A Backward Glance at Eighty Part 6

SAN FRANCISCO--THE SIXTIES

We are familiar with the romantic birth of San Francisco and its precocious childhood; we are well acquainted with its picturesque background of Spanish history and the glorious days of '49; but I doubt if we are as well informed as to the significant and perhaps equally important second decade.

It was my fortune to catch a hurried glance of San Francisco in 1855, when the population was about forty-five thousand. I was then on the way from New England to my father's home in Humboldt County. I next saw it in 1861 while on my way to and from attendance at the State Fair. In 1864 I took up my residence in the city and it has since been continuous.

That the almost neglected sixties may have some setting, let me briefly trace the beginnings. Things moved slowly when America was discovered.

Columbus found the mainland in 1503. Ten years later Balboa reached the Pacific, and, wading into the ocean, modestly claimed for his sovereign all that bordered its sh.o.r.es. Thirty years thereafter the point farthest west was named Mendocino, for Mendoza, the viceroy ordering the expedition of Cabrillo and Ferrelos. Thirty-seven years later came Drake, and almost found San Francis...o...b..y. But all these discoveries led to no occupation. It seems incredible that two hundred and twenty-six years elapsed from Cabrillo's visit to the day the first settlers landed in San Diego, founding the first of the famous missions. Historically, 1769 is surely marked. In this year Napoleon and Wellington were born and civilized California was founded.

San Francis...o...b..y was discovered by a land party. It was August 6, 1775, seven weeks after the battle of Bunker Hill, that Ayala cautiously found his way into the bay and anch.o.r.ed the "San Carlos" off Sausalito. Five days before the Declaration of Independence was signed Moraga and his men, the first colonists, arrived in San Francisco and began getting out the timber to build the fort at the Presidio and the church at Mission Dolores.

Vancouver, in 1792, poking into an unknown harbor, found a good landing-place at a cove around the first point he rounded at his right.

The Spaniards called it Yerba Buena, after the fragrant running vine that abounded in the lee of the sandhills which filled the present site of Market Street, especially at a point now occupied by the building of the Mechanics-Mercantile Library. There was no human habitation in sight, nor was there to be for forty years, but friendly welcome came on the trails that led to the Presidio and the Mission.

An occasional whaler or a trader in hides and tallow came and went, but foreigners were not encouraged to settle. It was in 1814 that the first "Gringo" came. In 1820 there were thirteen in all California, three of whom were Americans. In 1835 William A. Richardson was the first foreign resident of Yerba Buena. He was allowed to lay out a street and build a structure of boards and s.h.i.+p's sails in the Calle de Fundacion, which generally followed the lines of the present Grant Avenue. The spot approximates number 811 of the avenue today. When Dana came in 1835 it was the only house visible. The following year Jacob P. Leese built a complete house, and it was dedicated by a celebration and ball on the Fourth of July in which the whole community partic.i.p.ated.

The settlement grew slowly. In 1840 there were sixteen foreigners. In 1844 there were a dozen houses and fifty people. In 1845 there were but five thousand people in all the state. The missions had been disbanded and the Presidio was manned by one gray-haired soldier. The Mexican War brought renewed life. On July 9, 1846, Commodore Sloat sent Captain Montgomery with the frigate "Portsmouth," and the American flag was raised on the staff in the plaza of 1835, since called Portsmouth Square. Thus began the era of American occupation. Lieutenant Bartlett was made alcalde, with large powers, in pursuance of which, on February 27, 1847, he issued a simple order that the town thereafter be known as San Francisco,--and its history as such began.

The next year gold was discovered. A sleepy, romantic, s.h.i.+ftless but picturesque community became wide-awake, energetic, and aggressive. San Francisco leaped into prominence. Every nation on earth sent its most ambitious and enterprising as well as its most restless and irresponsible citizens. In the last nine months of 1849, seven hundred s.h.i.+ploads were landed in a houseless town. They largely left for the mines, but more remained than could be housed. They lived on and around hulks run ash.o.r.e and thousands found shelter in Happy Valley tents. A population of two thousand at the beginning of the year was twenty thousand at the end. It was a gold-crazed community. Everything consumed was imported. Gold dust was the only export.

From 1849 to 1860, gold amounting to over six hundred million dollars was produced. The maximum--eighty-one millions--was reached in 1852. The following year showed a decline of fourteen millions, and 1855 saw a further decline of twelve millions. Alarm was felt. At the same ratio of decline, in less than four years production would cease. It was plainly evident, if the state were to exist and grow, that other resources must be developed.

