Seventy-five years in California; a history of events and life in California THE first habitation in Yerba Buena, a tent dwelling erected in 1835 by Capt. Wm. A. Richardson, at the corner of Clay and Dupont streets, occupied the site of No. 18 on the view map. In July, 1836, Jacob Primer Leese built the first house, just south of Richardson's location. The residence and place of business of William Heath Davis, author of “Seventy-five Years in California,” is marked No. 7. Yerba Buena Cove appears in its natural condition with the waters of the Bay nearly touching Montgomery Street. The Laguna Salada, or Saltwater Lagoon, now almost forgotten, is shown where Montgomery and Jackson streets cross. It was over this tidal inlet that William S. Hinckley, when Alcade, built the first bridge in California in 1844. This rare view of the San Francisco of 1846-7 fittingly illustrates the early days of the city which William Heath Davis describes. To the north of the home of Wm. A. Leidesdorff—No. 11—Wm. Heath Davis built the first brick building of more than one story in California in 1849, leasing it to the U. S. Treasury for a custom house. The flagpole upon which Capt. John B. Montgomery raised the American flag July 9, 1846, was removed from the Plaza in 1850 and re-erected in front of the Davis building, where it was destroyed by the fire of May 4, 1851. California Street was laid out by Jasper o'Farrell, who enlarged the survey of the town made by Jean Jacques Vioget in 1839. The Davis custom house occupied the northwest corner of Montgomery and California streets. The small structure which forms the corner of Montgomery and Clay streets is the famous “Kent Hall.” This was the first building near the beach; a deckhouse from the ship “Kent.” SEVENTY-FIVE YEARS IN CALIFORNIA Seventy-five years in California; a history of events and life in California http://www.loc.gov/resource/calbk.025 N FRANCISCO 1849 DRAWN ON THE SPOT BY HENRY FIRKS LATEST EDITION CORRECTED BY A COMMITTEE OF PIONEERS CONSISTING OF RICHARD M. SHERMAN WILLIAM HEATH DAVIS FERDINAND VASSAULT 1 Am. Sh. Huntress 2 Br. B. Asenath 3 Dan. B. Neptunas 4 Fr. B. Staveuil 5 Fr. Schr. Chataeubriand 6 Mer. Sch. Vitoria 7 Am. Sh. Forrester 8 Am. B. Oberon 9 Am. B. Superior 10 Am. Sh. Philadelphia (Burned June 24) 11 Ch. B. Carmen 12 Haw. B. Mary Frances 13 Am. Sh. Edwin 14 Fr. Sh. Roanld 15 Dan. Sh. Adelia 16 Am. Sh. Grey Eagle 17 Br. B. John Ritson 18 Am. B. Col. Fremont 19 Ch. Sh. Virginia 20 Am. Sh. Sea Queen 21 Ch. B. Maria Louisa 22 Ch. B. Romano 23 Am. Scr. Thomas 24 Am. B. Quito 25 Am. B. Louisiana 26 Am. Sh. Greyhound 27 Ch. Sh. California Dorado 28 Am. Steamer Panama 29 Am. B. Col. Benton 30 Am. Sh. Massachesetts 31 Am. B. Lucy Penniman 32 Fr. B. Limanienne 33 Ch. Sh. Gen. Ferrias 34 Am. Sh. Honolulu 35 Fr. B. Olympe 36 Am. Sh. Herber 37 Am. Steamer Oregon 38 U.S.S. Warren 39 U.S.S. Southampton 40 Quartm. P. Invincible 41 H.B.M. Inconstant 42 Launch for Stockton (Emily & Jane) 43 Customhouse 44 Golden Gate 45 Parkers Hotel 46 P.M.S.S. Cos. Office 47 S.H. Williams & Cos. Store 48 F. Vassault & Cos. Store 49 Leidesdorff's Residence 50 Cross, Hobson & Cos. Store 51 Starkey, Janion & Cos. Ware Ho. 52 City Hotel 53 Sherman & Ruckel 54 Mellus & Howard 55 Burling & Hill 56 Wm. H. Davis 57 Macondray & Co. 58 Wm. S. Clark 59 Catholic Church 60 March & Simonton 61 Ward & Smith 62 Isld. Yerba Buena Seventy-five Years IN CALIFORNIA A HISTORY OF EVENTS AND LIFE IN CALIFORNIA: Personal, Political and Military; Under the Mexican Regime; During the Quasi-Military Government of the Territory by the United States, and after the admission Of the State to the Union: Being a compilation by a witness of the events described; a re-issue and enlarged illustrated edition of “Sixty Years in California,” to which much new matter by its author has been added which he contemplated publishing under the present title at the time of his death; edited and with an historical foreword and index by DOUGLAS S. WATSON— Seventy-five years in California; a history of events and life in California http://www.loc.gov/resource/calbk.025 BY WILLIAM HEATH DAVIS SAN FRANCISCO JOHN HOWELL 1929 COPYRIGHT, 1919 BY JOHN HOWELL, SAN FRANCISCO PRINTED IN THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA FEBRUARY, 1929 IMPERIAL AND INTERNATIONAL COPYRIGHT SECURED All rights reserved in all countries THE LAKESIDE PRESS, R. R. DONNELLEY & SONS COMPANY, CHICAGO TO HERBERT HOOVER EXEMPLIFIER OF AMERICAN IDEALS AND FOREMOST CALIFORNIAN The permission granted to inscribe “Seventy-five