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 49
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While this was often the case with the newly arrived, the immigrant of a few months' older standing had perhaps gone to the mines. There he had been unsuccessful, or his already en- feebled constitution was finally broken down by the excessive fatigues of gold digging-and none but those who have tried that kind of labor know or can guess its severity ; and he hastily returned to San Francisco, to mourn his crushed hopes, seek in vain for medical relief, and die. Even those who had gleaned a fortune at the mines, when they came to town to spend their
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gains, soon fell victims to over-excitement and continued de- bauchery. Gambling and intemperance slew many fine youthful spirits, that in their native land had promised to be great and good men, but who, left to themselves, quickly fell before the temptations and vices of San Francisco. The chief fatal diseases of the time were dysentery and inflammation of the lungs. Brain fevers were also common, induced by excessive excitement. Great numbers, particularly of the new-comers, had ulcerated bowels, as was shown on dissection of the bodies of many of those that died in the public hospital.
In early days, when the inhabitants knew or professed no faith but that of old Mother Church, when Yerba Buena had a civil existence, and San Francisco was still but young, the dead of these places were buried in the church-yard of the mission. Death then came seldom, for the population was scanty ; and the loss of half a day was of little consequence at any time to the survivors. But when the great rush of immigrants hap- pened, time became money, and deaths were numerous. Few men would then spare as much leisure as sufficed to accompany the corpse of a stranger-nay, even of a friend, to a grave in the mission burial ground ; that is, if the deceased were a Catholic, or, if of any other faith, to the public cemetery then established. The distance was considered great-a mile, or two, perhaps- and the way was difficult, and sometimes almost impassable. The usual custom of interring in consecrated ground was soon, therefore, unheeded, and the bodies of the dead were hastily put any where out of sight. There was no record of deaths kept by the authorities, and no examination, inquest, or inquiry whatso- ever, was made by them. In the bustle of the place, and con- tinual change of the population, the dead man was not missed, and nobody dreamed of seeking for the absent. He perhaps had gone into the interior, or home, or to the mines,-any loose rumor satisfied the few inquisitive acquaintances of the deceased. Perhaps it might sometimes flash across their minds that their old mate had made a stranger journey still, one "to that bourne from whence no traveller returns ;" then they would shrug their shoulders, mutter a "poor fellow" phrase, and apply to the more pressing affairs of the moment that engrossed all their
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thoughts. Friends at the distance of many thousand miles might write dozens of letters, but who could give them informa- tion of the missing, unheard of, unseen, unknown emigrant ? To look for any individual among the motley, changing crowds of San Francisco, was fruitless labor. Nobody knew, nobody paid any heed to the dying, save the inmates of his own tent ; or if perhaps he dwelt alone in some small shanty, the dweller in the next adjacent.
As a rule, the immigrants were comparatively poor, and could not afford to pay the extravagant fees charged for medical aid ; while the dying, disappointed, returned miner, had often no funds to purchase even the daily necessaries of life. There were several private establishments for the sick, but their charges were enormous, and put it beyond the power of ordinary folk to gain admission. The city paid four dollars a day for each patient in their public hospital, and to be received there cost trouble and the aid of friends. At the same time, there was naturally a strong feeling of repugnance to enter such a place. By the majority its door was regarded as the certain gate of death, and not altogether without reason. Notwith- standing, the city hospital was filled to overflowing, and was the scene of much loathsomeness and misery. But most of the deaths happened in private places. Often the corpse of some unknown was discovered lying in a retired spot, behind some thicker bush than usual, perhaps, or in a remote tent, or at dawn in the public streets. How he had died, whether slain by his own hand or by that of another,-whether struck down by sheer hunger, exposure, or disease, could often be scarcely ascertained. The man was dead ; and that fact was generally enough for the most curious. It might be said, that almost in every case the hapless sufferer was neglected and alone ; and so he breathed his last. The nature of his latest lament, his pangs of mind and body, his horror and despair, faith, fear, and hope of a hereafter, few had opportunities of learning. His fellow-lodgers, in the tent at night,-for during day most such dwellings were deserted, -or the nearest neighbors, or first noticers of the corpse, to rid themselves of a nuisance, dug a hole in the ground behind, or near the tent, or where it happened to be found, and there they
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buried the body. Coffins and shrouds were luxuries which the dead needed not, and the living could not spare. Sometimes the more intimate acquaintances of the deceased, with a lingering regard for his remains, would bear the corpse up to Russian Hill, on the summit of which was a small unenclosed space that many years before had been made use of as a burying ground by the Russian settlers of the town and bay. Or, if they happened to be closer to Clark's Point, they would inter the body on the ris- ing slope of Telegraph Hill, in a dreary spot, which, by common tacit consent, had been set apart for such purposes. A thin, flat piece of board, painted white, with a few black letters on it, or a rude wooden eross, stuck in the ground, alone marked the place where the body was deposited ; and even these memorials were of rare occurrence. Generally, however, the deceased was buried near the place where he died ; and when the dry, sandy soil, that covered the tomb was levelled by the winds and rains, no monument told what lay beneath.
