USA > California > San Francisco County > San Francisco > The annals of San Francisco; containing a summary of the history of California, and a complete history of its great city: to which are added, biographical memoirs of some prominent citizens > Part 41
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ANNALS OF SAN FRANCISCO.
bountiful, he chiefly himself creates, so do the San Franciscans speak of their beloved city, whose magnificence is principally the work of their own hands. Some glorification is natural and al- lowable on the subject.
To give a general notion of the condition in some respects of the city at the close of 1853, we here present a variety of miscel- laneous statistical facts. These have been drawn from the columns of various newspapers of the day, from the city direc- tory, custom house and other records, and from personal observation.
San Francisco, at the close of 1853, is divided into 8 wards for municipal purposes, and has nearly 250 public streets and alleys open, many of which are graded and substantially planked. It has 2 public squares formed and already surrounded by build- ings. Besides an immense number of handsome and commodi- ous edifices of frame, there are 626 brick or stone buildings, already erected or in course of erection, within the limits of Broadway and Bush street, Stockton street and the water front. Of these 350 are two stories in height ; 154, three stories ; 83, one story ; 34, four stories ; 3, five stories ; and 1, six stories. Many of the houses are very large, and a few rival in size and grandeur the finest buildings in the United States. Nearly one half of the whole number were built during 1853, and about two thirds have been constructed in the most substantial manner, and made secure against the hottest fires. The real estate of the city was valued, on the Ist of July, at $28,880,200. As, since that period, this kind of property has risen twenty-five per cent. in marketable value, while extensive improvements were making in the interval, the valuation will justify an increase of $10,000,000 on the estimate made in the summer. There are 160 hotels and public houses with a descriptive name, 66 restau- rants and coffee saloons, 63 bakeries, 5 public markets and 43 private ones, 20 bathing establishments, 15 flour and saw mills, 13 foundries and iron works, and 18 public stables.
There are 19 banking firms, of which more than one-half are extensive establishments of the highest credit ; and the opera- tions of a single one, including its agencies, have been $80,000,000 in one year. There are 9 fire, life and marine insurance companies. There are 10 public schools, with 21
493
CITY IMPROVEMENTS.
teachers, and 1250 scholars, besides several private educational establishments. There are 18 churches, and about 8000 church members. There are 6 military companies (one of them, how- ever, being chiefly for target practice), with 350 members in all, of which number about 260 are on active duty. The companies have a common armory and drill room. There are 14 fire com- panies, numbering about 840 members, with 12 engines, and 3 hook and ladder trucks. There are 38 large public cisterns for the use of the fire companies. There are 2 government hospitals, 1 hospital in the course of erection by a benevolent society, and an alms-house, all having together about 600 patients, besides private establishments of the same nature. There are 8 lodges of secret benevolent associations, and 4 public benevolent socic- ties, connected with different races. There is a fine law library, and, be it said, about 200 attorneys. There are all the usual public buildings which are required in a city of the size, a hand- some city hall, a jail, post-office, custom-house, and city, county and state court rooms of various denominations. There is also a mint erecting. There are a great number of societies for mer- cantile, professional, literary, social and religious purposes, among which are the Chamber of Commerce, a gas and water compa- ny, a plank road and various wharf companies, the Mercantile Library Association, the Christian Library Association, Bible and tract societies, several asylums for orphans, the California Pioneers, the Philharmonic Society, the Medical Society, the New England Society, the Turnverein (Gymnastic Society), the Saengerbund (Singer's band), the San Francisco Verein, and the German Club. There are resident consuls for 27 foreign govern- ments. There are 12 daily newspapers, of which 8 are morning papers, 3 evening papers, and 1 a German morning paper. There are 2 tri-weeklies, both of them French ; and 6 weeklies, of which 3 are religious, 1 commercial, 1 French, and 1 a Sun- day paper. There are 2 monthly publications, of which 1 is an agricultural journal, and the other literary. Among places of public amusement, there are 5 American theatres (generally three or four of which are at all times open), a French theatre, a musical hall for concerts, balls, lectures, exhibitions, &c., a gym- nasium and two race courses. During the year, there were open,
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ANNALS OF SAN FRANCISCO.
besides the American and French theatres, a German theatre, a Spanish theatre, and a Chinese theatre. The billiard rooms, and the public and private places at which gambling is carried on, can scarcely be counted ; and the same may be said of the places where vast quantities of intoxicating liquors are daily consumed.
