The Barbary Coast - Chapters 1-2



Chapter 1. "The Miners Came in Forty-Nine" 

The history of the Barbary Coast properly begins with the gold rush to 
California in 1849. If the precious yellow metal hadn't been discovered in 
the auriferous sands of the Sacramento Valley, the development of San 
Francisco's underworld in all likelihood would have proceeded according to 
the traditional pattern and would have been indistinguishable from that of 
any other large American city. Instead, owing almost entirely to the 
influx of goldseekers and the horde of gamblers, thieves, harlots, 
politicians and other felonious parasites who battened upon them, there 
arose a unique criminal district that for almost seventy years was the 
scene of more viciousness and depravity, but which at the same time 
possessed more glamour, than any other area of vice and iniquity on the 
American continent. 

* * * *

Before the beginning of the epochal movement which brought thousands of 
fortune-hunting adventurers to California within a period of half a dozen 
years, the cosmopolitan San Francisco of song and story didn't exist, even 
in the imagination of its most optimistic and far-sighted booster. There 
was simply a straggling line of tents, slab shanties, and adobe huts 
stretching along the beach of Yerba Buena Cove, a horseshoe-shaped 
indentation in the western shore of the Bay of San Francisco, which has 
long since been filled in and built upon. Until the gold-seekers began to 
swarm through the Golden Gate and across the plains, the permanent 
population of the somnolent little village never exceeded a few hundred. 
Despite the possession of one of the finest natural harbors in the world, 
it was only an occasional port of call for whaling vessels, and a trading 
post of such minor importance that the Hudson's Bay Company abandoned it 
after vainly striving for five years to establish a profitable commerce. 

The Franciscan monks built a Mission two and one-half miles southwest of 
Yerba Buena Cove in 1776, and that same year the Mexicans established a 
Presidio, or fortified military post, near the Golden Gate. But it was not 
until 1835 that the first dwelling on the present site of San Francisco--a 
canvas tent supported by four redwood posts and covered with a ship's 
foresail--was erected by Captain W. A. Richardson, an American who had 
been appointed harbor-master by the Mexican government. He called the 
settlement Yerba Buena, meaning "good herb," the popular designation of a 
fragrant mint which grew in great profusion throughout the Bay district, 
and from which the native Californians brewed tea. The name was changed to 
San Francisco by order of the Alcalde, or Mayor, on January 30, 1847, a 
little more than six months after the American flag had been raised in the 
Plaza by Captain Montgomery and a detachment of sailors from the sloop-of-
war Portsmouth. In memory of this latter historic event the Plaza was 
thereafter called Portsmouth Square, and the thoroughfare along the 
waterfront, now half a mile or so inland, was renamed Montgomery Street. 

According to a census taken by the Board of School Trustees about a year 
and a half after the landing of Captain Montgomery, the population of San 
Francisco was approximately seven hundred whites, about half of whom were 
Americans, and a hundred and fifty Indians, Negroes, and Sandwich 
Islanders. The town contained two hundred buildings, including tents, 
sheds, and outhouses. 

* * * *

Captain John A. Sutter, a native of Germany, but until his middle years a 
citizen of Switzerland, arrived in California in 1839, after an 
adventurous career in Missouri, Oregon, Alaska, and the Sandwich Islands. 
He swore fealty to the Mexican government, was granted an enormous tract 
of land in the Sacramento Valley, and promptly took possession of an 
immense adjoining area, throughout which his rule was almost absolute. He 
called his kingdom New Helvetia, and as a capital founded a small 
settlement, Sutter's Fort, which consisted of a few dwellings, a 
blockhouse for protection from marauding bands of Indians, and a general 
store operated by Samuel Brannan, a Mormon Elder who had been Brigham 
Young's official representative in New York. On February 15, 1846, the day 
that the Mormons under Young left Nauvoo, Illinois, on their long march 
across the plains to the promised land of Utah, Brannan and a company of 
Mormon immigrants set sail from New York harbor in the ship Brooklyn. They 
were bound for the Pacific Coast, where they hoped to establish a colony 
in a country over which the United States had no jurisdiction. But the war 
with Mexico was won while the Brooklyn was at sea, and the ship sailed 
through the Golden Gate only a few days after Captain Montgomery had 
landed his sailors from the Portsmouth. The first thing Brannan saw when 
his vessel entered the Bay of San Francisco was the American flag flying 
from the Presidio. According to eyewitnesses, the Elder was so enraged 
that he flung his hat to the deck and cried in disgust: "There's that 
damned rag again!"(*) Nevertheless, Brannan decided to land, partly 
because supplies were running low, and partly because dissension had 
arisen among the Mormons during the long voyage. He had excommunicated 
four of the leading men of the company for conduct which he described as 
"wicked and licentious," and they in turn had accused him of improperly 
administering communal funds. These latter charges ultimately became the 
basis of a court action which was tried before the first jury ever 
impaneled in California. Brannan was acquitted. 

(* M. R. Werner's biography of Brigham Young, page 229)

Having settled his flock in tents and adobe huts near Yerba Buena Cove, 
Brannan hurried overland to meet Brigham Young. He tried unsuccessfully to 
induce the Mormon leader to abandon his plan of settling in the valley of 
the Great Salt Lake and urged him to lead the whole body of Mormons into 
California and build up a strong Mormon state in the territory surrounding 
the Bay of San Francisco, which he represented as possessing an 
incomparable climate and soil of extraordinary fertility. He thus became, 
perhaps, the first California booster, the founder of a long line of 
vociferous enthusiasts whose clamor has resounded throughout the land for 
more than eighty years.(*) It is interesting, but, of course, fruitless, 
to speculate on what might have been the fate of Mormonism had Brigham 
Young listened to Brannan's arguments. It is quite likely that the Church 
would have been disrupted by the discovery of gold and the resultant 
excitement and corruption, for not even a devout Mormon can always resist 
the temptation to lay up treasures on earth instead of in heaven. 

(* Brannan also published the first booster article about the advantages 
of California. On April 1, 1848 he issued a special number of his 
newspaper, the California Star, which contained an article prepared by Dr. 
Victor J. Fourgead, entitled: "The Prospects of California." Two thousand 
extra copies of the issue were printed and sent to Missouri for 
distribution.)

Brigham Young had no notion that gold would ever be found along the 
Pacific Coast, but he shrewdly foresaw that any area with the advantages 
offered by California would be thickly settled. He told Brannan that it 
would be inadvisable to bring the Mormons in contact with competitive 
peoples, and that it would be fatal for them to attempt to colonize a 
seaport. Brannan returned forthwith to California, where he told the 
Mormons who had accompanied him to San Francisco that Utah was a poor 
land, and advised them not to join their brethren. In January 1847 Brannan 
established San Francisco's first newspaper, the California Star, and soon 
thereafter opened his store at Sutter's Fort. He declined to recognize the 
authority of Brigham Young, although he continued for several years to 
collect tithes regularly from the members of his flock. During the gold 
rush, when many California Mormons became wealthy, these amounted to 
considerable sums. None of this money was ever remitted to the Church at 
Salt Lake City, and when Brigham Young made formal demand for "the Lord's 
share," and also for a share of Brannan's personal earnings, Brannan 
retorted that he would pay upon a written order signed by the Lord, and 
not otherwise. According to Asbury Harpending, an associate of Brannan's 
in various business enterprises, Brigham Young several times dispatched 
his holy gunmen, better known as Destroying Angels, to San Francisco to 
deal with Brannan and collect the money by force. But the Angels were 
invariably met in the desert, and their wings clipped, by Brannan's 
"exterminators," fighting men whom he is said to have employed as a 
bodyguard for half a dozen years.(*)

(* Described in Harpending's autobiography: The Great Diamond Hoax, and 
Other Stirring Episodes in the Life of Asbury Harpending, edited by James 
H. Wilkins. San Francisco, 1913.) 

The Mormons never became powerful in San Francisco, and ultimately Brannan 
resigned from the Church and devoted himself successfully to his 
publishing, mercantile, and mining ventures. For almost twenty years he 
was an important figure in the growth of San Francisco, and his place in 
the history of the city is secure as the principal organizer of the first 
Vigilance Committee and as the head of another body which performed 
similar functions without using the name. In time, however, he became a 
drunkard, dissipated his fortune, and wandered to Mexico, where he died 
alone and in dire poverty. 

* * * *

In January 1848 Captain Sutter employed James W. Marshall, an itinerant 
contractor, to construct a mill on a fork of the American River, some 
sixty miles east of the present site of the city of Sacramento. Marshall 
found it necessary to cut a tail-race and divert a portion of the river's 
current. The swift flow of water soon washed away the loose gravel and 
exposed a substratum glistening with tiny particles of gold, which 
Marshall gathered from the tail-race.(*) There are innumerable accounts of 
what immediately followed. One story is that Captain Sutter arranged with 
Marshall to say nothing of the discovery until they had enriched 
themselves, but that they were betrayed by a female servant who overheard 
them discussing the find. Another has it that Samuel Brannan filled a 
small sack with nuggets and gold dust, and in great excitement rode 
through the countryside shouting: "Gold! Gold! Gold from the American 
River!" A third story is that Captain Sutter convinced Marshall that the 
gold was worthless pyrite, and for several weeks they threw away all that 
came into their hands, making no effort to work the deposits or in any way 
to develop the find. One large nugget, however, was sent to San Francisco 
to be exhibited as a curiosity and was examined by Isaac Humphrey, a 
native of Georgia, who had had considerable mining experience. Humphrey 
recognized the metal as gold and, despite the ridicule of his friends, 
hurried to Sutter's mill and began prospecting. He struck a rich pocket 
almost immediately.

