MUSEUM OF THE CITY OF SAN FRANCISCO - Key Persons
Job Titles:
- America 's Most Erudite City Boss
Adah Menken was to the San Francisco of Civil War days what Tetrazzini was to the city in the early years of the twentieth century. She achieved her success and fame in San Francisco. She was a part of San Francisco life. From San Francisco her sensational fame as Mazeppa traveled around the world and, during the years she lived in the city and played Mazeppa (and her other forgotten roles), she belonged to the city. She was adored by its gay blades, and even to this day you may find very old gentlemen who, when you praise this or that actress, will look at you with pained surprise and say, "Young man, you and your generation have not lived. You should have known Adah Menken. You should have seen her in Mazeppa."
Not until 1938 were the probable facts of her birthplace and paternity established. Prior to that time she was variously reported to have been born in New York, Havana, and a half-dozen other places. She was said to have been born of a distinguished, old Southern family; another account claimed she was born in Arkansas of a French mother and an American-Indian father. Throughout the years of her life she consistently confused the issue by telling conflicting and varying stories, partly because she was ashamed of her parentage and partly because she was an actress always playing a role. The likeliest facts seem to be that Menken was born in New Orleans on June 15, 1835, that her mother was a very beautiful French Creole, that her father was Auguste Theodore, a highly respected "free" Negro of Louisiana.
She danced, when a child, in the ballet of the French Opera House in New Orleans. She was exceedingly bright; an exceptional scholar. She spoke French and Spanish fluently; she painted, wrote poetry that was of good quality and brought her early recognition. From New Orleans she went, while still a child, to Havana, danced there, and was crowned queen of the Plaza. Then she forsook the ballet and turned to the stage and, on tour, landed in Texas. And in Texas, at the age of twenty-one, she married a very handsome and distinguished musician, Alexander Isaac Menken.
She adored Menken, and Menken worshipped her. But with the characteristics and traditions of his Jewish forebears, Menken wanted a wife, a home, a family. Adah was not at all interested in home or family; in fact, the only thing she shared sincerely with him was his religion-she adopted the Jewish faith and remained steadfast in it until her death. But as for home life-no. Adah preferred the adulations of her audience and the adoration of the young men who gathered at the stage door, arms heavy with roses. Menken swallowed his jealous pride as long as he could, but when Adah insisted on smoking cigarettes in public, that was the last straw. Ladies did not smoke! Menken left her.
So Adah Menken went her exciting way from town to town, and men fell in love with her and her poetry, with her intellect and her lovely face and her exquisite figure. And rather than see them unhappy, she was generous in her love.
In New York she met the Benicia Boy. He was a strong, a brutal man, not unattractive in his strength. His fame as a pugilist had traveled ahead of him, and Adah was fascinated. She married him. On their honeymoon the Benicia Boy taught her to box; she soon learned to hold her own when they sparred good-humoredly. But after a month of marriage the good humor went out of it, and Heenan made a practice of beating Adah every night after dinner. So she divorced him.
But then scandal broke. Search of the records showed that before marrying the Benicia Boy she had neglected to divorce Menken. She was quite, innocent about it all; she had assumed it was the duty of the man of the family to attend to legal matters, including such details as divorce. But now the scandalmongers declared her a bigamist. Menken heard of the scandal, did the gentlemanly thing and divorced her, and everybody was happy.
Then Adah Menken gave birth to the Benicia Boy's son, and the baby died at birth. She had wanted, longed for, adored that baby. Its death, and the scandals, and her two marriages and divorces-all these coming swiftly one upon the other-were forerunners of a long period of tragic sorrow and failure. But never discouragement,- she would never give up. She starved in New York. She gave readings from Shakespeare. She gave lectures on the life of the times. She had a boyish figure and she always wore her hair short-so, suddenly she appeared as Mr. Bones, blackface, in a minstrel show. Then, on the variety stage, she created a sensation by impersonations of Edwin Booth as Hamlet and Richelieu. But something-something truly sensational had to be done to make the public fully aware of her.
She met Blondin. Blondin was the brave gentleman who crossed the whirlpools of Niagara Falls on a tightrope. Blondin was enraptured by the beauty of the Menken. He wooed her, and she said perhaps-perhaps she would marry him if he would let her dance on the tightrope above Niagara with him-a husband-and-wife act.
