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 45
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JUNE 6th .- Interest of the State in twenty-two lots in the square bounded by Pacific street and Broadway, Davis and Front streets, sold for over $100,000.
JUNE 8th .- Capt. Adams, U. S. N., arrived en route for Washington with the treaty concluded between Com. Perry and the Empire of Japan.
JUNE 12th .- Dr. J. W. Van Zandt was elected Alderman of the Third Ward, to fill the vacancy occasioned by the resignation of R. M. Jessup, Esq.
CHAPTER XXXII.
1854.
Commercial depression .- Reduction of prices of merchandise and real estate .- Fall in rents .- Im- proved character of the buildings .- The plaza being improved .- Government fortifications of the harbor commenced .- Immigration and emigration .- The population .- Yield of the gold mines .- Labor profitable in California .- The quicksilver mines .- Agricultural resources .- Fisheries .- Telegraphs and railroads .- Ship-building .- Foreign relations .- Ice and coal trade .- Mail steamers between San Francisco and Shanghae .- The international railway .- San Fran- oisco water front extension .- The proposed new city charter .- Claim of the city to pueblo lands .- Increase of sources of domestic comfort .- Immoralities continue to prevail .- Dnels and dnelling .- Theatrical entertainments .- Daily newspapers .- Means of moral and education- al improvement.
JULY .- It is not very necessary to say much more upon the general physical and moral aspect of San Francisco, than has already been said in reviewing its appearance and characteristics at the close of the year 1853. During the six months immedi- ately preceding the date of the present notice, the city passed through a period of great commercial depression. At this time, the extreme mercantile distress is beginning slowly to disappear ; and the best judges hope that soon again prosperity will visit commerce and all connected with it in San Francisco.
The prices of real estate may, in some few instances, have rallied, but generally they continue much below those readily ob- tainable at the close of 1853. Many years must pass, and our population be much increased, before those high rates can again be witnessed. While prices of real estate have fallen from twenty to fifty per cent., and in some cases still lower, rents, particularly in the lower or business part of the city, have like- wise been considerably reduced. Rents may, perhaps, continue to fall for some time, and yet a fair profit will be left to the own- ers of house property. The wages of such classes as are employed in building, and the cost of building materials, have both been materially reduced ; so that houses can now be erected at much less expense than formerly.
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ANNALS OF SAN FRANCISCO.
Arising no doubt partly from this circumstance, and notwith- standing the continued and steady fall in rents and the prices of real estate, a great deal of fire-proof and costly building has been carried on since the beginning of the current year. In Stock- ton, Montgomery, California, Battery and many other principal streets, the old buildings of frame are being gradually pulled down, and magnificent granite and brick structures are rapidly rising in their stead. Vacant lots in the line of streets over all the business part of the city are being covered with substantial buildings. The new Merchants' Exchange and new U. S. Cus- tom House will be massive and beautiful public edifices. These material improvements are particularly observable upon the northern extremity of Montgomery and Battery streets, at the base of Telegraph Hill. The great depth of water at the wharves in the neighborhood of Clark's Point, which depth, from the character of the shore and tides, will probably long, if not always, exist, will necessarily make that quarter a peculiarly shipping and mercantile part of the city. Accordingly huge hotels and stores, of the most beautiful and substantial character, are rising up in all parts of the district.
At the same time the spirit of improvement is visible over all the other parts of the city. Many new and elegant buildings of brick and stone, within the fire-limits, and chiefly of frame be- yond them, are continually being constructed. New streets are being graded and planked, and new public cisterns formed for the use of the fire department. Even the plaza, the long-neglected, miserable plaza, the standing reproach and mockery to the boast- ed " progress " of our world-renowned city, is being at last, after many years of public agitation, just a little "improved " by its unkind guardians, the city fathers. While we write, it is being graded, and is about to have an iron fence erected around it. The wondrous fabrics of iron and glass, which were to have turned it, as assuredly they would, if properly designed, into a Crystal Palace, or rather into a veritable "Palais Royal," the centre of Californian taste, luxury, fashion and folly, have been all left to the next generation, or perhaps only to the still hope- ful projectors and the speculative common council of the next year.
545
HARBOR FORTIFICATIONS.