During this period a piece of ground near the North Beach was used as a regular graveyard. No permission had been granted by the authorities for that purpose ; but after one funeral had taken place, another and another quickly followed to the same quarter, until gradually it began to be considered a public cemetery. It was unenclosed, and to the eye seemed only a bleak and dreary common. Here the same rude style of interment was observed as elsewhere over the bounds of the great encampment forming the city ; with perhaps this difference, that the small painted grave-boards and wooden crosses might be a little more common. But all this while occasional burials in different portions of the city were continuing. People could not be troubled to walk slowly and reverently half a mile, in those busy times, to inter a dead stranger. A shallow hole in the nearest open space served the purpose just as well as the grandest mausoleum would have done. In grading the streets, sinking wells and digging the foundations of houses in after years, the bones of such as had been buried in this fashion have been repeatedly brought to light. In vain may the loving mother and fond sister, the tender wife, affectionate children, and dear friends, on both sides of the distant Atlantic, be still mourning the absence, and continued, unaccount-
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able, cruel silence of the long-gone adventurer ; in vain they may patiently wait and tearfully hope for his return with the treasure for which he had perilled ease and life. Like the mother of Sisera, who had gone forth to conquer, they may sit watch- fully at the window, and moan aloud-Have the chariot wheels ceased to turn ? And why tarry the fleet steeds ? Has he not sped and divided the prey ? Alas ! the proud, hopeful wan- derer has fallen. The secret of his death, its time, place, manner, and all its bitter circumstances, will never be revealed !
In February, 1850, the ayuntamiento set aside a large tract of land situated nearly midway between the town and the mission, for the purpose of a public burial place, which was called " Yerba Buena Cemetery ;" but the distance, the approaching rainy season, and other causes, hindered this piece of ground from being used immediately to any great extent for the ends to which it had been appropriated. For a while, people preferred the other irregular places we have mentioned for bury- ing the dead. But at last the property near North Beach became desirable for building purposes, and the bodies there buried were exhumed and removed. A proper feeling of rever- ence for the remains of human beings began to revive. Gradu- ally therefore the irregular interments ceased, and most of the dead were now laid in the public cemetery of Yerba Buena, which began to fill up with a rapidity almost incredible.
At this time a majority of those who died were actual pau- pers, and their remains had to be taken charge of by the author- ities, who bestowed the scantiest possible care upon the interment. Still the cheapest rate at which the city contrived to bury was from fifty to one hundred dollars for each body. A coffin, or box, of thin rough boards alone cost twenty dollars. A cart was en- gaged to take these boxes or coffins to the public cemetery, and on occasions several were taken at a single load, and when these were tumbled out of the vehicle the driver hastened back for others. Rows of graves were dug a few feet deep in the loose sand, and there the coffins were laid as they were brought, with- out care, or reverence, or in the presence of a single mourner. The names of the deceased might possibly be known, and their ages and country guessed at ; but the particular place of their
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birth and their history was generally a blank. The only funerals that were attended with any great regard to decency and becom- ing solemnity were such as were bestowed upon members of Free- Masons' and Odd-Fellows' lodges, or where the dead had happily possessed a large circle of friends, and might perchance have been old residents of the place, that is, of one or two years' stand- ing. Sometimes also a train of Chinese mourners might be seen burning bits of paper over the graves of their departed country- men, or performing similar antic ceremonies.