There are 18 ocean steamers, of which 8 run to Panama, 4 to San Juan del Sud, 2 to Oregon, and 4 to points on the coast of California ; and there are 23 river steamers, which ply to dif- ferent parts on the bay and its tributaries. There is one line of daily stages to San José, another to the Red Woods, and one thrice a week to Monterey. There are regular lines of omnibuses on the plank roads, which run to the mission every half hour. There is a magnetic telegraph eight miles in length, from Point Lobos, for reporting vessels ; and another, extending altogether upwards of three hundred miles, to Marysville, through San José, Stockton and Sacramento. There are 2 great, and some smaller express companies, which convey letters and packages to all parts of the Union, and to many foreign countries. The great Atlan- tie mails leave twice a month, via Panama ; and there are daily mails to all places of importance around the bay or on the Sacra- mento and San Joaquin Rivers. For nearly two months, in the summer of 1853, a weekly mail left for the Eastern States, but this, not being sufficiently supported by government, came abruptly to an end. About 1,000,000 of letters were sent during the year to foreign and Atlantic ports.
The settled portion of the city covers about three square miles. The principal part of the business is carried on in houses erected on piles, or built on earth filled in where the waves of the bay rolled three years ago. There are 2 plank roads to the mission, and one across the hills on Pacific street, on the way to the presidio. There are 12 large wharves projecting directly into the stream, besides nearly as many small cross ones. About 2} miles of streets and wharves are made on piles over the water.
During 1853, there were, in round numbers, imported into San Francisco, 100,000,000 pounds of flour and meal, worth $5,000,000 ; 20,000,000 pounds of butter, worth $4,000,000 ; 25,000,000 pounds of barley, worth $500,000 ; nearly 80,000,000
495
COMMERCIAL STATISTICS.
feet of lumber, worth $4,000,000 ; 29,500 casks, and 12,000 packages, of hams ; 8,400 tierces, hogsheads and casks, 700 bar- rels and 9,400 boxes, of bacon ; 51,000 barrels of pork ; 16,000 barrels of beef ; about 40,000 barrels of refined, and 160,000 bags, 3,000 barrels and 4,000 boxes, of raw sugars ; 100,000 boxes of soap ; 170,000 cases of candles ; 1,100,000 pounds of tea ; 115,000 bags of coffee, (not including some 13,000 boxes of the article ground) ; 2,300 tierces, and 14,000 barrels of Carolina rice, and over 400,000 bags of foreign rice ; and, of un- specified provisions, 50 tons and 55,000 packages. There were also imported, among a variety of other articles, 67,600 cases of boots and shoes ; 31,000 bales, 20,000 cases and boxes, and 6,000 packages, of dry goods ; 80,000 tons of coal, and 550,000 pack- ages of unspecified merchandise. Likewise, whiskey equal to 20,000 barrels, and 400 barrels of rum ; 9,000 casks, hogsheads and pipes, 13,000 barrels, 2,600 kegs and 6,000 cases, of bran- dy ; 34,000 baskets of champagne ; and, of other wines, 9,150 hogsheads and casks, 2,500 barrels, 1,800 kegs and 156,000 cases. To complete the long list of "drinks," there were also imported, of beer, 24,000 casks and hogsheads, 13,000 barrels, and 23,000 cases and boxes ; and of " unspecified liquors," 5,000 pipes and casks, 6,000 barrels, 5,000 kegs, 8,000 cases and 1,600 packages. These importations were to supply the wants of fewer than four hundred thousand persons, resident in California and Oregon, and some of them in the Sandwich Islands. The total imports of the year were about 745,000 tons of goods, and were valued at upwards of $35,000,000 ; or, on an average, two tons, and about $100 for every person in the State of California and Territory of Oregon. The freights to vessels coming into San Francisco during the year were $11,752,084; and the duties collected at the custom house were $2,581,975. The only exports worthy of notice were about $65,000,000 of gold dust (part only of which was manifested), and 18,800 flasks of quicksilver, valued at $683,189.
