Greek Revival-Monterey (1844-1860)

1844: Rancho Pajare de Arroyo (Place of the Ravine), granted to Benito Diaz. The grant covered a half-league to the south of the Presidio and extended west to Pt. Lobos. Diaz was in charge of the customs house in Yerba Buena. (Alexander and Heig 2002: 37).

1846: A portion of the area south of the Presidio was granted to Henry Delano Fitch, a son-in-law of General Vallejo (Alexander and Heig 2002: 37).

There were about 50 buildings in Yerba Buena.

06.14-07.11.1846: To celebrate the uprising known as the Bear Flag revolt which marked the independence of California from Mexico, the flag of the California Republic was painted by William L. Todd--said to be a nephew of Mary Todd Lincoln--and flown over the Sonoma plaza.

07.31.1846: The "Brooklyn" arrived in Yerba Buena with 230 Mormons under the leadership of their 26-year-old elder, Samuel Brannan.

09.15.1846: Elections were held at the custom house, known as the "Old Adobe" in Yerba Buena. Ninety-six ballots were cast, and Lt. Washington Allen Bartlett was elected Alcalde.

01.09.1847: Yerba Buena's first newspaper, The California Star, published its first issue on the press Sam Brannan brought from New York; Dr. E. B. Jones was the editor.

01.16.1847: The Russian brig "Constantine" from Sitka arrived in the Yerba Buena harbor.

01.30.1847: Yerba Buena was renamed "Town of San Francisco" by Mayor Bartlett.

02.22.1847: As one of his last official acts, Alcalde Bartlett certified the accuracy of the new town plan for San Francisco, based on Jasper O'Farrell's survey that extended to Hyde St. in the west, and out into the Bay to the east.

Edwin Bryant was elected and sworn in as Alcalde.

04.01.1847: San Francisco consisted of 79 buildings (22 shanties, 31 frame houses, and 26 adobe dwellings).

06.02.1847: George Hyde, who had come to Yerba Buena aboard the "Congress" and served as a clerk to Commodore Stockton, was appointed Alcalde, replacing Bryant, who returned to the East.

09.13.1847: Election of the first town council members: William Glover, William D. M. Harwood, William A. Leidesdorff, E. P. Jones, Robert A. Parker, and William S. Clark.

1848: At that point, San Francisco consisted physically of about fifty square blocks mostly clustered around the waterfront. The architecture blended adobe, wood, and an occasional converted ship's caboose. An enterprising merchant named Holbrook had brought out a prefabricated store on the ship Sabine and in March, 1848 was busy acquiring a site on which to put it together. In 1848 Henry Mellus and William D. M. Howard, the town's leading businessmen, built a one-story brick structure on the southwest corner of Clay and Montgomery. They offered for sale such items as nails, axes, yardage, Guayaquil hats, Spanish cards, turpentine, brooms, crockery, buckets, tobacco, tea, gin, brandy, and pans, flour, wheat, and aniseed. The brick building adjoined a store and warehouse that the firm had purchased from the Hudson's Bay Company (Muscatine 1975: 54).

01.24.1848: The contractor James W. Marshall of New Jersey, who was building a saw-mill for John A. Sutter, discovered gold at Coloma.

02.02.1848: By signing the Guadalupe-Hidalgo Treaty, Mexico ceded California and New Mexico to the United States and recognized the Rio Grande as the southern and western boundary of Texas. The United States paid Mexico $15,000,000 cash and assumed some $3,250,000 more in claims of American citizens on the Mexican government.

The brig "Eagle" brought the first Chinese workers to San Francisco.

06.14.1848: Brannan's California Star ceased publication because the staff rushed off to the gold fields.

06.18.1848: Captain Charles Welsh, who was to build the first brick house in North Beach, arrived in San Francisco.

11.28.1848: The "U.S.S. Lexington" sailed from San Francisco with $500,000 in gold destined for the U.S. Mint in the East.

12.05.1848: President Polk announced the discovery of gold in California, noting: "The accounts of abundance of gold are of such an extraordinary character as would scarcely command belief were they not corroborated by the authentic reports of officers in the public service."

1849: The Gold Rush began (Wiley 2000: 127).

William Squire Clark purchased the entire block on the summit of Russian Hill bounded by Vallejo, Taylor, Broadway and Jones Streets for $225 (Christopher VerPlanck).

