Chapter XII: Introduction: By Reuben G. Thwaites (10)

Spokane has a rare climate of cloudless days. The Indians say that once it shared the fogs and copious rains of the seacoast, but that their tutelary god, ascending to the heavens, slew the Thunderer, and that thenceforth they dwelt under radiant skies, and were called Spokanes, or Sons of the Sun.

A college of artists could not have devised a more beautiful location for a city. It is set in a gigantic amphitheatre two thousand feet above sea level. High walls of basalt, picturesque with spruce and cedar and pine, form the city's rim. Against this background have been built mansions that would adorn Fifth Avenue or the Circles of the national capital. Forming the city's southern border winds an abysmal gorge, and along its brink has been built one of the city's fashionable boulevards. The cataracts of the Spokane some day must inspire poets. In some parts of the city, affording adornments for numberless gardens, are volcanic, pyramidal rocks. The Indians say that these columns are the petrified forms of amazons who, issuing from the woods, were about to plunge into the river for a bath, ignorant of the water demon, when Speelyai to save them turned them into stone.

It is significant of the lure of Spokane that men who have accumulated millions and sold their mines still make it their place of permanent residence. Though the city as it is to-day has been built in the dozen years that have elapsed since its great fire, there is no hint of hasty development within its boundaries. Singular fertility in its soil has so fostered its shade trees and its gardens that a sense is conveyed of years of affluent ease and attention to æsthetic detail. Spokane is in many respects the most consummate embodiment on the continent of that typical American genius that has redeemed the wilderness of the frontier.

PORTLAND

THE METROPOLIS OF THE PACIFIC NORTHWEST

"Where rolls the Oregon."--_Bryant_.

BY THOMAS L. COLE

One autumn evening in 1843, A.M. Overton and A.L. Lovejoy, two residents of Oregon City, on their way home from Vancouver, landed from their canoe and pitched their tent for the night under the pine trees upon the west bank of the Willamette River. Before they resumed their journey, the next day, they had projected a town upon the site of their encampment. Within a few months, a clearing was made and a log cabin built. From this beginning grew the present city of Portland.

But our story must go back of this beginning, for the historical significance of Portland lies not so much in the fact that it is to-day the great metropolis of that vast territory, once all called Oregon, and now divided into the States of Oregon, Washington, Idaho, and parts of Wyoming and Montana, not to mention British Columbia; but its significance is rather to be sought in the consideration that in Portland culminated and found final form the metropolitan life of Oregon Territory, which, in its earlier and richer historical period, found expression successively in Astoria, Vancouver, and Oregon City. Thus, for the essential beginning of the history of the metropolis of the Pacific Northwest, we must go back to the embryo metropolis established by Astor at the mouth of the Columbia River. This point of departure, while relatively remote, yet carries us back over less than a century of time.

Nearly two hundred years had passed after Henry Hudson sailed the _Half-Moon_ up the North River before the waters of the mighty Oregon were disturbed by any craft save the Indian's canoe. Beyond suspicions and reports of Indians, the great "River of the West" was unknown, and that vast territory beyond the Rocky Mountains which it drains was undiscovered until April 29, 1792, when Captain Gray, commanding the _Columbia Rediviva_, from Boston, crossed its bar and landed upon its bank, to the consternation of the Indians, who now saw a white face for the first time. Gray named the river after his vessel, the Columbia, and took possession of the country in the name of the United States. A few months later, Broughton, a lieutenant of the explorer Vancouver, to whose incredulous ears Gray had communicated his discovery, entered the Columbia, and in turn claimed everything in the name of King George. These conflicting claims furnish a key to the critical period in the history of the Columbia River territory. For a long time neither America nor Great Britain forced a determination of its claim, and a succession of treaties gave to the citizens of both countries equal rights in the territory. Each government, however, encouraged its citizens to make good the national claim by actual possession. The first attraction to Oregon Territory was that which led Captain Gray, with other expeditions, to the coast, viz., the abundance of fur-bearing animals. The first British occupation was that of the Northwest Fur Company of Canada, which pushed some posts across the Rockies to the far north. The way for American occupation was opened when the successful explorations of the Lewis and Clark expedition, which camped over the winter of 1805 at the mouth of the Columbia, demonstrated the practicability of an overland route to Oregon. Into this opening John Jacob Astor promptly entered. As the "American Fur Company," Astor had successfully checked the aggressions of the powerful Canadian companies in the northern United States. He now projected a scheme, under the name of the "Pacific Fur Company," whereby to check the movements of these same companies beyond the Rocky Mountains, and to possess the new country for the United States. The heart of his plan and purpose was a settlement at the mouth of the Columbia River. Says Washington Irving, to whose fascinating book, _Astoria_, the reader must go for the story of this magnificent, if ill-starred, enterprise:

"He considered his projected establishment at the mouth of the
Columbia as the emporium to an immense commerce, as a colony
that would form the germ of a wide civilization, that would, in
fact, carry the American population across the Rocky Mountains
and spread it along the shores of the Pacific."