Blondin said, "No." He was afraid Adah's beauty would distract him when he was above the whirlpool and he would fall to his death. No, he would do no tightrope act with the Menken. So they went on a vaudeville tour together.
That tour ended and Blondin went his way and Adah went hers, and hers led to the door of her business manager, Jimmie Murdock. Adah told Jimmie, who adored her, that she wanted to be a great tragedienne-or a great comedienne-or both. She wanted to play Lady Macbeth. and-or-Lady Teazle. Jimmie Murdock, something of a diplomat, told her she was too great to play Lady Treazle and not great enough to play Lady Macbeth, but that, because her boyish figure was so lovely and there was such fire in her voice and eyes, she should play in Mazeppa, the drama that was attracting some attention on Broadway. The story was based on the poem of Lord Byron. At the thrilling climax of the play, the noble Tartar lad, stripped of his clothes by his captors and bound to the back of a wild horse, dashed out of the wings up to the papier-m ché cliffs and disappeared in the clouds, while the audience grew hysterical with apoplectic applause.
It had been a tradition that during the ride of the barebacked horse, a stuffed dummy, naked and resembling Mazeppa, would be used. Menken would have no stuffed dummy. She would ride the horse herself. She would wear skin-tights. No matter how it shocked the audience that had never seen an actress in tights, she would play the role with dramatic realism; she would wear tights. So she wore tights. The audience was shocked-scandalized-horrified-and delighted! But New York was too stilted, too smug, too proper truly to appreciate great art. And Adah Menken said, "I'll go to the one place where the audience demands real art; I'll go to San Francisco."
On August 24, 1863, that supreme master of San Francisco's theatrical history, Tom Maguire, announced and presented at Maguire's Opera House the great Menken in the daring, the sensational, the unprecedented Mazeppa in which "Miss Menken, stripped by her captors, will ride a fiery steed at furious gallop onto and across the stage and into the distance."
Adah Menken's marriage to Robert Newell lasted two years. Then she divorced him and married Mr. James Barkley about whom little is known. After all, none of her husbands was important in the life of Adah Menken.
And San Francisco went on adoring her, the San Francisco that had adopted her as its favorite daughter. The St. Francis Hook and Ladder Company made her a member of its fire-fighting brigade; she was presented with a beautiful fire belt, and the entire brigade, accompanied by a brass band, serenaded her. Her world was at her feet.
And then, quite suddenly the Menken decided she wanted new worlds to conquer. She took Mazeppa to Paris and London. During the tour she fell in love with, and was adored by, Alexandre Dumas, pére. Dumas, fils, threatened to horsewhip his father for being a senile Romeo. So Menken left Dumas and went to London.
She played Mazeppa, and London went wild. Charles Dickens fell in love with her; Charles Reade fell in love with her; Dante Gabriel Rossetti, Tom Hood, and a score of others wooed her. And, as always, the Menken was generous with her love. Life was full and rich and exciting.
But the tide turned. Ill health, the fruit of dissipation, wasted her away. She had made a fortune; her great wealth disappeared, and she lived in comparative poverty. In London, desperately in need of funds, she published her volume of Victorian poems and realized a few dollars.
London was cold, unfriendly. She returned to Paris and Paris had found new loves.
Faithful to her adopted religion, she spent her last hours speaking of life and faith and hope to a friendly rabbi. Then she wrote a brief note to an acquaintance. It was her hail and her farewell. She wrote, "I am lost to art and life. Yet, when all is said and done, have I not at my age tasted more of life than most women who live to be a hundred? It is fair, then, that I should go where old people go."
Then she died. She was thirty-three years old. Her passing was unmarked, save for a brief eulogy in verse that appeared in a Paris paper:
Adolph Heinrich Joseph Sutro was born April 29, 1830. He was well educated in the field of mining engineering. Sutro arrived in San Francisco aboard the steamship California, in 1850, and immediately engaged in trade, first in San Francisco and, later, in Stockton.
In 1859, when the Comstock Lode made headlines, he was again attracted to mining. He established a small mill, called the Sutro Metallurgical Works, in East Dayton, Nevada, for the reduction of ores by an improved process of amalgamation and was responsible for the planning and building of the Sutro Tunnel. This tunnel made it possible to drain and ventilate the many mines in the Comstock Lode, and to permit the miners to bring out the rich silver ore.
In 1879 Sutro sold his tunnel to the McCalmont Brothers, and countless lesser investors, and returned to San Francisco.