The long-desired fortification of the harbor of San Francisco has been at last commenced by the government. The system proposed consists of two lines of batteries inside the entrance to
The Plaza, or Portsmouth Square, June, 1S54.
the harbor. Works are already in process of construction on Fort Point and Alcatraz Island. Point San Jose and Angel Island will, probably, be selected to complete the line of defence. The fortress at Fort Point, which will be the strongest position, will present one hundred and fifteen guns of eight and ten inch calibre, in four tiers. Directly opposite, on Lime Rock Point, a battery of one hundred guns will complete the outer line. The second point of fortification on the inner line is on Alcatraz Island. The shipping battery here will consist of about fifty guns, with batteries on other points yet to be selected. Majors Barnard and Turner, Capt. Whiting and Lieut. Prince are di- recting the works, which are estimated to cost not less than two millions of dollars. Much doubt is expressed by officers of high rank as to the sufficiency of water defence-many believing that
35
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ANNALS OF SAN FRANCISCO.
an invading army could readily land any where between San Francisco and Monterey.
The arrivals for the last six months from the Isthmus, ex- ceeded the departures by several thousands. The immigration of Chinese from their own country during the same period, amounted perhaps to five thousand persons of both sexes, while their emigration was slight. The incomers generally departed, after a short sojourn in San Francisco, to the mines ; so that the general population of the city may still be estimated at the sup- posed number inhabiting it at the close of 1853, viz., something over fifty thousand of both sexes and of all ages and nations. The bulk of the great overland immigration does not appear till the fall of the year. The immigration by land for the approach- ing season is expected to be very great.
The gold mines, the prime source of prosperity and wealth to California, have not for many years yielded better returns to the labor applied to them, than they have done during 1854, so far as the year has elapsed. Every day new and rich auriferous fields are being discovered, while it is found that the old ones, by the application of more careful and scientific methods of extract- ing the precious metal, continue to supply an ample reward to the miners. But it is not gold alone that has filled up the re- plete coffers of the State. The quicksilver mines of Alameda County are the largest yielding and most profitable in the world. The only ones that at all compare with them, are those of Al- maden in Spain, and Idria in Austria-the latter, one of the old monuments of Roman revenue.
But if the success of the miner has been great, how shall we term the unexampled prosperity of the less romantic tiller of the soil. Crops, throughout the State, have been immense, and have had the effect to reduce the prices of articles of food to a very low figure-far lower than they at present are on the Atlantic. The splendid agricultural resources of the country are only begin- ning to be understood. A new and equally profitable source of employment has been found in the fisheries on the Sacramento and its tributaries. Salmon, sturgeon, pike, perch, dake, chub, suckers, hard-heads, narrow-tails, &c., are being caught in large quantities. The salmon fisheries are the most important-the
547
GENERAL RESOURCES OF CALIFORNIA.
fish being far over the average size in the East and ranging from twenty to fifty pounds weight. This business must ere long be one of the most considerable items of the commercial resources of California. Who can tell the limit of the capabilities of this State ? All it has accomplished is but preparatory to new exhi- bitions of power and wealth. Its career lies yet before it. The telegraph has already furnished nerves to the land, by which the impulses of its distant parts are communicated to its great sen- sorium commune-its brain at San Francisco. Railroads, too, those great arteries by which vivifying nourishment is carried to and from the remotest members of its body, soon will be com- pleted. The Sacramento Valley Railroad from Sacramento to Mormon Island, now projected, will be the pioneer of this im- provement. All these facts, together with the extensive ship- building carried on at Happy Valley and the Rincon, are prepar- ing the State, and San Francisco particularly, for the great part she has yet to play. Into the past six years, have been crowded the most remarkable and important events that have occurred to our country since its revolutionary birth ; and the great pole to which they have all tended is San Francisco. California hence- forth will no longer direct her energies on herself. She has at- tained her majority and donned her freedom-suit, ready to start upon the field of adventure. Foreign relations are engaging the thoughts of citizens and government ; hence the ease with which such expeditions as those of the Count de Boulbon and President Walker are fitted up, and the apparent official countenance be- stowed on them. Vessels are already departing for Japan, and numerous companies are being formed for foreign traffic. Two of these are in the full tide of success,-one for the importation of ice from Russian America, and the other for the mining of coal in Bellingham Bay, Puget Sound, Washington Territory. The establishment by Congress of the line of mail steamers be- tween San Francisco and Shanghae, and the great treaty with Japan, come fortuitously to meet and give a field for this new and longing spirit. The Pacific between this country and Asia has at last been bridged over : California, the Sandwich Islands, Ja- pan and China are the great piers-white sails, and great steamers in continuous lines, will span the intervals. Let the Interoceanic
548
ANNALS OF SAN FRANCISCO.
