# California Historical Society Quarterly/Volume 22/San Francisco in 1851

​San Francisco in 1851 As Described by Eyewitnesses
By LuLA May Garrett
FROM THE many records which are extant today it is possible to open the door on the San Francisco of ninety-two years ago and visuaHze the city as it appeared to newcomers and to its earHer inhabitants who could remember the good old days of two years before. Eyewitnesses tell the story in letters, in diaries, in travelers' books, and in many an item in the Daily Alt a California and the San Francisco Herald.
The city in January 1 85 1 is said to have had a population of from 25,000 to 30,000. The census for the following year reports 36,75 1. No figures can be accurate because the population was constantly shifting. Of the 27,000 per- sons who are said to have arrived by sea in 1 85 1 ,^ it is probable that only 7,000 remained in the city.
Nearly all books written by travelers who came through the Golden Gate describe the harbor as being large enough for all the navies of the world at the same time.^ One Frenchman reveals the sources of this statement as Otto von Kotzebue, the early nineteenth century navigator, and "Van Couver."^ Mrs. Bates, a New England matron who landed in April 1851, writes that there was always a "depth of water sufficient to admit ships of the largest size; and so completely land-locked and protected from the winds is the har- bor that vessels can ride at anchor in perfect safety in all kinds of weather."^ In this almost unanimous praise of the sea approach to the city there is one indignant criticism. Saint-Amant, a French government agent, complains that his ship dared not go into port in a fog because the Americans, "always less concerned with measures of safety than with taking chances," had neg- lected to build lighthouses and mark the channel.^ Mrs. Bates says that in the harbor the island of Yerba Buena lay a "mile or so distant" from the city, and that "opposite San Francisco. . .is a place called Sausolito" to which water- boats plied, affording ample remuneration for the toil." These boats brought in drinking water, which was peddled from house to house in kegs on the backs of mules. "On the right hand side of the bay, as you are approaching the city, is situated the Presidio of San Francisco" the adobe walls of which were crumbling.^
Once he was safely within the harbor, the traveler saw before him a forest of ships in rows two or three deep. There was not room enough at the wharf for all the vessels, although many piers had been built out into the bay. Hol- inski, a Lithuanian traveler who wrote in French, was such an ardent admirer of the new country that he was prone to exaggerate. He says that there were ​five or six hundred ships for the most part "fixed to the quays of wood or fastened to the docks where the anchorage is easy and safe."^ Soule, one of the editors of the Daily Aha California during a part of 1 85 1, on October 3 1 counted 451 ships in San Francisco, 148 of which were store-ships.^
The city of San Francisco, as Mrs. Bates saw it, was situated on the south side of the entrance fronting the bay, about six miles from the ocean. The bay, from San Francisco due east, was about twelve miles in breadth. A range of high hills on this eastern shore bounded the view in that direction, and between the hills and the shore was the fertile plain called the Contra Costa.^ The city was built on a "semi circular inlet, about two miles across, at the foot of a succession of bleak sandy hills covered here and there with brush- wood." There remained hardly a vestige of San Francisco's predecessor on the site, the little village of Yerba Buena.^*^
Because wharves paid so well there was a rush to build them. There were nine by the close of 1 85 1. Cross streets were built between the older portions of the docks, and the enclosed spaces filled in. The construction of piers enabled ships to unload their cargoes directly, and the filling in of the mud flats furnished a level space for the building of the city. Front Street was really Front Street in 1851, but the unfilled spaces were so many and the grade so low that Montgomery, the third street west of Front, was flooded on one occasion. The piling was soon destroyed by marine worms. Some- times buildings fell before the steam shovel could fill the space beneath them with sand.^^ Old store-ships hemmed in by this process of bringing the land around them became warehouses, saloons, or hotels.^^ By 1851 "houses had been built out on piles for nearly half a mile beyond the original high water mark . . . "^^ Mrs. Bates attempted to cross one of the interstices between wharves on a cross-timber a hundred feet long and about twelve feet above the slimy water. She was about half way over when she suddenly became very dizzy and was obliged to get down on her knees and hold on to the tim- ber. Since it was the same distance back as it was forward, she finally made herself walk the narrow beam.^* Holinski complains mildly of the smell of tar and stagnant water.^^ Soule bluntly describes the low places as "accumu- lating a vast mass of putrid substances, from whence proceeded the most un- wholesome and offensive smells."^^