01.09.1849: Henry M. Naglee and Richard H. Sinton established the first San Francisco bank, the Exchange and Deposit Office on Kearny St., facing Portsmouth Plaza. Sinton had come to San Francisco with Commodore Jones as paymaster aboard the "Ohio".

04.19.1849: At the U.S. Hotel in Boston, the "Friends of a Rail-Road to San Francisco" announced P. P. F. Degrand's plan to secure by a single act of legislation, the construction of the railroad to California.

09.30.1849: California as It is and as It may be, or, A Guide to the Gold Region, written by Dr. Felix P. Wierzbicki, a Polish physician and author who came to California in 1847 as a hospital steward on board the Loo Choo, is the first book in the English language printed in California. The printing was done by Washington Bartlett, No. 8 Clay Street. The second edition, with some added pages, was dated December 30, of the same year. Dr. Wierzbicki died December 26, 1860, and was buried at Lone Mountain Cemetery in the Chain Plot, Tier 3, Grave 55.

12.31.1849: The estimated population of San Francisco stood at 80,000: 35,000 who came by sea, 42,000 who came overland, and 1300 sailors who deserted their ships in the Bay.

1850-75: Banks relocated to the south along Montgomery St., as did the related legal services, real estate interests, and stock and insurance brokers.

1850-70: City designated 15 acres, one mile out on market Street as the official cemetery, named Yerba Buena Cemetery in 1850. It lasted for 20 years.

1850s: Pacific Heights was annexed as part of the Western Addition in the early 1850s. The tract of land extending roughly west of Sanchez St. to Douglass St. and from Market to about 30th St., now known as Noe Valley, was laid out by Josandeacute; Noe.

The U.S. Land Commission, sitting in the 1850s, heard conflicting claims [over the Rancho Pajare de Arroyo land grant] from [Henry Delano] Fitch, [Francisco] Guerrero and [Benito] Diaz, and denied all of them (Alexander and Heig 2002: 37).

In the 1850s many visitors noted how the residential neighborhoods reminded them of New England because of the prevalence of shingled roofs, white clapboard sidings, and green shutters. The first mansions were a mixture of Classical Revival, Italianate, Gothic, and Second Empire (Wiley 2000: 128).

1850: Until 1850, Vacant lots were used to bury bodies or they were left on the beach or under a bush.

Union Square was laid out during the mayoralty of John W. Geary

The Gold Rush led to the establishment of the Financial District around Montgomery and Washington Sts., convenient to the Customs House, the gambling dens around Portsmouth Square, and the commercial wharves, which eventually became streets lined with buildings erected over the hulks of abandoned ships

Two devastating fires, allegedly set by arsonists, convinced the bankers that it would be wise to distance themselves from the crime-infested Sidneytown at the base of Telegraph Hill. In rebuilding, wooden structures were replaced by brick. The Customs House was erected at Montgomery and California Sts., the central wharves of Clay and Sacramento Sts. were improved, and Commercial St. was cut through from the Long Wharf to Kearny St. Income from the services industries surpassed that from Gold.

11.1851: When he [John Mackay] was sixteen he was apprenticed to William H. Webb, builder of many of the side-wheel steamers of the forties and later. During his four years in Webb's shipyard he acquired the skill in the use of tools that served him well when he reached the Comstock a dozen years later. On the day he completed his apprenticeship one of the steamers he had helped build was put in commission and Mackay accompanied her on her maiden voyage to California. This vessel might have been the 2,000-ton Golden Gate, which entered the Panama-San Francisco run in November 1851. At any event, Mackay was twenty when he reached California late in that year. This was well beyond the time when any but the uncommonly lucky could pick up easy fortunes in the diggings, but mining fascinated the ex-shipbuilder and for the next eight years he knocked about the towns and camps of the Sierra foothills, mostly on the north fork of the Yuba in the neighborhood of Downieville. There he gained nothing beyond a bare livelihood, but again he stored up experiences that were to prove useful later on (Lewis 1959: 66-67).

1852: The Chinese had settled around the intersection of Grant (renamed Dupont at this time) and Sacramento Sts., replacing the original French residents.

An informal burial ground at Second and market Street was closed and the bodies were moved to Yerba Buena Cemetery.