Jefferson, who had sent out the Lewis and Clark expedition, heartily endorsed this project, as did also his Cabinet. In prosecution of Astor's purpose, on April 12, 1811, the _Tonquin_, the precursor of an intended "annual vessel," bringing partners, clerks, _voyageurs_, and artisans, as well as material and merchandise, crossed the bar of the Columbia and cast anchor. Point George, as it had been named by Broughton, was selected as a site for the embryo metropolis, and was renamed Astoria, after the great commoner whose enterprise it represented. Here, after the _Tonquin_ had sailed away to its tragic fate, the little colony proceeded to establish itself. A fort, a stone mansion, and other buildings were erected, and a schooner, the _Dolly_, was constructed and launched. The colonists did some trading with the neighboring Indians but delayed to reach out into the surrounding country until the arrival of Wilson Price Hunt, who was bringing an expedition overland and was to establish suitable trading posts _en route_. Hunt, who was an American and the chief partner under Mr. Astor, was to be in charge at Astoria. While engaged in their work of construction, the colonists were disturbed by rumors that their rivals, the Northwest Company, had entered their territory and established a post on the Spokane River. This rumor was confirmed when a canoe came down the Columbia flying the British standard, and a gentleman, stepping ashore, introduced himself as David Thompson, an astronomer and a partner of the Northwest Company. McDougal, who was temporarily in charge, was, like several of Astor's partners, a Scotchman, and a former Northwest employé. This visitor, therefore, was treated as an honored guest instead of as a spy, which he really was. However, it was determined that David Stuart should at once take a small party and set up a post as a check to the one on the Spokane, which he did at Oakinagen.

Another interruption was occasioned by the shocking news of the massacre of the _Tonquin's_ crew by Indians and the destruction of the vessel. To grief at the loss of their friends was added fear of the Indians, who they now suspected were plotting against them. However, McDougal's wit served and saved them. He threatened to uncork the smallpox, which he professed to hold confined in a bottle, and so gained the fear of the Indians, and the title, "The great smallpox chief."

After a gloomy winter, Astoria was cheered in the spring by the arrival of Hunt and his party. These, after a journey the account of which reads like a romance, through sufferings of all kinds and over difficulties all but insurmountable, reached their destination, haggard and in rags.

The arrival, soon after, of the annual vessel, the _Beaver_, with reinforcements and supplies, cheered them all and made possible the establishment of interior posts. The _Beaver_ proceeded to Alaska, in compliance with an agreement between Astor and the Russian Fur Company, which had been made with the consent of both governments; and Hunt went with her. The absence of Hunt, which was prolonged by untoward events, proved fatal to the Astoria enterprise. Just as the partners from the several posts were bringing to the rendezvous the first-fruits of what promised an abundant harvest in the future, McTavish, another Northwest partner, surprised Astoria's people with the alarming news that war had been declared between the two countries, and that he was expecting a British armed vessel to set up a Northwest establishment at the mouth of the river. Without waiting for the appearance of this vessel, without any attempt to send their treasure inland, and although the Astor Company was in a stronger trading position than its rival, McDougal, chief factor in Hunt's absence, sold out to McTavish all Astor's property for one third its value. Opposition was offered by some of the partners and the American clerks were furious, but Hunt's ominous absence dampened opposition and cleared McDougal's way. It is significant that McDougal soon after received a valuable share in the Northwest Company. Had Astor been there he would have "defied them all." "Had our place and our property been fairly captured I should have preferred it," wrote Mr. Astor to Hunt, who doubtless shared the spirit of his chief. Shortly after the sale, a British officer took formal possession of the country in the name of his Britannic Majesty, and Astoria became Fort George. Although the treaty of Ghent restored the _status ante bellum_, Oregon remained for many years in the actual possession of England, through the occupation of its chartered companies. Mr. Astor's desire to reoccupy Astoria received no backing by the government and so no American settlement was even attempted until Captain Wyeth's venture at Fort William in 1832, which proved futile.

This change from American to British possession was marked by a transfer of the metropolis from Fort George to Fort Vancouver. When Dr. John McLoughlin, upon the absorption of the Northwestern by the Hudson Bay Company, in 1821, was sent out as "Chief Factor of the Columbia River Territory," he declared that the chief post should be as central as possible to the trade; that after leaving the mouth of the river there is no disadvantage in going to the head of navigation; and that a permanent settlement must be surrounded by an agricultural country. These considerations which took McLoughlin to Vancouver are those which to-day determine the commercial strength of Portland, across the river from Vancouver. Thus Fort George sunk to a subordinate position. After the boundary was determined a new American town sprung up under the old name Astoria, where there are large salmon canneries.

Vancouver, with the outlying posts scattered throughout the territory, was the centre of a semi-feudal organization, and its life was picturesque and full of charm.

Within the palisades was the residence of the Chief Factor ("Governor" by courtesy), surrounded by those of the other gentlemen servants of the Company; together with the stores, offices, and all other important buildings. Between the fort and the river lay a clean, neat, and decorous village of about forty log houses, occupied by the inferior servants of the Company, who were, for the most part, French Canadians. Nearly every man, from the "Governor" down, had an Indian wife; for no white woman had as yet set foot in Oregon. One of these servants writes: "They all had Indian women, never more than one; old Dr. McLoughlin would hang them if they had." The farm, blacksmith's shop, and other productive activities at Vancouver not only furnished the subordinate posts of the Company, but provisions were sent to Alaska, exports were made to the Hawaiian Islands, and the American settlers were dependent upon this post for many of their supplies. Not only was Vancouver the trading centre, it was also the "heart and brains of Oregon Territory." The post hospital offered relief to American settlers as well as to the subordinate posts. Here was established the first school in the territory. The services of the English Church were regularly maintained, and opportunity was offered to missionaries of all denominations to hold service. An annual dispatch kept open communication with the outside world and brought books and papers from the centres of civilization.

