hulks riding at anchor, and the barque Clarissa Andrews (filled with coal for the P. M. S. S. Co.) wherein dwells Captain Bogart, like a second Robinson Crusoe, with a man Friday who is mate, eook, steward and all hands, make up the amount of shipping at the Playa.
Then there is the Ocean House (that's Donohoe's), and a store marked Gardiner and Bleeeker, than the inside of which nothing could be bleaker, for there's "nothing in it," and an odd-looking little building on stilts out in the water, where a savant named Sabot, in the employ of the U. S. Engineers, makes mysterious observations on the tide; and these, with three other small buildings, unoeeupied, a fenee and a grave- vard, eonstitute all the "improvements" that have been made at the Playa. The ruins of two old hide-houses, immortalized by Dana in his Two Years Before the Mast, are still stand- ing, one bearing the weather-beaten name of Tasso. We ex- amined these and got well bitten by fleas for our trouble. We also examined the other great curiosity of the Playa, a nat- ural one-being a cleft in the adjacent hills some hundred feet in depth, with a smooth, hard floor of white sand and its walls of indurated clay, perforated with cavities wherein dwell countless numbers of great white owls. Through this eleft we marehed into the bowels of the land without im- pediment for nearly half a mile.
From present appearances one would be little disposed to imagine that the Playa in five or six years might beeome a city of the size of Louisville, with brick buildings, paved streets, gas lights, theaters, gambling houses, and so forth. It is not at all improbable, however, should the great Pacific Rail- road terminate at San Diego the Playa must be the depot, and as such will beeome a point of great importance. The land-holders about here are well aware of this faet, and consequently affix already incredible prices to very unpre- possessing pieces of land. Lots of 150 feet front, not situated in particularly eligible places either, have been sold within the last few weeks for $500 apieee. . While at the Playa I had the pleasure of forming an acquaintance with the pilot, Captain Wm. G. Oliver, as noble a specimen of a sailor as you would wish to see. He was a lieutenant in the Texas Navy,
244
HISTORY OF SAN DIEGO
under the celebrated Moore, and told me many yarns concerning that gallant commander. . Leaving the Playa in a wagon drawn by two wild mules, driven at the top of their speed by the intrepid Donohoe, Mac and I were whirled over a hard road, smooth and even as a ballroom floor, on our way to Old Town. Five miles from La Playa we passed the estate of the Hon. John Hays, County Judge of San Diego, an old Texan and a most amiable gentleman. The Judge has a fine farm of 80 or 100 aeres under high eultivation, and a private fish pond. He has enclosed some twenty acres of the flats near his residence, having a small outlet with a net attached, from which he daily makes a haul almost equalling the mirac- ulous draught on Lake Gennesaret.
The old town of San Diego is pleasantly situated on the left bank of the little river that bears its name. It contains perhaps a hundred houses, some of wood, but mostly of the adoban or Gresan order of architecture. A small Plaza forms the center of the town, one side of which is occupied by a lit- tle adobe building used as a court room, the Colorado House, a wooden structure whereof the second story is occupied by the San Diego Herald, . and the Exchange, a hostelry at which we stopped. This establishment is kept by Hoof (fa- miliarly known as Johnny, but whom I at once christened "Cloven") and Tibbetts, who is also called Two-bitts, in hon- orable distinction from an unworthy partner he onee had, who obtained unenviable notoriety as "Picayune Smith." On enter- ing, we found ourselves in a large bar and billiard room, fitted up with the customary pictures and mirrors. Here also I made the acquaintance of Squire Moon, a jovial middle- aged gentleman from the State of Georgia, who replied to my inquiries concerning his health that he was "as fine as silk but not half so well beliked by the ladies." After partaking of supper, which meal was served up in the rear of the billiard room, al fresco, from a elothless table upon an earthen floor, I fell in conversation with Judge Ames, the talented, good- hearted but eccentric editor of the San Diego Herald, of whom the poet Andrews, in his immortal work, The Cocopa Maid, once profanely sang as follows:
"There was a man whose name was Ames, Ilis aims were aims of mystery; His story odd, I think, by God, Would make a famous history. "
I found the Judge exceedingly agreeable, urbane and well informed, and obtained from him much valuable information regarding San Diego and its statisties. San Diego contains at present about 700 inhabitants, two-thirds of whom are "native and to the manor born," the remainder a mixture of Ameri- can, English, German, Hebrew and Pike County. There are seven stores or shops in the village, where anything may be obtained, from a fine-toothed comb to a horse-rake, two public houses, a Catholic Church which meets in a private residence. and a Protestant ditto, to which the Rev. Reynolds, Chaplain of the military post six miles distant, communicates religious intelligence every Sunday afternoon.