05.1852: 05.1852: Beginning in May, 1852, a time ball was dropped every day at noon, except Sundays, from the signal pole. The exact time (ie the exact second) the ball was dropped was kept secret by the city's observatory. For several days, a captain would record his observations of the time ball according to his chronometer, then compare his records to that of the city's, paying a small fee for the service. The time balls were in use on Telegraph Hill until the 1880's (Myrick 2001).

Special Notice. Masters of vessels are hereby informed that every day, after the 20th of May (Sundays excepted,) a BALL, discernible from all parts of the harbor, will be dropped from the top of the signal-pole, Telegraph Hill, at mean noon nearly. The reason for not indicating exact time is obvious. The master of each vessel arriving will obtain, on application at the office of the City Observatory, a blank form, in which he will require to note the time of the Balls descent by his chronometers. When ready for sea, the rates and errors will be made out from this form. This method is intended to be used by those who are unwilling to risk their chronometers on shore; but greater accuracy can be ensured, when they are deposited with us; while valuables placed in our fire-proof vault, within a brick building, are perfectly secure from loss or injury by fire. The following testimonial is from Captains who have frequently tried the accuracy of our rates:

"I certify that the rates of our chronometers, as ascertained by Messrs. Barrett and Sherwood, City Observatory, we have found on trial to be invariable correct, and have the fullest confidence in their abilities as chronometer makers.

• Capt. W. Hudson, steamer Republic.
• Thomas A. Budd, U.S.N. Steamer California.
• James Titherington, master barque Amelia.
• Richard Nosworthy, master brig Gilmore.
• A.D. Bottomley, master barque Amelia.
• John Gillen, master schooner, Wm. Allen.
• J.J. Jackson, master barque Louisiana.

• Godeffroy, Sillem & Co.,
• Capt. G. Simpton,
• Harb. Mast. Dewitt & Harrrison,
• Jos. De Puisaye,
• Green Agent B.H. Aikin,
• H.B.M. Consul, for Lloyd's

BARRETT & SHERWOOD, City Observatory, Clay Street near Montgomery

[Daily Alta California, May 1852 (on microfiche in the Periodicals Room of the SF Public Library, Main Branch) cf. Diane Levy]

07.04.1852: Robert Woodward, opened his "What Cheer House" on Leidesdorff St. It offered modest clean and comfortable rooms to a strictly male clientele. By 1865 it had expanded to a thousand rooms, and its dining room accommodated hundreds of people every day. It also had a library and a museum of curios available to its patrons.

07.23.1852: The first interment in San Francisco National Cemetery/The Presidio - Located at the Old Presidio Army Base (now, Golden Gate National Recreation Area).

1853: By 1853 the most readily accessible sources of gold were played out, and San Francisco's artificial economy slid into a recession from which it did not recover until 1859...(Wiley 2000: 31).

Building contractor Charles Homer purchased the block bounded by Vallejo, Taylor, Broadway and Jones Streets on Russian Hill for $5,000 and built a house on the northeast corner of Broadway and Taylor Streets. In September 1853, Homer sold the 50-vara lot (Spanish for a unit of length about a yard) on the northeast corner of Broadway and Florence Streets to a contractor named Joseph H. Atkinson for $4,000. A month later, Homer sold a second 50-vara lot on the southeast corner of Vallejo and Taylor to architect William Ranlett for $4000 (Christopher VerPlanck).

William Ranlett designed Joseph Atkinson's house at 1032 Broadway. The design of this dwelling, which still exists today, is based very closely on a pattern for an Italianate Villa in Ranlett's The Architect. Although it has been stuccoed over and an addition subsequently built, the exterior of the Atkinson-Roos House, as it is known, is still recognizable as Ranlett's design. Earlier that same year, Ranlett designed Charles Homer's house next door. The style of this house, which no longer stands, resembled The Hermitage in terms of its design and detailing. Ranlett also designed and built a house for himself and his family on Taylor Street. Its complicated footprint and facade, with repeated re-entrant angles, earned it the sobriquet of "The House of Many Corners." Also designed in the Italianate Style, this dwelling, now with the address of 1637 Taylor, had the misfortune to be cut in half around 1895 by Everard Milton Morgan who apparently gave half the house to his wife as part of a divorce settlement. He then moved the other half elsewhere. What remains today of the House of Seven Corners bears little resemblance to its original appearance, having been remodeled many times (Christopher VerPlanck).

Virginia City mushroomed virtually on top of the Comstock mines after vast silver deposits were discovered in 1853. The Gould and Curry Mine shown here was a case study in wasteful investment, inefficient extraction of ore, and endless litigation. California Historical Society (Wiley 2000: 32).