Years in California" to you permits the linking of your name with the vital chronicle William Heath Davis has left us of the early days of California, the State of your adoption, and in which you have shown such profound interest. J. H. vii William Heath Davis 1822-1909 Portrait of the author by an unknown artist, painted in 1850 when Mr. Davis was twenty eight. PUBLISHER's PREFACE “SEVENTY-FIVE Years in California” would have been published by its author William Heath Davis before his death in 1909 but for the great San Francisco Fire in 1906. His manuscript was ready for the printer. All the new material which he contemplated adding to his book “Sixty Years in California”—San Francisco 1889—in order to bring out a new and enlarged edition under the title which this work bears, was contained in two dispatch boxes upon his desk in his office in the Seventy-five years in California; a history of events and life in California http://www.loc.gov/resource/calbk.025 Montgomery Block. Mr. Davis endeavored to enter and save the matter upon which he had labored for years, but was prevented from doing so by United States Marines, and although the building escaped destruction, when he returned after the conflagration, the two boxes containing his papers had disappeared. At his home, however, he had preserved fragments and notes from which his finished manuscript had been prepared. At eighty-four one does not possess the vigor to attack a task of doing over again what has taken years to accomplish. Upon his death three years later, his papers passed from his heirs into other hands, eventually coming into possession of the Huntington Library. Due to the hearty co-operation of this institution, the publication of Mr. Davis' book under the title he had chosen has been made possible. William Heath Davis lived through California's Pastoral Period, when the Missions were disintegrating and their lands were passing into the hands of the great rancheros; he welcomed the American Invasion which resulted in the Conquest under Sloat, Stockton and Frémont he took a prominent part in the up-building Of San Francisco after the Discovery of Gold; and more than all, his intimates were those foremost men, natives of California and Americans alike, whose lives of heroic pattern are woven into the historical background of the Golden State. “Seventy-five Years in California” is not a simple narrative. It is rather an encyclopædia of episodes and personal portraits. No book written by a contemporary dealing with California has been so widely quoted as the volume of which the present work is the outgrowth. It is the acknowledged source book for the period which it covers. viii William Heath Davis came from a Boston sea-faring, ship-owning family, although born in Honolulu in 1822. His father, Wm. Heath Davis, senior, married a daughter of Oliver Holmes, another Boston ship-master and a relative of Doctor Oliver Wendell Holmes. It is interesting to note that the shipping trade to the Coast and to Hawaii was almost exclusively in the hands of Boston firms from its beginnings to the days of the Gold Rush. Davis' grandmother on his mother's side Seventy-five years in California; a history of events and life in California http://www.loc.gov/resource/calbk.025 was a native of Hawaii, and her husband, Oliver Holmes, in addition to his trading operations, was at one time Governor of Oahu. Another of Oliver Holmes' daughters married Nathan Spear, one of that trio of first merchants to settle in San Francisco; William Sturgis Hinckley and Jacob Primer Leese being the other partners. Davis first visited California as a small boy in 1831. He came a second time in 1833, and at length, in 1838, he arrived aboard the “Don Quixote” to enter the service of his uncle Nathan Spear as a clerk in the latter's store in Monterey. For four years Davis followed the fortunes of Nathan Spear, first at Monterey and later at Yerba Buena, the straggling settlement which he was to help build into the City of San Francisco. In 1842 he engaged as supercargo on the “Don Quixote” and made several trips to the Hawaiian Islands. From 1845 onward Davis was a San Franciscan. He entered business on his own account, and in time became one of the town's prominent merchants and ship-owners. His intimacy with native Californians has been mentioned. In 1847 he married Maria de Jesus, daughter of Don Joaquin Estudillo, a wealthy ranchero. Few men of his time had the opportunity Davis had of seeing all sides of Californian life, and none has left a record as vital and as full.