The Fantastic City

When I look back across the pageant of the years there is an especial brightness and touch of the bizarre about that sequence of the late sixties, the seventies and eighties. In it was the reign of the bonanza kings who built their palaces on Nob Hill, where Jim Flood's thirty-thousand-dollar brass fence glittered in the sun. The beautifully wrought metal flashed for the entire length of two blocks on the square where the brownstone mansion stood, and it was the sole task of one retainer to keep it bright. Passing any hour of the day one discovered him polishing away at some section of it. The huge cubic house is now the home of the Pacific Union Club, and the fence is still there, but with its pristine polish gone. When I saw it last, it was black as bronze. In brighter days it might have been a symbol of all the fantastic flamboyance of the time.

An incredible period it was, with its lavish expenditures and sudden luxury veneered over many crude ways of living. Strange homes, these Nob Hill palaces, the amazement of visitors from the Old World which had nothing like them. For that matter, they were unique in America. Very well I recall, on a visit to Chicago in later years, how insignificantly small mansions of the Gold Coast looked to one inured to Nob Hill.

Diagonally across California Street from the Flood house stood the Hopkins castle, whose gray towers could be seen from the bay and far south of the city. Terraced gardens fell away on the steep hillside at the back, and surrounding them was a mighty stone wall, forty feet high against the terrace of the lower level along Pine Street. There, massive oak doors swung on iron hinges to permit the entrance, not of armored knights on horseback, but of basket phaëtons, the family barouche, rockaways and broughams. A long looped 'S' of a driveway led upward to the house, and when lamps along its way shone at night, with the castle windows alight, the effect from the city below was enchanting.

Within, the house was a mess of anachronisms. One entered portals of a feudal castle to pass into the court of a doge's palace, all carved Italian walnut with a gallery around the second story where murals of Venetian scenes were set between the arches. These were the work of Jules Tavernier, French artist, who stopped in California after a trip to the South Seas, where he painted long before Gauguin.

A beautiful place in itself was this central court, as were many individual rooms in these anachronistic mansions filled with rare inlaid woods, marble mosaics, and rich furnishings. It was said that architects measured shelves in the libraries of some of them and ordered yards of books from dealers to fill the spaces, as they would order fixtures. Of the truth of this I am not certain, but astonishing effects in servants' liveries I well remember. The Negro coachman of one new millionaire wore a suit of white cloth with black velvet buttons as large as butter-dishes, and orange-topped boots — his own taste, I fancy. In spite of its absurdities, the Hopkins house achieved a general effect of stately magnificence, a sort of Mrs. Malaprop dignity. And it looked enduring. But alas, this feudal castle was built of wood painted the color of stone, and it burned like any shanty in 1906 — as did all the Nob Hill palaces, with one exception, the brownstone house of James Flood with its brass fence.

Mark Hopkins was one of the 'Big Four' who built the Union Pacific Railroad; Huntington, Stanford, and Crocker were the others. They all lived on Nob Hill, where Huntington joined the colony after David Colton's death, when he acquired the Colton palace at California and Taylor Streets. Colton was the road's chief legal counsel and a man of discriminating taste, one must assume, for his house, copied from a famous white marble palace of Italy, was rarely beautiful. Many times I wished its chaste walls and classic columns were of enduring marble instead of white painted wood. It burned with the others in 1906, and its gardens are now Huntington Park.

Across Taylor Street the prodigious Crocker mansion billowed over its lawns; and across California Street was the homelike Tobin house, distinguished by reason of having what might be termed a hand-picked library. In its steep hillside garden played a family of happy children. One of them became a poet, Agnes Tobin, whose translations of Petrarch's sonnets gave her high place in literary London. Another became the American Minister at The Hague.

After Mark Hopkins's death, the Hopkins castle was closed for years. His widow went East to build a new home at Great Barrington, and married the young architect, Edward Searles, who planned it. The Nob Hill castle was part of his inheritance at her death, a white elephant of which he made generous disposal by presenting it to the San Francisco Art Association.

This truly magnificent gift brought the young Art Association out of rooms over the California Market, of all places, where art was pervaded with the aroma of fish and the sound of the butcher's cleaver was heard. Mingled with my memories of Private Views that opened Spring Exhibitions in the old rooms are scents of the market.

In its new home the Art Association gave annually a Mardi Gras ball which brought back for one night of the year the castle's lost splendor. In the setting of stately rooms, with their scintillating chandeliers, the bright costumes of Pompadours, Carmens, court gentlemen, and jesters made an unforgettable picture. One of the last of these balls before 'The Fire' was in honor of the young Duke of the Abruzzi, who came to San Francisco as officer on an Italian battleship. His very tall, straight figure, in long black domino, was conspicuous among the dancers, and with his brother officers he brought an added glamour to the Mardi Gras that year.