(* The exact date of the find has never been known. Marshall himself, at 
various times, gave three different dates--the 18th, the 19th, and the 
20th of January. About 1905 the California Pioneers adopted January 24 as 
the proper date, on the authority of an entry in a diary kept by W. H. 
Bigler, a Mormon who had helped construct the mill. Bigler wrote: "January 
24. This day some kind of metal that looks like gold was found in the tail 
race.")

This was in March 1848, but it was not until the latter part of April that 
the people of San Francisco, and of other settlements in California and 
along the Pacific Coast, were convinced that gold had actually been found. 
Then they deserted their homes and abandoned their occupations and almost 
overnight moved en masse to the gold-fields. By May 1, 1848 at least two 
thousand men were scratching like hens in the sand and gravel of the 
Sacramento Valley. Within a few more weeks their numbers had been tripled 
by the arrival of Mexicans and natives of other Central and South American 
countries, who were probably the first persons not residents of the 
territory to dig for gold in California. Once the precious metal had been 
found, it seemed to be everywhere, and mining operations soon spread from 
the American to the Yuba and Feather rivers and then to all the ravines, 
gulches, and streams up to the Sierra Mountains. And of all the thousands 
who delved in the earth for riches none fared worse than Marshall, who had 
discovered the gold, or Captain Sutter, who owned the land upon which gold 
had first been found. Neither then nor thereafter did anyone ask Captain 
Sutter for permission to prospect his property, and the gold-hunters only 
laughed when he tried to exact a levy of ten per cent of all gold mined. 
Moreover, the swarming miners overran his fields, destroyed his crops, 
razed his buildings or appropriated them to their own uses, and killed his 
cattle. They even ruined his garden to obtain the particles of gold which 
clung to the roots of vegetables and tufts of grass. Eventually Captain 
Sutter lost everything he had, including title to his land. He spent his 
declining years in Washington, trying to obtain recompense from Congress. 
Having no special political influence, he failed. Marshall sold his share 
of the mill for about two thousand dollars, and it is doubtful whether he 
made much more during the entire gold rush. He appears to have devoted 
himself almost entirely to wearing his laurels as the discoverer, to 
quarreling with the miners over questions of landownership, and to 
boasting of having made new and important finds. Many thought he was 
withholding knowledge of richer deposits through sheer meanness, and the 
miners at length became so infuriated that they threatened to lynch him 
unless he divulged the location of the new fields. Since it was impossible 
for him to impart information he didn't have, he fled the district, 
whereupon the miners wrecked the mill with such thoroughness that the spot 
upon which it stood has never been found. 

Late in June 1848 Thomas O. Larkin, who had been American Consul at 
Monterey when California was under Mexican rule, wrote an enthusiastic 
letter about the discovery of gold to James Buchanan, later President of 
the United States, but then Secretary of State. Rapid means of 
communication and transportation were sorely lacking in those days, and 
except for Larkin's report and a few private letters no word of the new 
Dorado reached the Atlantic seaboard until September 1848, when the 
Baltimore Sun published a short account, which was reprinted in Boston, 
New York, and Philadelphia. The news gradually filtered through to the 
middle west, and by the late autumn of 1848 several parties had started 
overland for California. Months were required to make the journey by wagon 
train, however, and before any of these companies arrived, the steamship 
California, first of the line of Pacific mail steamers, anchored in Yerba 
Buena Cove with the first gold-hunters from the Eastern and Southern 
states. This was in February 1849. 

Thereafter they came in a steady stream. In less than a year after the 
arrival of the first shipload of immigrants, between forty thousand and 
fifty thousand men had passed through the Golden Gate en route to the gold-
fields. By the middle of July 1849 Yerba Buena Cove and other anchorages 
in the Bay of San Francisco were crowded with useless shipping; no sooner 
had a vessel dropped anchor than the sailors, and frequently the officers 
as well, took possession of the lifeboats and started up the Sacramento 
River toward the mines. "For of all people," wrote a historian of the 
period, "sailors were the most unrestrainable in their determination to go 
to the diggings; and it was there a common saying, of the truth of which I 
myself saw many examples, that sailors, niggers and Dutchmen were the 
luckiest men in the mines; a very drunken old salt was always particularly 
lucky."(*) Entire crews deserted their ships before either the freight or 
the passengers had been discharged, leaving the former to the mercy of 
thieves, and the latter to make their way ashore as best they could. 
Sometimes this was a very hazardous undertaking, for San Francisco then 
boasted but one small wharf, and it was necessary to load and unload most 
of the ships by means of scows, lighters, and small boats. For these craft 
it was well-nigh impossible to obtain crews except at exorbitant wages, 
and the men who could be hired were almost invariably without experience. 
During the height of the gold excitement, there were at least five hundred 
ships stranded in the harbor, some without even a watchman on board, and 
none with a crew sufficiently large to work her. Many of these vessels 
never sailed again. Some rotted away and sank at their moorings. Others 
were drawn up on the beach and turned into saloons and boardinghouses, 
remaining in use long after the filling in of the cove had begun and 
buildings were being constructed around them. One, the clipper ship 
Niantic, was sunk in shallow water about where Clay and Sansome streets 
now intersect, and became the foundation of the Niantic Hotel, a famous 
hostelry of the early days. 

(* The Gold Hunters, by J. D. Borthwick; 1924 edition; page 73)

More than half of the immigrants who arrived after the first excitement of 
the gold rush had subsided remained in San Francisco and engaged in 
various businesses and speculations, many of which were infinitely more 
remunerative than digging for gold would have been. By the beginning of 
1850 the city had a permanent population of at least twenty-five thousand, 
most of whom were adult males under forty, and had become the foremost 
American port on the Pacific, a distinction which it retained until the 
phenomenal rise of Los Angeles. Several streets were marked out along the 
foot of the sand-hills behind Yerba Buena Cove as soon as it had become 
evident that the town was destined to thrive like a veritable municipal 
mushroom, and a few were cut through the hills. But they were neither 
paved nor properly graded, and in consequence were extraordinarily uneven 
and irregular. One man's habitation might be on the same street as that of 
his nearest neighbor and still be twenty to fifty feet higher or lower. Or 
it might perch on the side of a hill nearly thirty feet above the rim of a 
gulch that necessity had made an important thoroughfare. The continual 
passage of men, animals, and wagons soon cut up these makeshift highways 
until they were little more than gigantic mud-holes. Several times during 
the rainy season of 1849-50 horses, mules, and carts were sucked down into 
the mud, and the animals were drowned; and many men, trying to cross the 
streets while drunk, narrowly escaped similar deaths.(*) In a vain attempt 
to improve conditions the city authorities purchased a great quantity of 
brushwood and dumped it into the streets, but it soon sank from sight, as 
did the boxes, barrels, and other refuse thrown out by the citizens. The 
mud at Clay and Kearny streets, in the heart of town, at length became so 
deep and thick that a wag posted this sign: 
THIS STREET IS IMPASSABLE; 
NOT EVEN JACKASSABLE.

(* Several writers have said that men were actually drowned in these 
quagmires, but I have been unable to verify these statements)

There were not nearly enough dwellings in San Francisco to shelter even a 
small proportion of the new-corners, most of whom consequently were housed 
in leaky canvas tents or in hastily constructed board shanties with muslin 
or Osnaburg partitions. Many of the lodging-houses, and some of the more 
pretentious hotels as well, consisted simply of one or more large rooms, 
with bunks fastened to the walls, and rows of uncomfortable cots on the 
floor. To sleep in a bunk or a cot cost as high as fifteen dollars a 
night, although none had either springs or mattresses. Very few private 
rooms were available, and the cheapest rented for from two hundred to 
three hundred dollars a month, payable in advance. The best brought from 
five hundred to a thousand dollars for a similar period. Enterprising 
landlords also rented sleeping-space on tables, benches, and other 
articles of furniture at from two to ten dollars for eight hours. One man 
is said to have realized fifty dollars a night from the rental of half a 
dozen rickety old rocking-chairs. Another placed wide redwood planks on 
saw-horses and sold the right to sleep on them for three dollars, the 
occupant to furnish his own bedding. In all of these flimsy places roamed 
millions of flies, lice, and other noxious bugs and insects, besides the 
huge gray rats, which almost immediately began to infest the waterfront 
and the muddy streets. Many of these repulsive rodents attained such size 
and ferocity that they were more than a match for a terrier, and they 
often attacked sleeping men, biting large chunks from ears, noses, and 
cheeks. In several houses signs were displayed warning the guests to cover 
their heads. Even this didn't help much, however, for the thrifty landlord 
usually removed the covers from a man's body as soon as he was asleep and 
gave them to a late comer. 