Railway now be built, and San Francisco will then be the great entrepôt of America,-the Tyre of the Pacific,-and California, the most populous, enlightened, and civilized country in the world.
The project of extending the water-front of the city (already noticed at length), was revived in the Legislature this year. However, political disputes among its supposed patrons, and the parties pecuniarily interested in the scheme, as well as clamant remonstrances of all San Francisco-collectively, in boards, asso- ciations and committees ; and individually, by public-meetings and signed petitions-had the effect of causing this unnecessary, unjust, and perhaps " infamous" project, to be abandoned. The new city charter was likewise lost in the Legislature. On the expediency of passing this charter as a whole, public opinion was divided, although many of its provisions were generally ad- mitted to be improvements on the existing charter. Many other bills, introduced in the legislative chambers, and which were peculiarly obnoxious to large classes of the citizens, were likewise lost. While we write, the claim of San Francisco is being pleaded before the Board of Land Commissioners, established by the United States, to settle disputed titles in California to four square leagues of land around the city, in virtue of its being, as alleged, a Mexican "pueblo." Whatever be the result of the claim, many private titles to lots within the municipal bounds will be deeply affected by the decision, and for a time " confu- sion, worse confounded," will reign among property-holders. Pending the discussion, many parties are busy over all the four square leagues in question, selecting convenient and desirable " claims ;" and outrages of a daring description are continually taking place between the old settlers and the new squatters, in consequence of these lawless proceedings.
San Franciscans can now ask for nothing more on the score of domestic comforts. Their streets and houses are well lighted by a beautiful gas-light ; they dwell in elegant and handsomely- furnished houses ; their tables are largely supplied with fish, flesh, and fowl from the mountains, rivers and valleys of their teeming land ; they have pure and limpid water for drink and cleanli- ness, in no stinted measures ; and, finally, they have discov-
549
SOURCES OF DOMESTIC COMFORT INCREASED.
ered, near at home, a boundless supply of excellent stone-coal, sufficient to satisfy all their demands for fuel, in cooking their meals, melting their gold, driving their steam-engines and dry- ing their houses in their wet seasons. Bellingham Bay now furnishes the great demand of the city. Hitherto, all the coal used was brought, at great expense, partly from Vancouver's
Charcoal-vender
Island and Chili, but chiefly from such immense distances as Philadelphia, Liverpool, and other foreign parts. In 1849 and 1850, the townspeople were furnished with fuel by men, chiefly of the lower class of Hispano-Americans, who cut it from the little gnarled oaks and thick brushwood grown on the low sand-hills bordering the town-not a stump of which is now to be seen. Wood and charcoal were brought into the city either on the backs of these men, or in panniers carried by asses, and two dol- lars were paid for as much as a man could carry in his arms. The charcoal men are yet features of the place. They an-
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ANNALS OF SAN FRANCISCO.
nounce their coming by the ringing of a small bell, and may be seen in every street offering their little bundles for sale.
The old round of business, pleasure, folly, vice and crime, still went merrily on. Cases of divorce were nearly as common as cases of drunkenness. Cases of political corruption, of party jobbery, of personal scandal, of ruin by debauchery and gam- bling, by duelling and suicide, of squatter violence, of robbery and burglary, of assault and murder-why, these were, as before, nearly "as plentiful as blackberries." It is unnecessary to single out particular cases for remark and reproach. Every day produced a new crop of moral weeds. Still San Francisco con- trived to flourish, and its people, in their fashion, to enjoy life. To enforce some measure of outward decency, the common council passed a stringent ordinance regarding houses of ill-fame, making the keeping of them highly penal. This ordinance had the effect, for a time, of closing a few of the most notorious Mexican and Chinese brothels. But it was sought to be enforced against fashionable white Cyprians, who had money enough to employ able counsel to show the intrinsically illegal and tyran- nous character of its particular provisions ; and then it was found to be utterly impracticable in operation. It seemed all at once to be discovered, that the impurity which was hid by walls, could not be put down by mere legislation.