The central figure and inspiring genius of Vancouver was Dr. McLoughlin, who was a striking and remarkable character. The remoteness of his post, combined with a self-reliant nature, made him practically independent of his superior officers in Montreal or London. He was indeed, absolute monarch of all the territory west of the Rocky Mountains. But the "good doctor," though firm in character, was a benevolent and a beneficent despot. "Standing over six feet, six inches, in height, he was of commanding presence, with courtly, yet affable manners." Red man and white man alike revered and loved him, for to each alike he was kind, and at the same time just. He was the soul of hospitality and every traveller found at Vancouver a ready welcome to a seat at the rich but temperate board in the common dining-hall, and a bed in the doctor's house. Library, horses, and boats were all at the visitor's command. This spirit of hospitality, joined to a freedom from national prejudice, characterized the attitude of McLoughlin towards the missionaries and other American immigrants who ultimately began to come into the territory. There was scarcely a party which was not indebted to him for material assistance in getting started, as well as for a courteous welcome at the fort. Some indeed owed their lives to him and the other officers at Vancouver, and once at least their prompt help was in marked contrast to the indifference of the American settlement. To this service the missionary records bear constant testimony, and Lieutenant Frémont, "the pathfinder," says in his report: "I found many American Emigrants at the Fort. Others had already crossed the river to their land of promise--the Willamette valley."

We must now follow these American immigrants, for with them the political dominance is to pass from Great Britain to the United States, and the metropolis to move from Vancouver to the Falls of the Willamette. Curiously enough, McLoughlin in his own course will typify this transition.

The very first settlers in the Willamette Valley were servants of the Hudson Bay Company, who settled there by the advice and with the assistance of McLoughlin, who from the first had properly estimated the value of this river and valley. He himself took possession of the falls, with the adjacent land, and held them as a personal claim, "until such time as there should be established a government which could give him title." The town which he developed on this site he called Oregon City.

The first American settlers on the Willamette were the Methodist missionary party, under Jason Lee, which crossed the plains in 1834. To these McLoughlin gave material aid. Of the Canadians, Lee's nephew writes: "They gave us a very polite and generous welcome to the best they could set before us."

Lee's mission was to the Indians, but meeting with great discouragement in this direction, he turned his attention to the more interesting task of forming a political state, which should be American and also Methodist. The missionary work was not abandoned, but only subordinated. In furtherance of his political plans, Lee secured both money and immigrants from the eastern States and invoked the protection of the United States Government. Since 1820 there had been a party in Congress, representing a sentiment in the country outside, which desired to abrogate our treaty with England and establish our government over the whole of Oregon Territory. But notwithstanding an "Oregon fever," developed by Lee and others, the United States was not yet ready for any action with regard to the new territory. In the meantime immigrations from the western States had brought to the Willamette Valley a number of people differing in spirit from the missionaries and not at all in harmony with them. These after a while outnumbered the adherents of the Mission. Hence arose three parties in the Valley of the Willamette, two American and one British. The new American party was in favor of forming a provisional government, which should maintain order until the boundary question now burning between England and America should be decided. The missionary party accepted this as an evil less than the rule of the Hudson Bay Company, which was the only established authority. The Canadians wanted only quiet. As a result, in 1845 was completed the organization of an independent commonwealth, which recognized the sovereignty of neither America nor Great Britain, but which allowed every man to retain his individual citizenship under either government until the territorial question should be settled. Against the wish of most of the missionary party, but upon the insistence of the more liberal Americans, the plan was extended so as to include the country north of the Columbia River, and McLoughlin was invited to unite in this organization. The Chief Factor thought it wise to put the property of his Company under the protection of a government which would probably be formed whether or no, and therefore he entered the organization.

The seat of the new government was called by the legislature, "Willamette Falls," but the place was afterwards incorporated under the name of Oregon City given it by McLoughlin, its founder.

There had long been disaffection in England over McLoughlin's liberal attitude towards the Americans. A climax was reached when Lieutenants Warre and Vasouver, who came to the Columbia River shortly after the formation of the provisional government, reported McLoughlin to be a disloyal subject, if not an unfaithful servant. The Chief Factor's defence was complete and he was not without friends, both in the Council of the Company and in the House of Commons. However, moved by a combination of considerations, he resigned his office, retired to Oregon City, and, after the settlement of the boundary question, became a citizen of the United States. For this much-vexed boundary question was settled by treaty in 1846. Polk was elected upon the platform, "Fifty-four forty, or fight." But more moderate counsels prevailed, and a compromise was made upon the forty-ninth parallel of latitude. This determination of the boundary line had as a result the extinguishing of the Hudson Bay trade on the Columbia River, and Vancouver was purchased by the United States for an army post, which is still maintained. A town has also grown up outside the reservation.

Seldom has fate been more ironical than in its treatment of Dr. McLoughlin. Driven from Vancouver for his kindness to the missionaries, he was now defrauded of his claim at Oregon City by the missionary party, and to accomplish this iniquity anti-British prejudice was appealed to, in concealment of the fact that the doctor had applied for American citizenship. After his death, restitution was made to his children. Some of his descendants now live in Portland.