The arrivals of the year were 1028 vessels, of 558,755 tons (though carrying about one-third more); and the departures were 1653 vessels, of 640,072 tons. Of the entrances, 634 vessels, of 428,914 tons, were American, and 394 vessels, of 126,880 tons,
496
ANNALS OF SAN FRANCISCO.
were foreign. The difference between the statements of the en- trances and departures arises chiefly from the circumstance that the many vessels engaged in the Californian coasting trade were cleared, but not entered in the custom house. The quickest pas- sages of the year were made by the Flying Fish and the John Gilpin, both " clipper ships." These were from New York, and arrived on the 31st January, and 2d February, in 92 and 97 days respectively. At the close of the year, there were 72 square rigged sailing vessels in the port, consisting of 21 ships, 36 barques, and 15 brigs. A few weeks, and sometimes a few days only, were now sufficient to discharge the largest vessels, and fit them ready to depart again for sea. Besides the vessels men- tioned as being in port, there was also there a proportion of the large ocean steamers and those that plied along the coast, and in the bay and tributaries. Many old "forty-niners " and other vessels that had arrived in various late years, served as store- ships, or lay dismantled and neglected in various parts of the harbor.
CHAPTER XXVIII.
1853.
Prosperity of San Francisco .- Business activity .- Fortunes rapidly made .- Disputes concerning titles to real estate .- Real property commanding extravagantly high prices .- Social, moral and intellec- tual characteristics .- Gambling .- Vice less concealed In San Francisco than in other cities .- The female population .- Expenses of house-keeping .- Foreign population .- The marvellous progress of the city during the past few years.
MANY of the observations regarding San Francisco and its citi- zens made in the reviews of the several years since 1849, and in the chronological order of the proper " Annals," may be fitly ap- plied in describing the place and people at the present time. Cities change neither their moral nor physical nature in a twelve- month. The same broad characteristics that marked the first great increase in the number of inhabitants are still visible. At the beginning of 1854, the citizens are as remarkable, as in 1849 they were, for energy for good and evil, and the power of over- coming physical obstacles, and creating mighty material changes. Every where in the city is the workman busy at his trade. La- borers of various kinds are still hewing down the rocky hills, excavating the streets, grading and planking them ; they are levelling building lots, and rearing mammoth hotels, hospitals, stores, and other edifices ; they are piling and capping water lots, and raising a new town upon the deep ; gas and water works are forming ; sand hills are being continually shifted, and cast, piecemeal, into the bay. The wharves are constantly lined with clipper and other ships, the discharge of whose cargoes gives employment to an army of sailors and boatmen, stevedores and 'longshoremen. The streets are crowded with wagons and vehicles of every description, bearing goods to and from the huge stores and warehouses. The merchant and his clerk are busily
32
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ANNALS OF SAN FRANCISCO.
buying and selling, bartering and delivering; and fleets of steamers in the bay and rivers are conveying the greater part of the goods disposed of to the interior towns and mining districts. The ocean is covered with a multitude of ships that bear all man- ner of luxuries and necessaries to San Francisco. Seven hundred and forty-five thousand tons of the most valuable goods were brought into port in one year. All the inhabitants of the city are in some measure engaged in commerce, or in those manufac- tures and trades that directly enable it to be profitably carried on, or in supplying the wants, the necessities and extravagances of the proper commercial community. The gold of the mines pays for every thing, and it all passes through San Francisco. Elsewhere we have talked of the high ordinary prices of labor, and the assurance of employment to the earnest workman, who is not above turning his hand to any kind of work, however severe and irksome it may be.
Numerous fortunes were rapidly made in the early days of San Francisco, when the golden gains were shared among a few long-headed speculators, who fattened on the public means, or who took advantage of peculiar circumstances, or who had for- tune absolutely thrust upon them by lucky accident. The ordi- nary rates of profit in all kinds of business were very great, and unless the recipients squandered their gains in gambling, de- bauchery, and extravagance, they were certain in a very short time to grow rich. Capital, when lent, gave at all times a return of from thirty to sixty per cent. per annum, with the best real security that the country and the times could afford. In two years' space, the financier doubled his capital, without risk or trouble to himself ; and the accumulation went on in geometrical progression. But chiefly it was the holders of real estate that made the greatest fortunes. The possession of a small piece of building ground in or about the centre of business was a fortune in itself. Those lucky people who held lots from the times before the discovery of gold, or who shortly afterwards managed to secure them, were suddenly enriched, beyond their first most sanguine hopes. The enormous rents paid for the use of ground and temporary buildings in 1849 made all men covetous of real estate. By far the greater part had originally belonged to the
499
VALUE OF REAL ESTATE.