In the first decade there were periods of great depression. Bank and commercial failures were very frequent occurrences in 1854. The state was virtually only six years old--but what wonderful years they had been! In the splendor of achievement and the glamour of the golden fleece we lose sight of the fact that the community was so small. In the whole state there were not more than 350,000 people, of whom a seventh lived in San Francisco. There were indications that the tide of immigration had reached its height. In 1854 arrivals had exceeded departures by twenty-four thousand. In 1855 the excess dropped to six thousand.

My first view of San Francisco left a vivid impression of a city in every way different from any I had ever seen. The streets were planked, the buildings were heterogeneous--some of brick or stone, others little more than shacks. Portsmouth Square was the general center of interest, facing the City Hall and the Post Office. Clay Street Hill was higher then than now. I know it because I climbed to its top to call on a boy who came on the steamer and lived there. There was but little settlement to the west of the summit.

The leading hotel was the International, lately opened, on Jackson Street below Montgomery. It was considered central in location, being convenient to the steamer landings, the Custom House, and the wholesale trade. Probably but one building of that period has survived. At the corner of Montgomery and California streets stood Parrott's granite block, the stone for which was cut in China and a.s.sembled in 1852 by Chinese workmen imported for the purpose. It harbored the bank of Page, Bacon & Co., and has been continuously occupied, surviving an explosion of nitroglycerine in 1866 (when Wells, Fargo & Co. were its tenants) as well as the fire of 1906. Wilson's Exchange was in Sansome Street near Sacramento. The American Theater was opposite. Where the Bank of California stands there was a seed store. On the northeast corner of California and Sansome streets was Bradshaw's zinc grocery store.

The growth of the city southward had already begun. The effort to develop North Beach commercially had failed. Meiggs' Wharf was little used; the Cobweb Saloon, near its sh.o.r.e end, was symbolic. Telegraph Hill and its semaph.o.r.e and time-ball were features of business life. It was well worth climbing for the view, which Bayard Taylor p.r.o.nounced the finest in the world.

At this time San Francisco monopolized the commerce of the coast.

Everything that entered California came through the Golden Gate, and it nearly all went up the Sacramento River. It was distinctly the age of gold. Other resources were not considered. This all seemed a very insecure basis for a permanent state. That social and political conditions were threatening may be inferred when we recall that 1856 brought the Vigilance Committee. In 1857 came the Fraser River stampede.

Twenty-three thousand people are said to have left the city, and real-estate values suffered severely.

In 1860 the Pony Express was established, bringing "the States," as the East was generally designated, considerably nearer. It took but ten and a half days to St. Louis, and thirteen to New York, with postage five dollars an ounce. Steamers left on the first and fifteenth of the month, and the twenty-eighth and fourteenth were religiously observed as days for collection. No solvent man of honor failed to settle his account on "steamer day."

The election of Lincoln, followed by the threat of war, was disquieting, and the large southern element was out of sympathy with anything like coercion. But patriotism triumphed. Early in 1861 a ma.s.s meeting was held at the corner of Montgomery and Market streets, and San Francisco pledged her loyalty.

In November, 1861, I attended the State Fair at Sacramento as correspondent for the _Humboldt Times_. About the only impression of San Francisco on my arrival was the disgust I felt for the proprietor of the hotel at which I stopped, when, in reply to my eager inquiry for war news, he was only able to say that he believed there had been some fighting somewhere in Virginia. This to one starving for information after a week's abstinence was tantalizing.

After a week of absorbing interest, in a fair that seemed enormously important and impressive, I timed my return so as to spend Sunday in San Francisco, and it was made memorable by attending, morning and evening, the Unitarian church, then in Stockton near Sacramento, and hearing Starr King. He had come from Boston the year before, proposing to fill the pulpit for a year, and from the first aroused great enthusiasm. I found the church crowded and was naturally consigned to a back seat, which I shared with a sewing-machine, for it was war-time and the women were very active in relief work.

The gifted preacher was thirty-seven years old, but seemed younger. He was of medium height, had a kindly face with a generous mouth, a full forehead, and dark, glowing eyes.

In June, 1864, I became a resident of San Francisco, rejoining the family and becoming a clerk in the office of the Superintendent of Indian Affairs. The city was about one-fifth its present size, claiming a population of 110,000.