The wharves were used not only for the convenience of ships but also as building places. Long Wharf, which the British traveler, Frank Marryat, calls "the Central Wharf," is described by him with a vividness which his poor sentence construction does not dim:
The Central Wharf of San Francisco, which is nearly a mile in length, is for some dis- tance occupied on either side by Jew slopsellers; and, as these indefatigable gentlemen insist all over the world upon exposing their wares outside their shops, the first glance down Central Wharf impresses you with the idea that the inhabitants of the district have hung their clothes out to dry after a shower of rain. Scattered among the Jew shops are markets for vegetables and poultry, fishmongers, candy-sellers (the Long Wharfers are ​very fond of sugar-plums) , gambling houses of the worst repute, and drinking-shops innumerable. Being narrow and crowded, and full of loaded drays, drunken sailors, empty packing-cases, run-away horses, rotten cabbages, excited steamboat runners, stinking fish, Chinese porters, gaping strangers, and large holes in the planks, through which you may perceive the water, it is best to be careful in walking down Long Wharf, and to turn neither to the right nor to the left. 17
Long Wharf furnished many an item for the Alta, since the open-air shops were a constant invitation to petty thieves. The poHce could not be expected to do much about such minor matters. So the merchants kept cowhide whips and administered punishment immediately.18 On at least one occasion a po- liceman, or a man who was wearing a policeman's badge, ran away when he was called on to remove a Mexican cook, cleaver in hand, from the person of a drunken Scot who had been behaving badly.19 When the usual activities of its denizens are considered, it seems rather captious of the editor of the Alt a to be so opposed to the sign on Long Wharf which said, "Shampooing is done by a Lady." 20
The first impression of the city from the waterfront was one of utter con- fusion, with houses jumbled here and there. Holinski was surprised to find that this was an optical illusion due to the inequalities of the ground, and that like all other cities of the United States San Francisco was built on a regular plan and had straight streets. ^^ Of the general appearance of the city, a British visitor, Borthwick, says:
Everything bore evidence of newness, and the greater part of the city presented a makeshift and temporary appearance, being composed of the most motley collection of edifices, in the way of houses, which can well be conceived. Some were mere tents, with perhaps a wooden front sufficiently strong to support the sign of the occupant; some were composed of sheets of zinc on a wooden framework; there were numbers of cor- rugated iron houses, the most unsightly things possible, and generally painted brown; there were many important American houses, all, of course, painted white, with green shutters; also dingy-looking Chinese houses, and occasionally some substantial brick buildings; but the great majority were nondescript, shapeless, patchwork concerns, in the fabrication of which, sheet-iron, wood, zinc and canvass, seemed to have been em- ployed indiscriminately; while here and there, in the middle of a row of such houses, appeared the hulk of a ship, which had been hauled up, and now served as a warehouse, the cabins being fitted up as offices, or sometimes converted into a boarding-house.22
Pringle Shaw, a British Tory, states that on the sides of the surrounding hills there were flimsy wooden houses propped up by stilts. Shaw, who inter- preted unfavorably nearly everything that he saw as a symbol of democracy, considered these to be emblems of the frail republican government which was Hable to be overturned at any moment because of its utter worthless- ness.^^ A French observer, Frignet, notes that all American towns had a sur- rounding fringe of wooden houses which were expected to be replaced by more permanent structures as the city grew.^* Apparently there was nothing good to be said for the environs of San Francisco. Saint-Amant, a friendly French government official, says that there was no law about the disposal of dead bodies, and on the outskirts of the city one saw nothing but these evi​dences of destruction and breathed the "pestilent odor" of putrefaction.