city, formerly the so-called pueblo, or village of Yerba Buena ; but the guardians of its interests, from the conquest downwards, liberally helped themselves and their friends to all the choice lots. In later years, the unappropriated lots were more remote from the centre of business, although the gradual increase of population was constantly adding to their value. Numerous attempts were then made to filch from the city its more distant tracts of land, and these were often successful. Meanwhile, the legal title of the city itself to all its original estate was disputed, and hosts of rival claimants started up. Conflicting decisions on the subject were given in the courts of law, and all was uncer- tainty and confusion, violence, ending sometimes in death to the parties, and interminable litigation. The great value of the coveted grounds led to reckless squatterism, and titles by oppo- site claimants, three or four deep, were pretended to almost every single lot within the municipal bounds. Those who had really made permanent improvements, or who held actual and lucrative possession, might defy the squatter ; but the multitude of unimproved land and water lots, and the large tracts around the business part of the city, upon which as yet there was not even a fence, were fair spoils to the resolute invader. No matter what previous title was alleged ; all titles were doubtful-except possession perhaps, which was the best. We have, under differ- ent dates, noticed at length the speculations of the city guar- dians in real estate, the Colton grants, Peter Smith sales, and squatter outrages.
The temptation to perpetrate any trick, crime, or violence, to acquire real estate, seemed to be irresistible, when the great returns drawn from it were considered. The reader in the Atlan- tic States, who may think of the usual cheapness of land in new towns, can scarcely realize the enormous prices chargeable in San Francisco for the most paltry accommodation. We have seen the excessive rents paid in 1849. Four years later, they were nearly as high. The commonest shops, or counting-rooms, in ordinary situations, would rent at from $200 to $400 per month, while larger ones would readily bring $500 and $600. Capacious and handsome stores, auctioneers' halls, and the like, in desirable localities, would often be held at $1000 per month, or more.
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ANNALS OF SAN FRANCISCO.
The rents of the larger hotels, of the restaurants, coffee saloons, gambling and billiard rooms, and of the finer stores and ware- houses, would appear almost incredible to the distant reader. Ordinary stores, offices, and dwelling-houses were rented at equally extravagant sums. One paid away a moderate fortune as a year's rent for but a sorry possession. The profits of general business were so great that large rents, before they became quite so enormous, were readily given. Capitalists built more and handsomer houses, which were tenanted as soon as ready for occupation. In a couple of years, the building speculator in real estate had all his outlay (which, since labor and materials were so very high, was exceedingly great) returned to him in the shape of rents. Henceforward his property was a very mine of wealth. As rents rose, so did the prices of such property. The richest men in San Francisco have made the best portion of their wealth by the possession of real estate.
For several years, rents and the marketable value of real estate had been slowly, though steadily rising. Towards the close of 1853, they were at the highest. At that period, and generally over a great part of the year named, trade and com- merce in San Francisco were unprofitable, and in many cases conducted at a serious loss. An excessive importation of goods, far exceeding the wants of California, and which arose doubtless from the large profits obtained by shippers during the previous year, led to a general fall in prices, and occasionally to a com- plete stagnation in trade. Then it was found that the whole business of the city seemed to be carried on merely to pay rents. A serious fall in these, and in the price of real estate, more especially of unimproved land, followed this discovery, some no- tice of which will be given in a subsequent chapter.
As we have said, during 1853, most of the moral, intellec- tual, and social characteristics of the inhabitants of San Fran- cisco were nearly as already described in the reviews of previous years. There was still the old reckless energy, the old love of pleasure, the fast making and fast spending of money, the old hard labor and wild delights, jobberies and official and political corruption, thefts, robberies and violent assaults, murders, duels and suicides, gambling, drinking, and general extravagance and
501
GAMBLING STILL PREVALENT.
dissipation. The material city was immensely improved in mag- nificence, and its people generally had an unswerving faith in its glorious future. Most of them were removed from social tram- inels, and all from the salutary checks of a high moral public opinion. They had wealth at command, and all the passions of youth were burning within them. They often, therefore, out- raged public decency ; yet somehow the oldest residenters and the very family men loved the place, with all its brave wickedness and splendid folly.
elyn Annin Sy
Interior of the El Dorado.