For some years Yerba Buena Cemetery remained an unen- closed waste. It lies in a hollow among miserable looking sand- hills, which are scantily covered with stunted trees, worthless shrubs, and tufted weeds. It extends over a large space of ground, and is still among the most dreary and melancholy spots that surround the city. In 1850, there was nothing visible, below and around, but the loose barren sand-hills, with their scattered patches of wild bushes, while above was the boundless, pitiless firmament. The din of the city could not penetrate there. The only sound sometimes heard was the mournful requiem of the distant waters of the bay, when stirred to solemn music by a gale. The dead needed no lullaby, and cared not for picturesque and pleasing scenery ; but to the living visitor, who feels only his own emotions, which he attributes to insensible clay, the aspect of the place was sad and desolate in the extreme. Since that period it has been enclosed by a wooden fence, and a portion of the ground is now thickly covered with simple tablets and some highly-decorated monuments to the departed. Many of the tombs are formed in the modern Parisian style, and in their trim flower-beds, neat rails, crosses and tablets, imitate the sepulchres of Père La Chaise. It is a most interesting though melancholy task to walk over the place, and mark the inscriptions on the tombs. The years of the dead had been so few, and the places of their birth were so diverse ! People from all parts of the world lie buried there ; and especially natives from every State in the American Union. Their race, language, religion, their age, personal character and manners, actions, thoughts, passions, hopes and dreams, had been all different in earlier days. At last they came from the remotest quarters to work as rivals
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together in California, and win the dangerous gift of gold. Now they sleep cordially side by side in Yerba Buena Cemetery. What avail now their doting visions of wealth, fame and influ- ence, the actual heaps of the precious metal ? American and European, Asiatic and African are now the same filthy substance. In life, the white man prided himself that his veins held not the blood of yellow, red or black races ; the man of " progress," that he was not like the slothful, ignorant, slavish native of warm climates : now, in Yerba Buena Cemetery there is none better, none worse in all human respects.
A mile farther to the west lies the burial-place of the mis- sion, densely packed with the bodies of such good Catholics as preferred being buried in ground consecrated by their own church ; and who left money and friends to carry their wishes into effect. Those interred here were chiefly natives of the country or Euro- peans. The space is small, but the graves are numerous. Scarcely can one find the inscriptions on two adjoining tablets in the same language. Here one is Spanish ; the next may be Italian, French, German, Portuguese or English.
The things we have mentioned exhibit in a striking manner the strange mixed population of which San Francisco is composed. To show that, and one general wild and mournful phase of the place and people, is the object of these remarks. It may be proper to add here, the following statistics of burials to the 1st of January, 1854. No record of interments previous to July, 1850, is now in existence ; the imperfect register that had been kept having been destroyed by fire in 1851. An approximate knowledge of the number can only be arrived at by the exhuma- tion of bodies at the principal places of burial, and the graves still discernible in Happy Valley and on Russian Hill. The number of interments prior to 1850, is thus estimated :-
At North Beach burial ground. 840
In the vicinity of Happy Valley. 75
On the hill rising from Clark's Point. 30
On Russian Hill 25
Total 970
From the beginning of 1850, to June 1st, 1854 :-
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At Yerba Buena Cemetery 4,450
At the Catholic ground (Mission Dolores) 300
At the Jewish Cemetery 50
Total. 4,800
Total burials to January 1st, 1854 5,770
From the register of deaths kept for three and a half years by the city undertaker, we obtain the following :-
Interments from July, 1850, to July, 1851 1,475
July, 1851, to July, 1852 1,005
July, 1852, to July, 1853 1,575
July, 1853, to Jan'y, 1854 620
Total during 32 years. 4,675
It will be seen that the number of burials in 1850-51 far exceeds that of the last half year of 1853, when the pupulation was perhaps nearly three times as great. This remarkable dis- parity may be accounted for, in the removal of the causes of deaths we have already named. The long passages around Cape · Horn, in small and badly provisioned ships, as well as the toil- some and debilitating journeys across the plains, are now com- paratively few in number ; while the immigrants, however they may have travelled, are sure to find wholesome provisions and comfortable accommodations upon their arrival. People are no longer compelled to live in wretched tents, exposed to every variety of weather, sleeping upon the hard ground, and eating food unfit for brutes. The immigrants reach San Francisco after short passages in well provided steamships ; and all the neces- sary requirements, in dwellings and in food, are furnished for the entire population. The healthy and fortunate have time and means to care for the sick and indigent ; and the hospitals have so greatly improved in regard to accommodations, cleanliness, attention, and medical assistance, as no longer to be considered, as they formerly were, the certain gates of death.
