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 8
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But the great opportunity of the land sharks came with the sale, under execution, of the greater part of the city's property. Under a regime of peculation and heedless extravagance a municipal debt of about one million dollars was incurred, and was rapidly growing under an interest charge of thirty-six per cent. and a depreciated scrip which caused creditors to endeavor to avoid loss by adding two or three hundred per cent. to their bills. An attempt was made to fund the debt at ten per cent. but some of the holders of scrip, under the influence of land speculators, refused to surrender it, and brought suit against the city. Among these creditors was Doctor Peter Smith, the owner of a private hospital, who had in 1850 contracted with the city for the care of destitute sick, at four dollars a head per day. Smith procured judgments against the city for $64,431.00 and began to levy upon its property.
* Argument of William H. Shaw in case of Hart vs. Burnett, pp. 28, 29.
568
THE BEGINNINGS OF SAN FRANCISCO
The commissioners of the funded debt denounced the levy as illegal and warned the people against buying the city's property under these judgments. Other holders of scrip obtained judgments for their claims, and some two millions of property, including wharves, water lots, upland lots, the old city hall, etc., were purchased by speculators at a nominal figure. One parcel of four hundred and eighty fifty vara lots was sold, under a judgment obtained by Jesse D. Carr, for the sum of fifty dollars-less than ten and a half cents a lot. The people were inclined to treat the matter of the sales as a joke but their amusement was turned into dismay when sales were confirmed and the debt commissioners were enjoined from disposing of the property. A meeting of citizens was hastily called and the amount of the judgments was subscribed and ten- dered to the purchasers of the property; but it was refused on the ground that the tenderers were not entitled to the right of redemption. Before the city council could be induced to act the time of redemp- tion had passed. Charges of connivance were made against the officials, but the city lost its property. A few men had seized almost the entire domain, made themselves very rich, created a landed aristoc- racy, and reduced all others to the necessity of pay- ing immense prices for building lots or still more enormous ones in the shape of rents. In 1860 the supreme court held, that in the case of upland prop- erty, a sheriff's deed passed no title; that the com-
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569
LIMANTOUR'S CLAIM
mon lands of the pueblo were held in trust for the future citizens and that they were not subject to sale under execution. But for many years the cloud hung over the city titles, depressing prices and ren- dering real estate unsalable. In addition to the uncertainty of land values and the unsettling of titles caused by the Peter Smith sales, claims were brought forward in 1853 which threatened confiscation of all lands south of California and west of Stockton streets. These subjects extend beyond the limits set to this work and I will touch but briefly upon them.
On the 5th of February 1853, José Yves Liman- tour, whom we have met in connection with the supplies furnished Micheltorena's cholos, presented to the land commission a most extraordinary claim to some six hundred thousand acres of land in California, the islands of the Farallones, Alcatraz, and Yerba Buena, the peninsula of Tiburon, and to four square leagues of land in San Francisco. These astonishing grants were signed by Governor Micheltorena and dated in 1843. Limantour claimed that the grants were made him in return for aid fur- nished to the government. The land commission rejected the six hundred thousand acre grants but confirmed those to the San Francisco leagues and to the islands. Consternation seized the citizens. The grants took in all the area between California street and the Mission creek, and between the old road leading from the presidio to the mission and the
570
THE BEGINNINGS OF SAN FRANCISCO
Pacific ocean-practically everything south of Cali- fornia and west of Divisadero streets. The reason Limantour gave for the delay of ten years in asserting his claim was that he had been engaged elsewhere in important matters and only now had the necessary time to look after his interests in California. Notwithstand- ing the fact that many able lawyers pronounced the claim fraudulent or illegal, and the opinion of Henry W. Halleck, an authority on Spanish titles, that the government of California could not grant to a single person nearly all the pueblo lands without the knowl- edge or consent of the municipal authorities, the panic stricken citizens began buying Limantour's titles to their property. The United States govern- ment appealed the case and appropriated two hun- dred thousand dollars to defend its rights to the presidio lands, the custom house, the mint, and other property. The citizens had paid to Limantour some three hundred thousand dollars when the United States district court pronounced the alleged grants forgeries, and much of the testimony introduced to sustain them perjury. The discovery of the fraudu- lent character of the documents was largely due to Professor George Davidson of the United States coast survey, who was called as an expert for the government. The court, in rendering its decision, pronounced the case without parallel in the judicial history of the country, and said: "It is with no slight satisfaction that the proofs of fraud are as conclusive and irresistible as the attempted fraud
571
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57I
SANTILLAN CLAIM
itself has been flagrant and audacious." Limantour was arrested and released on thirty thousand dollars bail. He deposited the money with his bondsmen and fled the country.
