Orange County observer. [volume] (Hillsborough, N.C.) 1880-1918, 1894-05-19
RISE OF san FRANCISCO.
HOW THE PACIFIC COAST NETRoP.
OILS WAS FOUNDED.
A Spanish Mission and Fort First Oc-
cupied the Future City's Site
Colds Discovery Caused q Boom.

cupied the Future City's Site
Colds Discovery Caused a Boom.
HE story OF the little settle
ments among the hills OF the
peninsula of San Francisco
. reads like some picturesque
romance. AMI has ALWAYS been
interesting to me because it is so diff
ferent from the story of other iAmeri-
can cities. Spanish priests founded q
mission here. and Spanish soldiers
huilt a fort. or Preside. n the au-
tunu 81 1916, while General Howe
w, capturing New York and driving
Washington across into New jersey.
Many OF the Spanish governors lived
here.
San Francisco Bay, the beautiful
inland sea, with its surroundings of
fertile valleys and high mountains,
WAS sailed past by early Spanish
yoyaSers and by Si- Francis Drake
himself, who, in 1879. cast anchor, as
All critics agree. III cold San Fran
cisco harbor" brakes Bay, under
Point Reyes. The sea fog must lave
lain across the Golden Gate when the
famous soaking sailed past. For
ninety years longer the great bay was
undiscovered. Then in 1863, Spanish
priests, soldiers, and ~colonists came to
California and, November It'll IN that
year, the expedition led by Governor
Portola and Father Juan Crespi, of the
Franciscan order, discovered the bay
of San Francisco: Six years passed
before the new harbor WAS entered by
water. Then, in 1916, Mission Do
iores was founded Ing the valley at the
base of the twin peks, and q Spanish
fort overlooked the Golden Gate. and
the Spanish folk began to settle the
long peninsula and the valleys south,
east, and north OF the bay of San
Francisco. Missions and settlements
were founded at Santa Clara, San
Jose and Sonoma; and the Indians
were suodued, till, in 1913, Mission
Dolores had twelve hundred converts.
and thousands more were at the other
missions.
About sixty years after Mission
Dolores was founded. an English
trader named Richardson pitched a
tent ON the shore of the bay at the
head of Yerba Buena cove; Jacob
Leesa built the first wooden house,
and q few Americans settled ut the
place. One was old Galbraith, the
blacksmith, who used to take his
homemade kentucky rifle at day
break, and shoot deer among the sand
hills where the City Hall now stands.
The cove had been called Yerba Buena
because a fragrant, white-Howered lit
tie California vine much liked by the
Spanish people was very abundant
along the shore. The large island in
the bay, nov Goat Island, was also
called Yerba Buena IN those days.
SO there were really three settle
ments within the present limits of the
city of San Francisco; the soldiers
camp at the Preside. the Indian and
| Spanish village at the mission, which
| vas called San Francisco, and the
t~rading-post Of Yerba Buena. Com
ln~unication was slow and difficult
among these settlements; for boys,
rocks, mountains and sand-hills cov-
cred with scrub-oaks and dense under
growth 1lled me space In
January, 1876, eleven years after its
foundation, Yerbs Buena contained
only thirty houses. but, July Sth, the
Stars and Stripes were hoisted over
the little frontier village that lay on
the eastern slope Of the peninsula,
facing the continent and in January.
1917, the American magistrate issued
a decree adopting the name San Fran
cisco. In Il few months more there
We're 157 houses and 459 people in the
town. Then followed the discovery of
gold in the Sierra foothills, and the
Golden Age of 40" In three years
more tbs population of the young
metropolis of California increased to
SO, 000. st. Nicholas.