USA > California > San Francisco County > San Francisco > The beginnings of San Francisco : from the expedition of Anza, 1774, to the city charter of April 15, 1850 : with biographical and other notes, Vol. II > Part 11
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GENERAL SMITH'S UNFAVORABLE REPORT 613
voyage, and for his children. From four to five hundred dollars a month was asked for the smallest house that would hold them. The small class he got together had no money and could not help him. He said he would take his axe and wedge, go to the redwoods, get out the lumber, and build him a house. The members of his flock tried to dissuade him, but he saw no other way. He would go, he said, to the redwoods, and would leave the outcome with the Lord. The fact that the aforesaid redwoods, belonged to the Peraltas seems to have troubled nobody. Brother Taylor did go to the redwoods, accompanied by a good brother who volunteered to help him, and after some weeks of arduous and unaccustomed labor, succeeded in getting his lum- ber and building his house on a lot another good brother helped him to buy.
General Smith, commanding the Pacific division, established a military post at Benicia, garrisoned by two companies of infantry, and made it the general depot for military supplies. He did not approve of San Francisco, and transferred all the military stores thence to Benicia. He reported to the adjutant-general that the harbor at Yerba Buena was a very inconvenient one-the sea too rough three days out of seven to load or unload vessels; and that the town of San Francisco was situated at the extremity of a long point cut off from the interior by an arm of the bay more than thirty miles long, having no good water and few supplies of food; with
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THE BEGINNINGS OF SAN FRANCISCO
the only road by which it could be reached inter- sected by streams that rendered it at that time (in March) nearly impassable. The town of San Fran- cisco, he says, "is no way fitted for military or com- mercial purposes; there is no harbor, a bad landing place, bad water, no supplies of provisions, an inclement climate, and is cut off from the rest of the country, except by a long circuit around the southern extremity of the bay." He hopes that in fixing the port of entry, capital, or other public places, the law will leave to the president the selection; "otherwise, private interest, already involved in speculation here, will, by misrepresentation, lead to a very bad choice." Early in April he made an exploring trip around the northern branch of the bay, selecting a site on Car- quines straits for a military depotwhere, on an inclined plane, the town of Benicia was laid out; "a very favorable site for a town larger than is likely to exist anywhere here for a century to come." His own head- quarters, he writes in June, he is about to remove to Sonoma, whence his dispatch of August 26th is dated.
As if to convict General Smith of prejudgment, San Francisco continued to grow vigorously, and its increasing prosperity was apparent not only in its business houses, hotels, etc., but also in the appear- ance of the people. The slouched hat gave way to the black beaver; the flannel shirt, to white linen; and dress and frock coats were taken from trunks and sea chests. The sombrero, a very convenient and becoming head-piece, was much affected by the
615
DRESS OF CALIFORNIANS
younger men. The men of the earlier immigration long clung to the California costume: blue jacket or roundabout, black trousers, and soft hat. In summer the dress was white. The men of the inter- regnum-of the conquest-adopted the California dress and continued it well into 1850; but the fashion among the argonauts finally prevailed. The gam- blers affected the Mexican style of dress, in part, with white shirt, diamond studs; sombrero, with perhaps a feather or squirrel's tail under the band, top-boots, and scarlet sash around the waist. Wash- ing was very expensive, the usual charge being eight dollars a dozen. Linen was sent to Honolulu and even to Canton to be laundered. The favorite spot for laundry work was a little pond in the Western addition, separated from the waters of the bay by a low range of sand dunes, called by the Spaniards, Laguna Pequeña, and by the Americans, Washer- women's lagoon. The site of this pond includes the blocks between Franklin, Octavia, Filbert, and Lombard streets, but it has long been filled up and built upon. In 1849 it was a place for excursions and picnics. Here the washermen and gardeners established themselves and plied their respective occupations. The land adjoining the pond was a rich, black loam and well repaid cultivation. The washerwomen, of whom there were a few, principally Mexicans and Indians, ranged themselves on one side and the washermen on the other. The men went into the business on a large scale, having their tents
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THE BEGINNINGS OF SAN FRANCISCO
for ironing, their large kettles for boiling the clothes and their fluted washboards along the edge of the water. When one of these great, burly, long-bearded fellows got a shirt on the board the suds flew-and the buttons also. Nearer town, in the North Beach section, where two springs fed a little brook, on the corner of Mason and Francisco streets, Honest Harry Meiggs, later alderman, absconder, and railroad builder, erected a saw mill and had his lumber yard. His wharf was afterwards extended into the bay.