<r25> When the newcomer of 1851 began to explore the city streets he found the principal thoroughfare, Montgomery Street, about three-quarters of a mile long. On it were located most of the bankers' offices, the principal stores, some of the best restaurants, and numerous gambling and drinking establish- ments.<r26> Holinski asserts that the banks on Montgomery Street ranged from a branch of Rothschild's to saving banks with signs in all languages. There were no laws controlling savings banks, and they were usually swindling establishments. The stores were of Parisian elegance and the restaurants attracted all lovers of good food.<r27> Another observer, Hinton R. Helper, says of Clay Street: "Next to Montgomery, this is the most fashionable street in the city; the large establishments where retailers deal in ladies' and gentle- men's dress goods being situated upon it." The sidewalks were narrow and crowded, and ladies found shopping on this street "especially annoying and tedious; for they are designedly balked or hindered in their course by a set of well-dressed vagabonds, who promenade the trestoir from morning to night for the sole purpose of staring in their faces. "<r28>
Most of the streets were planked, as was of course that part of the city built on piles, but elsewhere the mud was ankle deep and there were holes in some of the streets which rendered them almost impassable. After the fires of May and June there were burned sections in the planking, and there was an uncovered empty cistern at the corner of California and Montgomery Streets.<r29> By August 6, one planked street (Jackson) could not be used be- tween Dupont and Montgomery because of the need for repairs. Ten days after the first complaint appeared in the Alta the street was still closed.-<r30> The Alta pointed out that the destruction of the street lights in the fire made such traps as uncovered cisterns and defective planking especially dangerous. On September 8 a notice appeared which said that a child had been lost who "answered to the name of Alick."<r31> Sixteen days later the child's body was found in an open vault into which he had fallen and drowned one night when he attempted to cross a dark lot as a short cut home.<r32>
Rats swarmed everywhere, and it was difficult to walk at night without treading on them, Borthwick reports, adding that it was not an unusual sight "to see a gentleman suddenly pull up the sleeve of his coat or the leg of his trousers, and smile in triumph when he caught his little tormentor," a flea. "Enormous heaps" of empty bottles "piled up in all sorts of out-of-the-way places" suggested to Mr. Borthwick a "consumption of liquor which was truly awful." The streets he described as "the general receptacle for every description of rubbish."
They were chiefly covered with bits of broken boxes and casks, fragments of hampers, iron hoops, old tin cases, and empty bottles. In the vicinity of the numerous Jew slop- shops, they were thickly strewed with old boots, hats, coats, and pantaloons; for the majority of the population carried their wardrobe on their backs, and when they bought ​a new article of dress, the old one which it was to replace was pitched into the street.<r33> Borthwick thus sums up California's claim to fame: "California was often said to be famous for three things— rats, fleas and empty bottles; but old clothes might well have been added to list."<r34> The reason for discarding so much clothing was that new clothes were cheap<r35> and washing was costly. The Chinese laundries charged five dollars a dozen, and other laundries charged more until their prices were forced down by the Orientals. In this custom of throwing away old clothing the Englishman saw untidiness; the Frenchman pointed out that it indicated the absence of extremely poor peo- ple such as rag pickers.<r36>
Because of the concealment that the dark streets afforded holdup men, the Alta advised every person living on the outskirts of the town to pick up two bricks when he started home.<r37> In September there was a spasm of enforce- ment of the midnight closing law for saloons. The rows and fights accord- ingly diminished but the streets were darkened.<r38> By November 6 a com- pany had been formed to put up posts and look after the lights at the cost of one dollar a week to each subscriber. These lights were to be erected be- tween Battery and Dupont and Bush Street and Broadway.<r39> By November 28 many private individuals had placed lights in front of their houses. The editor of the Alta when reporting this added that he hoped to see Montgom- ery Street, at least, lighted— whether by public or by private enterprise he did not indicate. By December 8 lights on Montgomery Street (supplied by private funds), with some on Washington Street just below the Plaza, had improved conditions. These lamps burned whale oil which was so expensive that the editor could not understand why they were lighted on moonlit nights.<r40>