The cost of practically every commodity and of every sort of personal 
service was on a par with that of lodging. There were few men willing to 
perform the necessary menial tasks, and those who did condescend to 
undertake such work not only charged accordingly but insisted upon 
grandiloquent titles calculated to disguise and dignify their labors. 
Thus, the few washerwomen in the town put out signs announcing "Clothing 
Refreshed"; the porters who handled the baggage of travelers called 
themselves "baggage conveyors and transporters," and the waiters in the 
hotels and restaurants refused to respond unless addressed respectfully as 
'Mister Steward.' Fewer than a score of cooks were in private service, but 
they insisted, of course, upon being called "chefs." A notable exception 
to this foolery was Mammy Pleasant, a gigantic Negress from New Orleans, 
black as the inside of a coal-pit, but with no Negroid features whatever, 
whose culinary exploits were famous. She said flatly that she was a cook, 
and would be called nothing else. She arrived in the early part of 1850, 
preceded by her reputation, and was besieged by a crowd of men, all 
anxious to employ her, before she had so much as left the wharf at which 
her ship had docked. She finally sold her services at auction for five 
hundred dollars a month, with the stipulation that she should do no 
washing, not even dish-washing. This was the highest wage paid to a cook, 
although several others received as much as three hundred dollars a month. 
The porters refused to lift even the smallest piece of baggage for less 
than two dollars, the stewards commanded a daily wage of thirty dollars, 
and common laborers received from one to two dollars an hour. Washing cost 
twenty dollars a dozen pieces, regardless of size. So unsatisfactory was 
the work done by the ladies of the washhouses, however, that most of the 
gentry, the wealthy gamblers, and the rich miners sent their linen 
underwear and boiled shirts by clipper ship to Honolulu or Canton to be 
laundered with proper care. From three to six months were required for a 
garment to make such a voyage, but at least it was clean and wearable when 
it was returned. The cost of washing remained at the twenty-dollar level 
until the spring of 1850, when it was reduced to eight dollars a dozen and 
then to five, whereupon the Alta California commented: "There is now no 
excuse for our citizens to wear soiled or colored shirts. The effect of 
the reduction is already manifest--tobacco-juice-bespattered bosoms are no 
longer the fashion." 

Vegetables in early San Francisco were luxuries that only the very rich 
could afford, despite the enormous yield of the near-by farms and ranches, 
some of which produced carrots a yard long, beets the size of small 
hogsheads, and cabbages from fifteen to twenty inches in diameter. Apples 
found a ready market at one to five dollars each, and eggs varied from ten 
to fifty dollars a dozen. In the restaurants a boiled egg cost never less 
than a dollar and quite often was several times that amount. Other foods 
sold at equally high prices. Tea and coffee cost from three hundred to 
four hundred dollars a barrel, and from four to five dollars a pound in 
small quantities. Wheat flour and salt pork each brought forty dollars a 
barrel, and a small loaf of bread, such as sold in New York for four 
cents, cost fifty to seventy-five cents in San Francisco. The same price 
was paid for a pound of common cheese. 

Butcher-knives were thirty dollars each, shovels from fifteen to twenty-
five dollars, and a tin wash-bowl, or pan, was considered cheap at five 
dollars. A blanket of the commonest sort could not be obtained for less 
than forty dollars, and boots of good quality cost a hundred dollars a 
pair. Cheaper footwear, however, was on the market at thirty to fifty 
dollars. Any sort of medicine, even a common pill, was ten dollars a dose, 
and laudanum and other drugs sold for a dollar a drop. A miner who 
suffered from insomnia once paid fifty dollars for enough laudanum to put 
him to sleep. The few doctors in the town would not write a prescription 
for less than one hundred dollars, and a quart of good whisky cost thirty 
dollars, which would be an extraordinary price even in these jolly days of 
Prohibition. A twenty-foot plank cost twenty dollars, but lumber in bulk 
was only five hundred dollars a thousand feet. The cost of a brick house 
was estimated at one dollar a brick. Common iron tacks of the smallest 
size, much in demand for fastening cloth partitions, were worth their 
weight in gold--a pound of gold bought a pound of tacks. Since gold was 
current at sixteen dollars an ounce (the rate of exchange established at a 
public meeting in September 1848), the tacks actually cost the purchaser 
$192 a pound. So far as the records show, this was the top price, although 
tacks seldom dropped below ten dollars an ounce for more than a year. By 
that time San Francisco had begun to pass the muslin-partition stage, and 
so many tacks had been imported that they couldn't be given away. One 
merchandising genius is said to have brought in a whole shipload, most of 
which were eventually dumped into the bay at a considerable loss. 

Rentals of hotels and other business structures, whether of boards or of 
canvas, reached even dizzier heights than did commodity prices. A single 
small store on Portsmouth Square, with a fifteen-foot frontage, brought $3,
000 a month, and another, half a block away, rented for $40,000 a year. 
The rent of a tiny cigar-store barely large enough for one man to stand in 
was $4,000 a month, and the operator of a bowling-alley in the basement of 
the Ward House, which was erected on the square early in 1850, paid $5,000 
a month to the owners of the property. The Parker House, a two-storey 
frame structure which had cost $30,000 to build, rented for $120,000 a 
year. Of this amount, half was paid by gamblers, who occupied the whole of 
the second floor. El Dorado, a gambling saloon which adjoined the Parker 
House, at Washington and Kearny streets, on the present site of the Hall 
of Justice, brought $40,000 a year to its owners, although it was nothing 
more than a canvas tent, fifteen by twenty-five feet. A small building on 
another corner of the square, occupied by a brokerage firm, rented for $75,
000 a year; the proprietor of the United States Hotel, the first hostelry 
in San Francisco, paid $36,000 a year; and the United States government 
paid $7,000 a month for the board shanty which housed the Customs Office. 

* * * *

The first public entertainment in San Francisco after the beginning of the 
gold rush was a circus, which gave its initial performance early in the 
spring of 1849, in a vacant lot on Kearny Street near Clay. Another 
similar show was opened a year later, and soon afterwards a third. They 
were described by a contemporary historian as "mere tent structures, 
where, on rude benches, congregated crowds of easily satisfied and deeply 
interested spectators, and where springboards bounced men of various sizes 
successively over one, two, and three horses; and daring riders, on broad 
wooden saddles, jumped through hoops and over ropes, most fearfully to 
look at." To watch these exhibitions, the spectators paid three dollars 
for seats in the pit, five dollars for a box, and fifty-five dollars for 
private stalls. The first theatrical performance, a double bill presenting 
The Wife and Charles the Second, was given by a traveling troupe in 
January 1850, in Washington Hall, a flimsy board structure on Portsmouth 
Square which later became the town's most elegant brothel. The first 
actual theater was not established, however, until April of that same 
year, when a French vaudeville company gave several performances in a new 
building on Washington Street near Montgomery. A group of amateurs 
presented various plays at a new house called "The Dramatic Museum" during 
the summer of 1850, and in September of that year the curtain rose for the 
first time in the famous Jenny Lind Theatre above the Parker House saloon, 
which was owned by Tom Maguire, a celebrated gambler and sporting man of 
the period. The Jenny Lind was destroyed by fire within a few months, as 
was the wooden structure which replaced it. After the conflagration of 
June 22, 1851 Maguire built a new theater of stone, which was soon 
afterwards purchased by the municipal authorities for two hundred thousand 
dollars. For several years it was used as a City Hall. 

Despite these various amusements, all of which were well patronized, 
gambling remained the principal diversion of the great mass of restless, 
turbulent, gold-hungry men who almost over night had transformed the once 
peaceful hamlet of San Francisco into a bawdy, bustling bedlam of mudholes 
and shanties. "While wages and profits were so high, and there was no 
comfort at their sleeping quarters," wrote the city's first historian, 
"men spent money freely at different places of riotous excess, and were 
indeed forced to pass their hours of leisure or recreation at drinking 
bars, billiard rooms and gambling saloons. Such places were accordingly 
crowded with a motley crew, who drank, swore, and gamed to their hearts' 
content. Everybody did so; and that circumstance was a sufficient excuse, 
if one were needed, to the neophyte in debauchery. . . .But of all their 
haunts, the gambling saloons were the most notorious and the best 
patronized. Gambling was . . .the amusement--the grand occupation of many 
classes--apparently the life and soul of the place. . . .The extensive 
saloons, in each of which a dozen. . .tables might be placed, were 
continually crowded, and around the tables themselves the players often 
stood in lines three or four deep, every one vieing with his neighbors for 
the privilege of reaching the board, and staking his money as fast as the 
wheel and ball could be rolled or the card turned. . . .Judges and 
clergymen, physicians and advocates, merchants and clerks, tradesmen, 
mechanics, laborers, miners and farmers, all adventurers in their kind--
every one elbowed his way to the gaming-table, and unblushingly threw down 
his golden or silver stake."(*)

(* The Annals of San Francisco, by Frank Soulé, John H. Gihon, M.D., and 
James Nisbet; New York, 1855; pages 248, 249-50) 

The exact number of gambling places in early San Francisco was never 
determined, but there were at least several hundred; perhaps as many as a 
thousand. Probably no other American city of similar size ever sheltered 
so many games of chance in operation at one time. No effort whatever was 
made to suppress them, and very little to control them; until 1855 they 
were, indeed, licensed by the city, and any man who wished to do so might 
open a gambling house or set up his tables wherever he pleased, so long as 
he paid the regular license fees, and perhaps a bit extra for the 
politicians. The first state-wide anti-gambling law in California was 
passed by the Legislature during the winter of 1854, but its only effect 
was to close a few of the smaller establishments. It was never generally 
enforced, and the only conviction under it was that of a crooked faro 
dealer in Tuolumne. It was repealed in 1859, largely through the efforts 
of Colonel Jack Gamble, who lived up to his name by being one of San 
Francisco's most expert gamblers. In later years Colonel Gamble opened a 
road-house, with roulette-wheels and rooms for card and dice games, on the 
San Jose highway fourteen miles down the peninsula from San Francisco, but 
was compelled to abandon the resort in 1873, when the Legislature enacted 
another anti-gambling law which was actually enforced.(*)

(* On January 11, 1848, about two weeks before the discovery of gold, the 
San Francisco authorities enacted an ordinance providing heavy fines for 
card-playing, and authorizing the seizure of all moneys found on gambling 
tables. The law was so unpopular, however, that it was never enforced. It 
was repealed at the next meeting of the Town Council.) 