In presenting a portrait of Dr. McLoughlin to the Oregon Pioneers, in 1887, on behalf of the city of Portland, Judge Deady said: "He stands out to-day in bold relief as the first man in the history of this country--the pioneer of pioneers."

With the passing of Vancouver, Oregon City became the metropolis. And when Oregon was erected into a Territory of the United States, in 1848, Portland was as yet only "a place twelve miles from Oregon City."

Shortly after the incidents mentioned at the opening of this chapter, Overton sold his interest to F.W. Pettygrove. A year later Lovejoy and Pettygrove erected a business building, known as the "shingle store," on what is now the corner of Front and Washington streets. Hitherto known as "the village" or "Stumptown," the little settlement was now dignified with the name of Portland. Lovejoy, who was a native of Boston, wanted to call the town after his birthplace, but Pettygrove, who was equally loyal to Maine, preferred Portland, and the tossing of a coin gave the choice to Pettygrove. What a pity they could not have compromised on the Indian _Multnomah_! Lovejoy, who was a man of education and had been prominent in the provisional government, sold his interest in the future city to Benjamin Stark and eventually died a poor man. Other transfers of interest made Daniel Lounsbury, Stephen Coffin, and W.W. Chapman partners with Stark in the ownership of the town site, and under these four men began the active development of the town. This development, however, soon met with a decided check from two events which in turn led to the subsequent upbuilding and supremacy of Portland.

The massacre of Whitman and his companions at Walla Walla by the Cayuse Indians led to a war of vengeance, which drew almost every man who could bear arms away from normal pursuits. Portland contributed a company of infantry. The movements of the troops, which rendezvoused at Portland during this war, demonstrated its superiority over the city at the falls as a point of arrival and departure with regard to the Columbia River. This discovery was to influence the future location of the metropolis.

The other event mentioned was the discovery of gold in California. The immediate effect of this discovery was a stampede from Oregon. Portland contained at one time, it is said, but three adults. Soon, however, the demand for provisions in California opened up a lucrative trade in the products of the fertile Willamette Valley and drew men back to the soil. This California trade afforded an opportunity to develop Portland's advantages which the Cayuse war had emphasized, and which Lovejoy suspected when he said, "I observed the masts and booms of vessels which had been left there and it occurred to me that this was the place for a town."

Up to 1848, the annual arrivals in the Columbia had ranged from three to eight vessels. In 1849 there were more than fifty arrivals. The shore of the Willamette at Portland was lined with all kinds of vessels, and wharfs and warehouses were in great demand.

It is upon this command of the two waterways, with her superior port, that the permanent commercial supremacy of Portland rests. The most conspicuous name in connection with this development of Portland's shipping interests is that of John H. Couch. In 1840 Captain Couch brought into the Columbia the first American trader which had crossed the bar since the Wyeth expedition. This was the brig _Maryland_, from Newburyport, Mass. After subsequent voyages he brought his family from Newburyport and settled in Portland, in 1849. In partnership with his brother-in-law, Captain Flanders, he built wharfs and warehouses and established the first regular shipping business in the city. The first brig sailing from Portland to China, _Emma Preston_, was dispatched by Couch & Co.

Such has been the development of Portland shipping that it is now well up among the great ports of the country. Last year (1900), according to the annual review by the _Oregonian_, it was ahead of Philadelphia and Baltimore. Its wheat shipments (15,858,387 bushels) exceeded those of San Francisco, and more than equalled the combined shipments of Tacoma and Seattle.

Henry Villard's great genius suffered no aberration when he selected Portland as the centre of Pacific coast transportation. For not only does this city command the waterways, but it is also the great railway centre. Four transcontinental systems, beside local lines, make the Union Station their actual terminus. The Hotel Portland, one of Villard's many projects, should be to Portlanders a memorial of Villard's brilliance and public spirit, as to the tourist it offers, with its elegance and comforts, a suggestive contrast to the camp of the early traveller.

To conclude from Portland's rapid growth and commercial supremacy that it is a typical "western" town, would be to strike wide of the mark. One must go east from Portland to find the typical characteristics, good and bad, of a western town. Portland's character was largely formed before the railway came, for it had a population of nearly twenty thousand before there was connection by rail with the United States. This population was made up of the influx from the Willamette Valley, whose civilization had been deeply impressed by the religious and educational establishment at its foundation, and of a good class of immigrants coming directly from the eastern States. A characterization of Portland by Judge Deady, in 1868, is illuminating: "Theatrical amusements never ranked high. There is no theatre house in the town fit to be called such. On the other hand, church-going is comparatively common."