San Diego is the residence of Don Juan Bandini, whose man- sion fronts on one side of the plaza. He is well-known to the
245
DANA'S LAST VISIT
early settlers of California as a gentleman of distinguished politeness and hospitality. His wife and daughters are among the most beautiful and accomplished ladies in our State.
In 1859, Richard Henry Dana revisited the place he had known and written about so charmingly, twenty-three years before. He was deeply touched by renewing his associations with old scenes.
As we made the high point off San Diego, "Point Loma,"' he writes, we were greeted by the cheering presence of a light- house. As we swept around it in the early morning, there, be- fore us lay the little harbor of San Diego, its low spit of sand,
1
PRESENT APPEARANCE OF HOUSE IN OLD SAN DIEGO Where Richard Henry Dana took dinner with R. E. Doyle, in 1859
where the waters run so deep; the opposite flats where the Alert grounded in starting for home; the low hills without trees, and almost without brush; the quiet little beach; but the chief objects, the hide-houses, my eye looked for in vain. They were gone, all, and left no mark behind.
I wished to be alone, so I let the other passengers go up to the town, and was quietly pulled ashore in a boat, and left to myself. The recollections and emotions all were sad, and only sad.
"Fugit, interia fugit irreparable tempus."
The past was real. The present, all about me, was unreal, unnatural, repellant. I saw the big ships lying in the stream, the Alert, the California, the Rosa with her Italians; then the handsome Ayacucho, my favorite; the poor dear old Pilgrim, the home of hardship and helplessness; the boats passing to and fro; the eries of the sailors at the capstan or falls; the peo- pled beach; the large hide-houses with their gangs of men; and the Kanakas interspersed everywhere. All, all were gone! not a vestige left to mark where our hide-house stood. The oven,
246
HISTORY OF SAN DIEGO
too, was gone. I searched for its site, and found, where I thought it should be, a few broken bricks and bits of mortar. I alone was left of all, and how strangely was I here! What changes to me! Where were they all? Why should I care for them-poor Kanakas and sailors, the refuse of civilization, the out-laws and beach-combers of the Pacific! Time and death seemed to transfigure them. Doubtless nearly all were dead; but how had they died, and where? In hospitals, in fever- climes, in dens of vice, or falling from the mast, or dropping exhausted from the wreck-
ALFRED C. ROBINSON
Author of a notable book on early California life, who married into a prominent Spanish family
"When for a moment, like a drop of rain
He sinks into thy depths with bubbling groan,
Without a grave, unknelled, uncoffined, and unknown."
The light-hearted boys are now middle-aged men, if the seas, rocks, fevers, and the deadlier enemies that beset a sailor's life on shore had spared them; and the then strong men have bowed themselves, and the earth or sea has covered them.
Even the animals are gone-the colony of dogs, the broods of poultry, the useful horses; but the coyotes still bark in the woods, for they belong not to man and are not touched by his changes.
247
OLD MEMORIES
I walked slowly up the hill, finding my way among the few bushes, for the path was long grown over, and sat down where we used to rest in carrying our burdens of wood and to look out for vessels that might, though so seldom, be coming down from the windward.
To rally myself by calling to mind my own better fortune and nobler lot, and cherished surroundings at home, was im- possible. Borne down by depression, the day being vet noon and the sun over the old point-it is four miles to the town, the presidio; I have walked it often and can do it once more-I passed the familiar objects, and it seemed to me that I remembered them better than those of any other place I had ever been
RICHARD J. CLEVELAND
Involved in the exciting adventure of the LELIA BYRD in 1803 (see page 89)
in-the opening of the little cave; the low hills where we out wood and killed rattlesnakes, and where our dogs chased the coyotes; and the black ground where so many of the ship's crew and beach-combers used to bring up on their return at the end of a liberty day and spend the night sub Jove.