José Prudencio Santillan, Indian parish priest of San Francisco, claimed a grant of three leagues of land in San Francisco supposed to have been made by Governor Pico, February 10, 1846. Santillan sold the claim to James R. Bolton who transferred it to a Philadelphia association. The claim was al- lowed by the land commission, was appealed to the district court, and so busy were the government and lot owners in fighting Limantour that the case was hastened through the district court almost unchal- lenged. Having defeated the Limantour grant the people awoke to the danger from the Santillan, or Bolton grant, as it was called and petitioned the supreme court to send the case back for new trial. The supreme court examined the claim and rejected it without referring it to the lower court. This claim covered much of the property previously granted (?) to Limantour and extended from the so-called Vallejo line to the northern boundaries of the ranchos Laguna de la Merced and Buri Buri .*
San Francisco began to improve immediately after the American occupation and its future great- ness as the metropolis of the Pacific was clearly foreseen. The people recognized the necessity for
* Hoffman: Land Cases i, pp. 392-3. Bancroft: Hist. of Cal. vii, pp. 243-4.
572
THE BEGINNINGS OF SAN FRANCISCO
wharves to deep water and for filling in and building upon the mud flats lying before the town. A pub- lic meeting was held on the plaza February 15, 1847, and a petition to the governor was signed asking for a grant to the town of the tide lands of Yerba Buena cove. In response to this action General Kearny, on March Ioth, granted and released to the town all the right, title, and interest of the United States and of the territory of California, to the beach and water lots between Fort Montgomery (Clark's Point) and the Rincon, excepting such lots as should be selected for government use; the lots so given were to be sold at public auction for the benefit of the town. The alcalde, Edwin Bryant, employed Jasper O'Far- rell to make a survey of the lots and announced a sale for June 29th. The sale was postponed to July 20th-23d, when two hundred and forty-eight lots, forty-five by one hundred and thirty-seven and a half feet, were sold. Some of the lots on the beach sold as high as six hundred dollars apiece, while those under water sold from fifty to four hundred dollars. I believe it was considered that General Kearny had no authority to make such a grant, but in 1851 the state ceded the beach and water lots to the city for a pe- riod of ninety-nine years and confirmed previous sales.
At the foot of Clay street a little pier had been built at which small boats could land at high tide, but the principal landing place was at the Punta del Embarcadero, or Clark's Point-now the corner of Broadway and Battery street. Here was deep
573
FIRST WHARF
water and boats could come alongside the rocks. William S. Clark built in 1847 a small wharf at the point, at which ships could lie. The first vessel to dock here was the brig Belfast in October 1848, the first ship, it is said, to discharge cargo in San Fran- cisco without lighters. Clark says he built a wharf and warehouse on piles, making a pile driver of twelve hundred pounds of pig iron obtained from a whaler at Sausalito, and raising it by a windlass. Clark, a native of Maryland, came with the Harlan party in 1846, and was one of the Yerba Buena volunteers in the Santa Clara campaign. Clark's Point was named for him. General Sherman referred to Clark as a Mormon who refused to pay tithes to Sam Brannan, but Clark says Sherman was mis- taken; he was not and never had been a Mormon.
