The Lure of San Francisco Part 7

"Lord, no! Rebuilding was a habit with us early San Franciscans. We didn't begin to feel sorry for a man 'til he'd lost everything he owned three times. The Jenny Lind Theatre went down six times and the seventh building was sold for the City Hall. It stood right there"--he pointed to the handsome new Hall of Justice--"until it went up in the last fire."

"You are sure it wasn't the earthquake that finished it?" inquired the skeptic.

"Certainly not," I flared. "The Relief Committee met there that morning to lay their plans while the fires were raging south of Market Street."

He acknowledged defeat by changing the subject. "Was the old Spanish Custom House here?" he asked, pointing to the western side of the diagram.

"Yes," a.s.sented the miner, and he traced an oblong on the northern end, "and just behind it, on Was.h.i.+ngton Street, was Sam Brannan's house. He was the Mormon leader, you know, and brought a s.h.i.+pload of his followers to establish a settlement in forty-six. He published our first newspaper, the 'California Star,' in his house."

"Was it where that little green Chinese building with the bracketed columns and turned-up eaves is?" I interposed.

"The telephone exchange, you mean? Exact spot. They used to ring a hand bell in the Plaza on Sunday mornings to call the Mormons to hear Brannan preach in the Casa Grande."

"Richardson's house!" My companion sent me an appreciative glance.

"Sure, but that was before most of 'em, including Sam, went back on their faith. Next to the Custom House on the south," he continued, "was the Public Inst.i.tute. It wasn't much to look at--just pine boards--but it was considerable useful. They held the Public School there and had preaching on Sundays 'til the teacher, the preacher and all the audience went off to the mines. They tried the Hounds there, too."

"The Hounds?" my friend looked dazed.

"Yes, the Sidney Coves that lived in Sidneyville, along there on Kearny near Pacific." Light had failed to dawn.

"Here on the corner of Kearny," continued the Forty-niner, "was an old adobe building with a red-tiled roof and a veranda around it."

"The City Hotel!" I exclaimed delightedly.

"How did you know?" He eyed me curiously.

"My grandfather was a near-forty-niner," I reminded him.

"Oh yes. Too bad! Too bad!" he added sympathetically. "It was the house and store of a fellow named Leidesdorff," he continued, "who did a lot of trading with the Yankee skippers in Mexican days, and it was turned into a hotel in the gold rush. It was always the swell place for blowouts. They had a big banquet and ball there for Governor Stockton, I'm told, after the procession and speeches in the Plaza, and another the next year for Governor Kearny; the first Relief Committee met here, called by Brannan, Howard and Vallejo, to send rescuers to the Sierras for the survivors of the Donner Party. There wasn't much of any importance in the way of gathering that didn't happen there."

We instinctively looked across at the square, three-story, pressed-brick home of the Chinese Consulate and bank.

"Every big fire took at least one side of the Plaza, and the sixth, in June of fifty-one, wiped out the whole square. That adobe was the last link between the Spanish village of Yerba Buena and its American successor, San Francisco," he regretted, "but it was a good thing for the city, for they began to build with stone and brick after that. Did you see the Parrott Building, as you came along, on California and Montgomery?" he asked.

The Easterner turned to me. "You didn't show me that," he said, reprovingly.

"No, why should I? It wasn't built until fifty-two."

He ignored my insinuation and turned back to his informer. "What about the Parrott Building? It sounds like an aviary."

"Not exactly," he smiled. "It was made of granite blocks, cut and dressed and marked in China and then s.h.i.+pped over and set up by the 'China Boys,' as the Orientals here called themselves."

"It's a curious coincidence," I ventured, "that the Hong Kong Bank now occupies the lower floor. What a freak of the winds it was that swept the big fire around that and the Montgomery block, and left them both for posterity!"

"Your fire seemed to have had a special veneration for historic structures," the Easterner commented. "It respected the Mission in like manner."

"Yes, somewhat," returned the miner, "but it might have had a little more respect and spared the Tehama House and the What Cheer House. I hated to see them go."

"And the Niantic Hotel and Fort Gunnybags," I added.

"Here! Here! I rise for a point of information," cried the alien. "Did the cheer inebriate and what is the technical difference between gunny-sacks and carpet bags?"

