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rolling incessantly, all that night, and it appears, too, the following day; for, as Mr. Leese naively observes, in his interesting and amusing diary, "our fourth ended on the evening of the fifth." Many of the simple-minded Indians and such lower class white people as were not invited, had gathered around while the festivities and sports were going on among the people of quality, and could not contain themselves for joy, but continually exclaimed, "Que buenos son los Americanos!"-What capital fellows these Americans are! And doubtless the white gentry thought, and often said the same.

But let a Yankee alone for knowing his own interest in spending money lavishly! In a few days afterwards, Mr. Leese had concluded the landing of his twelve thousand dollars worth of goods, when he opened his store for business. The grateful guests, and all the people around, at once flocked to purchase; and trade, he says, became quite brisk, at most satisfactory prices.

Shortly after this event, Mr. Leese, upon a hasty courtshipor rather, for he seems to have had no time to wait, and California was beginning to shake off her lethargy and be a go-ahead country; in fact, none beyond "popping the question," in smart business fashion, on the 1st of April, 1837 (ominous day for such a deed!)--was married to a sister of General Vallejo. On the 7th of the same month they were tied together, for life, by the "holy bands of matrimony;" and from this union, on the 15th of April, 1838, sprung their eldest child-ROSALIE LEESE-being the first born in Yerba Buena.

In this year, Mr. Leese erected a large frame building on the beach, with consent of the alcalde, the latter observing that the governor had informed him he was going to lay out a few town lots. He therefore permitted Mr. Leese, in order to forward his plans, to take a one-hundred vara lot provisionally where he wished. The present banking-house of Mr. James King of William, at the corner of Commercial and Montgomery streets, and which is situated in what may be called the centre of San Francisco, occupies the site of Mr. Leese's frame building on the beach of Yerba Buena Cove. In this year also, Captain Richardson erected an adobe building on the same lot he had always occupied, and which has been already noticed. This adobe building, one and a

half stories high, was the old "Casa Grande" which stood on the west side of Dupont-street, between Washington and Clay streets, and was taken down in 1852. About this time, some native Californians and a few visitors of foreign extraction, chiefly American, began to settle in the rising town. The arrivals of ships likewise were gradually increasing.

In 1839, Don J. B. Alvarado, then constitutional governor of California, dispatched an order to the then alcalde of San Francisco, Francisco Haro, to get a survey taken of the plain and cove of Yerba Buena. This was accordingly made by Captain Juan Vioget in the fall of the same year, and was the first regular survey of the place. It included those portions of the present city which lie between Pacific street on the north, Sacramento street on the south, Dupont street on the west, and Montgomery street on the east. The original bounds of the new town were therefore very limited. The lot on which Mr. Leese built his second house was marked No. 1 on the plan, and its eastern front made the line of the present Montgomery street, which then formed the beach of the cove. Mr. Leese seems to have been pretty well treated by the authorities in the matter of the new town, since he appears to have received, besides the allotment already mentioned, farther grants of three one-hundred vara lots on the west side of Dupont street, and two on the south side of Sacramento street, as well as of other three lots, likewise outside of the survey. To conclude this notice of Mr. Leese's close connection with the rising fortunes of Yerba Buena, it may be mentioned, that, in the month of August, 1841, he sold his dwelling-house to the Hudson's Bay Company, and removed his property and family to Sonoma, with the intention of engaging in extensive cattle transactions in Oregon, which territory was then attracting much notice, and had begun to draw to it many agricultural settlers.

CHAPTER III.

Removal of the Hudson's Bay Company.-Rapid growth and increase of population of Yerba Buena. -First newspapers established in California.-Tables showing the number of inhabitants in 1847, with their places of birth, ages, sexes and occupations.-Ordinance of the alcalde changing the name of Yerba Buena to San Francisco.-W. A. Bartlett was the first alcalde under the American flag, who was succeeded by George Hyde, and he by Edwin Bryant.-Powers of an alcalde. -Great sale of beach and water lots, agreeably to a decree of General Kearny.-Price of grants of property, and subsequent increased value of city lots-Width of the streets.-Municipal regulation restricting purchasers.