As early as 1849 some citizens of Portland organized an association, elected trustees, and built a school and meeting-house at a cost of over two thousand dollars. This was the first enterprise of the kind on the coast. Within a few years all the prominent religious denominations were represented by houses of worship. The earliest of these buildings were those of the Methodists and Congregationalists. The Methodists, Roman Catholics, and Episcopalians also supported institutions of learning and of charity. No single religious denomination or individual clergyman has exerted such a commanding influence in the religious development of the city as to warrant any attempt at discrimination. It may be less invidious if two among the many citizens who have influenced the thought and ministered to the higher non-ecclesiastical life of the city should be briefly noticed. Matthew P. Deady, who was prominent in the territorial government of Oregon, and whose was a controlling mind in framing both the organic and statute law of the State, was, upon the admission of the State, appointed Federal Judge, which office he held until his death. Upon his appointment he secured the location of the court at Portland, and identified himself with the city. The city, too, became identified with him, inasmuch as the act of its incorporation passed the Legislature as it came from his hand. Judge Deady ever strove to promote the higher interests of Portland, through his important office, which he filled with great ability; through the institutions of the Episcopal Church, of which he was an honored member; and through the various channels which offer themselves to the public spirited citizen. His monument, perhaps, is the Public Library, which, with its fine building, is largely the result of his interest and efforts; although much of the money for the building was directly derived from a bequest.

When it is known that the _Oregonian_ has been published in Portland practically since the foundation of the city, and that it is deemed by competent judges to be the best edited newspaper west of the Atlantic coast, the conclusion is not far away that the man who has been the editor and master mind of that journal for more than thirty years must have wielded an immense influence upon the thought and opinion of Portland and the Pacific Northwest. That man is Harvey W. Scott.

It is needless to say, these two men do not stand alone. C.E.S. Wood, Esq., might be named as one who has contributed more than any, perhaps, to the development of the city in the appreciation of and interest in art. Judge George H. Williams, who was Attorney-General in Grant's Cabinet, might be cited as an example of those who have served the nation as well as the city. Others, too, have shared in making Portland, but space forbids even the mention of their names.

With almost a hundred thousand inhabitants, drawn from all parts of the world, and with a "Chinatown" in its midst, the social character of Portland has, of course, changed since 1868. And yet Judge Deady's characterization given then would fairly hold good to-day. This means, of course, that Portland is eminently conservative, with the advantages and disadvantages of conservatism.

In externals, Portland is an attractive city, with the trees in its streets and the lawns about its houses and its wonderful roses. Its early architecture is poor, but many of the recent buildings, municipal, ecclesiastical, commercial, domestic, and general, are not only large and imposing, but good. The city is beautifully situated, with the rivers at its feet and the wooded hills behind it, and in the distance the snow mountains, of which the finest and the favorite is Hood. Portland sits to-day mistress of the North Pacific, and with historic and prophetic reasons for expecting to be the metropolis of the whole Pacific coast. If the sceptre slips from her, it will be only because she lacks the faith, the courage, and the enterprise to enter into her inheritance.

SAN FRANCISCO

BY THE WEST GATE OF THE WORLD

"City of gold and destiny"

* * * * *

"With high face held to the ultimate sea."

BY EDWIN MARKHAM

If Xenophon had journeyed westward from Athens, pressing beyond the amber caverns of the Baltic, beyond the tin mines of Thule, out past the Gates of Hercules, exactly west, across an ocean and a continent, the next _thalatta_ of his men would have saluted the Pacific at the Golden Gate from the low, shifting sand-hills of the unrisen San Francisco. For the violet-veiled city of Athene and the gray-draped city of St. Francis are in one line of latitude.

San Francisco crowns the extremity of a long, rugged peninsula, a little north of the centre of California,

"The land that has the tiger's length,
The tawny tiger's length of arm,"

the land that stretches from pine to palm,

"Haunch in the cloud-rack, paw in the purring sea."

The one break in the mountain wall of the California Coast Range is the Golden Gate, the watery pass that leads from San Francisco to the Pacific. Spurs and peaks and cross ridges of this mountain chain would at long range seem to encompass the city round about; but, on nearer view, the edging waters on three sides make her distinctly a city of the sea.

Looking from the bay, past the fortified islands of the city, one may see San Francisco to the west, rising in airy beauty on clustered gray hills. At night the city hangs against the horizon like a lower sky, pulsing with starry lamps. By day it stretches in profile long and undulating, with spires and domes climbing up the steeps from a shore lined with the shipping of every nation--felucca, ironclad, merchantman, junk, together with bevies of tiny busybody craft, all of them circled and followed by slow-swinging gulls.

For years after the magnificent, all-inclusive claims of the Cabots at Labrador in 1497, nothing was known of the west coast of North America. Cabrillo felt his way along it in 1542, claiming it for Spain. In 1579, Francis Drake, fleeing from plundered Spanish galleons, tarried for repairs beside Cape Reyes, the Cape of Kings, and claimed the country, as New Albion, for Elizabeth of England. Although anchored in a cove within a mile of San Francisco Bay, he doubtless sailed away without guessing its existence behind the forest-covered mountains.

In 1602, Vizcaino, charting the west for Spain, as Gosnold was mapping the east for England, made stay in Drake's old anchorage, and named it the Port of San Francisco.

Notwithstanding the reiterated desire of the Spanish Crown that Mexico, or New Spain, should set about colonizing upper California, it was not till 1769 that the work was begun. Spain needed a harbor in which to retire on the way from the Philippines. The Russian fur-traders were heading down the coast. The French and the English were rumored to be nearing from the east. So it behooved Spain to be on the alert to maintain her right to the new territory.

José de Galvaez, _Visitador_ of Spain, who had been sent to Mexico with powers extraordinary, "to examine and reform all branches of government," seized upon the project of colonization, and found the administrator of his plans in Padre Junipero Serra, of fragrant memory,--a Franciscan monk, who had all his life passioned to save Indians as a Tamerlane would have passioned to destroy them.