In 1894 he ran for mayor on the Populist ticket and served one two-year term, and was succeeded by James. D. Phelan.
At one time Adolph Sutro owned one-twelth of the acreage of San Francisco. he purchased the Cliff House in the early 1880s, and one thousand acres of land facing the ocean, now called Sutro heights. He built the Sutro saltwater baths and planted Sutro Forest.
He owned the finest private libary in America, much of which was destroyed during the fire that followed the Great Earthquake of 1906.
Job Titles:
- Member of the California Historical Society, Died on March 9, 1945.
Mr. Sutro was born in Victoria, B.C., October 15, 1869. He moved to San Francisco with his family in 1875 and resided there until the time of his death. In 1891 he graduated from Harvard University with the degree of A.B., and then attended Hastings College of the Law at San Francisco, from which he graduated in 1894 with the degree of L.L.B. This same year he was admitted to practice. While attending Hastings, Mr. Sutro had been a clerk in the office of Pillsbury, Blanding and Hayne, and remained with that office after his admission to the Bar. In 1904 he became a partner in the firm of Pillsbury, Madison and Sutro, and at the time of his death was the senior partner of this firm.
Mr. Sutro was an able lawyer and handled many large and important cases. He was also General Counsel of the Pacific Telephone and Telegraph Company of which organization he had been a director since 1940. He acted in the latter capacity for several other companies, including the Pacific Lighting Corporation.
As a great book lover and collector, one of his main interests was the Book Club of California. Under his leadership while President, this club has become very widely known and an intellectual force, having drawn members from all parts of the country.
In 1902 he married Rose Newmark of Los Angeles. Of the three children, two daughters -- Adelaide (Mrs. Robert P. Bullard) and Margot -- are deceased. The son, John A. Sutro, is associated with the firm of Pillsbury, Madison and Sutro, but is now in military service.
Mr. Sutro was a brother of Oscar Sutro, also a member of the California Historical Society, who died in June 1935. A sister, Mrs. M.F. Loewenstein, is living in New York City, and a brother, Gustav Sutro, in Saratoga.
Alfred Sutro, long a member of the California Historical Society, died on March 9, 1945.
Andrew Smith Hallidie, the mechanical genius who originated cable railway transportation, was born in London, on March 16, 1836. His grandfather, Smith, a [Scottish] schoolmaster and soldier during the Napoleonic wars, had served at Waterloo. His father, Andrew Smith, had been born in Fleming, Dumfrieshire, Scotland, in 1798, and his mother, Julia Johnstone Smith, was from Lockerbie, Dumfrieshire. Andrew Smith was an engineer and inventor. Of his patents those for the making of metal wire ropes, granted from 1835 to 1849, were the most important. Young Andrew Smith later adopted the surname Hallidie in honor of his godfather and uncle, Sir Andrew Hallidie, who had been physician to King William IV and to Queen Victoria.
His early training was of a scientific and mechanical character, and at ten years of age he successfully constructed an "electrical machine." When he was thirteen he began work in a machine shop and drawing office operated by his brother, and there gained the practical experience that stood him in good service during the remainder of his life. In the evenings he continued his studies, but manual labor during the day and study at night began to undermine his health, so his father decided to take him to California. His father was interested in the Frémont estate in Mariposa County where he thought the prospects for financial reward were extremely bright.
On January 28, 1852, the father and son left Liverpool for America on the steamship Pacific of the Collins Line. Several of the other passengers were also bound for California-one a sea captain from Glasgow who was going to San Francisco to bring home a vessel which had been abandoned by its crew during the rush to the gold diggings. Another fellow-traveler planned to assemble a company in New York for the purpose of working the gold mines by a newly-invented method of his own, from which he expected to make a large fortune in two years. The Pacific arrived in New York on February 12, after a fifteen day crossing.
After a stopover of sixteen days, the father and son departed for Chagres on the Brother Jonathan. This ship had been fitted up hurriedly for the California trade and was poorly built and badly equipped. She was of 1700 tons burden, with accommodations for 700 passengers. So great was the demand for accommodations that passengers were crammed and jammed together in most unsanitary quarters, many close to the engine room and ship's galley where the atmosphere was stifling. After crossing the Isthmus the travelers reached Panama on March 15. On the 26th they embarked on the ship Brutus, Captain D. C Mitchell, and landed at Clark's Point in San Francisco fifty- nine days later.