A group of wealthy entrepreneurs purchased a large tract of sandy but fertile land on the hill where the Fireman's Fund building stands today, west of Presidio and California, and created a 54 acre cemetery. Lone Mountain Cemetery was named in honor of the conspicuous 500 foot sand hill which stood a half mile to the south. Miles of carriage roads, with views of the distant city and the ocean, twisted through newly planted tress and "every species of ornamental shrubs and rare plants." The peaceful gardens of the new cemetery offered plots to potential customers and a park-like setting for sightseers.

After 1853, San Francisco builders were required to use fireproof materials, such as brick, stone, and iron, in the downtown district. Brick and granite, some from China, were the construction materials of choice for commercial buildings. Iron buildings were at first imported. Soon the first ironworks were manufacturing shutters, doors, building façades, columns, and stairways. Yet Kirker estimates that as much as 90 percent of the city was built of wood. This was a direct result of the availability of abundant supplies of redwood, cut first from goves on the peninsula south of San Francisco, in Marin, and later from the enormous stands of timber in Mendocino, Humboldt, and Del Norte counties (Wiley 2000: 128).

1854: Charles Homer sold yet another 50-vara lot on the southeast corner of Vallejo and Florence Street on Russian Hill to a third contractor named David M. Morrison. All four men [Charles Homer, Joseph H. Atkinson, William Ranlett, David M. Morrison] were successful participants in the development of San Francisco during the early American period, and three of them formed a short-lived, design-build company called Homer, Ranlett and Morrison (Christopher VerPlanck).

The third contractor to make his home on Russian Hill, David M. Morrison, built his own home on the south side of Vallejo, between Florence and Taylor. Although part of the partnership of Homer, Ranlett and Morrison, David Morrison seems to have not utilized Ranlett's expertise in the design of his modest, thirty-foot square cottage. This dwelling still exists, although not recognizable as such, having been absorbed into the Livermore Residence at 40 Florence (Christopher VerPlanck).

With the exception of Joseph Atkinson, the coterie of contractors who had built the first houses on Russian Hill departed during the 1850s as a result of financial difficulties(Christopher VerPlanck).

03.20.1854: Embarking on the Uncle Sam, Ralston arrived in San Francisco from Panama and was put in charge of Garrison, Fretz and Co.'s San Francisco office with headquarters on Sacramento Street adjoining the Chinese Salesroom (Lyman 1937: 29).

06.28.1854: San Francisco itself reached the Yerba Buena Cemetery, so Lone Mountain Cemetery was established, a safe three miles west of downtown. It was later renamed Laurel Hill Cemetery [in 1867]. The first permanent guest arrived at Lone Mountain Cemetery. Those buried at Laurel Hill during the second half of the nineteenth century, beginning in 1854, were true pioneers of the early West: many ordinary men, women, and children, a few scoundrels, many good people, and some whose names are still familiar--Larkin, de Young, Flood, Broderick. They became part of Cypress Lawn, although some had been moved individually by their families earlier, most were ultimately buried in vaults under a grass-covered mound that bears a memorial to their achievements.

01.01.1856: Ralston organized the banking firm of Garrison, Morgan, Fretz and Ralston with a paid-up capital of $700,000 and New York connections. (Lyman 1937: 30).

1857: Almarin B. Paul, a merchant, prospector, newspaper editor and longtime friend of Mark Twain, was a boarder with the Atkinson family at 1032 Broadway, and in 1857 he married Kate V. Mullen, Joseph Atkinson's sister-in-law. While prospecting for silver in Nevada's Mother Lode, Paul befriended Twain who was then editing The Territorial Enterprise. In subsequent years, Mark Twain apparently visited Paul and the Atkinsons at 1032 Broadway several times (Christopher VerPlanck).

1858: The ratification of the Van Ness Ordinance extended the city's grid pattern of streets westward and designated the public squares of Jefferson, Alamo, Hamilton, and the so-called Hospital Lot (now part of Duboce Park).

John Bensley, who rests in Laurel Hill, gave San Francisco its first water supply. Tapping Lobos Creek, he carried the water to two reservoirs on Russian Hill, one at Lombard and Hyde, the other at Francisco and Hyde. Lobos Creek has long since ceased to supply this city with water, but the reservoirs are still in use.

