daily; a steam cracker factory; a large sugar refinery; a dozen and a half breweries, besides distilleries, soda and syrup works; several oil, candle, and soap works; billiard-table manufactories; a beginning in furniture making; and a host of establishments concerned in supplying necessities and luxuries for mining, field, and home life, a large proportion of an artistic stamp. Happy Valley, and the adjoining region south of Market street, were the centre for heavy industries. North Beach claimed also a share, while Kearny street, as the connecting link, displayed their productions in shops which for rich and striking appearance were already rivalling those of eastern cities. In 1854 there were five public markets, of which two had over two dozen stalls each.

63

No less marked were the social features, daily strengthened in the domestic atmosphere, with its attendant religious and benevolent admixture. The first male organizations, for protection, had expanded into a dozen military companies, with ornamental as well as useful aims, supplemented by the semi-heroic fire brigades, seventeen in number, including three hookand-ladder companies, and by several clubs, with adjuncts for gymnastic, convivial, moral, and literary purposes. Fraternal societies had blossomed into numerous lodges, among Free Masons, Odd Fellows, and Temperance societies, and traders and professional

65

64

63 The First Cal. Guards Co., formed in July 1849, under Naglee out of the Hounds affair, was followed in succeeding years by others under the title of rifles, lancers, cadets, blues, fusiliers, mostly of 50 men each. The first battalion parade, on July 4, 1853, embraced six S. F. companies. Annals S. F., 454, 702, et seq.

6 As outlined in the former S. F. chapter.

65 The Union and German were among representative social clubs. There were two gymnasiums, two clubs for vocal culture, one for chess. Among literary associations were two Hebrew, one German, one catholic, one for seamen, besides the general Athenæum and Cal. academy of Sciences and the Mercantile Library and Mechanic's Institute. Patriotic motives-bound many of them, although special ones existed, as in the New England society. Among religious associations were Cal. Bible Soc. of 1849, the S. F. Tract Soc., and the Y. Men's Christ. Assoc. There were several trade associations, including one for reporters and three medical. Sons of Temperance and the Grand Temple of Honor formed two abstinence societies, each with several lodges; the lodges of the Masons and Odd Fellows, 12 and 10 respectively.

unions were rapialy forming.

Although benevolent

associations had been started in 1849 by the male com

encouragement mainly Women, indeed, figure societies and one for sea

66

munity, they received their with the growth of families. as promoters of two Hebrew men, besides assisting several others, particularly the two catholic and protestant orphan asylums and the four hospitals, among them the United States Marine, which formed one of the imposing features of the city. These and other objects had effective coöperation from members of the society of Pioneers, founders as they were of the state. Education received their early attention, and from the one small beginning in 1848-9 the public schools had increased to seventeen, some of primary, others of grammar and intermediate order, one high school, also one evening school, with an attendance of nearly 3,400, for which the average monthly expenditure was over $12,000. There were also two superior girls' schools, a Jesuit school, and the San Francisco college. The thirty-two congregations of the city embraced eight protestant, six catholic, and two Hebrew bodies, besides a convent for the two sisters of Mercy. Some of them worshipped in halls, but most possessed special temples, the most imposing being the catholic cathedral."

63

Notwithstanding the numerous churches, the inhabitants were by no means devout, as may readily be understood. The reckless and exuberant spirit of the

66 Both established in 1851. Among benevolent societies were four Hebrew, one Chinese, two Irish, one Swiss, one German, and one French, the two latter with good hospitals, and three for women alone. The sisters of Mercy supervised the city and county hospital, and the government the U. S. marine ĥospital, the latter one of the great structures of the city, costing about a quarter of a million.

67 Which aspired to a university grade. Also two Hebrew schools and some minor private establishments, besides Sunday schools in connection with churches. The attendance and cost for 1855-6, as above, was far in excess of the preceding and even following year, the latter on economic grounds. The 15 Sunday school claimed 1,150 pupils.

66 Followed by the churches of the congregationalists and presbyterians. In point of number the methodists led, with 7 congregations, whereof 1 German and 2 colored; catholics 6, presbyterians 5, including 1 Welsh and 1 Chinese; baptists 4, episcopalians and congregationalists 3 each, German Lutherans, Unitarians, and Swedenborgians I each.

ELEMENTS OF CULTURE.

69

785

mining era was too deeply engraven, with its revelry of thought and conduct. The women set the religious example, partly from sedate habit, while social allurements aided them. They also elevated the tone of intercourse and pastime, shamed vice away into the by-ways, lessened dissipation, and placed gayety within limits. Official ordinances against prostitution, gambling, and other vices were chiefly due to their influence, and female patronage gave a higher attraction to the several theatres and halls, which with dramas and reunions competed against lower resorts. Habit and excitement, sustained by climatic and other influences, continued, however, to uphold the drinking-saloons, so that their number was proportionately larger here than in any other city in the world. Costly interior decorations lent them additional attractions; 70 not to mention billiard-tables," and other appeals to the lurking mania for gambling; the tangible pretext in free lunches, which had become the fashion since 1850,72 and established themselves as one of the marked specimens of Californian liberality; and the mental refreshments presented in numerous files of journals. Newspapers appeared as a redeeming feature over many a shady trait, and to extol both the enterprise and taste of the people by their large

69 The Adelphi opened in July 1851, on Dupont st between Clay and Washington sts, 40 ft front, 65 in depth, and 31 in height. The Metropolitan opened Dec. 24, 1853, on Montgomery st between Washington_and Jackson, and took the leading rank for size and beauty. The Jenny Lind had been converted into the city hall; the American, on the corner of Sansome and Halleck sts, with a seating capacity of nearly 2,000, declined into occasional use, like the Union on Commercial st, east of Kearny st, and the three halls, San Francisco on Washington st, and Musical and Turn Verein on Bush st. The Olympia, in Armory hall, had closed. Maguire was in 1856 preparing to build a new S. F. hall for minstrels, etc.