Job Titles:
- Francis Hotel Band Leader
Harvard graduate John D. Barry was an established writer from the East who joined the staff and became popular as a public speaker and lecturer.
Rose Wilder Lane, who had been selling real estate in Santa Clara County, wrote several serials and later became a magazine writer, as well as a novelist. She is now in New York.
Fremont asked Sophie Treadwell, daughter of Judge Treadwell, to disguise herself as a prostitute, go from church to church, and see how she, as an outcast, would be treated.
Sophie burst into tears, but afterwards, wrote "An Outcast at the Christian Door."
Bessie Beatty was a popular member of the staff, with her "Happyland" girls' camp in the Santa Cruz Mountains and her organization to distribute Christmas stockings.
Budd Heyde can be heard on this promotional 78-rpm phonograph record commissioned by W. & J. Sloane sometime during the late 1940s The recording, in addition to promoting the radio program, was given to owners of new record players purchased from Sloane's.
Among the portraits of prominent people in The Wasp this week is that of Colonel A. Andrews, the gallant old pioneer, who remembers San Francisco when it was a little village clustered around Telegraph Hill. To few people is it given to enjoy such a long and useful life as Colonel Andrews has lived, for he has been some sixty years identified with the progress of San Francisco as one of its leading merchants, and in that time, has seen our city pass through many strange vicissitudes. A volume containing the reminiscences of this pioneer would make very interesting reading, for he has known, intimately, most of the noted men who have shaped the history of the Pacific Coast since the days when, as a captain in the United States Army, he fought under the Stars and Stripes in the war with Mexico. Few of his old comrades of that stirring period are still alive, but the Colonel has not apparently changed in the least for the last thirty years. Time seems to pass him by untouched.
The great fire of 1906 is not the first calamity from which Colonel Andrews had seen San Francisco arise greater than ever.
Before the last great conflagration Colonel Andrews' Diamond Palace on Montgomery Street, was one of the sights of San Francisco. Scarcely had the smoke subsided on the blackened ruins of San Francisco, before the Colonel with the spirit of a true pioneer began to reconstruct his Diamond Palace on the same plan of gorgeousness, on Van Ness near Ellis Street, and there his host of friends hope to see him presiding for many years to come. In his younger days, the Colonel took a lively interest in sporting events of various kinds, and has attended some of the most notable ever held. Even now he is not averse to recounting his experiences in that line. Although never a candidate for office he has also taken an active interest in public affairs and has sat as a delegate in some famous conventions in California.
He is a genuine type of the famous old pioneers who laid the foundation of San Francisco so broad and strong that nothing can destroy them.
Cora Miranda Baggerly Older (1875-1968) was a well-known author and novelist from the the early part of the century until publication of her last book in 1961. This biographic sketch of her husband, Fremont Older (1856-1935), covers his life from about 1900 to his death in 1935.
Author: Di Maggio, Joe, 1914-
Baseball for Everyone; a Treasury of Baseball Lore and Instruction for Fans and Players. Line illus. by Lenny Hollreister. Advisory board of baseball experts: Carl Hubbell [and others], with a special chapter "How to score," by Red Barber. New York, Whittlesey House [1948]
Job Titles:
- Civilian Executive Order No. 5.], April 1942
Dorothea Lange's photographs of the forced relocation of Japanese and Japanese American citizens are part of a Library of Congress' online exhibit "Women Come to the Front."
Dorothea Lange (1895-1965) had early interest in photography. She worked with Arnold Genthe, and had her own photography studio in San Francisco. She was part of the West Coast Bohemian group of photographers, and later married - and divorced - famed artist Maynard Dixon.
In the 1930s she was involved with the migrant farm workers program of the California Emergency Relief Administration, and later began photographic assignments for the U.S. governments Farm Security Administration, Office of War Information, as well as the War Relocation Authority, from which these photographs are drawn.
The Libary of Congress exhibit includes pages from "Our stakes in the Japanese Exodus" by Paul S. Taylor, published by Survey Associates of Stroudsburg, Pennsylvania. The article is extracted from "Survey Graphic"-Vol. 31, No. 9 (Sept. 1942), and includes photographs by Dorothea Lange. One, of a "To Lease" sign, was photographed in the 400 block of Grant Ave. in Chinatown.
Job Titles:
- Mayor Cornelius Kingsland Garrison / Mayor John White Geary
Elsie Robinson had been writing in Oakland, but she moved over to The Call office with "Listen, World," a column that brought her national fame and an income of $30,000 a year.