The road to the presidio led from Dupont street, through the "puertezuela," the little pass between the hills at Pacific and Jones streets, and past the Laguna Pequeña. This was also an excursion for those who wished to get away for a moment from the strenuous life of the sordid town. Past the long adobe barracks and cottages of the presidio the rider takes his way to the old Spanish fort upon the cliff that overhangs the foamy beach. The gray crum- bling walls and mouldering ramparts that once echoed to the tread of "the swart commander in his leathern jerkin"; the decaying gun carriage with wheel half buried in the weeds and grass; the weather-worn embrasures that once framed the face of seaward-gazing sentry, now but the basking-place where seabirds rest and blink in the sunlight, all charm to rest, to forgetfulness of the present in the dream of the past.
" --- the dying glow of Spanish glory The sunset dream and last!"
617
THE ROAD TO THE MISSION
From Dupont street (Calle de la Fundacion) another road led southward to the mission. This wound in and around the sand-hills reaching the line of Mission street, thence to the Mission Dolores. Another road or path to the mission was along Kearny, up Bush street to the hill, down Stockton street, where on the corner of Sutter, the rider (of 1851) came suddenly upon a most beautiful dwelling with porch, veranda, door-yard, and flowers, lying in the warm sunlight "like a sweet bit of our old home spirited across the continent by fairy's wand." This house was made in Boston for Judge Burritt and shipped to San Francisco. It occupied the fifty vara lot on the northwest corner of Sutter and Stock- ton streets .* Dr. A. J. Bowie lived here many years. It was afterwards added to and used as a beer garden, where light opera was given in the evening, and was known as the Vienna Gardens.
Down Stockton street the rider passed, skirting the high sand-hill that filled Union square, through Saint Ann's valley to Yerba Buena cemetery, to the Hayes residence, where amid trees and flowers Colonel Thomas Hayes kept open house for his friends and dispensed generous hospitality. His residence occupied the block between Van Ness, Franklin, Grove, and Hayes streets, and that of his friend and neighbor, James Van Ness, the block between Van Ness, Franklin, Hayes, and Fell-the present public library lot. From here it was little
* Barry and Patten: Men and Memories of San Francisco.
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THE BEGINNINGS OF SAN FRANCISCO
over a mile to the mission. In the winter of 1850-51, a plank road was built from California south on Kearny to Third, thence to Mission street, and to the Mission Dolores. This road was owned by a stock company, cost ninety-six thousand dollars and paid in dividends nearly eight per cent. a month on the investment. The charge was twenty-five cents for a caballero, seventy-five cents for a wagon and two horses, and one dollar for a four-horse team. The toll house was first on Kearny street, then on Third at the intersection of Stevenson, then at Fourth and Mission, and finally, further out. At Sixth street the road came to a marsh which was crossed by a bridge reaching from Sixth to Eighth streets. Just before coming to the bridge a road led to the cemetery and to the residence of C. V. Gillespie, nearly opposite the cemetery gate. In the block between Eleventh and Twelfth streets, on the north- westerly side of the road was the Grizzly road-side inn, where a chained bear was kept for the enter- tainment of callers. A little further on a brook crossed the road where some years later Robert B. Woodward established that most delightful place for the children of San Francisco, Woodward's Gar- dens. Woodward began his ministrations to the public on Pike street now Waverly Piace, a short street running from Washington to Sacramento streets a little above Dupont, where he kept a coffee house. Later he made a fortune in the famous What Cheer house. At the mission was the Mansion
619
SOCIETY CAST INTO NEW FORMS
house, where Bob Ridley and Charles V. Stuart entertained all comers. Here, in their adobe houses, lived the Guerrero, De Haro, Valencia, Bernal, Alviso, Sanchez, Galindo, and other well-known families whose names are perpetuated in our streets and hills.