"Oh, that was our Vigilance Headquarters of fifty-six, where we hung Casey and Cora," elucidated the Forty-niner.

"Help," gasped the Bostonian, sinking upon the bench.

"Tell him," I nodded to the miner.

"The Tehama House, on the waterfront at California and Sansome, was the swell hotel for army and navy people and all the Spanish rancheros when they came to town. You couldn't keep even your thoughts to yourself in that house, for it had thin board sidings and cloth and paper part.i.tions, but it had lots of style, and Rafael set a great table. They moved it over to Montgomery and Broadway to make room for the Bank of California, and the fire caught it there. The What Cheer House," the old man's eyes brightened, "was on Sacramento and Leidesdorff, and that's where we miners went, if we could get in. Woodward was a queer chap.

Took you in whether you could pay or not. But it was only a man's hotel.

There wasn't a woman allowed about the place. He had the only library in town and everybody was welcome to use it. I've often seen Mark Twain and Bret Harte reading at the table."

"And the sacks?" queried the Bostonian.

But the old man had leaned back on the bench and his eyes wandered over the green gra.s.s and trees of the square. "It's much prettier than it used to be," he admitted, "but nothing happens here now. The Chinese children fly kites and the unemployed loaf on the benches and the gra.s.s, and I'm one of them. I wish you could have seen it in the early days."

His eyes kindled with excitement. "It was only a barren hillside, but there was always something doing then. All the town meetings were held here in the open air and all the parades ended here for the speeches.

The biggest celebration was in 1850, when the October steamer, flying all her flags, brought the news that California was admitted to the Union. We went wild, for we had waited for that word for more than a year. Every s.h.i.+p in the harbor displayed all her bunting and at night every house was as brilliant as candles and coal oil could make it.

Bonfires blazed on all the hills and the islands and we had music and dancing all over the town 'til morning."

He paused in reminiscence. "But it wasn't so gay that moonlight night, the next February, when we hung Jenkins. He was a Sidney Cove and had just stole a safe, but that was the least of his crimes and of the whole gang. When we Vigilantes heard the taps on the firebell here in the Plaza, we gathered in front of the committee rooms. n.o.body was excited; we just had to drive out the Sidney Coves and put an end to crime. We marched Jenkins here and hung him over there to the beam on the south end of the Custom House. Forty of us pulled on the rope, while a thousand more stood 'round as solemn as a prayer meeting to give us moral support and shoulder the responsibility. It wasn't no joke hanging a man, but it had to be done, if decent men was to live here."

He shook off his depression. "Everybody was in the Plaza sometime in the day, and once a month when Telegraph Hill signaled a steamer, everybody was here."

"Telegraph Hill? I never heard of it," he cast an accusing glance in my direction.

"It belongs to forty-nine," I retorted.

"All the shops closed immediately," continued the miner, "and Postmaster Geary was the most important man in town. The post-office was a block up the hill at Clay and Pike Streets, but the lines from the windows stretched down into the Plaza, and over among the tents and chaparral on California Street Hill. Men stood for hours, sometimes all night, in the pouring rain, and many a time I sold my place for ten dollars, and even twenty, to some fellow who had less patience or less time than I.

"But you should have been here on election day in fifty-one." The miner threw back his head and laughed aloud. "Colonel Jack Hays was running for sheriff," he resumed, "and his opponent hired a band to play in front of his store here on the Plaza as an advertis.e.m.e.nt. It worked fine! He was polling all the votes and the Colonel was about out of the running, 'til he got on his horse that he'd used on the Texas ranges and came cavorting into the square. He showed 'em some fancy turns they weren't used to and kept it up 'til the polls closed."

"Did he win?" I asked excitedly.

"Well, I guess he did! Hands down. But a sheriff ain't no use when the laws won't stick. That's why we had to have the Vigilance Committees."

I arose. That was a long story and the afternoon was fast going. My companion took the hint. He extended his hand and grasped the old miner's heartily.

"I thank you," he said, "you have opened up a new epoch to me and I shall not soon forget you. I shall come again and the place will have lost much of its interest if you are not here."

"Oh, I'll be here," laughed the old fellow. "It's home to me."

Telegraph Hill

The Latin Quarter. The signal station of '49 and a view of the city as it was. The Golden Gate.