Job Titles:
- Bulletin 's Editorial Writer
Evelyn Wells came to Fremont with a letter from the divorced wife of the famous economist, Stanford's Thorstein Veblen.
Fremont thought Evelyn was just a pretty brown-eyed 18-year-old girl, and he didn't want to be bothered with her.
Trying to get rid of her, he gave her what he thought was an, impossible task. "Write a story about an 18-year-old girl."
He hadn't got rid of her. Back she came in a month with a story about an 18-year-old girl that he couldn't resist.
Job Titles:
- Chief NBC - KPO Announcer
Madame Sarah Bernhardt's beauty doctor told me I shouldn't wear such high collars, they'd wrinkle my neck. I replied: "But Madame Sarah Bernhardt wears them."
"Yes, Madame, but you're young and she is old. She wears them to conceal her wrinkled neck."
Back in San Francisco, Fremont and I had a dramatic feast, attending every Bernhardt and Coquelin performance.
When Frances Jolliffe became our dramatic critic, she went to interview Caruso, who spoke neither French nor English.
He Bored Older
Job Titles:
- Founder of the San Francisco News Letter
Frederick Marriott, founder of the San Francisco News Letter and father of its present proprietor, was a native of Somersetshire, England, where he was born on July 16, 1805. After receiving an excellent education in England, he went to India for a time, and might have received a commission in the British army had he not waived the appointment in favor of a brother. Returning to England, Mr. Marriott took up literary work with enthusiasm and success, and was one of the founders of the Illustrated London News, which as continued to this day to be one of the leading British periodicals.
In 1850 Mr. Marriott came to California. His first venture was in the banking business, but his literary tastes and abilities led him soon to abandon this calling, and to resume his writings. In the early fifties he established a paper called the California Mail-bag, which was the immediate predecessor of the News Letter, which he founded as a result of the success of the less elaborate Mail-bag.
Job Titles:
- Editor of the Bulletin
- Editor of the Call
Fremont Older was born in Appleton, Wisconsin, and came to California in 1873. He became one of the state's most controversial newspapermen in his work at the San Francisco "Call" and "Bulletin." He became managing editor of the struggling "Bulletin" in 1895.
Mrs. Older was 80 when she wrote this sketch for the 1955 centenary edition of the "San Francisco Call-Bulletin."
Fremont was the first editor of a metropolitan newspaper to employ a woman as city editor. She was Virginia Brastow, a small, frail spinster. She had endless ambition and was determined to have a job.
Vallejo was a member of the constitutional convention and he applied himself to the work of creating a state with energy and diligence. In common with the other Californians in the convention he endeavored to protect the interests of the natives of the country. The seal of California caused much discussion. Major R. S. Garnett made a design which was accepted, but the members insisted upon the addition of various features. At last when all was agreed the bear emblem was brought forward. Some of the California members were very angry and protested against the bear being used. General Vallejo said that if the bear was put on the seal it should be represented as under the control of a vaquero with a lasso around its neck.
Job Titles:
- Police Chief Patrick Crowley
George Christopher, San Francisco's 34th mayor, died Sept. 14 at 92. Mayor Willie L. Brown, Jr., immediately ordered City flags lowered to half-staff to honor his predecessor.
Born in Arcadia, Greece, December 8, 1907, he was brought to San Francisco at the age of two and educated in the public schools, later graduating with a degree in accounting from the Golden Gate Night College.
In 1930, after becoming a citizen of the United States, he changed his surname from Christopheles to Christopher.
The Excelsior Dairy made him an official in 1937, followed by a partnership in the Meadow Glen Dairy, which eventually became Christopher Dairy.
George Christopher was elected mayor of San Francisco in 1955 to succeed Elmer Robinson and took office Jan. 8, 1956. He was elected to a second term in 1959 after a bruising campaign. Russ Wolden, who ran against Christopher, charged that the mayor, and Police Chief Thomas Cahill, had allowed San Francisco to become "the national headquarters of organized homosexuals in the United States."
In the 1966 primary election George Christopher ran against Ronald Reagan for governor, but was defeated.
Mayor Christopher was also responsible for encouraging the New York Giants baseball team to move to San Francisco with the promise of a new baseball stadium to be built at Candlestick Point. Christopher Drive, in San Francisco's Twin Peaks area, is named for the former mayor.