In 1849 San Francisco was a city of men. Every man was his own housekeeper, doing, in many instances, his own cooking, washing, and mending. The men considered that they would be in California so short a time that it was not worth while to bring the families; besides, there was no place for them. This resulted in the dissolution of old conventionali- ties and the casting of society into new forms. Men were like children escaped from school. The new environment did not encourage moderation. A great increase of activity came upon the people, accompanied by a reckless and daring spirit. Men noted for prudence and caution took sudden leave of those qualities, and plunged into speculation so daring that newly arrived persons predicted a speedy and ruinous crash of the whole business fabric of San Francisco. The latent strength hitherto con- fined by lack of opportunity and conventional rules was brought into action, and leadership fell to those most fitted. Practical equality ruled among the members of the community and no honest occupa- tion, however menial in its character, affected a man's standing. Sailors, cooks, or day laborers, frequently became heads of profitable establishments,
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THE BEGINNINGS OF SAN FRANCISCO
while doctors, lawyers, and other professional men, worked for wages, even as waiters and shoeblacks. Said Broderick: "I represent a state, sir, where labor is honorable; where the judge has left his bench the lawyer and doctor their offices, and the clergy- man his pulpit, for the purpose of delving in the earth; where no station is so high and no position so great that its occupant is not proud to boast that he has labored with his own hands. There is no state in the union, no place on earth, where labor is so honored and so well rewarded; no time and place since the Almighty doomed the sons of Adam to toil, where the curse, if it be a curse, rests so lightly as now on the people of California."*
The exuberance of the Americans manifested itself in dangerous excesses, chief among which were drinking and gambling. The practice of drinking was widely prevalent, and perhaps no city in the world contained more drinking houses in proportion to population than San Francisco. Various explana- tions have been given for this wide-spread indul- gence, such as lack of homes and higher recreations, influence of climate, and so on. I think the practice was largely due to the excitement and strain which men were under, combined with freedom from re- straint, lavishness, and an exaggerated spirit of good- fellowship. They were not, as a rule, solitary drink-
Gambling grew and flourished, in spite of a ers.
* Speech of David C. Broderick in the United States Senate on the admission of Kansas.
621
RECKLESSNESS OF CALIFORNIANS
strong and universal public sentiment against it. It was a part of the wildness in the blood-the crav- ing for fresh excitement. The most reckless players were the richly-laden miners, and from them the professional gamblers reaped a harvest. In many instances the gamblers themselves were men who had led orderly and respectable lives at home. On arriving at San Francisco in September 1849, Brother Taylor asked a person who came on board the ship if there were any ministers of the gospel in San Francisco. "Yes," he said, "we have one preacher, but preaching won't pay here, so he quit preaching and went to gambling." The reply Mr. Taylor received well illustrates the reckless manner in which statements were made; statements as false and misleading as they were reckless. There were at that time, as we have seen, four places in the city where the gospel was regularly preached by ordained ministers. The wickedness of San Francisco has been well advertised and is, to this day, a favorite theme for discussion by those who can see only the surface of things and who accept, without investi- gation, the statements of those who prate of a "pleasure loving people" and of the "Paris of America."
The other diversions offered the people were about on a par with the drinking saloon and gaming table; but with the growth of home influence men began to long for better things. They began to be interested in the development of the great resources of the
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THE BEGINNINGS OF SAN FRANCISCO
country. Men sent for their families, and young men began to look for wives. As soon as they made up their minds to settle permanently in the country, their conduct underwent a great change for the better. They were interested in the establishment of schools and churches, a better observation of the Sabbath, and whatever they thought would improve social conditions. In spite of dissipating and dis- organizing influences, the main stock of society was strong, vigorous, and progressive; and with the same energy with which they had plunged into earlier excesses, the Americans now set about the establish- ment of order, guided by an enlightened experience and the instinct of right. In a community which contained contributions from all the nationalities of Europe, Asia, America, and the islands of the sea, the men of the United States dominated by numbers, by right of conquest, by energy, shrewdness, and adaptability. From the worst elements of anarchy was evolved social order. With a freshly-awakened pride of country, which made every citizen jealously and disinterestedly anxious that California should acquit herself honorably in the eyes of the nation at large, the prejudices of sect and party were dis- claimed, and all united in the serious work of forming the commonwealth.