In October 1847, the council authorized the exten- sion of the little Clay street wharf five hundred and forty-seven feet into the bay, also the construction of a pier at the foot of Broadway, one hundred and fifty feet in length. Eleven thousand dollars was appropriated for the Clay street pier and four thousand for that of Broadway. Work on these was continued into January 1848, when funds gave out and the work was stopped. No other work was done on the water front in 1848, beyond a beginning at the filling of the lagoon at Jackson street. In the spring of 1849 a joint stock company was formed, with a capital of one hundred and twenty thousand dollars, which began in May the construction of a
574
THE BEGINNINGS OF SAN FRANCISCO
wharf extending from the bank in the middle of the block between Sacramento and Clay streets, where Leidesdorff street now is, eight hundred feet into the bay. The principal stockholders were Mellus and Howard, Cross, Hobson and Company, James C. Ward, Joseph L. Folsom, De Witt and Harrison, and Sam Brannan. Mellus and Howard gave the wharf right of way across the block between San- some and Battery streets; the alcalde, with the consent of the ayuntamiento, gave the right of way across the next block east; Colonel Stevenson and W. C. Parker, the right of way across the next block, and the city, the right across the block following, to Drumm street-to which the wharf was extended by October 1850. Here was sufficient depth of water to allow the Pacific Mail steamers to lie alongside. The wharf was two thousand feet long, thirty-five feet wide, and cost one hundred and eighty- one thousand dollars. At the shore end (Leides- dorff street), was the office of the Pacific Mail Steam- ship company, a wooden building of two stories. This was destroyed by the fire of June 1850, which also seriously damaged the wharf, and the steam- ship office was then moved to the corner of Sacra- mento and Leidesdorff streets. Central, or Long wharf, as it was called, became the favorite prom- enade. Buildings perched on piles sprang up quickly on either side, and commission houses, groceries,
575
EXTENSION OF WHARVES INTO BAY
saloons, mock auctions, cheap-John shops, and peddlers did a thriving business. Central wharf is now Commercial street.
The immediate success of Central wharf started similar enterprises upon every street along the front from California street to Broadway, and by October 1850, California street was extended into the cove by a wharf four hundred feet long by thirty-two feet wide; Sacramento street (Howison's Pier) was ex- tended eleven hundred feet by forty feet; Clay street, starting from the bank at Montgomery street, ran a pier forty feet wide alongside of Sherman and Ruckle's store, nine hundred feet into the water, leaving in its rear imbedded in the mud on the north- west corner of Sansome and Clay streets, the ship Niantic, and in the next block the ship General Harrison. The pier that formed the extension of Washington street ran two hundred and seventy- five feet into the water; that of Pacific street, two hundred and fifty feet, and that of Broadway, the same. North of Broadway was Cunningham's wharf between Vallejo and Green streets. Buckalew's wharf was a continuation of Green street; Law's wharf was between Green and Union streets, and Cowel's wharf, between Union and Filbert streets. Most of these wharves were private enterprises and yielded large returns to the projectors. A few belonged to the municipality, which soon absorbed the rest as they were converted into streets .*
* Soule: Annals, p. 292.
576
THE BEGINNINGS OF SAN FRANCISCO
Where Leidesdorff's warehouse stood, on the beach at California street, there was a small wharf for land- ing at high tide. From this point northward to Clay street, a narrow levee, piled and capped, marked the boundary of the tide waters along the beach, and formed the westerly line of Leidesdorff street. From the corner of California and Leidesdorff streets, the beach took a turn to the southeast corner of California and Sansome streets; and where the building of the Mutual Life Insurance Company now stands, there stood in 1849 the store of Dewey and Heiser. This building rested upon piles, the tide flowed and ebbed under the store, and at high water lighters received and discharged cargoes from the rear of this and all the other stores on Sansome street between Cali- fornia and Jackson. Diagonally across from Dewey and Heiser's store, Captain Folsom in 1850 built on piles the Jones house, afterwards called the Te- hama house, on the northwest corner of California and Sansome streets, a rendezvous of army officers and a favorite hotel of wealthy rancheros. This well-known hotel stood until 1864, when it was re- moved to make way for the building of the Bank of California. It was taken to the corner of Mont- gomery street and Broadway where it stood until destroyed by the fire of April 1906. At the Broad- way wharf were the offices of the harbor master, of the river and bar pilots, and of the Sacramento steamer. On this wharf was also the Steinberger butcher shop. Baron Steinberger conceived the
577
BEGINNING OF SANSOME STREET
idea of making a large fortune by purchasing cattle from the rancheros and selling beef to the people of San Francisco. Sherman says that Steinberger brought letters to General Persifer F. Smith and Commodore Jones. He was a splendid looking fel- low and carried things with a high hand. He bought cattle from Don Timoteo Murphy at Mission San Rafael, sold the beef from twenty-five to fifty cents a pound, and paid Murphy nothing .*