Spain's plan of colonization comprehended a triple series of establishments: the ecclesiastical or the mission, the military or the presidio, the civil or the pueblo. The theory of colonization carried the idea of a military and a religious conquest of the new lands. The Indians, whenever belligerent, were to be overcome by force; but as far as possible, they were to be drawn into the mission life by peaceable expedients.

In 1769, four expeditions, composed of soldiers, settlers, and Franciscan friars, set out from Mexico to enter upon the work of colonizing and civilizing California. If in the mists of coming ages the Æneid of California be lost, Spain may prove her sponsorship of the Californian province by the litany of seraphic and apostolic names given to mountain and mesa, to coast and cañon. Andalusian names of saints and angels chime wherever the padres stepped or stopped.

One of the four expeditions, pushing northward by land, unwittingly passed Monterey; and a fragment of the company, while out hunting, came suddenly in sight of the waters now known as the Golden Gate and the San Francisco Bay. For the name San Francisco was soon transferred to this greater water from the old port known to Drake and Vizcaino.

In the summer of 1776 a company of padres, soldiers, and families, with stock and seeds, arrived on the San Francisco peninsula, and built temporary shelter of brush and tulès plastered with mud. On September 17th, the feast of the stigmata of St. Francis, solemn possession was taken of the presidio in the name of Spain; and on October 4th, the day of St. Francis, the mission was formally dedicated. The cross was raised, the Te Deum was chanted, while bells and guns chorused to sea and sky.

The mission was in a little fertile valley four miles from the Presidio, near a small creek now filled in. It became known as the Mission de los Dolores, in honor of the sorrows of Mary.

Hostile tribes from the south had lately fallen upon the Indians of the peninsula, firing their _rancherias_, murdering many of the inhabitants, and terrorizing the rest into flight. So the savages proved scarce at first. Even in 1802 the Indians at the Mission numbered only about eight hundred. But these natives, like all the Californian Indians, though quite docile, proved stupid and brutish and lazy. They made little progress from savagery to the state of _gentes de razon_, or "reasonable beings," fit to populate the pueblos.

This mission _régime_, however futile it may have been, however formal and external its religious training, seems to have touched upon some of the educational and sociological thought of our own time. It made use of the wisdom Spain had learned from her Roman conquerors--the taking of the conquered into full partnership. The idea of the daily contact of superior with inferior; of community of property and co-operation in labor; of the union of manual work with mental drill--all these were rudely exemplified in the mission life. Sixty years was the span of the experiment, a brief time for an effort in civilization.

The Mission Dolores grew after the general plan of the score of others in California. It was built about an open court, the place for work or recreation. The chapel stood at one end of the rectangle; the living rooms, storehouses, and shops lined the other sides. Only the chapel, thrice restored, with its _campo santo_ beside it, remains of the Dolores structure. When Beechy visited it in 1829, it was already a crumbling ruin. The sun-dried bricks, here as at the other unprotected mission relics, are fast melting back into the earth. The adobe, like the swallow's nest, cannot endure the hammers and chisels of wind and rain and sun.

Little of moment occurred at Dolores till the days of secularization. The barren, sand-driven, wind-swept hills were not attractive to the Spanish, and the Mission was not in high estimation with the authorities. Don Pedro de Aberini wrote of it in 1776: "Of all sites in California this Mission is situated upon the worst." Nevertheless, in 1825, the Mission, from a few head of stock and a few sacks of seed brought in 1776, had accumulated 76,000 cattle, 79,000 sheep, 40,000 horses, and $60,000 in money and products.

Mexico's jealousy of the sympathy which the padres felt for Spain, from whom Mexico had torn herself in 1822; the clamoring of settlers for the lands held by the missions; quixotic pleas of Mexican statesmen for Indian autocracy; and perhaps, under all, an itching for the Pious Fund that supported the mission work--these led on to the secularization of the missions in 1836. The Indian, civilized only surface-deep, was unready for civilized self-government; and so he fell back to barbarism, plus dissipation--his last state worse than the first.

The Dolores Indians were especially incompetent, and no attempt was made to organize a pueblo for them. So Dolores, after secularization, dragged out an anomalous existence as a lapsed mission, carried on by political rather than by ecclesiastical rule, with an alcalde rather than a padre in charge.

In 1835 the embarcadero of Yerba Buena two miles from the Presidio, was, at command of Governor Figueroa, made the port of entry. This place (named from a medicinal weed growing about the cove) was only a landing-place for fishermen and hide droghers. Only one house stood here at this time. Not a sail shadowed the bay. Herds of deer came down to the water and schools of seal swam to the shore. Yet Yerba Buena afterward absorbed the Mission and the Presidio on the margin of Golden Gate, and took the name of the Bay, thus becoming the germ of the present city.

A knowledge of the charm and worth of the sovereign bay queening the western shore of North America was rapidly travelling the world. In 1806, the Russian Rezanof had visited it officially. His coming and going has a romantic interest, as his betrothal to Doña Concepcion, the beautiful daughter of Argüello, commandant of the Presidio, his tragic death on his way home, and her retirement to a convent, made the Evangeline tale of early California. England in 1840 sent Belcher to the bay to gather information, and France sent de Mofras.