George Joseph Cuneo, who was born and raised in San Francisco, took a bit of the city's history with him upon his death on April 1, 2002. He was 99.
George was born in 1903, a survivor of the 1906 earthquake. He told of his mother's cooking dinner on the sidewalk at Steiner and Greenwich after the quake. His family had relocated near the present location of the Palace of Fine Arts until his home was moved by horse team to Octavia and Lombard to make room for the 1915 Panama Pacific Exposition.
George made his home there for the next 30 years. He attended Yerba Buena Elementary School up to the 8th grade. At age 14, he went to work in the delivery room at Langie and Michaels Wholesale Drug Co. At 16 he became a delivery boy at the Hyde Street Market, where he remained for 56 years as a butcher and subsequent part owner until his retirement at age 72.
In 1988, George was named Cow Hollow boy of the year by the City and County of San Francisco's Board of Supervisors. He gained public recognition for his contributions to the tradition and welfare of San Francisco, particularly through his career at the Hyde Street Market, and his participation as a catcher for a semi-pro baseball team, Blum's Sweets, in the Golden Gate Valley League. He was distinguished for his activities as a member of the Cow Hollow Boys, Inc. for helping to preserve memories of persons born or reared in the pioneer Marina District section of San Francisco called Cow Hollow.
George joined Presidio #194 on April 18, 1921, the fifteenth anniversary of the Great Quake and Fire, making him an almost 81-year member at the time of his death. He was also a former member of the Elks Club, San Francisco Lodge #3, where he participated in bowling and baseball. He was an active member of the Sons in Retirement (SIRS), and an avid bowler on the club's team up to the age of 93.
Job Titles:
- Secretary of the General Strike Committee
Job Titles:
- Member of the Communist Party
Harry Bridges received "mandatory orders as a member of the Communist Party" to work for the movement of longshore and other waterfront unions out of the AFL and into the CIO in 1937, declared Mr. Honig.
The orders, said Mr. Honig, came from the central committee of the Communist Party of America and were given to "top fraction" Communist committees here. Mr. Honig previously had testified that Mr. Bridges attended at least 10 local meetings of such committees.
Political economist, b. in Philadelphia, 2 Sept. 1839. He went to sea at an early age, and, reaching California in 1858, remained there, becoming finally a journalist. In 1879 he published "Progress and Poverty," which was issued in the following year in New York and London, and soon acquired a world-wide reputation. This book is "an inquiry into the cause of industrial depressions and of increase of want with increase of wealth," in which the previously held doctrines as to the distribution of wealth and the tendency of wages to a minimum are examined and reconstructed. In the fact that rent tends to increase not only with increase of population but with all improvements that increase productive power, Mr. George finds the cause of the well-known tendency to the increase of land values and to the decrease of the proportion of the produce of wealth that goes to labor and capital, while in the speculative holding of land thus engendered he traces the tendency to force wages to a minimum and the primary cause of paroxysms of industrial depression.
The remedy for these he declares to be the appropriation of rent by the community, thus making land virtually common property, while giving the user secure possession and leaving to the producer the full advantage of his exertion and investment. In 1880 Mr. George removed to New York. In 1881 he published "The Irish Land Question," and in 1883-4 he made another trip at the invitation of the Scottish land restoration league, producing on both tours a marked effect. In 1886 he was the candidate of the United labor party for mayor of New York, and received 68,110 votes against 90,552 for Abram S. Hewitt, the Democratic candidate, and 60,435 for Theodore Roosevelt, the Republican candidate. Soon after this, Mr. George founded the "Standard," a weekly newspaper, which he still edits (1887). He has also published "Social Problems" (1884), and "Protection or Free-Trade" (1886). The latter is a radical examination of the tariff question, in which connection is made between the controversy on that subject and the views as to land with which Mr. George has become identified.
Fremont returned to San Francisco a hero for a day only. Soon he was charged with hurting business and was so ostracized at the Bohemian Club that he resigned. Society was divided into two classes, pro-graft prosecution and against.
We weren't unhappy about ostracism, for we sustained by certainty that we were doing the, right thing.
Only Ruef was punished. Fremont's kidnapers and the alleged bribe-givers all went free. Fremont thought this was a mockery of justice and spent many years working for the release of Ruef, but was unable to reduce his sentence even one day.