In the closing months of 1851 an enthusiastic San Franciscan wrote to his friend, a former resident of the city, that a "very ingeniously contrived steam-engine" had been sent out from New York eight or nine months pre- viously and that it was called a "steam paddy" because it could do as much work as many Irish laborers. This machine was clearing away the sand hills in the direction of the Mission, "removing the sand to the sea, on trucks run- ning on rails." The sand, scooped up by the shovel, was put into cars and run down to the waterfront to build up the tide flats. This was a relatively cheap and rapid means of getting level space for a business section. The tracks ran along the most populous streets and piers, without the traffic being thereby interrupted for one moment. In this way, the whole of Sansome, the whole of Battery, and part of Front Streets (which, until now, had been standing upon the bay on piles, and were con- nected by wooden piers) are filled up; and so are also those which run parallel with Commercial Street; so that we may expect with certainty, within six or eight months, to see the bay filled up from Rincon's to Clark's Point.
In Sansome Street, where, a few months ago only, large ships used to discharge their cargo, there is now a colossal brick playhouse . . .<r41>
The sand cars ran down by force of gravity and were pulled back by mule ​power. A conductor who blew a fish horn as a signal for people to get off the tracks stood on the back of one of the cars. When a man committed suicide by getting in the way of these cars the fact came out that they were piled so high with dirt that the conductor could not see the track.<r42> Another acci- dent, in which a man's leg was cut off, roused the city authorities to pass what the Alta called the "Leg Preserving Ordinance" which forbade dirt cars to go more than six miles an hour.<r43>
The excavating and filling in caused the houses to be on different levels from the streets. According to Borthwick:
The houses had been built before die grade of the different streets had been fixed by the corporation, and there were places where the streets, having been cut down through the hills to their proper level, were nothing more than wide trenches, with a perpendicular bank on either side, perhaps forty or fifty feet high, and on the brink of these stood the houses, to which access was gained by ladders and temporary wooden stairs ... <r43>
In Other places the houses were far below the street level and people climbed down ladders to their dwellings.
Because these changes were made without proper provision for drainage, cellars were flooded when it rained, there was a pool at the foot of Mont- gomery Street, and the lots which had embankments on all sides came to be ponds and depositories of all kinds of refuse. After the rains began in No- vember, the Alta said that it might be very amusing to some persons that the keepers of cellar eating places had been driven out like rats, but that it should be a warning to the city to provide storm sewers to carry away the water. The editor predicted that, as usual, goods damaged by water where cellars had been used for storage would be auctioned off for more than the undamaged goods would have brought.<r44> The water backed up on the lots between Montgomery and Jackson Streets to such an extent that by November 10 wags amused themselves by putting up signs saying: "Notice- Steamer Newsance will leave Lake Montgomery every morning, until fur- ther notice, for the Council Chamber. For passage. Apply to Capt. Ben Ham [Brenham] or Alder Man. Agents." "For Sale.— Water Lots. Inquire of the Humbugging Commissioners. Coupons taken at Par."<r45> The ponds filled with refuse of all kinds soon added their unpleasantness to the odors coming from the waterfront.
The "miasmas from the port" did not go up as high as Stockton Street. A fashionable residence street by the end of 1851, Stockton extended to the top of the hills from which there was "a panorama of great beauty."<r46> The fami- lies, however, were few in comparison with the single men who made up most of the population.<r47> Dwellings ranged from handsome wooden houses of three or four stories to tents, or even to encampments on vacant lots such as that described by the Alta. A French cobbler, his wife and three children, seemingly owning nothing but two boards, a bench, and a side of sole of leather lived out in the open.