Practically all of the big games in gold-rush days were square, the 
gambler depending for his profits on his skill and the naturally large 
percentage in favor of the banker. If a sharper attempted to operate a 
brace game, he was fortunate if he was not killed or run out of town. In 
any event his tables were deserted and he was soon starved out. The most 
popular games were monte, faro, rondo, roulette, rouge et noir, and vingt-
et-un. Poker was comparatively unknown, for the restive San Franciscans, 
and the miners who regularly risked the proceeds of their back-breaking 
toil, considered this prince of gambling games too slow. They would not 
sit still long enough to play it; they craved prompt and immediate action 
and insisted upon staking everything upon one spin of the wheel or the 
turn of a single card. It was not until the banking games began to decline 
in popularity that poker came into its own, although a few games were in 
operation as early as the fall of 1849, and several stiff sessions are 
recorded. In one, Tony Bleecker, of the mercantile firm of Bleecker, Van 
Dyke & Belden, is said to have lost thirty thousand dollars at a single 
sitting, to a syndicate of gamblers consisting of Jim Beckett, Jim 
McCullough, Jack Addison, and Dick Berry.(*) Next day Bleecker insisted 
that he had been jobbed, refused to pay, and departed for Panama.

(* Described in the San Francisco Call, April 11, 1886)

Portsmouth Square, the old Plaza of Mexican days, was the gambling center 
of the town until the gamblers were eventually driven out by the 
encroachments of business and changes in public and political opinion. All 
of the eastern side of the square, three-fourths of the northern, and a 
large part of the southern were occupied by buildings devoted exclusively 
to gambling, while tables were also available for play in the saloons and 
in the bar-rooms of the hotels. All ran wide open day and night, seven 
days a week, as did many other establishments in the side-streets and 
along the waterfront. Monte and faro lay-outs and various kinds of chuck-a-
luck games were also operated, in good weather, on the streets and the 
plank sidewalks and in the center of the square, which at that time was 
little more than a windswept stretch of sand. The western side of the 
square was occupied by a few hotels and small stores, and an old adobe 
house, from the steps of which the Reverend William Taylor, a pioneer 
street preacher of the gold rush, daily fulminated against gambling and 
its attendant evils, while all around him the square fairly swarmed with 
the objects of his ecclesiastical blasts. The scene was thus described by 
Wilson Flint, in later years a California state Senator, in a letter to 
the Reverend Mr. Taylor: 

"It was on a Sunday morning in December, 1849, when landing from the 
Panama steamer I wended my way with the throng to Portsmouth Square, this 
being at the time the great resort of the denizens of this rising 
metropolis. Three sides of the Square were mostly occupied by buildings 
which served the double purpose of hotels and gambling houses, the latter 
calling being regarded at the time as a very respectable profession. On 
the fourth and upper side of the square was an adobe building, from the 
steps of which you were discoursing from the text, 'The way of the 
transgressor is hard.' It was a scene I shall never forget. On all sides 
of you were gambling houses, each with its band of music in full blast. 
Crowds were going in and coming out; fortunes were being lost and won; 
terrible imprecations and blasphemies rose amid the horrid wail, and it 
seemed to me pandemonium was let loose."(*)

(* This letter was dated September 10, 1856, and is quoted in the 
introduction to the Reverend Mr. Taylor's book: Seven Years of Street 
Preaching in San Francisco; New York, 1856. The Reverend Mr. Taylor is 
also responsible for introducing the eucalyptus tree into California. 
While in Australia in 1863, he sent his wife several seedlings, which she 
duly planted. From them came the giants which now line the California 
highways.) 

The dens of iniquity against which the Reverend Mr. Taylor thundered so 
ineffectually on this and other occasions included such celebrated resorts 
as El Dorado, which is said to have been the first gambling house opened 
after the discovery of gold; the Parker House; Dennison's Exchange; the 
Empire; the Mazourka; the Arcade; the Varsouvienne; the Ward House; La 
Souciedad; the Fontine House; the St. Charles; the Alhambra; the Verandah; 
and the Aguila de Oro; all on or very near Portsmouth Square; Bill 
Briggs's place in Montgomery Street near Pine; and Steve Whipple's house 
in Commercial Street, later occupied by the Pacific Club. 

Originally El Dorado was a canvas tent, but the tent was soon replaced by 
a large square room of rough boards, with a few small private booths 
partitioned off with muslin, where a man whose mind was elsewhere than on 
games of chance might entertain his inamorata of the moment. The walls 
were covered with costly paintings, extremely lascivious in character--
which is to say they were principally pictures of nude women in various 
abandoned postures--and the furniture and fittings were of rococo 
elegance. At one end was a raised platform draped with bunting, flags, and 
colored streamers, from which an orchestra blared without cessation. At 
the other end was the bar, behind which were large mirrors of fine cut 
glass.(*) Scattered throughout the room were the gaming tables, on which 
were huge piles of gold dust, nuggets, and gold and silver coins. Behind 
each table sat the dealer, or croupier, clad in the traditional white and 
black of the professional gambler. If accounts of the time are to be 
credited, every man who operated a game of chance in early San Francisco 
was apparently in the last stages of tuberculosis; he is almost invariably 
described as tall, thin, and cadaverous, extremely saturnine of 
countenance and monastic of habit. He was, likewise, a killer, and when he 
ensconced himself at his table to deal the cards or spin the roulette-
wheel, his trusty double-barreled derringer was ever at his elbow, while 
in his pockets reposed at least one heavy revolver and a bowie-knife, 
razor-sharp. In the use of these weapons he was, of course, an expert. 
Says Hubert Howe Bancroft, California's foremost historian: 

(* At El Dorado, in 1849, began the career of America's greatest 
bartender--Professor Jerry Thomas, inventor of the Blue Blazer and of Tom 
and Jerry. A full account of Professor Thomas's life and works may be 
found in the present author's introduction to Professor Thomas's book: The 
Bon Vivant's Companion, or, How to Mix Drinks; New York, Alfred A. Knopf, 
1928.

"The character of the typical gambler of the flush times is one of the 
queerest mixtures in human nature. His temperament is mercurial but non-
volatilized. . . .Supreme self-command is his cardinal quality; yet, 
except when immersed in the intricacies of a game, his actions appear to 
be governed only by impulse and fancy. On the other hand his swiftest 
vengeance and cruellest butchery seem rather the result of policy than 
passion. . . .He is never known to steal except at cards; and if caught 
cheating he either fights or blandly smiles his sin away, suffers the 
stakes to be raked down without a murmur, treats good-humoredly, and 
resumes the game unruffled. United with the coolest cunning is the coolest 
courage. He is as ready with his pistol as with his toothpick, but he 
never uses it unless he is right; then, he will kill a man as mercilessly 
as he would brush a fly from his immaculate linen. . . .He accustoms 
himself to do without sleep, and if necessary can go for several days and 
nights without rest. . . .He deals his game with the most perfect sang 
froid, and when undergoing the heaviest losses there is no trembling of 
fingers or change of expression. . . .He is studiously neat in his habits, 
and tends to foppishness. . . ."(*)

(* California Inter Pocula, by Hubert Howe Bancroft; San Francisco, 1888; 
pages 705-6, 707, 708) 

Such descriptions may be accurate enough, but at the same time it is not 
improbable that the tales of the death-dealing gambler which permeate the 
literature of early San Francisco are of a piece with accounts of the 
extraordinary honesty that is said to have prevailed during the first few 
months of the gold rush, despite the heterogeneity of the population and 
the fact that a large proportion of it was criminal. Among other stories 
difficult to believe, it is related that when the gamblers went to lunch 
or dinner, they left the mounds of nuggets, gold dust, and coin unguarded 
upon their tables; while the miner who wished to rid himself temporarily 
of the burden of a heavy sack of gold deposited it casually atop a 
hitching-post in a busy street. The historians responsible for these fairy-
like tales of painful integrity, however, tell at the same time of two 
Chinese who passed twenty thousand dollars in counterfeit coin over the 
gaming tables of El Dorado and the Alhambra, and of another Chinese who 
snatched twenty-five thousand dollars from El Dorado and fled into a Grant 
Avenue cellar.(*) Since that amount in gold weighs approximately one 
hundred and twenty pounds, he must have been a particularly hale and 
hearty Celestial. In any event the capture of this Herculean desperado 
unearthed several other dishonest men, who were industriously digging 
through the back wall of a bank.

(* The name of this thoroughfare was originally Dupont Street. It was 
changed to Grant Avenue after the fire of 1906. To avoid confusion it will 
be called Grant Avenue throughout this book.)

When gambling in San Francisco was in its infancy, the dealers and 
croupiers were all men, but one night early in 1850 Mme Simone Jules, a 
strikingly beautiful Frenchwoman, with enormous black eyes and ebon hair, 
made her appearance at a roulette table in the Bella Union. She 
immediately became the center of masculine interest, and her table did 
such an enormous business that the other gambling houses were compelled to 
follow the Bella Union's example. Despite the vigorous editorial 
opposition of the Alta California, which declared indignantly that a 
gambling house was not a fit place for a woman, many of the games in the 
first-class places were thereafter operated by handsome and amiable 
ladies. 