The little town of San Diego has undergone no change what- ever that I can see. It certainly has not grown. It is still, like Santa Barbara, a Mexican town. The four principal houses of the gente de razon-of the Bandinis, Estudillos, Argüellos and Picos-are the chief houses now, but all the gentlemen-
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HISTORY OF SAN DIEGO
and their families, too, I believe, are gone. . Fitch is long since dead; and I can scarce find a person whom I re- member. I went into a familiar one-story adobe house, with its piazza and earthen floor, inhabited by a respectable fan- ily ... by the name of Machado, and inquired if any of the family remained, when a bright-eyed, middle-aged wom- an recognized me, for she had heard I was on board the steam- er, and told me she had married a shipmate of mine, Jack Stew- art, who went out as second mate the next voyage, but left the ship 'and married and settled here. She said he wished very much to see me. In a few minutes he came in, and his sincere pleasure in meeting me was extremely grateful. We talked over old times as long as I could afford to. I was glad to hear that he was sober and doing well. Doña Tomaso Pico I found and talked with. She was the only person of the old upper-class that remained on the spot, if I rightly recollect. I found an American family here-Doyle and his wife, nice young peo- ple, Doyle agent for the great line of coaches to run to the frontier of the old States.
I must complete my acts of pious remembrance, so I took a horse and made a run out to the old mission, where Ben Stim- son and I went the first liberty day we had after we left Bos- ton. The buildings are unused and ruinous, and the large gar- dens show now only wild cactus, willows and a few olive trees. A fast run brings me back in time to take leave of the few I know and who knew me, and to reach the steamer before she sails. A last look-vea, last for life-to the beach, the hills, the low point, the distant town, as we round Point Loma and the first beams of the light-honse strike out towards the setting Siil.
It is an interesting fact that in March, 1880, Richard Henry Dana, Jr., son of the author of Two Years Before the Mast, visited San Diego.
The impressions of Mrs. Morse, in 1865, are also interesting :
Oh, the strange foreign look as I stepped from my state- room and stood upon the deck as the steamer came to an- chor! The hills were brown and barren; not a tree or a green thing was to be seen. The only objects to greet the sight were the government barracks and two or three houses. I said to the Captain in dismay, "Is this San Diego?" He re- plied, "No, the town is four miles away." I saw a merry twinkle in his eye, which I afterwards interpreted as mean- ing, "Won't the Yankee schoolma'am be surprised when she sees the town."'
Wild looking horsemen, flourishing their riatas, were coming from different directions toward the landing, and the very gait of the horses seemed different from anything I had ever seen before. There were no wharves at the time. Passengers were carried in the ship's boats to shallow water and then ear- ried on the baeks of sailors to the shore. Fortunately for me, a little skiff was over from the lighthouse, which saved me the humiliating experience meted out to others.
Once on shore, I was placed with my trunk on a wagon await- ing me, and we started for Old Town. The prospect as we
249
MRS. MORSE'S IMPRESSIONS
neared the town was not encouraging, but the climax was reached when we arrived safely at the plaza. Of all the dilap- idated, miserable looking places I had ever seen, this was the worst. The buildings were nearly all adobe, one story in height, with no chimneys. Some of the roofs were covered with tiles and some with earth. One of these adobes, an old ruin, stood in the middle of the plaza. It has since been re- moved. The Old Town of today is quite a modern town, com- pared with the Old Town of 1865.