I want to give an idea of San Francisco's character and life at that time, and of general conditions in the second decade. It is not easy to do, and demands the reader's help and sympathy. Let him imagine, if he will, that he is visiting San Francisco for the first time, and that he is a personal friend of the writer, who takes a day off to show him the city. In 1864 one could arrive here only by steamer; there were no railways. I meet my friend at the gangplank of the steamer on the wharf at the foot of Broadway. To reach the car on East Street (now the Embarcadero), we very likely skirt gaping holes in the planked wharf, exposing the dark water lapping the supporting piles, and are a.s.sailed by bilge-like odors that escape. Two dejected horses await us. Entering the car we find two lengthwise seats upholstered in red plush. If it be winter, the floor is liberally covered by straw, to mitigate the mud. If it be summer, the trade winds are liberally charged with fine sand and infinitesimal splinters from the planks which are utilized for both streets and sidewalks. We rattle along East and intersecting streets until we reach Sansome, upon which we proceed to Bush, which practically bounds the business district on the south, thence we meander by a circuitous route to Laurel Hill Cemetery near Lone Mountain. A guide is almost necessary. An incoming stranger once asked the conductor to let him off at the American Exchange, which the car pa.s.sed. He was surprised at the distance to his destination. At the cemetery end of the line he discovered that the conductor had forgotten him, but was a.s.sured that he would stop at the hotel on the way back. The next thing he knew he reached the wharf; the conductor had again forgotten him. His confidence exhausted, he insisted on walking, following the track until he reached the hotel.

In the present instance we alight from the car when it reaches Montgomery Street, at the Occidental Hotel, new and attractive, well managed by a New Yorker named Leland and especially patronized by army people. We rest briefly and start out for a preliminary survey. Three blocks to the south we reach Market Street and gaze upon the outer edge of the bustling city. Across the magnificently wide but rude and unfinished street, at the immediate right, where the Palace Hotel is to stand, we see St. Patrick's Church and an Orphan Asylum. A little beyond, at the corner of Third Street, is a huge hill of sand covering the present site of the Glaus Spreckels Building, upon which a steam-paddy is at work loading flat steam cars that run Mission-ward.

The lot now occupied by the Emporium is the site of a large Catholic school. At our left, stretching to the bay are coal-yards, foundries, planing-mills, box-factories, and the like. It will be years before business crosses Market Street. Happy Valley and Pleasant Valley, beyond, are well covered by inexpensive residences. The North Beach and South Park car line connects the fine residence district on and around Rincon Hill with the fine stretches of northern Stockton Street and the environs of Telegraph Hill. At the time I picture, no street-cars ran below Montgomery, on Market Street; traffic did not warrant it. It was a boundary rather than a thoroughfare. It was destined to be one of the world's noted streets, but at this time the city's life pulsed through Montgomery Street, to which we will now return.

Turning from the apparent jumping-off place we cross to the "dollar side" and join the promenaders who pa.s.s in review or pause to gaze at the shop windows. Montgomery Street has been pre-eminent since the early days and is now at its height. For a long time Clay Street harbored the leading dry-goods stores, like the City of Paris, but all are struggling for place in Montgomery. Here every business is represented--Beach, Roman, and Bancroft, the leading booksellers; Barrett & Sherwood, Tucker, and Andrews, jewelers; Donohoe, Kelly & Co., John Sime, and Hickox & Spear, bankers; and numerous dealers in carpets, furniture, hats, French shoes, optical goods, etc. Of course Barry & Patten's was not the only saloon. Pa.s.sing along we are almost sure to see some of the characters of the day--certainly Emperor Norton and Freddie Coombs (a reincarnated Franklin), probably Colonel Stevenson, with his Punch-like countenance, towering Isaac Friedlander, the poor rich Michael Reese, handsome Hall McAllister, and aristocratic Ogden Hoffman. Should the fire-bell ring we will see Knickerbocker No. Five in action, with Chief Scannell and "b.u.mmer" and "Lazarus," and perhaps Lillie Hitchc.o.c.k. When we reach Was.h.i.+ngton Street we cross to make a call at the Bank Exchange in the Montgomery Block, the largest structure on the street. The "Exchange" is merely a popular saloon, but it boasts ten billiard tables and back of the bar hangs the famous picture of "Samson and Delilah."

Luncheon being in order we are embarra.s.sed with riches. Perhaps the Mint restaurant is as good as the best and probably gives a sight of more prominent politicians than any other resort; but something quite characteristic is the daily gathering at Jury's, a humble hole-in-the-wall in Merchant Street back of the _Bulletin_ office.

Four lawyers who like one another, and like good living as well, have a special table. Alexander Campbell, Milton Andros, George Sharp, and Judge Dwinelle will stop first in the Clay Street Market, conveniently opposite, and select the duck, fish, or English mutton-chops for the day's menu. One of the number bears the choice to the kitchen and superintends its preparation while the others engage in shrimps and table-talk until it is served. If Jury's is overflowing with custom, there are two other French restaurants alongside.