There was also great rivalry among the gambling houses as to which could 
offer its customers the best entertainment. El Dorado retained its wheezy 
old orchestrion to the end of its days, but also employed as many gifted 
soloists as could be procured. The Verandah presented a marvel who might 
well be called the daddy of the modern jazz trap-drummer. When equipped 
for a musical evening, he wore pipes tied to his chin, a drum strapped to 
his back, drumsticks fastened to his elbows, and cymbals attached to his 
wrists. All of these instruments he played more or less in unison at 
approximately the same time. Moreover, he patted his feet, which were 
encased in enormous hardsoled shoes, and with them made a tremendous 
clatter upon the floor. In several establishments women played harps and 
pianos, and each evening at the Alhambra a Frenchwoman performed upon the 
violin, for which she received daily two ounces of gold dust, or about 
thirty-two dollars. The Aguila de Oro had a Negro chorus during the autumn 
of 1849, which introduced spirituals into California; and the Bella Union 
offered a Mexican quintet, consisting of two harps, two guitars, and a 
flute. The shining star of the Bella Union, however, was the singer and 
violinist Charley Schultze, who first played in San Francisco, and 
probably in the United States as well, the tune of Aloha. To this famous 
Hawaiian air he sang: "You Never Miss Your Sainted Mother Till She's Dead 
and Gone to Heaven." 

Ordinarily the stakes even in the largest of the gold-rush gambling houses 
ranged from fifty cents to ten dollars, but the aggregate was enormous; in 
some of the more important resorts the daily turnover sometimes exceeded 
$200,000. Occasionally considerable sums were wagered on a single play, 
and fortunes were won and lost in the course of a single evening. Gold 
dust worth $16,000 was once laid upon a Bella Union table as a bet, and a 
week later a drunken miner risked $20,000 on the turn of a single card. 
Jim Rynders, a prosperous gambler who was noted for the dazzling whiteness 
of his teeth, once won $89,000 in three days' play at faro in Steve 
Whipple's place, and not long afterwards lost $100,000 in the same 
establishment in a similar length of time. While in Europe a few years 
later, Rynders visited the Casino at Homberg Spa and offered to bet $25,
000 on the red at roulette. The bank declined to accept the wager, and 
when the wheel was spun, the red won. The greatest game of faro of which 
there is record in San Francisco, and probably in the United States also, 
was played by Ed Moses in the early eighteen-fifties. Moses went into an 
opposition gambling house one afternoon, and at his request the limit was 
removed. At first he won heavily, but his luck deserted him and he was 
soon heavily in debt to the bank. He finally drew his I O U for $60,000 
and played it straight on a single card. He lost, and left the gambling 
house poorer by $200,000 than when he had entered.(*)

(* As described by John Philip Quinn, a reformed gambler who in 1892 
published a book called: Fools of Fortune, or, Gambling and Gamblers) 

Two of the most celebrated of the early gambling-house owners were Bill 
Briggs, and Colonel J. J. Bryant, who operated the game in the Ward House, 
which he afterwards purchased and called the Bryant House. Briggs had what 
almost amounted to a mania for throwing small coins about the streets. He 
used to leave his place at four o'clock every morning with twenty-five to 
fifty dollars in small change in his pockets and go to the vegetable 
market, where the gamins of the town were collecting the refuse to feed 
their goats and cows. Standing on the sidewalk, the gambler tossed 
handfuls of coins into the street, laughing heartily as he watched the 
youngsters scramble for them. Briggs was the last of the old-time faro 
dealers to close his establishment; even after the enactment of the anti-
gambling laws of 1873 he operated for several years behind heavily 
barricaded doors. About 1880, however, discouraged by repeated raids and 
the frequent destruction of his tables and furniture by the police, he 
quit, expressing his disgust at the reform wave which had engulfed him and 
declaring that San Francisco had become little more than a municipal 
Sunday school. 

Colonel Bryant had political ambitions, and ran for sheriff in 1850 as the 
regular nominee of the Democratic party, at the first popular election for 
county officers ever held in San Francisco. His opponents were Colonel 
John E. Townes, who had been appointed Sheriff in 1849 and was now the 
choice of the Whigs; and Colonel Jack Hayes, the famous Texas ranger, who 
was an independent candidate. After his nomination Colonel Bryant's hotel 
was decorated with flags, bunting, and streamers, while a band of music 
daily played patriotic airs from the balcony and free lunches and drinks 
were dispensed to all who desired them, which was practically everyone in 
San Francisco. On election day the Colonel's supporters appeared in 
Portsmouth Square about noon with banners and signs on which were 
emblazoned the surpassing merits of their candidate. Preceded by a company 
of gayly caparisoned horsemen and several carriages filled with musicians, 
they marched noisily about the town. This display aroused so much 
enthusiasm among the voters that Colonel Bryant's election appeared 
certain, until Colonel Hayes suddenly made his appearance astride a 
magnificent black charger. Alone, with his long hair waving in the breeze, 
and handling his mount with the skill of the superb horseman, Colonel 
Hayes galloped back and forth, exhibiting, as the Annals of San Francisco 
puts it, "some of the finest specimens of horsemanship ever witnessed. The 
sight of the hero took the people by surprise and called forth the 
admiration and patriotism of the vast multitude of spectators. Men crowded 
around him on every hand, some seizing the bridle, others clinging to his 
clothing and stirrups, and each anxious to obtain a grasp of his hand. The 
noise and tumult terrified the spirited beast he strode, which reared and 
plunged amid the enthusiastic crowd, though so admirably managed as to do 
injury to none; when at length, his rider giving him the rein, he dashed 
into and along the adjoining street, followed and greeted by loud huzzas 
at every step."(*)

(* The Annals of San Francisco, page 271) 

This theatrical demonstration turned the trick. Colonel Hayes was 
victorious by a tremendous majority and soon afterwards was sworn in as 
the first regularly elected Sheriff of San Francisco. 

* * * *

Despite the amazingly high cost of living and the extraordinary 
opportunities for frittering away money, everyone in early San Francisco 
was supremely confident that he would soon be able to return home with an 
incalculable amount of gold. Everything was conceived on a vast scale, and 
there was always plenty of cash available for any scheme that might be 
proposed, no matter how impossible or bizarre it seemed. No one hesitated 
to borrow money, although for several years the prevailing rates of 
interest ranged from eight to fifteen per cent a month, payable in 
advance, and even higher unless gilt-edged security was provided. Everyone 
was in such a hurry to get rich that few men were willing to bind 
themselves to any sort of contract for a longer period than a month, the 
time basis upon which nearly all business was transacted. Real estate that 
a few years before had brought enormous prices from speculators, fifty-
vara(*) lots which had been granted by the Alcalde upon payment of twelve 
to sixteen dollars, sold for tens of thousands. Fortunes were made with 
incredible rapidity in real estate, in building, in merchandising, at the 
gaming table, and in every conceivable sort of business and speculation; 
yet little was thought of or talked about except gold mining. Any 
occupation, however great the stream of profit, was regarded merely as a 
stopgap pending a lucky strike in the gold-fields; probably the only men 
who devoted themselves whole-heartedly to the business at hand were the 
gamblers. The town was filled with tales, seldom verified, of the few 
fortunate miners who were gathering fortunes in the diggings at the rate 
of five hundred, a thousand, and, in a few cases, ten thousand dollars a 
day; everyone heard of the man who had picked up a chunk of pure gold 
weighing thirteen pounds and worth thirty-five thousand dollars, and of 
the two men who had discovered an even larger nugget and had immediately 
left for the East to exhibit it at fifty cents a look. But practically 
nothing was heard of the thousands of hard-working men who were on the 
verge of starvation in the hills, nor of the thousands of others who, 
discouraged and disappointed, had returned to San Francisco and were 
living in squalor and destitution. 

(* A vara is a Spanish yard, about 33.5 inches)

Gold worth forty million dollars was extracted from the sand and gravel of 
California in 1849, but very little remained in the hands of the men who 
had dug it from the earth. Thousands of miners worked only so long as they 
could withstand in comfort the roaring temptations of the brothel, the 
gambling houses, and the other fascinating flesh-pots of the city. Then, 
with their buckskin bags crammed with nuggets and gold dust, they hurried 
into San Francisco and forthwith embarked upon an orgy of wasteful and 
extravagant spending. Since very few had ever before possessed more than a 
bare living wage, they naturally had a decided preference for ostentatious 
display. They discarded their red shirts and homespun pants for broadcloth 
suits, boiled shirts, and plug hats; they flung nuggets and gold coins to 
the street boys and the beggars; they squandered their hard-earned 
fortunes on harlots, liquor, and games of chance; they paid hundreds of 
dollars for fruit, vegetables, and game out of season; they met without a 
murmur of protest the extraordinary expenses of common food and lodging. 
Many, at a loss how else to exhibit their prosperity, employed dentists to 
put their own gold into their teeth. If they had no teeth that required 
attention, they had good ones dug out and gold ones substituted. Scores of 
men had all of their teeth extracted and solid gold plates installed.(*) 
Many who didn't care for the pain which in those early days invariably 
accompanied dental ministrations spent their money instead on gold watches 
and diamond pins and other showy articles of jewelry and personal wear. 
"Laboring men," wrote Borthwick, "fastened their coarse, dirty shirts with 
a cluster of diamonds the size of a shilling, wore colossal gold rings on 
their fingers, and displayed massive gold seals and chains from their 
watch pockets; while hardly a man of any consequence returned to the 
Atlantic states without receiving from some one of his friends a huge gold-
headed cane, with all his virtues and good qualities engraved upon it." 