Just below the Hopkins castle stood the great, gloomy barn which was Senator Stanford's home. The death of young Leland Stanford, Jr., left a pervading sadness there, and afterward one inevitably thought of it looking at the frowning façade of the house, painted dark brown. But in earlier days the vast rooms had seen elaborate entertainments. Mrs. Stanford was a plain, gentle little body who liked beautiful things. Her collection of rubies was said to be the finest in the world and her laces were as exquisite as Marie Antoinette's.

Senator Fair planned a palace to outshine them all for the hillside block facing the Hopkins and Stanford houses, but only a granite wall enclosing the grounds ever materialized. Part of it now surrounds the terrace of the Hotel Fairmont built there by his daughters. The Fair family lived in a comparatively modest mansion on the Pine Street level of Nob Hill, and there Tessie Fair was married to Hermann Oelrichs of New York.

'Jim' Fair was one of the Con-Virginia 'Big Four' — Mackay, Fair, Flood, and O'Brien — who owned the consolidated silver mines of Nevada which in six years' time poured out three hundred millions — and went on pouring.

Flood and O'Brien had owned a restaurant in Montgomery Street, the 'Auction Lunch,' where an especially fine fish stew drew patrons from the Stock Exchange near by. Daily the proprietors heard talk of stocks and mining shares and together decided to invest. Results were overwhelming. Flood and O'Brien found themselves among the plutocrats and retired without delay from the restaurant business. About the same time a jolly little Irish barkeeper at the 'Auction Lunch' retired also into the plutocracy. He had been popular with patrons who sometimes passed friendly tips across the bar by which Tim profited until, suddenly, he too found himself rich. Tim had been courting an Irish girl, cook at the Toland home on Nob Hill. They were married now, and built a mansion with the surpassing splendor of a dais in the parlor where, enthroned like royalty, Hannah received visitors. Many called just to see the dais. It was really no more than an ingenuous expression of the will to rise in the world. But when the daughter of the household returned from an Eastern finishing school expensively finished, the dais disappeared from the parlor to become a family skeleton. Since this pretty daughter married into the aristocracy abroad, the story of Tim and Hannah proves to my mind something like efficiency in the 'Melting Pot.' Mrs. Toland, I fear, never appreciated this. In a theater lobby, at a charity ball, wherever her way crossed that of Mrs. Tim, she always greeted her regal ex-cook with a cordial 'Good-evening, Hannah.'

Dr. and Mrs. Toland belonged to the old South Park set, although their attractive Spanish home was near the Roberts house on the Washington Street slope of Nob Hill. Mrs. Toland's little windowless carriage displayed the first hammercloth seen in San Francisco, a square of maroon-colored felt finished with a fringe, which covered the coachman's box and imparted elegance, according to prevailing ideas on equipages, which were elaborate. There was even a prescribed difference in height between coachman and footman which conscientious carriage-owners found it difficult to keep. The supply of footmen was limited, and those who suddenly felt the need of one had to take any available.

The story of Tim and Hannah, true except for their names, has always seemed to me the perfect legend of our plutocracy, but there were others one could tell — of a spirited lady who gave delightful, epicurean dinners in the seventies and had acquired her social poise in dealing three-card monte in her youth.

General Beale related a story of a new millionaire which passed into the repertory of end men at the minstrels. The original hero was a gentleman whose career had begun as a door porter in Montgomery Street. Speculations in 'Gould and Curry' laid the foundation of a great fortune. In London one year, General Beale and Judge Boalt encountered this gentleman making the Grand Tour.

'Where are you going from here?' they asked him.
'To Rome,' he answered. 'I'm going straight through Spain to Italy.'
'But you can't do that,' they said. 'You can't go to Italy through Spain. Spain is a peninsula.'
'The deuce it is!' their friend replied. 'I always thought it was a monarchy.'

Legends and stories notwithstanding, the bonanza millionaires were interesting men, generally speaking. They had the adventurous spirit of pioneers who leave small security for a hazard of new fortunes and there is something attractive in this spirit always. Most of them were men of unusual character, John W. Mackay for one; and I have heard it told of Senator 'Jim' Fair that when he joined a company to come across the plains as a youth of eighteen, he took charge of the entire party when older men were demoralized and undone by hardship and fatigue, and brought it safely to the Coast.

Several were men of brilliant mentality. Collis P. Huntington was one of these. He was a large man with heavy shoulders, a personification of power. One saw him often riding in a California Street cable car which stopped before his door, and involuntarily one regarded him with respect that had nothing to do with his millions. Grip-men and conductors on the cars were all his friends. The Huntington family was never conspicuous in San Francisco's social scene. Clara Huntington, the adopted daughter, was educated abroad and there married Prince Hatzfeldt.

James Ben Ali Haggin was, I thought, most interesting of the plutocrats as a personality. A conservative gentleman in appearance, but with Oriental traces in lineaments and temperament, strikingly handsome with flashing black eyes and close-trimmed white beard, he was the son of a Turk — a wandering actor, it was said — who had married an American girl and settled in the South. James Ben Ali had been educated for the law before he followed the gold rush to California. The Haggins were all brilliant and handsome. A dark-eyed daughter, Rita, so we heard, wrote exquisite poems and herself burned them all before her death. She died of consumption in her youth.