Both of these nations were suspected of coveting the California province; and the hope of getting possession of it, especially of San Francisco Bay, was doubtless in the background of our national consciousness as one motive of the Mexican War. It was felt by our country that the United States must own the west coast or be pot-bound later on. The Government offered to buy the territory from Mexico, but the proposal was refused.

Gradually it came to be known that the United States, fearing similar action by European powers, was to seize and hold California in the event of a war with Mexico. With the vexed question of motive and action this is not the place to deal. But in 1846, after the Mexican War had fairly started, Frémont, pursuing a scientific exploration in California, received secret Government advices, and, gathering troops in the North, urged a declaration of independence. Commodore Sloat, in command of a frigate at Monterey, in July, 1846, raised the American flag in place of the Spanish nopal and eagle standard, declaring California a part of the United States. The next day, following the order of Sloat, our flag was set flying in the plaza at Yerba Buena by the captain of a frigate in the bay, accompanied by an escort of soldiers and marines. No opposition was offered by the Mexicans. Portsmouth, the name of the vessel, was given to the plaza, and Montgomery, the name of the captain, was given to the street, then along the water front, but now pushed back a half a dozen blocks by the filling in of the cove.

The first alcalde of Yerba Buena under the American flag was Washington Bartlett. Hearing that a new town, Francesca, was to be established farther up the bay, and fearing injury to his own from one with a name so similar to that of the bay, Alcalde Bartlett proceeded, in 1847, to cast the plebeian name of his pueblo. He declared the name Yerba Buena insignificant and unknown to the world; proclaimed that henceforth the settlement should bear the name of the fostering bay beside it. This somewhat tardy edict was accepted by all, and San Francisco became a name to conjure with.

The village nucleated a little back of the cove about its inevitable Spanish plaza, which was to be the scene of wild and whirling days to come. Telegraph Hill, the old observation station, rose on the north of it, and Rincon Hill was off toward the south. When California was ceded to the United States in 1848, San Francisco was fairly afoot upon her triumphant way. Brannan had established a newspaper, _The Star_, and had sent two thousand copies East, describing the new land, and, curiously enough, prophesying the gold and the wheat of the future--the first "boom" note from California. A school was flourishing; churches were building; two hundred houses were on the hills, and the population was about eight hundred.

And now sweeps into the story the dominant major--the finding of the gold. Told of in Indian legend and in Spanish tradition, the shining sands of Pactolus were found at last in a Californian cañon. San Franciscans, hearing the tale, felt again the wander spirit, and were off to the mountains, seeking quicker fortunes. Soldiers and sailors deserted from the bay. The school closed; the newspaper suspended. Business was at a standstill: there was no one to work or to buy.

A wind of excitement passed across two hemispheres. The tidings of the gold flashed from city to city, swift as the signal fires of Agamemnon telling that Troy had fallen. The faces of men turned expectantly toward this land at the edge of the world. Everywhere were heard the sounds of preparation and farewell, as adventurers by land and sea, by craft and caravan, set out for El Dorado.

By 1849 immigrants from the ends of the earth were pouring in; and the bare, brown hills and curving shores of San Francisco were whitening with tents. Goods were piled high in the open air, and all available walls were covered with grotesque signs and placards speaking in all languages.

By the winter of '49, the drowsy, droning Spanish town had expanded into a little excited city. Everywhere were springing up nondescript lodging and boarding houses, drinking houses, and gambling saloons. Twenty-five thousand people thronged the thoroughfares. There was scarcely such a thing as a home. Crowds of people slept wedged together on floors and tables, in rows of cots or in bunks fastened in tiers to the walls. The streets, full of sticky clay and miry sand, were thronged with struggling horses, mules, and oxen; and crowds of men from all nations and all levels of life jostled by, laughing, railing, or cursing. A whirlwind had rushed in upon the sleepy town. Old habits of life were broken through. Lawyers were turned into draymen and bootblacks; doctors into merchants and carpenters; soldiers into waiters and auctioneers. All men could find work; and none, however rich, could wholly evade it. Gambling was the chief amusement; speculation in a hundred forms was pressing forward, and fortunes were changing hourly.

In all this rude democracy, there was one mark of an aristocracy--high prices. Workmen charged twenty dollars a day; lumber was five hundred dollars a thousand; flour was forty dollars a barrel; eggs were a dollar apiece.

All unready for this tumultuous rise in population and precipitation of business, the infant city had to evolve on the moment accommodation for man and beast and craft, and organization for civic safety. To add to the perplexities, in the first years of the city, fire after fire devoured its flimsy fabric of canvas and shingle. The fourth and worst fire, in May, 1851, destroyed seven million dollars' worth of property. The recurrent devastation made a demand for fireproof buildings, which gave a certain stability and dignity to the city. The bay began to fill with the new clipper ships, which brought steadier crews and more rational cargoes than did the older clumsy ships now rotting at the docks. Secure wharfage, passable streets, an efficient fire-department began to give a feeling of prosperity and permanence.

San Francisco was the stopping-place of every comer and goer; the Egypt of the corn, the depot of supplies for the gold territory. Naturally, forces of good and evil streamed into the young city and came into collision. Strange new conditions were in the environment. The old primitive safeguards of the early mission era were outgrown. The population, representing every form of tradition and government, found itself removed from well-nigh all restraints, all bolstering-up of church and state. Each man of worth, while bent to his private task, had forced upon him the problem of helping to build up a social fabric and of holding it secure.