(* San Francisco's pioneer dentist was Henry D. Cogswell, who arrived in 
1849 with a capital of three thousand dollars and opened an office in 
California Street. He eventually retired with a fortune of about two 
million dollars and became the city's first active prohibitionist. His 
ambition was to erect a public fountain for every one hundred saloons. He 
had twenty constructed, each surmounted by a heroic statue of himself. 
Seven were set up in San Francisco, but none survived more than a few 
years.)

Once their gold was exhausted, the spendthrift miners hurried back to the 
gold-fields, supported by a sublime faith that they would immediately make 
another rich find and so start anew the same vicious circle. Even those 
who hadn't enough left to furnish outfits or to pay their transportation 
to the diggings didn't lose hope entirely. Scorning to degrade themselves, 
as they thought, by performing ordinary labor, they diligently prospected 
the city streets, the vacant lots, and the sand-hills behind the town; 
many religiously panned the daily sweepings from stores, hotels, saloons, 
brothels, and gambling houses, which occasionally yielded a few ounces of 
gold dust. 

* * * *

It is small wonder that the correspondent of the New York Evening Post, 
after judiciously surveying the scene late in 1849, reported to his 
journal that "the people of San Francisco are mad, stark mad." 



Chapter 2. Hounds and Harlots 

There was such a dearth of females in the San Francisco of gold-rush days 
that a woman was almost as rare a sight as an elephant, while a child was 
an even more unusual spectacle. It is doubtful if the so-called fair sex 
ever before or since received such adulation and homage anywhere in the 
United States; even prostitutes, ordinarily scorned and ostracized by 
their honest and respectable customers, were treated with an exaggerated 
deference. Men stood for hours watching the few children at play; and 
whenever a woman appeared on the street, business was practically 
suspended. She was followed through the town by an adoring crowd, while 
self-appointed committees marched ahead to clear the way and to protect 
her from the too boisterous salutations of the emotional miners. 

Once while an important auction of city lots was in progress in a 
Montgomery Street building, a man poked his head into the auction room and 
shouted: "Two ladies going by on the sidewalk!" The entire crowd 
immediately abandoned the auction and rushed into the street to watch the 
women pass. It is related that they bared their heads in reverence, but 
that part of the story is probably the added touch of the incorrigible 
romancer. 

According to one historian, there were only fifteen white women in San 
Francisco in the spring of 1849, but his estimate may be doubted, for San 
Franciscans were inclined to regard as white only natives of the United 
States and of a few European countries. In any event, however, the female 
population probably did not exceed three hundred for at least a year after 
the beginning of the gold excitement. Of this number, perhaps two-thirds 
were harlots from Mexico, Peru, and Chili. Together with male natives of 
these and other Central and South American countries, they were known in 
San Francisco by the generic name of Chilenos, or, contemptuously, 
"greasers."(*) These pioneer prostitutes occupied tents and board shanties 
in the vicinity of Clark's Point, about where Broadway and Pacific Street 
run into the Bay, and on the eastern and southern slopes of Telegraph 
Hill, a three-hundred-foot elevation west and north of Yerba Buena Cove, 
from the summit of which the arrival of ships off the Golden Gate was 
signaled to the town in the valley and along the beach. Sometimes as many 
as half a dozen Chileno women used the same rude shelter, receiving their 
visitors singly or en suite, with no regard whatever for privacy, and no 
furniture excepting a wash-bowl and a few dilapidated cots or straw 
pallets. A few made pretense of operating wash-houses, but there were 
scarcely any who did not devote the nights to bawdy carousal and to sexual 
excesses and exhibitions. And the days, also, if there was opportunity. 
Many of the men who had brought them to California had gone on to the gold-
fields, but others had remained in San Francisco, where they dwelt 
promiscuously with the harlots. They lived off the earnings of the women 
and what they could steal from the men who frequented the district. They 
also operated a few small, crooked gambling houses. 

(* According to Hubert Howe Bancroft in his California Pastoral, this name 
was first applied by the Spaniards to the American and English traders who 
bought hides and tallow. The traders promptly transferred the appellation 
to the Spaniards who sold these products, and it soon became a term of 
contempt applied to all Spanish-Americans, and particularly to Mexicans.)

During the first six months of 1850 approximately two thousand women, most 
of whom were harlots also, arrived in San Francisco from France and other 
European countries and from the Eastern and Southern cities of the United 
States, principally New York and New Orleans. Thereafter they came on 
every ship, and within a few years San Francisco possessed a red-light 
district that was larger than those of many cities several times its size. 
Moreover, it was at least as cosmopolitan as the remainder of the 
population; it has been said that by the end of 1852 there was no country 
in the world that was not represented in San Francisco by at least one 
prostitute. In October 1850 the Pacific News announced that nine hundred 
more women of the French demi-monde, carefully chosen from the bagnios of 
Paris and Marseilles for their beauty, amiability, and skill, were 
expected, and in the same issue delicately informed its readers that in 
the mines Indian women were available "at reasonable prices." 
Unfortunately only fifty of the French women arrived, but that was a 
sufficient number to cause considerable commotion among the miners, who 
were naturally eager to determine for themselves if the ladies were as 
adept in the practice of their profession as was popularly supposed. Most 
of these accomplished courtesans were attended by their pimps, whom they 
called macquereaux, a designation which the forthright San Franciscans 
soon shortened to "macks." These unsavory gentry are still so called in 
San Francisco, although the red-light district was officially abolished 
some twenty years ago, and the city now, of course, has no prostitutes. 

The lowest of the newly arrived harlots joined their sisters in sin in the 
shabby dives on Telegraph Hill and along the waterfront, but others 
opened, or became inmates of, elaborate establishments around Portsmouth 
Square. By close and diligent attention to business, many of these women 
amassed fortunes; one popular French courtesan is said to have banked 
fifty thousand dollars clear profit during her first year of professional 
activity in the New World. Several married prominent men, and themselves 
became ladies of consequence, successfully persuading the dead past to 
bury its dead.(*) Because of the lack of virtuous women, the prostitutes, 
especially those who dwelt in the elegant bagnios on Portsmouth Square, 
took an active part in the social life of early San Francisco. They were 
in particular much sought after as partners at the fancy-dress and 
masquerade balls with which the frolicsome miner sought to divert himself. 
There, according to an early historian, "the most extraordinary scenes 
were exhibited, as might have been expected when the actors and dancers 
were chiefly hot-headed young men, flush of money and half frantic with 
excitement, and lewd girls, freed from the necessity of all moral 
restraint."(**) These functions were usually held in one of the large 
gambling houses, the gaming tables being temporarily moved to one side to 
make room for the festivities, although play never ceased. They were 
announced to the public by notices in the newspapers, and by placards 
posted in the streets and public houses, all bearing in large letters the 
warning: "NO WEAPONS ADMITTED."

(* The tendency of the pioneers to mate with ladies of easy virtue is 
celebrated in a bawdy song which was very popular for many years, and 
which is still sung by San Franciscans who do not take their municipal 
glories too seriously. It begins: 
The miners came in forty-nine, 
The whores in fifty-one; 
And when they got together 
They produced the native son.)

(** The Annals of San Francisco, page 248)

Several men were stationed at the door, and as each prospective merry-
maker entered, he was required to surrender, for the duration of the 
festivities, his knife, revolver, or pistol, for which he received a 
check. If anyone protested that he carried no weapon, the statement was 
considered so preposterous that he was promptly searched. Almost 
invariably a knife or a fire-arm was found secreted in some unusual part 
of his clothing. Music for the dancing was furnished by the regular 
gambling-house orchestra, but on the program of entertainment there was 
always a soloist who sang at least once, to the air of O Susannah! the 
miners' favorite song:(*) 

I came from Quakerdelphia, 
With my washbowl on my knee; 
I'm going to California, 
The gold dust for to see. 
It rained all night the day I left, 
The weather it was dry; 
The sun so hot I froze to death, 
Oh, Anna, don't you cry. 
Oh, Ann Eliza! 
Don't you cry for me. 
I'm going to California 
With my washbowl on my knee. 

I soon shall be in Frisco, 
And then I'll look around; 
And when I see the gold lumps there 
I'll pick them off the ground. 
I'll scrape the mountains clean, old girl; 
I'll drain the rivers dry; 
A pocketful of rocks bring back, 
So, Anna, don't you cry.