There was a family of sons and daughters in the Haggin house on Taylor Street, a large gray mansard with stables behind it that were all the most fastidious horses could desire. Haggin owned some famous racers. The Tevis home was near by; Mrs. Haggin and Mrs. Tevis were sisters. This house, too, was filled with young people, and wonderful parties were given there. For one there were fireworks out on the bay so that guests at the Tevis ball could look from the broad windows of the house on Nob Hill down across the city and out to the bay's dark waters where starry rockets and flares were sent up for their divertisement.

The last entertainment in the famous old mansion was a dinner for Madame Sembrich and Madame Emma Eames on the night before the earthquake of 1906. It was burned down in the fire that followed.

Taylor Street on Nob Hill was charming in the seventies and eighties with a character of its own. Spacious homes set in flower gardens had none of the overwhelming attributes of Nob Hill palaces and were centers of attractive hospitality. Opposite the Haggin house William T. Coleman built a white Roman villa in a walled garden — a lovely old place. Near it in a long Spanish palace of white stucco, Senator George Hearst's family lived for a time. Mrs. Hearst was a gentle lady, extremely pretty in her youth. In later years she was noted for her philanthropy. We heard of many things she did for friends in misfortune which had nothing to do with her public benefactions. For one who had been left with a small income at her husband's death, she built a charming home on Jackson Street.

At the north end of Taylor Street was a house that had come around the Horn. It had made the voyage from New England in a sailing vessel, cut into sections to be put together in Taylor Street, and some confusion in this process had completely disorganized a proper New England domicile. It stood with a funny, rakish assumption of dignity, all out of drawing. There were curious setbacks and projections where the second story didn't fit over the first, and the front door found itself far down at one side with a blank wall where it should have been. Tenants became adjusted to its peculiarities, however, and lived there very comfortably, as they may still, since it survived 1906.

Other houses that had come around the Horn were more successfully assembled at the end of the voyage, and adorned neighborhoods of North Beach where a number of sea captains lived. One old sea-salt built a queer dwelling on top of Russian Hill — a low circular house with windows all around it, topped by a cupola, a replica of the roundhouse on ocean liners of the time. I liked to picture him sitting in it, perfectly at home, looking out across the Golden Gate to the sea.

A romance Barrie might have written belongs to old Taylor Street. Gently sad in the mid-Victorian manner, it couldn't have happened in a newer age. Its heroine was the daughter of a Nob Hill plutocrat who built a Spanish palacio in Taylor Street where the family lived. When the daughter was a small girl, they went abroad, to spend a season in Venice in a palace adjoining that of Robert W. Browning, son of the poet. Browning himself passed much time there that winter and made friends with the little girl next door. In a book of his poems he inscribed a verse written to her.

Some years afterward the family passed a season in London and through their friendship for the Brownings made other English friends, among them a young army officer of good family and no fortune. The little girl, now grown up, and the young officer fell in love and became engaged. But his income could not support a wife and her father had an adamantine prejudice against dowries. So they parted. The heroine came back to San Francisco, where, for all her youth and loveliness and her father's wealth, she lived a secluded life, doing much charitable work, rarely seen at a ball or party. Years passed, and she grew into middle age while her lover served in India and South Africa and fought through the Boer War. One day after long silence a cablegram came to Taylor Street. He was desperately ill in a London Hospital. Could she come to say good-bye? By this time the adamantine father had passed away and she was mistress of her own fortune. That day she took the train for New York on her way to London.

There is a happy ending. They were married in the hospital, where for weeks she nursed him and then, miraculously, he recovered. Once they came back for a visit to Taylor Street and she had found the sparkle and happiness denied her youth. Sentimental and outmoded as I said, but Barrie's 'Quality Street' always made me think of it.

John W. Mackay brought his family from Virginia City in the early seventies, but they lived only a year or two in San Francisco before Mrs. Mackay went abroad, with her children, to establish a home in Paris. I met her, one afternoon, calling on a mutual friend at the Occidental Hotel, and during the time she was in California, we were friends. She was a charming young woman then, vivid and witty, not at all overwhelmed by sudden wealth — not at all impressed by San Francisco society which had begun to take itself a bit heavily. Her social success abroad was never a surprise to me, for she had an easy, graceful independence that made her very engaging. I suppose her career as leader of the American set in Paris and as hostess at her London home was brilliantly unique; but to me her most interesting triumph is that she lives as one of the characters in Ludovic Halévy's noted novel, 'L'Abbé Constantin.'

Mrs. Mackay was Mary Hungerford, of Brooklyn, daughter of Colonel Hungerford, who fought in the Mexican War, and she had come to the gold country with her first husband, Dr. Bryant, whose death occurred soon afterward in Virginia City. It was their daughter who became Princess Colonna. When the young widow married John W. Mackay, he was no more than a very good-looking and successful miner with his vast fortune still in the offing, though already sighted by his keen eyes. Mackay was easily the brains of the Nevada Big Four. He was an outstanding figure anywhere, something of a Beau Brummel in his early prosperity. I have seen him step out of the Lick House into Montgomery Street in the light trousers and brown velvet sack coat of current masculine fashion, a broad felt hat above his keen eyes and sweeping mustache — to be followed by many admiring feminine glances. In later years he returned for visits to the West, and his old friends, Raphael Weill among them, wined and dined him. But Mrs. Mackay never came back.