Before the extension of Central wharf (Commercial street) to deep water, a little wharf at the foot of Sacramento street assumed prominence as a recep- tion place for merchandise. A narrow strip, just wide enough for a handcar tramway with room on each side for one person to walk, was extended on the south side of Sacramento street. When it came to the easterly line of Sansome street a little pier was extended northward, just large enough to ac- commodate the store of Dall and Austin. After a while a narrow row of piles was driven northward from this pier to Commercial street and on to Clay, and then extended to Washington, to Jackson, and to Pacific where it joined terra firma at the east side of Sansome street. Upon these piles was laid a narrow plank walk about four feet wide, without rail or protection of any kind, and along this narrow way pedestrians passed and repassed. This was the beginning of Sansome street.t
* Memoirs i, pp. 68-9.
t Barry and Patten: Men and Memories of San Francisco.
578
THE BEGINNINGS OF SAN FRANCISCO
As the piers grew seaward the lines of crossing streets were marked by piles extended north and south on which were erected buildings for stores and offices. Many people lived in these buildings, and it is estimated that in 1850 one thousand persons were living over the water, in buildings resting on piles, or in the hulks of vessels.
On the summit of Loma Alta a station was erected whereon the American flag was raised to announce the approach of a Panama steamer. Later a sema- phore announced the character of the approaching steamer; hence the name, Telegraph hill.
From April 1, 1849, to the end of the year, more than seven hundred vessels entered the harbor .* To meet the demand for freight and ship money, car- goes were sold at auction and the market was glutted with goods of all kinds. This condition, together with the scant storage room, falling prices, and the extraordinary cost of labor, was such that in some instances it did not pay to unload cargoes. Many vessels were beached and converted into storage ships, shops, and lodging houses. Here we have the spectacle of a gallant ship, metamorphosed into a form and likeness that is neither of land nor sea, but partakes of both, rounding out her career of
* Notwithstanding the great numbers of ships arriving at San Francisco during 1849 and the few years following, there was no light at the entrance of the harbor until 1854 when a light was erected on Alcatraz island, and in 1855 Point Bonita, the southeast Farallon and Fort Point each had a light. There were no tugs and but few experienced pilots.
579
IMPRISONED SHIPS
usefulness by a service equally important if less dig- nified. The growing wharves push by her resting place, crossing piers hem her in, and buildings grow up between her and deep water; her retreat cut off, she gazes helplessly through her cabin windows upon the busy traffic of surrounding streets.
At the northwest corner of Clay and Sansome streets was anchored the well-known ship Niantic. Soon after the sailing of the California from Panama with the first of the Argonauts, the Niantic arrived at that port and brought up to San Francisco about two hundred and fifty of the immigrants at one hundred and fifty dollars a head. On the north- west corner of Clay and Battery streets was the General Harrison. The Apollo was on the north- west corner of Sacramento and Battery streets, and the Georgean, between Washington and Jackson, west of Battery street. These ships were all burned in the fire of May 3, 1851. On the site of the Niantic was built the Niantic hotel, which gave way in 1872 to the Niantic block. William Kelly writes: "On enquiring where my friend Mr. S- was located, I was told I could be landed at a stair-foot leading right to it; and was not a little surprised when we pulled alongside a huge dismantled hulk, surrounded with a strong and spacious stage, connected with the street by a substantial wharf, to find the counting house on the deck of the Niantic, a fine vessel of one thousand tons, no longer a bouyant ship, sur-
580
THE BEGINNINGS OF SAN FRANCISCO
mounted by lofty spars, and 'streamers waving in the wind, ' but a tenement anchored in the mud, covered with a shingle roof, sub-divided into stores and offices and painted over with signs and showboards of the various occupants. To this 'base use' was my friend obliged to convert her rather than let her rot at anchor, there being no possibility then of getting a crew to send her to sea. Her hull was divided into large warehouses, entered by spacious doorways on the sides, and her bulwarks were raised about eight feet, affording a range of excellent offices on the deck, at the level of which a wide balcony was carried round, surmounted by a verandah, ap- proached by a broad handsome stairway. Both stores and offices found tenants at higher rents than tenements of similar dimensions on shore would command, and returned a larger and steadier income, as my friend told me, than the ship would earn if afloat."*
Some ships were sent up the Sacramento and San Joaquin rivers; some were sold for port dues and broken up for building material; others rotted and sank at their moorings, and it was years before the channel was cleared of the hulks.