(* Written by Samuel C. Upham, of Philadelphia, author of Notes of a 
Voyage to California via Cape Horn, Together with Scenes in El Dorado, in 
the Years 1849-50; Philadelphia, 1878) 

Sometimes the mistresses of the large harlotry establishments presided at 
elaborate social affairs to which they invited the most important men of 
the town. They cannily succeeded in combining pleasure with profit by 
introducing new girls to their guests, by presenting old favorites in new 
exhibitions, and by charging outrageous prices for liquor served during 
the function. Occasionally, however, these gatherings were almost 
painfully respectable. One such is thus described in The Annals of San 
Francisco: 

"See yonder house. Its curtains are of the purest white lace embroidered, 
and crimson damask. Go in. All the fixtures are of a keeping, most 
expensive, most voluptuous, most gorgeous. . . .It is a soirée night. The 
'lady' of the establishment has sent most polite invitations, got up on 
the finest and most beautifully embossed note paper, to all the principal 
gentlemen of the city, including collector of the port, mayor, aldermen, 
judges of the county, and members of the legislature. A splendid band of 
music is in attendance. Away over the Turkey or Brussels carpet whirls the 
politician with some sparkling beauty, as fair as frail; and the judge 
joins in and enjoys the dance in company with the beautiful but lost 
beings, whom to-morrow, he may send to the house of correction. Everything 
is conducted with the utmost propriety. Not an unbecoming word is heard, 
not an objectionable action seen. The girls are on their good behavior, 
and are proud once more to move and act and appear as ladies. Did you not 
know, you would not suspect that you were in one of those dreadful places 
so vividly described by Solomon. . . .But the dance is over; now for the 
supper table. Every thing within the bounds of the market and the skill of 
the cook and confectioner, is before you. Opposite and by your side, that 
which nor cook nor confectioner's skill have made what they are--cheeks 
where the ravages of dissipation have been skilfully hidden, and eyes with 
pristine brilliancy undimmed, or even heightened by the spirit of the 
recent champagne. And here the illusion fades. The champagne alone is paid 
for. The soirée has cost the mistress one thousand dollars, and at the 
supper and during the night she sells twelve dozen of champagne at ten 
dollars a bottle! . . .No loafers present, but the male ton; vice hides 
itself for the occasion, and staid dignity bends from its position to 
twine a few flowers of social pleasure around the heads and hearts of 
these poor outcasts of society."(*)

(* The Annals of San Francisco, pages 668-9) 

* * * *

Curiously enough, the first important outbreak of criminal violence in San 
Francisco did not originate in the vice-ridden areas around Clark's Point 
and on the slopes of Telegraph Hill, nor was it instigated by the wretched 
Chilenos who dwelt there in the utmost misery and degradation. On the 
contrary, it was to a very large extent directed against them, and the 
decent citizens of the town were driven into the paradoxical position of 
defending a colony of depraved women against the attacks of an 
organization of vicious men. Moreover, it was part and parcel of the 
systematic and heartless persecution of the Spanish-American which began 
in the gold-fields, soon extended to the towns and cities, and remains one 
of the blackest pages of California's history. The miners, particularly 
those from other parts of the United States, harassed the poor "greaser" 
in every conceivable manner, stealing and destroying his goods and mining 
equipment, driving him from his claims and farms, raping his women, 
beating his children, flogging or killing him on little or no provocation, 
and hanging him with elaborate pretensions to justice if he so much as 
attempted to defend himself or failed promptly to vacate property which an 
American desired. In one of the most celebrated of many such examples of 
brutality the miners at Downieville lynched a young Mexican woman, 
mistress of a gambler, for stabbing to death an American miner who had 
broken into her cabin during the absence of her lover and assaulted her. 
When the mob seized her, there was a great roar of "Give her a fair trial 
and hang her!" which aptly expressed the sentiment that prevailed 
throughout California. A physician who testified that the girl was 
pregnant and therefore in no condition to be hanged was compelled to leave 
the district. Another man who tried to interfere with the lynching was 
dragged bodily from the platform of the scaffold and literally kicked out 
of the town. The miners arranged themselves in two lines and buffeted him 
as he ran the gantlet. 

The immediate cause of the ill treatment of Spanish-Americans was probably 
anger and jealousy over the fact that they, being first on the ground, had 
naturally occupied the richest diggings. But much of it was doubtless due 
to the widespread and pernicious influence of the Know-Nothing or Native 
American party, which had already won municipal elections in Boston and 
New York and was waging a strong campaign for control of the national 
government, on a platform that was violently anti-foreign and anti-
Catholic. Also, many prominent American politicians and office-holders 
frequently berated all foreigners as trespassers upon the public domain, 
and demanded their expulsion. Among them was General Persifer F. Smith of 
the United States Army, who announced at Panama in January 1849, while en 
route to San Francisco, that only native Americans were entitled to share 
in California's riches, and that he proposed to drive all foreigners from 
the gold-fields. Luckily, he never attempted to enforce these views, but 
the fact that he held and had publicly expressed them soon became widely 
known, and encouraged the miners and the city mobs in their brutal 
excesses. 

Particularly susceptible to this sort of jingoism were the fifty or sixty 
young thugs who comprised an organization known at first as the Hounds and 
later as the San Francisco Society of Regulators. Despite this high-
sounding title, they were never anything more than an aggregation of 
thieves and ruffians, whose principal occupation was maltreating the 
Spanish-Americans. Under pretense of a fervent and belligerent patriotism, 
the Hounds beat, stabbed, and shot the helpless Chilenos whenever 
opportunity offered; systematically extorted gold and jewelry from the few 
who had acquired wealth; burned and otherwise destroyed their tents and 
cabins; and made frequent forays against the colony of harlots at Clark's 
Point and on the slopes of Telegraph Hill, where they raped the women, 
tore down their shelters, and carried off their meager belongings. "With 
the coolest impudence," wrote Bancroft, "the Hounds asserted their 
determination to protect American citizens against Spanish-speaking 
foreigners, and sometimes claimed to have instructions from the Alcalde to 
extirpate the Mexicans and Chileans."(*)

(* Popular Tribunals, by Hubert Howe Bancroft, Volume I, page 92) 

Practically the entire membership of the Hounds had come to San Francisco 
as members of Colonel Jonathan D. Stevenson's regiment of volunteers, 
which had been recruited in New York to fight against Mexico. The troops 
reached the Pacific Coast in March 1847, after the war had ended, and the 
regiment was immediately broken up. Detachments were stationed at San 
Francisco, Santa Barbara, Sonoma, and Monterey. All had been discharged 
from the Army by October 1848, although scores had deserted long before 
then to try their luck in the gold-fields. When Colonel Stevenson was 
organizing his command, he announced that he would accept only young men 
of proved good character, and that they must be willing to remain in 
California after their term of military service had expired and help 
settle the country. There were, of course, many honest and upright young 
men among the thousand who followed Colonel Stevenson, but there were also 
many young rowdies who had been trained in fighting, stealing, and 
brawling as runners or members of the New York fire-engine companies; and 
many others who had owed allegiance to the Bowery Boys, the Dead Rabbits, 
the Plug Uglies, and the other great gangs of the Bowery and the Five 
Points. They caused trouble not only in San Francisco but in the mines and 
other California towns as well. 

Some threescore of these youthful blackguards organized the Hounds some 
time in the late autumn of 1848, under the leadership of Sam Roberts, who 
had been a member of Company E, of Stevenson's regiment. Roberts usurped 
the title of Lieutenant and wore full regimentals, while his followers 
likewise strutted about the streets in military dress. The favorite 
loafing-place of the Hounds was a saloon known as the Shades, in Kearny 
Street, but their official headquarters was a large tent at Kearny and 
Commercial streets. This they called Tammany Hall, a fact which 
sufficiently indicated their place of origin. They made a pretense of 
military organization and discipline, drilling regularly with muskets and 
swords, while in their tent was a drum on which "assembly" was beaten 
whenever their chieftains desired to lead them into mischief. Each Sunday 
afternoon, and sometimes on week-days, they paraded the streets, with fife 
and drum playing and flags and banners waving. Usually they climaxed these 
exhibitions of strength with attacks on the Chileno quarter. For several 
months no one interfered with them, and at no time did the impotent 
authorities of San Francisco make any effort to stop their outrages. While 
it is probably not true that the Hounds had been definitely instructed by 
the Alcalde to rid the town of Spanish-Americans, it is certain that the 
desperadoes were encouraged by many very influential men who subscribed to 
the Know Nothing doctrines. In particular, they were the pets of the 
politicians, most of whom had learned the arts of chicanery as henchmen of 
New York's Tammany Hall and who had already begun to despoil the city 
treasury. 

At first the Hounds confined their attacks to the tents, shanties, and 
other property of the Chilenos, but during the early summer of 1849 they 
became bolder. It was about this time that they began to call themselves 
Regulators and brazenly announced that they expected the people of San 
Francisco to support them, and to pay them well for protecting the city 
against the Spanish-Americans. Thereafter no man's life and goods were 
safe. The Hounds roamed the streets in small and large bands, robbing men 
and stores in broad day, and beating and stabbing merchants and others who 
ventured to dispute their right to take what they wanted without payment. 
One of their favorite pastimes was to enter a tavern or saloon, demand the 
best of food and drink, and then walk out, telling the bar-tender or 
waiter to collect from the city. If the landlord protested, they destroyed 
his furniture or set fire to his building. On the streets men and even 
women were compelled to take to the gutters when the Hounds approached. On 
one occasion a Negro accidentally touched the august person of a Hound in 
passing, and his ears were promptly shorn from his head. A few days later 
a Mexican's tongue was torn out by the roots because he had replied in 
kind to an insult hurled at him by one of the thugs. 

Despite such atrocities as these, it was not until the middle of the 
summer of 1849 that the responsible citizens of San Francisco at length 
took a hand in the situation. In July one George Frank, a storekeeper, 
authorized the Hounds to collect a claim of five hundred dollars against 
Pedro Cueta, a Chileno. Cueta was unable to pay and, moreover, disputed 
the claim. On the afternoon of Sunday, July 15, 1849, the Hounds marched 
in full battle array from their Tammany Hall and made the most violent of 
all their onslaughts upon the Chileno tents and shanties. "These they 
violently tore down," wrote the authors of The Annals of San Francisco, 
who saw the attack, "plundering them of money and valuables, which they 
carried away, and totally destroying on the spot such articles as they did 
not think it worth while to seize. Without provocation, and in cold blood, 
they barbarously beat with sticks and stones, and cuffed and kicked the 
offending foreigners. Not content with that, they repeatedly and wantonly 
fired among the injured people, and amid the shrieks of terrified women 
and the groans of wounded men, recklessly continued their terrible course 
in different quarters, wherever in fact malice or thirst for plunder led 
them. . . .There were no individuals brave or foolhardy enough to resist 
the progress of such a savage mob, whose exact force was unknown, but who 
were believed to be both numerous and desperate." 