The Lick House was California's first palatial hotel. Very palatial, indeed, we thought it, and took great pride in the long building extending from Post to Sutter Street in Montgomery, rising to the dizzy height of three and a half stories. The opening banquet in '62 was an event of many guests, speeches, toasts, flowers, and music. It soon became the fashion to dine at the Lick on Sunday evenings. The dining-room and lobby were beautiful rooms, with their flagged marble floors and fine woodwork. James Lick had been a cabinetmaker in his youth and for his hotel, built with California gold, he imported rare woods from South America and the Orient, doing much of the finishing and polishing with his own hands, reveling in the work. He was a sad-looking man, more or less of a recluse, who had literally dug his gold, or much of it, from the hills himself. He worked with his pick-axe until he was rich, when, instead of a palace on Nob Hill, he built baths and planned other public benefactions. The Mercantile Library, with its collection of books once one of the finest in the country (most of them were burned in 1906), owed much to him, and Lick Observatory is his memorial.

With all the new prosperity and wealth of the seventies, San Francisco changed greatly in appearance. Downtown was suddenly more metropolitan. Horse-car lines and a crowd of horse-drawn vehicles filled the streets. Two new hotels were neighbors of the Lick House in Montgomery Street, the Russ House, and the Occidental, all of five stories high, which on a new site replaced the old Oriental torn down to make way for a business block. Under them were smart shops. 'Colonel Andrews's Diamond Palace' was one of the sights of the town; a jewelry store of white marble with a sort of lobby where mirrored walls reflected the showcases and their display in flashing confusion — the final word in metropolitan splendor for a large clientèle.

Kearney Street, from Market north to Clay, was the popular shopping district, and one took a Kearney Street horse-car which turned at Broadway into Stockton, to ride over toward North Beach, where Newman and Levinson's little shop kept rare imported laces.

Residences were now built on the hills overlooking the Golden Gate, and South Park saw an exodus to new neighbors. A few imposing homes were built in the Mission District on the 'other side' of Market Street, among them the Phelan mansion, old-fashioned and attractive, with white marble statuary gleaming on its lawns, and the old Claus Spreckels house in Howard Street. But after the original residents deserted South Park, all 'South of Market Street' was considered unfashionable. The once hospitable homes became dingy lodging-houses. In Silver Street, between South Park and Rincon Hill, Kate Douglas Wiggin established her first free kindergarten for the poor children of the neighborhood, so lately the neighborhood of wealth.

There was never anything like civic beauty in those days. In residence districts one found a varied assortment of architectural freaks, and downtown still had a haphazard aspect, with low frame structures, surviving from the fifties, scattered among well-built business blocks. The Ferry Building at the city's entrance was a long brown shed facing a plank-paved plaza, not at all an entrance to impress arriving visitors. Moreover, as they stepped off the ferry-boat which brought them from the Overland Railroad terminus across the bay, they were assailed by a battalion of hotel 'runners' shouting the names of hostelries in a vociferous din. For years the Russ House runner was the star of the lot. His heavy bass boomed over and over, 'Russ-ouse, Russ-ouse,' with vigorous emphasis on Russ, beneath all the clamor of other indistinguishable names. It was a long step toward civic beauty when the new Ferry Building finally rose in place of the shed, its tall, slender tower, copied from the Giralda of the Cathedral in Seville, dominating this foyer of the city.

We had of course, the Mint, austerely classic and beautiful with its stone columns and the broad sweep of stone steps leading to the entrance; and there was the post-office on Washington Street, another classic effect in gray stone. But beyond these, public buildings were unimpressive. The new City Hall, far out on Larkin Street, was simply a mess. It was never completed, but still wandering vaguely over several blocks, with its unfinished wings and peeling stucco, making it look like an old ruin, it happily burned in 1906. The present Civic Center covers its site.

Through residence neighborhoods of the old city passed the colorful figure of the Chinese vegetable vendor in blue cotton blouse and trousers, padded slippers, and a broad hat like an inverted tray of woven bamboo. Over his shoulder he carried a flexible pole and, slung on either end of it, a huge basket overflowing with fresh greens and glowing fruits that bobbed rhythmically to his swinging gait. On Fridays the Chinese fishman followed him on his rounds and stopped at the curb to weigh silver fish in his scales. Chinese peddlers of silks and brocades, carved ivory and jade, carried their wares from house to house packed in cases that were tied in great squares of yellow cotton. It was an adventure to have one brought in with his pack. He would step softly into a room with many little bows and kneel on the floor to untie the knotted cloth; and presently the carpet would be covered with a fascinating confusion of bright silks, ivory fans, lacquer boxes, pale green tea-cups of 'Canton Medallion,' and carved sandalwood that scented everything.