A more suitable cemetery than " Yerba Buena " has recently been laid out in a beautiful tract of land lying between the presidio and the mission, some three or four miles west of Ports- mouth Square, and in the immediate vicinity of the "Lone
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Mountain," from which its name has been derived. The grounds embrace one hundred and sixty acres, inclosed with a handsome fence. There are many beautiful spots within this space. De- lightful dells, scooped out among the hills, with the evergreen oaks bordering and fringing their quiet beauty ; valleys smiling all over with flowers, of every hue, and knolls covered with shrubs, rejoicing in their crowns of white lilac. The views are as various and sudden as the avenues and their turnings. There are portions full of hidden springs, and, in a word, the spot is capable of being made one of the most delightful in California. More than twenty miles of avenues have been laid out, cleared, and sufficiently graded. These are as serpentine and zigzag as nature herself could dictate. Sweeping round the hill-sides, running through the vales and dingles, suddenly turning at acute or obtuse angles, now in a straight line, now a curve, all of the grounds, when completed, will form one of the most curious and beautiful diagrams imaginable. It is intended to give each avenue the name of one of the cemeteries in the Eastern States, for instance : Laurel Hill, Mount Auburn, Greenwood, Oak Hill, Cypress Grove. By the side of many of these avenues, the ever- green vales and various charming shrubs and flowers, some of them in full bloom, extend like an artificial fringe, and form a quiet shade over the spaces destined for a last still repose.
LOUD
NIHIT
JEY-JOCEL
Fire of June 22d, 1S51.
THE GREAT FIRES.
THE first " great" fire occurred on the 24th of December, 1849. Some such calamity had been dreaded through the months of high winds, by all who took into consideration the exceedingly inflammable nature of the buildings. Thin boards, cloth, and paint, were tempting inviters of the destroyer. When it did come, it spread like a pestilence ; and although the windy season had passed, it consumed completely the most flourishing portion of the city. Dennison's Exchange, in which the fire originated, was ceiled with cotton cloth, and that was painted. Instantly this was on fire, and the whole building was burning before the neighborhood was aroused, it being not yet quite six o'clock in the morning. Scarcely a breath of wind was stirring to fan the fiery flame. At once the citizens crowded to the scene. Then the din of a thousand voices arose amid the crash of falling frames, the jingling of battered windows, the sharp sound of
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axes ; and, above all this, the roar of the devouring element, which now surged wildly round the Parker House, from the win- dows and doors of which, at both ends, dense clouds of smoke rolled forth. Just then the cry of "stored powder" was raised, and a general stampede of five or six thousand persons ensued. So rapidly spread the flames, that the conflagration was at once like a lion broke loose, defying all control. On, and still onward, it went and spread-water, labor, powder, every thing seemed powerless to stay it. Glutted at last, when half the square was in ashes, nothing but smoke from burning cinders, like the breath from the red nostrils of a dying monster, was to be seen, where so recently had stood the works of human skill and labor. More than a million of dollars had been destroyed in the property thus turned to ashes.