The city has had her full share of trials and tribu- lations. Abused and degraded by pretended friends, betrayed into the hands of plunderers by her guard- ians, her people have twice risen and taken back into
·
623
THE END OF THE AYUNTAMIENTO
their hands the delegated powers of government; then when their work was done they have returned to their usual vocations, peaceful citizens and obedient subjects of the law.
On the 15th of April 1850, the legislature granted a city charter to San Francisco, assigning as bound- aries: On the south, a line parallel to Clay street, two miles south from Portsmouth square; on the west, a line parallel to Kearny street, one and a half miles from the square; on the north and east, the county limits. The government was vested in a mayor and common council; and with the election of the new city officials, on May 1, 1850, the ayun- tamiento passed out forever.
NOTES
NOTE 33 THE DONNER PARTY
In the spring of 1846 some two thousand emigrants were gathered at Independence, Missouri, waiting for the grass of the plains to attain sufficient growth for feed for their cattle before commencing the long journey to the Pacific coast. Some of these were bound for Oregon and the rest for California. Among the latter a large company under command of Lilburn W. Boggs, ex-governor of Missouri, started about the beginning of May. The party was found to be too large for con- venience in handling and three days after the start it was cut in two, Boggs taking charge of the advance, the second division being placed under command of Judge Moran of Missouri. Each of these two large companies was subsequently divided into smaller ones having various commanders who were changed from time to time as the emigrants proceeded on their journey, while the families changed from one company to another and new combinations were constantly being formed.
In one of these companies, commanded by William H. Russell of Kentucky, was the party known as the Donner, or the Reed and Donner party. It consisted of the brothers George and Jacob Donner, and their families, James F. Reed and family, Baylis Williams and his half sister, Eliza Williams, John Denton, Milton Elliott, James Smith, Walter Herron, and Noah James, all from Springfield, Illinois, William H. Eddy and family, from Bellefield, Illinois, Patrick Breen and family and Pat- rick Dolan, from Keokuk, Iowa, Mrs. Murphy, widow, and children, from Tennessee, her sons in-law, William H. Pike and William M. Foster, with their families, William Mc-
627
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THE BEGINNINGS OF SAN FRANCISCO
Cutchen and family, from Jackson county, Missouri, Lewis Keseburg and family, Mr. and Mrs. Wolfinger, Joseph Rhinehart, Augustus Spitzer, and Charles Burger, natives of Germany, Samuel Shoemaker, of Springfield, Ohio, Charles T. Stanton, of Chicago, Luke Halloran, of St. Joseph, Missouri, Mr. Hardcoop, a Belgian, Antonio and Juan Bautista, Spaniards, from New Mexico. West of Fort Bridger the party was joined by Franklin W. Graves and family, his son-in-law, Jay Fosdick and wife, and John Snyder, all from Marshall county, Illinois, eighty-eight souls, all told.
It was a well equipped party, and George Donner, a man of some wealth, was carrying a stock of merchan- dise for sale in California. He had several milch cows and the family was plentifully supplied with milk and butter. For a time all was well and the company thor- oughly enjoyed the novelty of their situation. The weather was delightful, and the country between the Blue and Platte rivers, a beautiful rolling prairie, was covered with grass and wild flowers. Game abounded and the men would ride twenty miles from the train on their hunting excursions. The Indians were friendly and the cattle grazed quietly around the camp unmolested. Several musical instruments and many excellent voices were in the party and all was good-fellowship and joyous anticipation. The first death occurred just before the crossing of the Big Blue river. Mrs. Sarah Keyes, the aged mother of Mrs. James F. Reed, had been in feeble health and was unable to endure the fatigues of such a journey, but having no one to leave her with they had been obliged to bring her. She was buried on the bank of the Big Blue, and the emigrants moved on. The route was the usual one: up the north fork of the Platte, up the Sweetwater, through the South pass, down the Big Sandy and the valley of Green river. At Fort
629
NOTES
Bridger, then a new trading post on Black's fork of Green river, a consultation was held regarding the next stage of the journey. Bridger and Vasquez, the owners of the fort, were old trappers of the American Fur company. They had been in the region many years and had estab- lished this fort which they expected to make a great trading post, and they hoped to induce the government to make it the principal military post of the intermountain region. They had also traced out a road from Fort Laramie to Fort Bridger which they claimed was easier, had more grass and water, and was much shorter than the road through the Black hills and South pass. It followed up the Laramie river, came through Bridger pass and down Bitter creek to the Green. This route, surveyed by Captain Stansbury, U. S. topographical engineers, in 1850, was that followed later by the Union Pacific railroad from the Laramie to the Green river. At Fort Bridger the emigrants met a man whose advice, taken by them, was to cause their ruin. Lansford W. Hastings had commanded a party of emigrants across the plains to Oregon in 1842. The excessive rains of that country through the winter had produced dissatis- faction in the party and they determined to seek the sunnier skies of California. This they did the following year and reached Sutter's fort about the middle of July 1843. Bidwell says that Hastings came with a half- formed purpose of exciting a revolution, of wresting California from Mexico, and of establishing an inde- pendent republic with himself as president .* The for- eigners in the country were however too few for a success- ful revolt and Hastings devoted himself to the work of promoting emigration to California. He returned to the United States and published an emigrants' guide
* Bidwell: California in 1841-8 MS. Bancroft Collection.