1859-1880: The Comstock's season of fame was as brief as it was dramatic. Most of its activity--and all of its profits--were crowded into two decades, beginning in 1859 and tapering off sharply as the seventies ended. Its most lavish period by far was from 1873 to 1878, when well over half its total yeild of a third of a billion dollars was mined. The Comstock's descent was even more rapid than its rise. For five years the immense ore body of the big bonanza was followed downward, all the while through quartz of extraordinary richness; then, more than four hundred feet from the point where it had been tapped, it suddenly terminated in barren rock--and so far as profits were concerned the Comstock had passed into history. Dividends of the California Mine ceased in 1879; those of the Consolidated Virginia a year later. From 1880 onward the silver towns lived on hopes and assessments; in Mackay's words, the lode had become "poor man's pudding" (Lewis 1959: 276-277).

Circa 1859: The Paris Block (so-called because of the existence of a prominent Parisian-styled apartment building at 1050 Green) was the only other major section of Russian Hill aside from the Summit to be spared. Today it contains several of the oldest standing houses in San Francisco. Of principal importance and interest is the Feusier Octagon House at 1067 Green Street. Built circa 1859 by Hubert Howe Bancroft's business partner, George L. Kenny, and based on the then-popular designs of phrenologist and utopian writer Orson Fowler, the Feusier Octagon House is one of two surviving octagonal houses in San Francisco (Christopher VerPlanck).

1859: The famous 54-pound Willard nugget was found at Magalia in Butte County.

Nevada's Comstock Lode was discovered in 1859 and for twenty years it enjoyed an ever widening renown. As time passed, its silver mines became a sort of national anodyne, a sure avenue of escape into a land where every dream came true and every illusion had the substance of reality. All over America millions believed that there, granted the opportunity and a bit of luck, one's visions of wealth and power and prestige would surely materialize. The nation had never had a more satisfactory wishing well (Lewis 1959: 3).

For years Washoe residents were known all over the Coast as accomplished tipplers; it was a well-earned distinction. When the camp was founded in 1859, the first commercial enterprise to be set up was a bar: two planks supported by whisky kegs, with a strip of canvas overhead to shield patrons from the fierce desert sun (Lewis 1959: 36).

Summer, 1859: Not until the summer of 1859 did someone think to send specimens of the curious "blue stuff" across the mountains for analysis. A Grass Valley assayer applied routine tests, doubted the accuracy of his results, and, with heightened interest, ran the tests a second time. No question then remained. The bothersome blue substance was an exceedingly rich silver sulphide, mixed with gold: it assayed close to four thousand dollars a ton (Lewis 1959: 7-8).

By 1853 the most readily accessible sources of gold were played out, and San Francisco's artificial economy slid into a recession from which it did not recover until 1859, when a strange substance was discovered in the modest gold deposits being worked in the Washoe Mountains east of the Sierra Nevada. When it was found that the bluish, sticky mineral gumming up two prospectors' equipment was in fact silver sulfurets, the news quickly reached San Francisco and the rush was on. The lode was named for Henry Comstock, a quick-thinking loudmouth, who told the two Irishmen who discovered the first deposit that they were trespassing on his claim. And the city [Virginia City] itself was named for an amiable drunk called Old Virginny.

The two Irishmen who discovered the [Comstock] lode fared poorly. Patrick McLaughlin, who sold his interest in the Ophir Mine for $3,500, died after years of wandering from job to job as a cook. Peter O'Reilly held out for a time, ultimately receiving $50,000 for his interest. He built a hotel in Virginia City but soon lost everything speculating in mining stocks. "Spirits" told him to run a tunnel into the Sierras, where he would find a richer vein. "However, the spirits talked so much about caverns of gold and silver," wrote Mark Twain's friend Dan De Quille, "that he became insane and was sent to a private asylum at Woodbridge, California, where he soon died."⁸

Henry Comstock made $11,000 on his false claim and then wandered the West talking big, boasting that he owned the Virginia City mines, even the city itself, until he blew his brains out in Bozeman, Montana (Wiley 2000: 33).

The days of pick-and-shovel mining were over. It took men who could muster capital to sink shafts deep enough into the hillside, top them with head frames to raise and lower the mechanical lifts that carried workers down and up and brought ore to the surface, to install the huge pumps to force air below, and to build the quartz mills to grind the ore and reduce it to bullion (Wiley 2000: 31).