I missed their visits when Chinatown grew progressive and a Chinese merchants' association did away with them. 'Eight dolla hop,' one would say holding a piece of brocade at arm's length while he knelt among his wares. 'You like him? All light. Fi dolla.'

Chinatown was endlessly fascinating. As early as the seventies it was said that thirty thousand Chinese were crowded into the quarter which extended northward on Dupont Street from California to Broadway, a district six blocks long and little more than a block wide. It was an enchanting little city where gentlemen in lavender brocade coats and puffed silk trousers were thick among coolies in their blue cotton. Their long queues were braided with strands of cherry silk. Little-foot women, with sleek heads and jade bracelets falling over their hands, leaned on their attendant maids in slow progress, the tiny feet shod in gold-embroidered silk; and adorable children, in green and cherry-red embroideries, laughed in the crowd of the lantern-hung street. It was, in short, a scene transported from Pekin. Windows of the bazaars were a blaze of color. Sweetmeat vendors were stationed along the curb, and over the gilded balconies of restaurants drifted the shrill music of singing slave girls. Everywhere the scent of sandalwood mingled with that of the fish markets.

Often we went shopping in Dupont Street, for silks, carved teakwood tables, and lacquer trays, and the Canton china that found its way into San Francisco dining-rooms. And often we brought home gifts of lichee nuts, jars of ginger, or white lilies growing in jade-green bowls — goodwill offerings from the merchants.

These friendly aliens, with their love of bright hues, their strange theatrical customs, the tong wars and 'hatchet-men,' and all the mystery of life lived in subterranean levels, like geological strata, brought a flare of rich color to the pageant of the old city.

Violent agitation against the Chinese in the seventies left many people cold, so to speak, and especially cold were San Francisco housewives. For them the Chinaman solved a domestic problem. He was a marvelous cook through a genius for imitation, and his integrity was refreshing. Much of the responsibility of housekeeping could be safely left to a 'Number One Boy.' And Chinese servants were eminently good to look at in their long white blouses, padded slippers, and their heads shaved almost clean, just a patch of hair left to braid into a queue which was wound tightly about the crown.

One became adjusted to their ways. At ten o'clock every evening they set out for the quarter to visit the barber, the joss-house, and a gambling-game, and were unavailable after that hour. One of our friends had a 'boy' who serenely detached himself from his duties between two and four in the afternoon. The doorbell pealed vainly, and if she went to his room to knock and suggest a little service, the bland answer came gently through the door, 'Resting now.'

The house-boy of one of our friends was a marvel of silent efficiency named Sing. One morning in the third year of his service, our friend took her place at the breakfast table as usual and all the appointments were as usual. She rang for coffee. A totally strange boy appeared bearing the coffee-pot which he placed in its accustomed position.

'Who are you?' the mistress asked in amazement. 'Where is Sing?'

The new boy bowed several times. 'I am Sing's friend,' he explained. 'Sing go to China. I stay,' which he did to the family's entire satisfaction for six years.

Sometimes the presence of these reticent, soft-footed Orientals brought a stark flash of alien drama into quiet Occidental homes. In the country house of other friends were a Chinese cook, Chuen, and a house-boy, Charlie — Chuen was a middle-aged man with a temper, but he was a perfect cook, so the temper was humored. Charlie was a youth not long from China. Some stupidity or carelessness on Charlie's part may have provoked the crisis. One morning the family was wakened by cries from the back piazza — Charlie's voice wailing over and over in pidgin English, 'I want my Mudder! I want my Mudder!' They rushed to the scene. Charlie was crouched on the floor with fending arms, blood pouring over his face from a cut in his head. Chuen stood over him with a hatchet. At sight of the master, he dropped it and padded away to his room. Charlie was cared for and a doctor summoned. But not the doctor nor any member of the family could extract from either Charlie or Chuen a word of explanation.

It developed, however, that Chuen had been a hatchetman in Chinatown. The hatchet-man corresponded to the Occidental gun-man and functioned in tong wars. Chinese in America all belonged to tongs and the several associations were forever evening scores in long feuds. Each tong had its hatchet-men, and when war was declared, they were stationed with their hatchets in obscure doorways or alleys to chop down marked men of rival tongs. During tong wars, Dupont Street would be roped across and guarded by the police to prevent the entrance into Chinatown of disinterested 'foreigners,' who might be chopped by indiscriminate hatchets or struck by the bullets of the police.

Chinatown was a really exciting place. It was thrilling even in smallpox epidemics when the police guarded all entrances and yellow plague flags were flying over the quarter. But for all the lack of sanitation and bland disregard for Western ideas of law and order, San Francisco never resented its presence. It was too fascinating in its life and color.

Anti-Chinese feeling was generated and stirred by a species of political party led by a fiery little Irishman named Dennis Kearney, who held meetings in sand lots. His followers, known as sand-lotters, soon included most of the city's hoodlum element which had no particular other interest at the moment and took up Kearney's cry, 'The Chinese must go!' This was persistently reiterated until a just resentment of white labor against low wage standards of coolies became the inspiration of senseless violence; and the Sand-Lot Riots resulted.