Many had bought mirrors, chandeliers, cornice-work, etc., at the early forced auctions, for a mere trifle, and later competitors for public favor had to imitate the display. Religious journals are no more reliable than other fiery champions of a cause, but the Christian Advocate asserts with some justice that by actual count in May 1853 there were 527 places in S. F. where liquor was sold. Of these 83 were retail drinking-saloons, 52 were wholesale stores, 144 were restaurants, 154 were groceries, 46 were gamblinghouses, and 48 fancy and dance houses. See also Alta Cal., June 8, 1852; S. F. Herald, etc.

71 Also proportionately more numerous than elsewhere.

72 Instance St Amant's humorous experience in this respect. Voy., 108–11. HIST. CAL., VOL. VI. 50

number and excellence. There were in 1856 thirteen daily periodicals, and about as many weekly issues, in half a dozen languages.73

Thus lay transformed San Francisco, from an expanse of sand hills, from a tented encampment, to a city unapproached by any of similar age for size and for substantial and ornamental improvements; from a community of revelling adventurers to one of high average respectability and intelligence. A choice selection of manhood from all quarters of the globe was here congregated, with enterprise and ability both well and badly directed; but as devastating fires had weeded the architectural parts of the frail and unseemly, so vigilance movements, assisted by gold rushes and filibuster schemes, had purified society of the worst criminal elements and political cormorants, and were now raising the city to a model for order and municipal administration. The inhabitants numbered about 50,000, with a proportionately smaller floating or transient population than formerly, owing to the increase of permanent settlers in the state, and to the facilities and attractions of interior towns for supplying miners as well as farmers with goods and entertainment."5 The fluctuating settlement stood now the acknowledged metropolis of the west, after a brief struggle with threatening vicissitudes, while the tributary country had developed from a mining field with flitting camps, to an important state with a steady mining industry, and a fast-unfolding agricultural and manufacturing region, which promised to rival if not

73 Of which two were French, two German, one Spanish, one Italian, one Chinese. Several were religious and Sunday papers, including a Mormon issue; and Hutchings' was the monthly magazine of the day. A vast number had come and gone during the preceding years, as will be shown later. The Annals S. F., 493, of 1854, claimed 12 dailies and 10 other periodicals.

74 Calculations in the Directory for 1857-8 make it 60,000, including 4,000 floating. Alta Cal., of Nov. 3, 1855, claimed 'at least' 60,000; but Sac. Union, Aug. 29, 1855, reduces the figure somewhat jealously to 40,000.

The cheering winter influx, and the succeeding gloom left by the spring exodus, which during the first years made many despair of the city's future, were now hardly perceptible.

GRAND ACHIEVEMENTS.

787

eclipse the foremost sections of the union. And this phenomenal progress was the achievement of half a dozen years, surpassing the wildest of those speculations which had incited, first the entry of the pioneers, then annexation by the United States, and finally city-building, and the founding of an empire out of the manifold resources which one after another unfolded before the unexpectant eyes of the absorbed gold-seekers. A series of surprises marked the advance of the state as well as of the city—the one a wilderness bursting into bloom, the other a mart of progress purified by many fiery ordeals.

76 Early navigators, like Ayala, Morrell, Beechey, Wilkes, the whaling and trading ship captains; writers like Dana, Forbes, Greenhow, Simpson, Bryant, all united in pointing to S. F. as the metropolis of the prospective western empire. So Webster and Benton had prophesied, and for this many patient, persevering pioneers had expectantly toiled. Men there are who dreamed of an empire which from here should encompass Cathay, and meet the English on the confines of India. Annals S. F., 54-5. On the other side were disbelievers, a host of them, as shown by fluctuating values of S. F. estate, by the deprecating utterance of fortunate as well as disappointed sojourners who every month turned their back upon the state, for home or for other fields. Kane, in Miscel. Stat., MS., 11. The progress of the city is well illustrated by her several directories, of which eight appeared during the period of 1851-6, beginning in Sept. 1850 with the small 12° issue of 139 pp., by Chas P. Kimball, containing somewhat over 2,500 names, and a meagre appendage of general information. It is altogether a hasty and badly arranged publication, yet of sufficient interest from being the pioneer in the field, and from its array of city founders to warrant the reprinting which it received a few years ago. The next directory did not appear till Sept. 1852, when A. W. Morgan & Co. issued an 8vo of 125 pp., wrongly called the first directory of the city. It contained few more names than the preceding, although better arranged, and with a fuller appendix of generalities, including a business list. In the following month F. A. Bonnard published a 12mo business register. The first really excellent directory was issued in Dec. 1852 by J. M. Parker. It was an Svo of 114 register pp., with about 9,000 names, prefaced by an historic sketch and an admirable plan of the city, and followed by a valuable appendix of general information and statistics. This covered 1851-3, and the next publication by Le Count & Strong was delayed till 1854. It contained 264 pp., and while not surpassing the preceding contained much general information. In Jan. 1856 Baggett & Co. issued the S. F. Business Directory in 222 pp., prepared by Larkin & Belden, wholly classified under business heads. In Oct. 1856 Harris, Bogardus, & Labatt appeared with a meagre directory of 138 pp., which was eclipsed by the simultaneous publication of Colville in 308 pp., containing about 12,000 names, with historic summary and a valuable appendix. A peculiar feature of the latter consisted of fine type notes throughout the register of names, with biographic and historic information concerning persons, societies, and notable buildings. The next issue was by Langley.