This outrage aroused the whole town to great excitement. Next morning 
Samuel Brannan and Captain Bezer Simmons called upon the Alcalde, Doctor 
T. M. Leavenworth, and urged him to take some action against the Hounds. 
Leavenworth protested his inability to cope with the gang, but was at 
length persuaded to issue a proclamation asking the citizens to assemble 
in Portsmouth Square that afternoon at three o'clock. There Brannan 
vigorously denounced the Hounds, collected a large sum of money for the 
relief of the destitute Spanish-Americans whose homes had been destroyed, 
and suggested that the meeting appoint a committee to bring the miscreants 
to justice. Two hundred and thirty men promptly volunteered for duty as 
special deputies and were armed with muskets and pistols. They started 
immediately in pursuit of the Hounds, who had scattered, terrified at the 
turn events were taking. Some had fled into the interior, and others had 
taken to the Bay in small boats and were trying to reach the Sacramento 
River. Twenty who had delayed their start were captured within a few 
hours, and Roberts, the leader, was arrested on the road to Stockton by A. 
L. Davis, who was in command of the armed citizenry. The prisoners were 
lodged in the brig of the warship Warren, which was anchored in the Bay, 
and two days later their trial began before the Alcalde, two associate 
judges appointed by the mass meeting, and a jury of twelve prominent men. 
Lawyers were assigned to defend the accused men, and more than a score of 
witnesses testified, including several wounded Chilenos who later died. 
The jury found Roberts and eight others guilty of rioting, conspiracy, 
robbery, and assault with intent to kill. Roberts and one Saunders were 
each sentenced to ten years in prison at hard labor, and the others to 
somewhat shorter terms, while heavy fines were imposed upon all who had 
been convicted. None of these penalties was actually inflicted, however, 
for the politicians did not fail the Hounds in their hour of peril. Within 
a few days all of the young thugs had been released. But they were so 
frightened that they made no effort to reorganize, and soon afterwards 
most of them left San Francisco. 

One of the associate judges who helped the Alcalde try the Hounds was 
William M. Gwin, later the first United States Senator from California, 
and the hero of one of San Francisco's favorite dueling stories. In 1855 
Gwin met on the field of honor one Joseph McCorckle. The duel was fought 
on a marsh north of the Presidio, several miles from the Gwin home in 
Jackson Street. Relays of horses were provided, and a messenger was 
engaged to carry the news of the duel to Mrs. Gwin. In due time he 
galloped down Jackson Street, rushed into the house and shouted: 

"The first fire has been exchanged and no one is hurt!" 
"Thank God!" cried Mrs. Gwin, and with the other members of her family 
knelt in prayer. 
A little later the messenger again dashed into the house, crying: 
"The second fire has been exchanged and no one is hurt! 
"Praised be the Lord!" said Mrs. Gwin. 
Again the messenger rode down Jackson Street. He knocked at the door, 
tendered his card, and was ushered into the parlor. When Mrs. Gwin 
appeared he said: 
"The third fire has been exchanged and no one is hurt!" 
"That's good," said Mrs. Gwin. 
On his next appearance the messenger was invited to remain for dinner. He 
ate heartily, and after some casual conversation about the weather, 
remarked: 
"Oh, by the way, the fourth fire has been exchanged and no one is hurt. 
What do you think of that, Mrs. Gwin?" 
"I think," said Mrs. Gwin, "that there has been some mighty poor 
shooting!" 

* * * *

It was the widespread persecution of the Spanish-American that produced 
California's most celebrated outlaw--Joaquin Murieta, who has been 
variously described as the Robin Hood of the Sierras and as the 
bloodthirstiest villain that ever prowled the Western highways. Scarcely 
less notorious was his chief lieutenant, Manuel Garcia, better known as 
Three-Fingered Jack. Murieta's real name was Joaquin Carillo. He was born 
in the state of Sonora, Mexico, and at the age of seventeen came to 
California as a horse-trainer for a traveling circus. He was accompanied 
by his young wife, Rosita Felix, who was later called Antonia Molinera. 
Attired in men's clothing, with her black hair clipped short, she rode 
with him as a member of his band, took an active part in many of his 
robberies and murders, and remained steadfastly at his side through all 
the vicissitudes that eventually resulted in his death. 

When the gold rush began, Murieta was in San Francisco. He followed the 
crowd and in the spring of 1849 staked a rich claim in Stanislaus County, 
from which he was soon evicted by American miners, who beat him and raped 
his wife. A few days later he rode into the camp astride a horse which he 
had borrowed from his brother, to collect what remained of his scattered 
belongings, and was at once accused of having stolen the animal. He 
protested his innocence and led the miners to his brother's ranch, where 
they promptly hanged the brother and seized what they desired of his 
horses and cattle. Joaquin they stripped, tied to a tree, and flogged 
until he was unconscious. 

Thereafter Murieta was an outlaw, and for almost three years he left a 
bloody trail throughout the gold country. Sometimes he was attended by as 
many as eighty horsemen, all of whom had sufficient cause to hate the 
American miners. They robbed stage-coaches and travelers and held up 
mining camps and small towns and generously shared the stolen gold with 
their persecuted countrymen. Murieta is said to have killed every one of 
the men who had driven him from his claim and abused his wife, and also 
every member of the mob which had flogged him and hanged his brother. Most 
of them he captured alive and dragged at the end of a rope, behind a 
galloping horse, until they had been beaten almost to a pulp by the rough 
stones of the mountain roads. One of his pleasant diversions was tying 
together the queues of half a dozen Chinamen and then cutting their 
throats. Once after a robbery he left eight Chinese thus murdered. With 
extraordinary courage he rode alone into the small villages and mining 
camps for food and other supplies. No man dared touch him, for all knew 
that if he was molested, or even angered, he would return with his 
desperadoes and torture and kill every soul in the place. In 1852 the 
California Legislature offered five thousand dollars for his capture, dead 
or alive, and Murieta rode into the town of Stockton just as a Deputy 
Sheriff was affixing to a tree the placard announcing the reward. Pushing 
through the crowd, the outlaw wrote at the bottom of the poster: "I will 
pay $1.000 myself." He signed it boldly: "J. Murieta," and departed 
unharmed. Soon afterwards he attacked a schooner in the Sacramento River 
near Stockton, killed the crew and passengers, and stole twenty thousand 
dollars in nuggets and gold dust. 

Murieta's depredations finally became so numerous and so violent that in 
May 1853 the Legislature authorized Captain Harry Love, a Deputy Sheriff 
of Los Angeles, to raise a company of twenty-five men and hunt the bandit 
to the death. Love and his men took the trail accompanied by William 
Burns, a gambler who had been friendly with Murieta, but had consented to 
betray him for a few hundred dollars. On a Saturday night in July 1853 
Love, Burns, and seven of the former's rangers came upon Murieta and Three-
Fingered Jack sitting before a camp-fire near Lake Tulare. Three-Fingered 
Jack died at the first fusillade, but Murieta leaped astride his horse and 
fled into the darkness. A chance shot brought the animal down, and a 
volley from the rangers sent seven bullets crashing into the outlaw's 
body. Murieta threw down his rifle, raised his hands, and called to 
Captain Love: "Shoot no more. The work is done." 

He sank slowly to the ground, pillowed his head on his right arm, and 
died. For the night's work Captain Love received six thousand dollars from 
the Legislature. He was killed not long after in a duel, and the gambler 
Burns was shot to death by Murieta's friends. The head of the outlaw 
chieftain, and the mutilated hand of Three-Fingered Jack, were severed 
from their bodies, placed in large bottles of spirits, and brought to San 
Francisco. On the 18th of August 1853 this notice appeared in the San 
Francisco newspapers: 

JOAQUIN'S HEAD 
Is to be seen at King's, 
Corner of Halleck and 
Sansome Streets. 
ADMISSION ONE DOLLAR 

Although the exhibit was fortified by affidavits from a priest who claimed 
to have been the outlaw's spiritual adviser, it was never satisfactorily 
established that the head was that of Murieta. James W. Marshall, the 
discoverer of gold, who had known the bandit, said it wasn't, and so did 
Murieta's widow, who was convinced that her husband had escaped to Mexico. 
Anticipating flight, she said, he had sent to his old home in Sonora a 
great herd of horses and fifty thousand dollars in gold. Nevertheless, the 
authorities were satisfied, and the gruesome trophy remained on display. 
Because the hair on the head continued to grow, it attracted much 
attention for several years, particularly among the superstitious 
Mexicans. Eventually it found its way into Dr. Jordon's Museum of Horrors, 
in Montgomery Street, on the outskirts of the Barbary Coast. It was 
destroyed in the earthquake and fire of 1906. 

Murieta has already become a legendary figure in California, and there are 
innumerable tales of his appalling cruelty, and of his great kindnesses to 
his countrymen. But as Bancroft points out, the outlaw obviously "had 
higher aims than mere revenge and pillage. His continuous conflict with 
military and civil authorities, and with the armed populace, would in any 
other country in America have been dignified with the term revolution. It 
is easy to see that he regarded himself as the champion of his country 
rather than as an outlaw. He was only a few months more than twenty-one 
years old when he died, and his brilliant career of crime occupied him 
less than three years."