The Anglo-Saxon has an elastic genius for government. Wherever he goes, finding new conditions, he finds new ways for maintaining the public safety. The reaction of his spirit under the conditions about him in early California furnishes an interesting study in social dynamics.

By 1850, California was running under a State constitution and the city had a charter. The old stable forces of home, and school, and church, the Argonaut soon evolved about him. However, great freedom of action and opinion prevailed, and a tolerance of evil that well-nigh blunted the distinctions between right and wrong. "Sydney coves," and other unruly spirits took advantage of this laxity. Abuses thickened, and anxious problems of public order were upon the young metropolis.

The affair of "The Hounds" was one of the organized outrages that confronted the municipality. A band of lawless ex-convicts, affiliated for mutual protection in evil designs, grew very obnoxious in their bold defiance of authority, their open and wanton outrages upon citizens, especially foreigners. The community, having no municipal organization, rose against the law-breakers, put twenty on trial, and half of these into prison. This show of public indignation quieted the pack for a time. But there was no strong authority to conserve the public good. What was the concern of all found an executive in none.

Yet, finally, out of this sagging and sinking of the public order and its adjustment sprang the most spectacular popular uprising and the most notable object-lesson in self-government known to the West or perhaps to any other land,--the Vigilance Committee of 1852-56. The occasion of this citizens' uprising was a series of unpunished crimes of arson, murder, rapine, and burglary. The perpetrators of these outrages, owing to lax administration of law by corrupt or careless officials, seemed immune from apprehension or punishment. The many fires that had devastated the infant city had without doubt been of incendiary origin. Over a hundred murders had occurred in a few months and not a single capital punishment had followed.

Feeling that this insecurity of life and property was intolerable, and fearing that it would draw down the perils and uncertainties of mob law, a party of prominent citizens, all above suspicion of self-interest, organized a defensive league against the allied rabble. They determined to take the law into their own hands, and to administer it with equal and exact justice, with swiftness and finality.

The first and most exciting case handled by this extraordinary court of justice came swiftly to judgment. Upon the night of organization, in June, 1852, an ex-convict was seized in an act of theft. He was tried in the presence of eighty members sitting with closed doors; was convicted, sentenced, and hanged in Portsmouth Square that night. The general public, sensitive and suspicious, dreading mob tactics, was troubled at first by this summary show of power. But the Committee came out with a complete list of its members, each member assuming equal share of responsibility, each avowing the public welfare as the only end in view, each pledging his life, his fortune, his honor, for the protection of his city and the upholding of the public safety. A profound impression was made by the manifesto of this self-constituted protectorate. When it was found that no secret society, but, instead, a band of the solid men of the city was at the head of the movement, the community rallied to its support with enthusiasm. The Committee quietly kept at its work of investigation and punishment. Its calm, swift justice, its lack of personal bias, its righteous vengeance terrified evil-doers. Many were banished by formal warning. Three other well-known criminals were hanged. Crime rapidly diminished, and for the first time in years people began to feel secure in person and possessions. After thirty days the occupation of the Vigilance Committee was gone. It did not disband, but existed for years a merely nominal tribunal.

By 1854, the growth of San Francisco began to slacken. Inflation began its inevitable counter-movement of collapse. The days of picking up gold were over. Immigration fell off. A large part of the city's population scattered, returning East, or going into the country to try life on ranch or range. Disorder increased; the old suppressed crimes leaped into evil eminence.

A new journal, _The Bulletin_, edited by James King, of William, assailed the rising corruption, political and personal, social and individual, public and private.

In 1856, without warning, King was shot down in the street by a man who had writhed under the torment of the _Bulletin_ pens,--an unscrupulous ex-convict, James Casey, a rival editor, and a man lately elected supervisor. This murder precipitated public opinion, and exploded the lazy optimism that had waited for things to right themselves. Casey was at once jailed, by chance escaping lynching. It was inevitable that heroic measures should be set in operation. And so there came about a second administration of the Vigilance Committee, this unique social providence, this people's protectorate. But this time it had before it not only the purging of the city's crime, but also a struggle with jealous and sluggish authority vested in city and State officials. In a few days 2500 men had enrolled as Vigilantes, and were drilling in arms, under their former trusted President, William T. Coleman. Meantime the Governor of the State was summoned by the Anti-Vigilantes, representing chiefly the conservative officeholders and the people affiliated in some way with the lawless element. These Anti-Vigilantes came to be known in derision as the Law-and-Order Party. The Know-Nothing Governor swayed first from one side to another. He had no power behind him, for the militia were deserting to the popular cause.

The Vigilantes took charge not only of Casey, but also of one Cora who had wantonly shot a United States marshal and had evaded punishment. After a dispassionate trial, with all form and ceremony, the two criminals were sentenced to death and hanged on the day of King's funeral. It may be worth remembering that this man Cora was defended in his first trial by the eloquent Col. E.D. Baker.

The Law-and-Order Party now insisted that the Vigilantes disband. But the Committee held that its purpose was not simply to deal out justice to murderers, but also to so clarify the social atmosphere as to make future assassinations punishable by law. Therefore it struck directly at city politics, banishing the openly vicious, and laying the way for a clean administration when the corrupt officials could be rotated out of office.