After luncheon we have a glimpse of the business district, following back on the "two-bit" side of the street. At Clay we pa.s.s a saloon with a cigar-stand in front and find a group listening to a man with bushy hair and a reddish mustache, who in an easy att.i.tude and in a quaintly drawling voice is telling a story. We await the laugh and pa.s.s on, and I say that he is a reporter, lately from Nevada, called Mark Twain. Very likely we encounter at Commercial Street, on his way to the _Call_ office, a well-dressed young man with Dundreary whiskers and an aquiline nose. He nods to me and I introduce Bret Harte, secretary to the Superintendent of the Mint, and author of the clever "Condensed Novels"

being printed in the _Californian_. At California Street we turn east, pa.s.sing the s.h.i.+pping offices and hardware houses, and coming to Battery Street, where Israelites wax fat in wholesale dry goods and the clothing business. For solid big business in groceries, liquors, and provisions we must keep on to Front Street--Front by name only, for four streets on filled-in land have crept in front of Front. Following this very important street past the s.h.i.+pping offices we reach Was.h.i.+ngton Street, pa.s.sing up which we come to Battery Street, where we pause to glance at the Custom House and Post Office at the right and the recently established Bank of California on the southwest corner of the two streets.

Having fairly surveyed the legitimate business we wish to see something of the engrossing avocation of most of the people of the city, of any business or no business, and we pa.s.s on to Montgomery, crossing over to the center of the stock exchange activities. Groups of men and women are watching the tapes in the brokers' offices, messengers are running in and out the board entrances, intense excitement is everywhere apparent. Having gained admission to the gallery of the board room we look down on the frantic mob, buying and selling Comstock shares. How much is really sold and how much is was.h.i.+ng no one knows, but enormous transactions, big with fate, are of everyday occurrence. As we pa.s.s out we notice a man with strong face whose shoes show dire need of patching.

Asked his name, I answer, "Jim Keane; just now he is down, but some day he is bound to be way up."

We saunter up Clay, pa.s.sing Burr's Savings Bank and a few remaining stores, to Kearny, and Portsmouth Square, whose glory is departing. The City Hall faces it, and so does Exempt Engine House, but dentists'

offices and cheap theaters and Chinese stores are crowding in. Clay Street holds good boarding-houses, but decay is manifest. We pa.s.s on to Stockton, still a favorite residence street; turning south we pa.s.s, near Sacramento, the church in which Starr King first preached, now proudly owned by the negro Methodists. At Post we reach Union Square, nearly covered by the wooden pavilion in which the Mechanics' Inst.i.tute holds its fairs. Diagonally opposite the southeast corner of the desecrated park are the buildings of the ambitious City College, and east of them a beautiful church edifice always spoken of as "Starr King's Church."

Very likely, seeing the church, I might be reminded of one of Mr. King's most valued friends, and suggest that we call upon him at the Golden Gate Flour-mill in Pine Street, where the California Market was to stand. If we met Horace Davis, I should feel that I had presented one of our best citizens.

Dinner presents many opportunities; but I am inclined to think we shall settle on Frank Garcia's restaurant in Montgomery near Jackson, where good service awaits us, and we may hear the upraised voices of some of the big lawyers who frequent the place. For the evening we have the choice between several bands of minstrels, but if Forrest and John McCullough are billed for "Jack Cade" we shall probably call on Tom Maguire. After the strenuous play we pa.s.s up Was.h.i.+ngton Street to Peter Job's and indulge in his incomparable ice-cream.

On Sunday I shall continue my guidance. Churches are plentiful and preachers are good. In the afternoon I think I may venture to invite my friend to The Willows, a public garden between Mission and Valencia and Seventeenth and Nineteenth streets. We shall hear excellent music in the open air and can sit at a small table and sip good beer. I find such indulgence far less wicked than I had been led to believe.

When there is something distinctive in a community a visitor is supposed to take it in, and in the evening we attend the meeting of the Dashaway a.s.sociation in its own hall in Post Street near Dupont. It numbers five thousand members and meets Sunday mornings and evenings.

Strict temperance is a live issue at this time. The Sons of Temperance maintain four divisions. There are besides two lodges of Good Templars and a San Francisco Temperance Union. And in spite of all this the city feels called upon to support a Home for Inebriates at Stockton and Chestnut streets, to which the supervisors contribute two hundred and fifty dollars a month.