Lumberyards near the docks were threatened with burning, and the disorder grew so serious that a much-harassed chief of police longingly remembered the Vigilantes and appealed to William T. Coleman, once their leader. For twenty years the Vigilance Committee had been disbanded. Coleman had returned for several years' residence in New York, and was living a life of conservative affluence in his Taylor Street mansion, with no taste for violence. But the peace and safety of the city were imperiled, and he sent out a call for his old comrades. Many of them, like himself, conservative men of middle age, answered the summons. A committee was formed, but the days of Vigilantes were past, and the new body was known as the Citizens' Committee. Its members were unarmed except for pick-axe handles to be used in dispersing mobs. 'Coleman's Pick-Axe Brigade' it was called. But the pick-axe handle was effective, and Coleman's Brigade ended the rule of riot. I've always thought that San Francisco owed a greater debt to William T. Coleman than was ever publicly acknowledged.

The reign of Ralston was a brief and brilliant period. This most spectacular of the plutocrats dazzled the city with an extravagance rich and romantic. Everything was done in the grand manner. At Belmont, his estate south of the city, he lived like a prince of the Renaissance, with something of the same arbitrary generosity and richly careless hospitality. The horses at Belmont stood in stalls of polished inlaid wood and their harness was silver-mounted. The master lived in proportionate splendor. I sometimes wondered if any two men in Christendom could have been as different in tastes and ways as William C. Ralston and his partner, D. O. Mills, who was a pattern of conservatism almost austere. Together they founded the Bank of California, dislodging the old Tehema House from its setting at California and Montgomery Streets to erect a building for it in '64. The Tehema House, favorite hotel of miners and rancheros, meekly betook itself over to Broadway, where it stood in shabby, offended dignity until 1906.

We first knew Ralston when he married Lizzie Fry, the pretty niece of Colonel Fry, of the Army; were guests at the wedding in Calvary Church, on May 20, 1858, at two o'clock in the afternoon, as an old engagement-book records. There had been no invitations. Simply, Dr. Scott announced from the pulpit on the preceding Sunday that the marriage would take place, and the church was filled with their friends, who gathered in the informal way that was then the fashion. There were no ushers, no bridesmaids: nothing to dazzle or amaze. But the wedding trip that followed startled society. It was a honeymoon camping party. Half a dozen ebullient young friends accompanied the bridal couple to Yosemite Valley, where they were guests of the bridegroom during a two weeks' honeymoon.

To reach Yosemite in those days it was necessary to make the last part of the trip on horseback over narrow mountain trails, and the Ralston honeymooners thus accomplished it — all of the ladies riding astride in bloomers! This was the crowning shock when news of it reached South Park.

The Ralstons lived in Tehema Street for a time, but not until they acquired Belmont down the peninsula were their lavish entertainments the amazement of the community. Belmont was a charming place in itself, once the property of an Italian gentleman, Count Cipriani, who had lived there, remote from his native land, for political reasons. He called it Cañada de Diablo, and in his day the house had been a modest villa. The new owner added wings and ells until a rambling white mansion wandered seemingly at random over the sloping hillside, all laid out in gardens. In a domed wing was the oval ballroom. Its walls were mirrored, and from the frescoed ceiling hung a great crystal chandelier whose reflected lights and sparkle filled the room. I have never seen a more effective setting for a ball.

Long wings of guest-rooms were filled for days at a time, and if it happened that there were no guests at Belmont, the prince gathered a company to drive down with him in his coach and whatever additional vehicles were required, for dinner and the night.

Mrs. Ralston once told me she was sitting at peace with the world one morning when the butler appeared to ask if there would be guests for dinner. 'Only the family this evening, Santino,' she told him. Just then the telegraph in her room clicked. It was before the days of telephones, and Ralston had installed a private wire from Belmont to his office in the city. She answered the call, and her husband's message was clicked out: 'Will be down with fifty guests for dinner.'

A ball at Belmont was always preceded by a banquet; that is, guests who came from the city were expected to dine at Belmont, and a dinner there was a banquet. One elaborate affair was given for our old friend Admiral Farragut on his return visit after the Civil War, with Vice-President Colfax sharing the honors of the evening. We found the Admiral aged that year. He danced but little in the old meticulous manner.

At a Belmont banquet for the Japanese Embassy headed by Baron Irakura, I marveled at the inscrutable poise of these Oriental gentlemen, encountering Occidental hospitality for the first time. Would they measure all of it by this example, I wondered.