But those who had suffered did not wait for the embers to grow dim, and the cinders to disappear, before applying anew their native energy. At once new buildings were in process of erection-built-occupied, and the business of the section again travelling its former course almost before the smoke had sped away from sight. Four months rolled away, the city had re- vived, and prosperity smiled in all her streets. Even the black- ened district, blasted by the fire of December, had put on a glow of health. Just then, on the morning of the 4th of May, 1850, the second great fire commenced, almost on the very site of the previous one, and within a few hours swept away three entire blocks, destroying property to the estimated amount of four mil- lions of dollars. But, again, with more than former energy, the people went ahead, and within ten days from the time of the fire, more than half the burnt district was covered with new buildings.
This enterprise and energy were doomed not long to press onward unchecked. Already the fire-fiend felt again the crav- ings of hunger, and hovered around, preparatory to his third dreadful meal. Ashes had been hidden by new structures. Timber and briek had followed close upon the track of the devas- tator, charred timbers had given place to beautiful dwellings, and streets filled with active men took the place of those so lately swept by the living flames. But change is the order of
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life, of nations, and of cities. The 14th of June, 1850, came, and with it the third of those dreadful devastations which seemed sent, like the serpent of old, to destroy the young Her- cules in its cradle. This fire has been so fully spoken of else- where in this book, that it may be only necessary here to say, that it exceeded in extent and loss both of those which had pre- ceded it. Like those, it was frightful, as well from its rapidity as from the completeness of the destruction. It was in a differ- ent location from the fires already noticed, being more to the south, and reaching to the bay. As before, efforts to check it availed not. The same causes aided the spread of the flames. and, besides, the summer sea-breezes were at full blast. So it devoured until satisfied. When the fiery meal was done, the citizens, like lively waiters at the fire-king's board, cleared away the rubbish, and set a new meal, more tempting than before. The appetite and digestion of the consumer seems to have been unimpaired by these repasts. Not yet glutted, he did not long endure the pangs of hunger, but once more sat down to breakfast at public expense.
At about four o'clock on the morning of the 17th of Septem- ber, 1850, the startling cry of " Fire ! fire !" alarmed the wake- ful, and aroused the sleeping, with a suddenness and terror that an earthquake could not have produced. Perhaps in no other place in the wide world could that fearful cry create at once such general alarm and terror, and throw every individual of the community into such sudden and overwhelming excitement. So many whirlwinds of destruction had swept over the devoted city at short intervals, and with such fearful strides, that the whole community was as excitable as if they had stood on the brink of a crater. In a few minutes the streets were full of people, and the fire companies were on a full run for the scene. But so rapidly did the flames spread, that for a long time all efforts to arrest them seemed utterly vain.
At first the atmosphere was perfectly calm, but the winds increased as rapidly as the flames, whirling the black masses of smoke, the lurid sheets of fire, and immense quantities of blazing cinders aloft, and in all directions. The conflagration spread on every side. From the " Philadelphia House," on the north side
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of Jackson street, where the fire commenced, it extended in- stantly in all directions, notwithstanding several buildings were at once torn down. The speed of the terrible courser was too rapid for those who contested the field with him. Of the entire square, bounded by Jackson, Kearny, Pacific, and Dupont streets, the "Polka" was the only building saved. On the south side of Jackson street every thing was swept away up to the plaza, and east to Kearny street, leaving between the latter and Dupont street only the " Alta California" office, the Cali- fornia, Lafayette, and Excellent restaurants, and two dwelling- houses.
Below Kearny street, the whole row on the east side was de- stroyed, with the exception of the Verandah. About one hun- dred and twenty-five buildings were consumed. The entire loss could not be ascertained with any degree of accuracy. It was far less in proportion to the space burned over than at any of the previous fires, from the fact that a large portion of the buildings destroyed were of one story, and small. The total loss was esti- mated at amounts varying from two hundred and fifty thousand to one million of dollars. Probably three hundred thousand dol- lars would have been a fair estimate. That the buildings cost more, vastly, than they were worth at the time of the fire, is un- doubtedly a fact. Many of them were mere shanties, and were easily replaced, and at a cost much less than that for which the first ones had been erected.
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