I shall feel that I am derelict if I do not manage a jaunt to the Cliff House. The most desirable method demands a span of horses for a spin out Point Lobos Avenue. We may, however, be obliged to take a McGinn bus that leaves the Plaza hourly. It will be all the same when we reach the Cliff and gaze on Ben Butler and his companion sea-lions as they disport themselves in the ocean or climb the rocks. Wind or fog may greet us, but the indifferent monsters roar, fight, and play, while the restless waves roll in. We must, also, make a special trip to Rincon Hill and South Park to see how and where our magnates dwell. The 600 block in Folsom Street must not be neglected. The residences of such men as John Parrott and Milton S. Latham are almost palatial. It is related that a visitor impressed with the elegance of one of these places asked a modest man in the neighborhood if he knew whose it was. "Yes," he replied, "it belongs to an old fool by the name of John Parrott, and I am he."

We shall leave out something distinctive if we do not call at the What Cheer House in Sacramento Street below Montgomery, a hostelry for men, with moderate prices, notwithstanding many unusual privileges. It has a large reading-room and a library of five thousand volumes, besides a very respectable museum. Guests are supplied with all facilities for blacking their own boots, and are made at home in every way.

Incidentally the proprietor made a good fortune, a large part of which he invested in turning his home at Fourteenth and Mission streets into a pleasure resort known as Woodward's Gardens, which for many years was our princ.i.p.al park, art gallery and museum.

These are a few of the things I could have shown. But to know and appreciate the spirit and character of a city one must live in it and be of it; so I beg to be dismissed as a guide and to offer experiences and events that may throw some light on life in the stirring sixties.

When I migrated from Humboldt County and enlisted for life as a San Franciscan I lived with my father's family in a small brick house in Powell Street near Ellis. The Golden West Hotel now covers the lot. The little houses opposite were on a higher level and were surrounded by small gardens. Both street and sidewalks were planked, but I remember that my brother and I, that we might escape the drifting sand, often walked on the flat board that capped the flimsy fence in front of a vacant lot. On the west of Powell, at Market, was St. Ann's Garden and Nursery. On the east, where the Flood Building stands, was a stable and riding-school.

Much had been accomplished in city building, but the process was continuing. Few of us realize the obstacles overcome. Fifteen years before, the site was the rugged end of a narrow peninsula, with high rock hills, wastes of drifting sand, a curving cove of beach, bordered with swamps and estuaries, and here and there a few oases in the form of small valleys. In 1864 the general lines of the city were practically those of today. It was the present San Francisco, laid out but not filled out. There was little west of Larkin Street and quite a gap between the city proper and the Mission.

Size in a city greatly modifies character. In 1864 I found a compact community; whatever was going on seemed to interest all. We now have a mult.i.tude of unrelated circles; then there was one great circle including the sympathetic whole. The one theater that offered the legitimate drew and could accommodate all who cared for it. Herold's orchestral concerts, a great singer like Parepa Rosa, or a violinist like Ole Bull drew all the music-lovers of the city. And likewise, in the early springtime when the Unitarian picnic was announced at Belmont or Fairfax, it would be attended by at least a thousand, and heartily enjoyed by all, regardless of church connection. Such things are no more, though the population to draw from be five times as large.

In the sixties, church congregations and lecture audiences were much larger than they are now. There seemed always to be some one preacher or lecturer who was the vogue, practically monopolizing public interest.

His name might be Scudder or Kittredge or Moody, but while he lasted everybody rushed to hear him. And there was commonly some special fad that prevailed. Spiritualism held the boards for quite a time.

Changes in real-estate values were a marked feature of the city's life.

The laying out of Broadway was significant of expectations. Banks in the early days were north of Pacific in Montgomery, but very soon the drift to the south began.

In 1862, when the Unitarian church in Stockton street near Sacramento was found too small, it was determined to push well to the front of the city's growth. Two lots were under final consideration, the northwest corner of Geary and Powell, where the St. Francis now stands, and the lot in Geary east of Stockton, now covered by the Whitney Building. The first lot was a corner and well situated, but it was rejected on the ground that it was "too far out." The trustees paid $16,000 for the other lot and built the fine church that was occupied until 1887, when it was felt to be too far down town, and the present building at Franklin and Geary streets was erected. Incidentally, the lot sold for $120,000.

The evolution of pavements has been an interesting incident of the city's life. Planks were cheap and they held down some of the sand, but they grew in disfavor. In 1864 the Superintendent of Streets reported that in the previous year 1,365,000 square feet of planks had been laid, and 290,000 square feet had been paved with cobbles, a lineal mile of which cost $80,000. How much suffering they cost the militia who marched on them is not reported. Nicholson pavement was tried and found wanting.

Basalt blocks found brief favor. Finally we reached the modern era and approximate perfection.