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THE BEGINNINGS OF SAN FRANCISCO
to Oregon and California, wherein he gives a most glowing account of California, whose people were "scarcely a visible grade in the scale of intelligence above the bar- barous tribes by whom they are surrounded," but who, nevertheless, treated foreigners with kindness and freely granted them lands .* He also, it is said, supplemented his publication by lectures. In 1845 he brought a small party through to California and then turned himself to diverting the Oregon emigration to California. It was on this business that he now presented himself to our party of emigrants at Fort Bridger. Many of them knew who he was and some had seen his book. The most of the people were bound for Oregon, but Donner, Harlan, Boggs, and some other parties were going to California. Hastings assembled the emigrants and told them of a new route he had discovered around the south end of Salt Lake and striking the Humboldt river one hundred and fifty miles above the sink. He told them that they would, by taking this route, save two hundred miles of travel over the old road by Fort Hall. Bridger and Vasquez added their testimony in favor of the new route and all three, for their own interests, exaggerated its advantages and underrated its difficulties. The delib- erations lasted three or four days and the historian of the Donner party states that but for the earnest advice and solicitation of Bridger and Vasquez the entire party would have continued by the accustomed route. After mature deliberation, the emigrants divided; the greater portion, going by Fort Hall, reached California in safety. The Donner party, which had a few days before elected George Donner captain, decided to take the Hastings' cut-off, as did the Harlan party, whose chief was George Harlan. These two parties left Fort Bridger on July
* Hastings: Emigrants' Guide, pages 64-133.
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NOTES
28th, and for several days traveled in company. The route was fairly good and they had little difficulty until they reached Weber cañon, where the road seemed im- passable for the wagons. They halted and held a council. Harlan and some of his party maintained that the road could be made passable and that they could get through. Reed and Donner refused to go on and with their party turned back. The Harlan party spent six days in building a road through the cañon and on the seventh passed over it and reached Salt Lake. They crossed the desert, losing by death one of their members, and after a hard struggle and a loss of many cattle, reached the Humboldt near the vicinity of the present Palisade, where they ascertained that the Boggs' party, which had gone by Fort Hall, was seventy-five miles ahead of them. Pushing on with all possible speed they crossed the mountains and reached Johnson's rancho, the first habitation west of the sierra, on the twenty-fourth of October. They were the last party to cross the moun- tains.
After leaving Harlan the Donner party traveled back for two days and then struck across the Wasatch range to the south and followed down the canon of a small stream towards Salt Lake. Some three weeks were spent in making roads and mending wagons, only to find the mouth of the cañon so narrow and so filled with huge rocks as to be impassable. With great exertion they succeeded in getting out of the cañon and reached Salt Lake about September Ist-some thirty-four days from Fort Bridger, a journey they were told would be made in six. It appears that Edwin Bryant, afterwards alcalde of San Francisco, had passed through the Hastings' cut-off ahead of the Harlan party. Bryant was traveling with a small party with pack-mules, and was guided by James M. Hudspeth, an associate of Hastings. He left
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