Duels appeared to be getting more numerous. In the months of May and June several fatal " affairs of honor" took place, and the performance with swords by a couple of French- men varied the monotony of pistols and rifles, and introduced a new fashion for the benefit of future gladiators. Occasionally the death of some well-known citizen would rouse the press and the pulpit to a spasmodic burst of indignation and high-toned sentiment against the foolish and criminal practice of settling personal quarrels by mortal combat. The public looked wise, savage, and virtuous, and talked and drank; then it looked wiser, and so on, and talked and drank again. Still nothing was done, or perhaps could be done, in the matter. Grand juries occasionally offered a proper presentment on the subject, but their words fell dead. Men in California, who generally want the peaceful, endearing joys of home and family, which best
551
EDUCATIONAL AND MORAL IMPROVEMENTS.
make life worth living for, set little value on existence, and in their hot rage will hazard it for the veriest trifle.
CCCC
THE EAGLE
JW.SULLIVANS
California Exchange, corner of Clay and Kearny streets, June, 1854.
Theatrical entertainments have never been so well patronized in San Francisco as during the past half year. A rapid succes- sion of musical and dramatic "stars" attracted continual crowds to the various "houses." English, French and Italian versions of the most noted modern operas were excellently performed in the Metropolitan and Union Theatres, where four ladies, who each claimed the rank of prima donna, successively appeared. At the theatres named, though particularly at the Metropolitan . and American, some of the most celebrated American actors and actresses made their regular nightly appearance. These, it is said, have reaped a large harvest from their professional visit to the land and the city of gold. The San Franciscans, truly, are no niggards with their wealth.
A few of the immense number of daily newspapers, existing at the beginning of 1854, have silently disappeared. In their stead have risen the " Pioneer," a monthly magazine of great typographical beauty and considerable literary merit ; a Chinese
552
ANNALS OF SAN FRANCISCO.
journal, and one or two weekly newspapers of fair pretension. The " Mercantile Library Association" has largely increased its stock of books and its members. Churches, schools, and charita- ble, and other good and laudable associations, flourished contem- poraneously with the spread of ignorance, folly and vice, which they have been designed to counteract. A larger female popula- tion, and a few more years, and San Francisco may yet be as distinguished for its public and private morals, as it has long un- happily been for the reverse.
Merchants' Exchange, Battery street.
.
The llounds.
PART THIRD.
THE HOUNDS.
IN the spring and early summer months of 1849, San Francisco was afflicted with the presence and excesses of a parcel of the veriest rogues and ruffians that ever haunted a community. The first intelligence of the discovery of gold in California natu- rally sent thither the most daring and clever adventurers of blemished reputation from their own countries, who saw in this modern Dorado a fit theatre for the profitable repetition of those tricks and outrages, the exercise of which had rendered their native homes no longer lucrative or safe places to reside in.
554
ANNALS OF SAN FRANCISCO.
Long before any great number of the general public had emi- grated from the Atlantic States or from Europe, San Francisco was overrun with such men from the various countries and ports on the Pacific, and particularly from the west coast of the Americas. A little later came stray vagabonds from Australia, where had been collected the choice of the convicted felons of Great Britain. The regiment of New York volunteers, which some time before had been disbanded, and from which so much good had been expected in ultimately peopling the land with first-class settlers, had greatly disappointed the hopes of its pro- jectors and friends. Many of the most noted blackguards of the country turned out to have been formerly soldiers in that corps ; and perhaps these very men formed the nucleus and strength of the " hounds " themselves. The very earliest arrivals also from the eastern ports were largely composed of the rowdy and knavish class. They indeed had required no long time to make prepara- tions for the voyage. Their baggage was on their backs, and their purse in every honest man's pocket. They stepped on board the first ship-and hey for California ! These vagabonds never intended to follow a reputable calling there, but as sharp- ers, gamblers, and cheating adventurers in every variety of scheme, were prepared only to prey upon the community at large. Every thing in San Francisco encouraged them to think it was what their fellows would call a safe speculation. The municipal and State organizations were both still unformned, and the few local authorities were quite inadequate to cope with such a body of villainy as was shortly developed.