In previous chapters we have dwelt so fully upon the general practice of gambling in San Francisco, that it seems unnecessary to do more than merely allude to it in this portion of the " An- nals." The city has been long made notorious abroad for this vice. Though not now practised to the large extent of former years, gambling is still very prevalent among many classes of the
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ANNALS OF SAN FRANCISCO.
inhabitants. The large public saloons, so numerous in 1849, and immediately succeeding years, have become few in number at the date of writing (April, 1854). The chief of them are the " El Dorado," on the plaza, and the " Arcade" and " Polka," in' Commercial street. These places still exhibit the old las- civious pictures on the walls, while orchestral music, excellently performed, continues to allure the idle, the homeless and family- less, as to a place of enjoyment, where their earnings are foolishly spent. The cards are often still dealt out and the wheels turned, or dice thrown, by beautiful women, well skilled in the arts calculated to allure, betray and ruin the unfortunate men who become their too willing victims. About the wharves, and in various inferior streets, there are other public gaming tables, of a lower description, where the miner particularly is duly fleeced of his bags of dust. There are also some half a dozen noted houses, of a semi-public character, where play is largely carried on by the higher order of citizens. In these places, sumptuous refreshments are provided gratuitously for visitors. The keepers are wealthy men, and move in the better social circles of the town. At their "banks," single stakes are quite frequently made as high as a thousand dollars, and even five thousand dol- lars are often deposited upon one hazard. The " bankers," how- ever, are not too proud to accept a single dollar stake. The game played is faro. At such places, very large sums are lost and won ; and many fine fellows have been ruined there, as well in mind as in pocket. In strictly private circles, there is like- wise a great deal of play carried on, involving large sums. The good old game of " long whist" is ridiculously slow and scientific for the financial operations of the true gambler, and the seducing "poker" is what is generally preferred. All these things un- happily harmonize but too well with the general speculative spirit that marks the people of San Francisco.
Though there be much vice in San Francisco, one virtue- though perhaps a negative one, the citizens at least have. They are not hypocrites, who pretend to high qualities which they do not possess. In great cities of the old world, or it may be even in those of the pseudo-righteous New England States, there may be quite as much crime and vice committed as in San Francisco,
503
THE FEMALE POPULATION.
only the customs of the former places throw a decent shade over the grosser, viler aspects. The criminal, the fool, and the volup- tuary are not allowed to boast, directly or indirectly, of their bad, base, or foolish deeds, as is so often done in California. Yet these deeds are none the less blamable on that account, nor per- haps are our citizens to be more blamed because they often seek not to disguise their faults. Many things that are considered morally and socially wrong by others at a distance, are not so viewed by San Franciscans when done among themselves. It is the hurt done to a man's own conscience that often constitutes the chief harm of an improper action ; and if San Franciscans conscientiously think that, after all, their wild and pleasant life is not so very, very wrong, neither is it so really and truly wrong as the puritanic and affectedly virtuous people of Maine-liquor- prohibition, and of foreign lands would fain believe.
There was a small, though steady increase, during the year in the number of female immigrants. New domestic circles were formed, and the happy homes of old countries were growing more numerous. Yet while there are very many beautiful, modest, and virtuous women in San Francisco, fit friends and companions to honest men, it may be said that numbers of the sex have fallen very readily into the evil ways of the place. Perhaps the more " lovely" they were, the more readily they " stooped to folly." It is difficult for any woman, however pure, to preserve an unblemished reputation in a community like San Francisco, where . there is so great a majority of men, and where so many are unprincipled in mind and debauchees by in- clination. Not all women are unchaste whom voluptuaries and scandal-mongers may wish to think such. The wives and daugh- ters of respectable citizens must be held pure and worthy. Their presence here confers inestimable blessings upon society. There are known mistresses and common prostitutes enough left to bring disgrace upon the place. By the laws of California divorces are readily obtainable by both husband and wife, one of whom may think him or herself injured by the unfaithful or cruel conduct of the other, and who, perhaps, disliking his or her mate, or loving another, may wish to break the bonds of wedlock. Divorces are accordingly growing very numerous here, and have helped to
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