Our Renaissance prince elected thus to play host to all distinguished visitors as much to make their stay a happy one as to impress them with California hospitality. He genuinely wanted them to like his city and spread its fame — a one-man Promotion Committee for sheer pride and delight in the place he had done much to build. The sweeping gesture of hospitality might have bewildered strangers. It used to be said that no sooner did a man of note sign his name on the register of the Palace or the Lick House than he was rushed, pen in hand, down to Belmont. This was an exaggeration. But even if it bewildered, the gesture was usually taken as it was given, in good will. Occasionally it gathered strange specimens. Once a British globe-trotter, discovered at the Palace Hotel, was driven down to Belmont for a stay of several days, but precipitately departed. The presence of the Ralston children at dinner the first evening, a family party, had distressed him, and he stated that children never dined with their elders in England. From this point he proceeded. Manners and customs of America were deplored and condemned, until the evening ended. At breakfast in the morning, he took up the theme once more, and was proceeding easily when his host rose in wrath.

Mr. Ralston banged a hard fist on the table. 'That will do, sir!' he thundered. 'I've stood as much of your impertinence as I intend to. The carriage will be at the door to take you to the train at eleven o'clock. See that you go!' And he strode out of the room.

Of Ralston's background I know very little. He came from Ohio in the early fifties with the business genius that made him conspicuous almost at once and the exhilarant personality that won popularity with all classes. His workmen all adored him, from the gardener at Belmont to a janitor at his bank. In many things he had a fine, discriminating taste. His homes were charming. A town house built in the Spanish manner on the Pine Street slope of Nob Hill had rare carved woodwork imported from abroad and floors of colored marble mosaics, the work of Spanish artisans. This, like Belmont, sheltered a 'Young Ladies' Seminary' in its decline.

Books and paintings were sometimes bought wholesale. When he was furnishing Belmont, he called one day at the studio of Thomas Hill where the walls were covered with the artist's paintings. Mr. Ralston glanced about. 'How much for the lot?' he asked. A generous price was paid and Hill's landscapes were hung all over Belmont.

The most theatrical of all Ralston's daring exploits was his raid on the Mint. It might very well have sent him to prison, but nothing whatever was done about it so far as I know, and it brought the Bank of California safely through a crisis. This was soon after the Civil War, when, for some reason of financial stringency, President Grant forbade banks to exchange gold bullion for coin at United States Mints. The order placed banks of the gold country in a peculiarly difficult position. In the vaults of the Bank of California, for example, there were tons of gold, but insufficient coin to meet an imminent run.

Directors were in despair when Ralston asked them to leave the situation to him. They fancied he might send some special urgent message to Washington where other appeals had been refused. Instead, he asked several trusted lieutenants to come to his office that night. What other arrangements he made were never revealed. But some time after midnight, Ralston and his men proceeded from the bank to the Mint in Commercial Street, a distance of several blocks, carrying bags of bullion; and they returned to the bank carrying its exact value in coins. The trips were repeated during the night until several tons of bullion had been exchanged for its equivalent in money, and the bank was ready in the morning to meet all demands. How Ralston gained access to the Mint remained forever unexplained.

His belief that San Francisco was destined to be a great metropolis and his pride in the city inspired Ralston to build the Palace Hotel, long the most luxurious hotel in America. It was, in truth, a little top-heavy in the first years with its vast proportions; but like Shepheard's of Cairo and the Grand Hotel of Yokohama, it was known around the world, and undoubtedly attracted travelers who might have globe-trotted straight through to the Orient to remain for more or less extended visits. The new trans-continental railroad and Pacific Mail steamers across the Pacific made a trip around the world easy and popular.

The hotel's great central court of white marble, with surrounding galleries of seven stories rising above it to the vaulted glass roof, was unique. Carriages drove into the court through wide doors and turned in a circular driveway cut in the flagged marble floor. It was warmed by huge braziers of polished brass filled with glowing charcoal, and when adjacent dining-rooms were filled and the galleries above were lighted, it was a lovely place. It was brilliant for the opening on October 2, 1875, when a banquet to General Phil Sheridan christened it. But before this triumph of his plans, the end had come for Ralston.

Newsboys called suddenly through startled streets, 'Ralston dead!' 'Ralston drowned!'

The city was stunned. For the public there had been no forewarning of a crash, but among Ralston's associates there had been uneasiness for some time over his extravagant expenditures. The Grand Opera House, which in Mission Street aspired to rival the Grand Opera of Paris, had been one long overshot. It was said that he owed the Bank of California four million dollars. Finally, at a meeting in the bank he was forced out of the directorate. From the meeting he went straight to North Beach, where a few hours later his body was washed ashore.

Accident or suicide? It was never definitely decided. An insurance company, convinced of the accident theory, paid the widow fifty thousand dollars. Ralston had been in the habit of bathing at North Beach, where there were several swimming clubs. In his overwrought state the sudden contact of cold water might have superinduced a stroke. He had swum far out when, without a cry, he sank. So a resplendent gentleman passed, unattended and unpanoplied at the end. His funeral procession was blocks long, so greatly was he revered by the public; by his associates as well, much as they might deplore his extravagance in business. At the opening of the Palace Hotel, Senator Sharon, who had been his creditor for two millions according to popular computation, paid him a generous tribute.