The " hounds " were the natural consequence of such a state of things. A party, calling themselves by that name, was first faintly heard of towards the close of 1848 ; but it was only in the spring of the following year that their depredations excited much notice. In the desire to make fortunes easily and in a hurry, the overtoiled people of San Francisco paid little atten- tion to any thing but what immediately concerned themselves individually, and much crime was allowed to be committed with impunity, because nobody cared, or had time to think about it, or to interfere in the matter. Thus the "hounds " had perpe- trated many outrages before public indignation was fully aroused.
555
THE HOUNDS.
These were directed chiefly against foreigners-Chilians, Peru- vians and Mexicans, as being supposed less able to defend themselves, and who were likewise imagined to possess fewer sympathies from the community in their behalf. This class of the foreign population was generally of the lowest and most de- graded character. Their habits were unclean and their manners base. The men seemed deceivers by nature, while the women (for there had been extensive speculators in their own country, who brought many females to San Francisco,) were immodest and impure to a shocking degree. These were washerwomen by day ; by night-and, if a dollar could be earned, also by day,- they were only prostitutes. Both sexes lived almost promiscu- ously in large tents, scattered irregularly upon the hill sides. Their dwellings were dens of infamy, where drunkenness and whoredom, gambling, swindling, cursing and brawling, were con- stantly going on. Such were the common victims of the " hounds." It may at first sight seem hard to tell which were the worst members of the community.
We have seen that among the first immigrants to the mines were a multitude of foreigners of Spanish extraction, from the various republics and provinces on the Pacific shores of America. The presence of these people-many of whom seemed little bet- ter than slaves-in the pay and under the command of their own wealthier countrymen, was considered by the American miners to be unfair towards themselves, as natural lords of the soil, purchased by their own blood and treasure, and as tending to lower both the dignity and profits of gold digging. Many dis- putes, occasionally attended with bloodshed, had taken place in the mines between the people of the United States and these foreigners, the latter of whom were slowly but surely driven away from the mining districts they had selected, partly by violence, though principally by threats.
This state of matters in the mining districts, which was often not discountenanced, but was even openly approved of by many respectable citizens, as well as the low character of the class al- luded to in San Francisco itself, mightily encouraged and lent a flimsy pretext to the criminal attacks by desperadoes in that city against the foreign population. The "hounds," who were a nu-
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ANNALS OF SAN FRANCISCO.
merous body of youths and men in the prime of life, professed themselves only an association for "mutual defence," but in re- ality were but a band of self-licensed robbers, who thought every Chileno was fair game for their plundering propensities. They organized themselves so far that they had a place of regular meeting, or Head Quarters, which they called Tammany Hall, in a large tent, near the City Hotel. Leaders were appointed to conduct operations, and afterwards apportion the spoil. To such a daring extent were matters carried that the body, proud of their strength and numbers, attempted a sort of military display, and on Sundays, armed with bludgeons and loaded revolvers, paraded the streets, in open daylight, with drum and fife play- ing, and banners flying. It was in the dead of night, however, when their outrages were done. There were then neither lights in the unformed streets, nor a police force to watch over the safety of the town. The well-disposed citizens, fearful of brawls, retired early to their dwellings, and the more noise and rioting they might hear at a distance the closer they crept into bed, or prepared their weapons for the defence alone of their own proper domiciles. At such times the "hounds " would march to the tents of known Chilenos, and tearing them down, rob and spoil the contents of value, and shamefully maltreat and even murder the inmates. At other times they would content themselves with extorting by threats large sums of money and gifts of jewels and articles of value from all classes of foreigners, and sometimes from Americans themselves, though it was seldom they meddled with the latter. A favorite sport was to intrude themselves, even in open day, in a numerous gang, upon taverns and hotels, and demand high priced drinks and food, which on receiving,- for people were too much afraid of their lives and property to re- fuse,-they would recklessly destroy the furniture nearest at hand, and forthwith decamp as boldly as they had entered, with- out troubling their heads as to who should pay for the damage or the articles consumed.
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