Before the inrush of gold seekers the principal business house in San Francisco was that of Mellus and Howard, already noted. Into this firm was admitted in 1849 Talbot H. Green, whose arrival in 1841 with the first overland immigrant party we
* Kelly: A Stroll through the Diggings of California.
581
TALBOT H. GREEN
have seen. Green was a good business man, promi- nent in all public affairs, and member of the ayun- tamiento of 1849-50. In 1851 he was recognized and denounced as Paul Geddes of Pennsylvania, a default- ing bank clerk, who had left a wife and children in the east. Green, protesting his innocence, started for the east with the avowed purpose of clearing his reputation, being escorted to the steamer by a large company of prominent citizens. The charge proved true, and Green passed from the life of California. It was reported later that he had joined his first wife and family. He had married, in California, the widow of Allan Montgomery who came with her husband in the Stevens party of 1844 .* Green street was named for him.
Another mercantile house, prior to the gold dis- coveries, was Ward and Smith. Their store was on the east side of Montgomery street, north of Clay. Frank Ward, the head of this firm, came on the ship Brooklyn in 1846. He was a very popular man and a prominent citizen. His partner was William M. Smith, whom we have seen as commander of the Yerba Buena company at the battle of Santa Clara. Smith came in 1845. He was an amusing fellow who had been a circus rider, and was known as “Jim Crow" Smith. In August 1848, Smith married Susana Martinez, widow of Captain Hinckley. Next to Ward and Smith was the store of Sherman and Ruckel, on the northeast corner of Clay and
* Bancroft: Hist. of Cal. iii, p. 765.
582
THE BEGINNINGS OF SAN FRANCISCO
Montgomery. In 1847 Sherman bought the southern half of the corner fifty vara lot, and erected a wooden store building. It was built on the flat below the bank and had a bridge from the front door to Mont- gomery street. On the northwest corner of Mont- gomery and Washington streets, Charles L. Ross had his "New York Store." On April 1, 1849, the steam- ship Oregon arrived, bringing Colonel John W. Geary, the newly appointed postmaster, and a mail of five thousand letters. Geary was the first post- master, and his mail was the second opened in San Francisco. Previous to the American occupation correos (messengers) were employed by the govern- ment to carry letters and during and after the con- quest letters brought by ships were left at the stores or shipping houses on the water front. C. L. Ross who had been appointed temporary postmaster and had distributed the mail brought by the California, took the postmaster into his store and gave him floor space, eight by ten feet, on which Geary drew chalk lines and in the squares distributed the letters. Then knocking a pane of glass out of the window, he opened the general delivery. Ross was a native of New Jersey who came in 1847, and was a prominent man in San Francisco for a number of years.
Robert A. Parker, a native of Boston, came in 1847 as supercargo on the ship Mt. Vernon, and opened a store in the casa grande of Richardson's on Dupont street. Later he kept the City hotel, and in 1849 built and kept the famous Parker house
NEW YORK STORE, CORNER OF MONTGOMERY AND WASHINGTON STREETS Note the "Cantil."
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marsberman bought the southern was in, and ercoled a wooden un built on the flat below the er from the front door to Mont- northwest corner of Mont- w wfreets. Charles L. Ross had On April 1, 1849, the steam- bringing Colonel John W. appointed postmaster, and a mail Leary was the first post-
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