I was driven to the hotel, which was to be my future board- ing place. It was a frame structure of two stories, since burned. The first night of my stay at the hotel a donkey came under my window and saluted me with an unearthly bray. I wondered if some wild animal had escaped from a menagerie and was prowling around Old Town. The fleas were plentiful and hun- gry. Mosquitos were also in attendance. The cooking at the hotel was quite unlike the cooking at the Hotel del Coronado at the present time. I sat at the table alone, being the only woman in the house. An Indian boy waited on me at the table and also gave me the news of the town
CHAPTER XI
ANNALS OF THE CLOSE OF OLD SAN DIEGO
N 1850, the first steamship line between San Francisco and San Diego was established, I touching at San Pedro, Santa Barbara, San Luis Obispo, and Monterey. The first line was owned by a San Franciscan named Wright. In 1856, he transferred it to the California Steam Navigation Company, and they soon sold to the Pacific Coast Steamship Company. The first steamers were the Ohio, Goliah. and Fre- mont, while the Southerner. Senator, and Thomas Hunt also ran at times. In later years the Ancon and Orizaba were the regular coastwise steamers. They were all side-wheelers of small tonnage. As they approached the wharf at San Diego, it was the custom to fire a cannon-shot from the bow, to give notice of their arrival.
The Pacific Mail Steamship Company's steamers from Pan- ama also called twice a month. Among those calling in 1851 were the Northerner, Tennessee, Antelope, and others. The fare from New York to San Francisco was, first class, $330; second class, $290; and steerage, $165.
The coastwise trade opened briskly under American rule. In the first number of the Herald, May 29, 1851, the marine list for ten days shows eleven vessels of all classes arrived and ten cleared, and the following week four arrived and three cleared. In December, traffic was so brisk that the steamer Sea Bird was chartered from the Pacific Mail Company, and put on the route between San Diego and San Francisco by Captain Haley.
In 1857 two packets ran regularly to the Sandwich Islands. The fare for passengers was $80, and the trip was made in about twelve days.
The first boat of American build regularly used on San Diego Bay is believed to have been the one brought here in 1850 by Lieutenant Cave J. Conts. It was built for the use of the boundary survey expedition under Lieutenant A. W. Whipple, and first launched in Lake Michigan. This boat was 16 feet long and 5 feet 6 inches wide. It was equipped with wheels on which it traveled overland, and was used for crossing rivers on the way. At Camp Calhoun, on the California side of the Col-
251
FIRST VESSEL BUILT HERE
orado River, late in the year of 1849, Couts purchased this boat and used it for a ferry. On his return to San Diego, he brought it with him and used it to navigate the waters of San Diego Bay.
·
On August 13, 1857, occurred one of those historically import- ant "first events." The schooner Loma, the first vessel ever built on the San Diego Bay, was launched. She was built at the shipyard of Captain James Keating, and was christened, as the Herald informs us, "in due and ancient form."
As traffic increased, and as there were neither lighthouse nor buoys, it was inevitable that wrecks should occur. although a
MRS. CARSON, (FORMERLY MRS. GEORGE A, PENDLETON)
storm seldom ruffled the surface of the bay. The first wreck at San Diego was that of the pilot boat Fanny, on the night of December 24, 1851. She had been out cruising for the North- erner, was anchored just outside Ballast Point, and. a gale ris- ing, was driven ashore and lost.
The only other wreck during this period of which there is any record was that of the Golden Gate, Captain Isham, in January, 1854. This steamer came up from Panama with a large number
252
HISTORY OF SAN DIEGO
of passengers. She broke a shaft, below San Diego, and came in with only one wheel working, arriving on Wednesday the 18th. Her provisions were nearly exhausted and the passengers very hungry. After securing supplies, she put to sea again on the evening of the same day, in a storm. Her engine gave out, and, in spite of attempts to anchor, she was driven ashore on Zuñinga shoal. The Goliah was in the harbor and went to her assistance, but could do nothing. The next morning the passengers, after a night of terror, were taken off in safety with the exception of one man, I. M. Gibson, who was killed by falling down the steam- er's hold in the night. The passengers were distributed among the houses of the town, and considerable difficulty was experi-
HOUSE OF JOHN C. STEWART, OLD TOWN
enced in providing accommodations for them all. One of their number was the Very Reverend Wm. I. Kip, then on his way to take charge of the new Episcopal bishopric of California. The use of the court-house was secured for him and he preached one sermon while here. The Southerner arrived the next day, and with the Goliah carried the passengers away soon after.