In the settlement of Ralston's estate, Senator Sharon acquired the Palace Hotel, with Belmont which he now made his home. The hotel was the pride of California, and the fashion of the city gathered there on Monday evenings for the band concert in the court. When, in 1879, General Grant came across the Pacific from Japan on his tour of the world, he was welcomed back to America in the court of the Palace, where galleries were hung with flags and garlands. Stationed in them were five hundred choristers who sang an ode of welcome with Madame Fabbri to lead them. Their voices filled the court to its high roof. Far below stood General Grant, surrounded by dignitaries, looking up toward the music.

General and Mrs. Grant were guests at Belmont for several days, and Senator Sharon gave in their honor a grand banquet and ball with many extravagant details and special trains from the city to recall the Ralston hospitality, but something was missing; some flourish or touch of romance which in Ralston's day had lent character to what might have been mere theatrical display. Belmont had become conventionally plutocratic.

Among diversions of this visit was a drive through Menlo Park, the new colony of country homes near Belmont where the Athertons, Eyers, Edgar Millses, and others owned large estates. James Flood had lately built there an enormous white castle surrounded by formal lawns, parterres, terraces and fountains, which he called 'The Towers.' Mrs. Flood implored Senator Sharon to stop at 'The Towers' with the illustrious visitors when they passed that way.

'If I do, Mrs. Flood,' the Senator demurred, 'you'll have a collation that will ruin everybody's appetite for the banquet at Belmont.'

Mrs. Flood protested that this she would not do. Just a snack, she would offer; the merest refreshment. And the stop was arranged.

Exactly as Senator Sharon had feared, a luncheon of many courses was served, and he was obliged to sit through it with an appearance of pleased enjoyment while his guests did it full justice. He watched, you might say, the edge of appetite for his surpassing dinner that night ruthlessly destroyed.

Flora Sharon's wedding to Sir Thomas Hesketh was the last elaborate social event at Belmont. The bridegroom came sailing through the Golden Gate on his yacht, Lancashire Witch, bound around the world from Liverpool, and they sailed away on her for the honeymoon, and back to England. The young Fred Sharons went to live in Paris, and the Senator did not long survive the Sarah Althea Hill affair. Belmont's glory had departed. After a period as a select seminary for young ladies, it became a sanitarium.

The railroad down the peninsula from San Francisco to San José passed through colonies of country homes and for a ball at Menlo or San Mateo, as for one at Belmont, special trains were run from the city for guests. Burlingame, now the center of country life in California, was then a tract of land adjoining the W. D. M. Howard estate, 'El Cerrito,' and was laid out in vegetable gardens which supplied the Palace Hotel. Senator Sharon had acquired it with Belmont and the Palace from Ralston's estate and converted it to this use. After his death, his son conceived the idea of a Western Tuxedo, and the potato patches became parks and terraces.

The Howard family lived at El Cerrito in a queer maze of a house which had originally been a small cottage for brief country visits. The visits were prolonged and by degrees wings and extensions were added to increase the capacity and comfort of the house until it strayed over the landscape in an engaging way, with little colonnades connecting wings, oddly terraced rooms, and an air of consciously enjoyed caprice. The Howards gave many houseparties, and we drove from El Cerrito to picnic at Lake Merced, where I could always evoke a picture of the Broderick-Terry duel on the lonely shore.

Broad, level lawns of the William Barron place at Menlo Park were the marvel of the countryside. During the dry summers of California, lawns must be watered daily and sometimes twice each day, to preserve their verdure. Water in Menlo was scarce, principally supplied by artesian wells and correspondingly expensive, but the Barron lawns were kept an inch under water for months. One could never walk on them in summer, but it was enough to come upon their green beauty on a hot, dry afternoon and be refreshed at the sight. Mr. Barron once said that a green velvet carpet over the land, frequently renewed, would be less costly, but he had a preference for grass.

Senator Latham bought the Barron place in the eighties and added to its beauty with fountains and an artificial lake where lotos blossoms rested on the waters. The lotos had been imported from Japan with the wistaria that draped verandas, and when they were in bloom strangers were welcome to drive through the grounds and enjoy their beauty.

The Latham stables, like those of Belmont, were finished with inlaid woods and costly fixtures. Surely horses never anywhere else had known the luxury they found in Old California. Lucky Baldwin's stable on Nob Hill overshadowed his house, and across the street another racing gentleman built one that surpassed it, with a modest home adjoining. A dozen others were scarcely less rich in appointments — all of which reminds me of Major Rathbone and his chandelier.

Major Rathbone had been American Vice-Consul in Paris before his marriage to Miss Atherton, when he came to California to live and built an Elizabethan country house near the Atherton estate at Menlo. In a San Francisco shop the Major selected fixtures for the new house — an especially handsome chandelier to illuminate and adorn the reception-hall. When the Menlo Park address was given, the pleased salesman remarked beamingly, 'Senator Latham selected one exactly like this for his Menlo Park place.'

'Indeed? Where did he put his?' idly asked the Major.

'In the stable, sir,' replied the salesman, still beaming over the happy coincidence.