DURING the early years of the existence of Yerba Buena, little occurs worthy of notice. The place continued merely a village; and its history for some years subsequent to 1841, would be simply a record of the private business transactions of the Hudson's Bay Company, whose agents and people formed nearly the entire settlement. Even so lately as 1844, Yerba Buena contained only about a dozen houses, and its permanent population did not exceed fifty persons. In 1846 the Hudson's Bay Company disposed of their property, and removed from the place. After that period it began gradually to increase in importance and population. The progress of political events during which the country passed into American hands, was, as might have been anticipated, the chief cause of the rapid strides onward which the place now began to take.

By mid-summer of 1846, the population numbered upwards of two hundred, and the buildings of all kinds had increased to nearly fifty. From this date the place advanced with wonderful rapidity. On the first April of the following year, it contained seventy-nine buildings, viz. :-twenty-two shanties, thirty-one frame-houses, and twenty-six adobe buildings. In the course of the subsequent five months, seventy-eight new tenements were erected, viz. :-forty-seven of frame, eleven of adobe, and twenty shanties. About this time the permanent population had increas

ed to nearly five hundred. By the end of April, 1848, about the time when the "rush" to the "diggings" commenced, the town contained nearly two hundred buildings, viz. :—one hundred and thirty-five finished dwelling-houses, ten unfinished houses of the same class, twelve stores and warehouses, and thirty-five shanties. At this last date the population numbered about a thousand individuals, composed almost entirely of people from the United. States or from European countries. Every day was bringing new immigrants, and every week additional houses were erected.

Three kinds of buildings generally appear early in the progress of American settlements :-the church, tavern and printing-office. The last was established so early as January, 1847, when the population was little more than three hundred; and, on the 7th of that month the first number of the "California Star" appeared. This paper was published by Mr. Samuel Brannan, and edited by Dr. E. P. Jones. It was a small sheet of four pages, about fifteen inches by twelve of type, and appeared every Saturday. It was a neat production-type, matter and arrangement being of excellent quality. A passage in the prospectus gave notice that "it will eschew with the greatest caution every thing that tends to the propagation of sectarian dogmas." This clause may have been inserted in consequence of the publisher having but recently been prominently connected with a certain religious sect, and with a view to assure the public that it was no part of his intention to make the "Star" the medium of promulgating its peculiar sectarian

tenets.

"The Californian," also a weekly newspaper, of still smaller dimensions, and of much inferior typographical pretension, had previously appeared at Monterey, where its first number was issued on the 15th August, 1846, by Messrs. Colton & Semple, by whom also it was edited. Commodore R. F. Stockton, however, was the originator of this publication. This was the first newspaper in the English, or indeed, in any language, which was published in California. For the sake of the natives, the editors gave a portion of the contents in Spanish; but the greater part from the beginning, and soon the whole of it, was printed in English. The publishers seem to have been reduced to considerable difficulty in getting out their paper. In one of the impressions they give this

explanatory and apologetic note for its rude appearance. We copy literally :

"OUR ALPHABET.-Our type is a spanish font picked up here in a cloister, and has no VV's [W's] in it, as there is none in the spanish alphabet. I have sent to the sandvvich Islands for this letter, in the mean time vve must use tvvo V's. Our paper at present is that used for vvrapping segars; in due time vve vvill have something better: our object is to establise a press in California, and this vve shall in all probability be able to accomplish. The absence of my partner for the last three months and my buties as Alcaldd here have dedrived our little paper of some of those attentions vvhich I hope it vvill hereafter receive.

"VVALTER COLTON."

The printer is responsible for a few errors in the above extract; but the editor seems also blameable for the rapid changes from singular to plural and back again. It will be noticed from the date of the first number of the "Californian," that it was issued immediately after the capture of Sonoma and the first hoisting of the American flag in the northern towns of California; and no doubt these events hastened its appearance. In the prospectus the editor says: "We shall maintain an entire and utter severance of all political connection with Mexico. We renounce at once and forever all fealty to her laws, all obedience to her mandates. We shall advocate a territorial relation of California to the United States, till the number of her inhabitants is such that she can be admitted a member of that glorious confederacy. We shall support the present measures of the commander-in-chief of the American squadron on the coast, so far as they conduce to the public tranquillity, the organization of a free representative government, and our alliance with the United States. We shall

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go for California-for all her interests, social, civil, and religious -encouraging every thing that promotes these; resisting every thing that can do them harm." Thus, every thing was showing that the Americans were resolved, at whatever cost, to keep the country, and make it their own. Meanwhile, San Francisco was rising into such importance as to make it a much superior place for publication to Monterey; and accordingly on the 22d day of May, 1847, Mr. Robert Semple, who seems now to have been the

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