The steamer Columbia arrived on the 20th and, the storm abating, succeeded after hard work in pulling the Golden Gate safely off the sand-bar, just a week from the day of her arrival. She had three feet of water in her hold, but was not badly dam- aged, and soon left for San Francisco and arrived there safely.
In the days of Mexican rule, the mails were carried twice a week between San Diego and San Francisco, on horseback, by way of the old "Camino Real." from mission to mission. The service was fairly well performed, in a leisurely way; or, if it was not, little complaint was made. In March, 1847, General
.
253
POOR MAIL SERVICE
Kearny established, for military purposes, a semi-weekly horse- mail between the same points. The alcaldes acted as postmas- ters, and as there were no other postal facilities, it was ordered that the citizens "be accommodated by having their letters and papers sent free of expense."
The beginnings of regular mail service were slow and unsat- isfactory. The semi-monthly Panama steamer carried the mails from 1849. The local service was such as to cause the Herald to complain bitterly. On September 11. 1851, it declared that "during a period of more than two years there has been no reg- ularly appointed postmaster at San Diego, nor to those who have acted has there been more than a pittance allowed for the per-
HOUSE AND STORE OF THOMAS WHALEY, OLD TOWN
formance of their duty. Sometimes the mails go, and when this happens, they are taken to the landing by some transient con- veyance, which admits of no certainty or security in their deliv- ery to the proper agent for receiving them. We advise the cit- izens of San Diego to place no dependence upon the mails, but to send their letters through by any other channel." This last sentence doubtless referred to the express companies, between whom and the postoffice department there was considerable riv- alry at the time. The same complaints as to insufficient pay and poor service came from all parts of the Pacific coast.
In June, 1851. the rate of postage on letters was reduced from forty cents to six cents. Complaints about poor service contin- ned and Editor Ames made a practice of getting his exchanges from the pursers of the steamers, instead of depending upon the mails.
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HISTORY OF SAN DIEGO
Soon after the United States took possession of the Gadsden Purchase, a semi-weekly mail service was put on between San Antonio and San Diego, by G. H. Giddings and J. C. Woods. The first mail by this line left San Diego on August 9, 1857, carried on pack animals under the care of R. W. Laine, a young man of San Diego County. The first overland mail to arrive was on the 31st of the same month, under the care of James E. Mason, and was the occasion of great rejoicing. It had made the unprecedented time of 34 days from San Antonio.
In September, 1857, the government entered into a contract with John Butterfield and his associates for carrying the mails between St. Louis and the Pacific Coast, at a cost of $600,000 a year. The preparations were very elaborate, and the regula- tions read curiously at this day. Each passenger on the mail- coach was required to provide himself with a Sharp's rifle, 100 cartridges, a Colt's revolver, belt and holster, knife and sheath, a pair of thick boots and woolen pants, underclothing, a soldier's overcoat, one pair of woolen blankets, an India rubber blanket, and a bag with needles, thread, sponge, brush, comb, soap, and towels. The coaches were drawn most of the way by six horses. The sub-contractors were Jennings and Doyle, and in 1859 Dana speaks of Doyle as living in San Diego. When the Civil War came on, the military posts in Arizona and New Mexico were withdrawn and the Southern mail route abandoned. There had been much trouble with Indians, especially in Arizona with the Apaches, and the protection was never adequate.
In 1865, the overland mail by the Southern route was resumed. but it went to Los Angeles by way of Warner's Pass. and thence to San Francisco, missing San Diego. In 1867, Major Ben. C. Truman was appointed postal agent for California and used his influence to have the route changed to run by way of San Diego. The contractors, Thompson & Griffith, had been losing money. and took advantage of this change to abandon their contract. Mr. John G. Capron, who was then living in Tucson and had been engaged in the mail route business for some years, driving for Jennings & Doyle and others, thereupon went to Washing- ton and secured the contract between Los Angeles and El Paso, 913 miles. Hle then moved to San Diego, and continued to oper- ate this line for seven years, from 1867 to 1874. The portions of the route between El Paso and Tucson, and from San Diego to Los Angeles, were sublet. Mr. Capron tells many interesting stories of his troubles with the Apache Indians in Arizona, but the California Indians never gave him much trouble.
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