Ina Coolbrith, the poet laureate of California, was very old. That was last year of her long life. She was a gentle, sweet-faced old lady, as old-fashioned and old-world as a miniature painted on ivory. She wore a simple, black silk dress, an old brooch at her throat, and her mantilla falling over her thin white hair. She told me of the men and women she had known when San Francisco was young. Her friends had been legion. Many of them had achieved greatness and died, and only Ina Coolbrith remained, a link between the Golden Dawn and the San Francisco of 1927.
Her friends had been Mark Twain, Bret Harte, Charles Warren Stoddard, Robert Louis Stevenson, Joaquin Miller, Harr Wagner, and Jack London, and they all had loved her. She told me about them quite simply as though their love was her rightful heritage. And there was one other. He was a poet, a dreamer, a musician, and a connoisseur of the arts! She had been the one great love of his life. His name was Joseph Duncan. Joseph Duncan was long since dead and she, the poet laureate, went on, dreaming in the memories of the departed years. Joseph Duncan! He had been so gentle, so great an idealist, and so fine a poet! What if he was a cashier in a bank; even a bank cashier could dream of sonnets. But he was dead and the pages of his story were closed. Yet it was not really ended, for he lived on in his children. There were four of them, and Ina Coolbrith had learned to know and love one of them well. Her name was Isadora Duncan.
As I stated before, that is the second bit in the pattern of the jigsaw puzzle. Now, before we come to the story of Isadora Duncan-for after all, this is her story-there is one more small piece in the puzzle pattern. It happened only a year or so ago. I went to see The Lute Song, one of the Theatre Guild productions at the Curran Theatre, and in that lovely pageantry one of the characters was an old blind father.
He was led across the stage, his steps faltering, as the blind should be led. But this wasn't acting; He was in fact blind, He was Raymond, one of children of Joseph Duncan.
There are the bits in the pattern. It was in Oakland, a few years after the scandal at Geary and Taylor Streets, that Ina Coolbrith met the child, Isadora. She came to the Oakland Public Library, as a few years later Jack London was to come, to ask the library lady, Miss Coolbrith, for a book to read. Just as Ina Coolbrith was to guide Jack London's reading some time later, so she guided and shaped the mind of the small daughter of Joseph Duncan.
Jack Black was another ranch favorite. He also was from Missouri. "You Can't Win" appeared as a serial in The Call-Bulletin, was one of MacMillan's best sellers, has been translated into Russian, Swedish and French, as, one of the best crime books.
Supervisor James B. McSheehy, Shelley campaign director, predicted that the union members will be "98 per cent behind Shelley regardless of affiliation."
James Duval Phelan was born in San Francisco, April 20, 1861. He was educated at St. Ignatius High School and graduated with an A.B. degree from the University of San Francisco in 1881, followed by a law degree from the University of California. However, he did not pursue a law career, but became a partner in the banking firm Phelan & Son, assuming responsibility of the First National Bank, the Mutual Savings Bank, and the Bank of Santa Cruz County upon the death of his father in 1892.
Without previous political experience, Phelan was elected Mayor of San Francisco for three two-year terms beginning in 1897.
In the immediate aftermath of the Great Earthquake and Fire, Phelan was an enthusiastic advocate of the plan to relocate Chinatown to Hunters Point.
He was president of the San Francisco Red Cross and Relief Corporation, and was designated by President Theodore Roosevelt as custodian of those funds, which amounted to nine-million dollars.
He was elected United States Senator in 1913 and served one six-year term. Senator Phelan died at his country estate Villa Montalvo, Montalvo, California, August 7, 1930.
In the aftermath of the earthquake, Phelan toured the United States in 1907 to assure capitalists that San Francisco was a safe place to invest money for the city's rebuilding.
Fear that the earthquake, and subsequent graft trials, were injurious to the city's reputation, he gave numerous interviews including one to the "New York Post" which laid out the causes of the graft investigations, and another to the "Boston Herald" where he articulated his rabid anti-Japanese views.
James D. Phelan, mayor of San Francisco from 1896 to 1902, chairman of the fire relief committee, is in Boston, and has spoken on affairs in his home city. He does not condemn San Francisco's union labor; he takes the orthodox San Francisco attitude of opposition toward the Japanese on the coast, rejoices at its delivery from the grafter and is full of hope for his city.
"Mr. Phelan is a man of wealth, whose administration of his city was one of the bright spots of its history. Of conditions there now he says to The Herald:
In 1903, he helped found the Mission Bank, of which he became president. He also served as president of the Mission Savings Bank. He founded the Rolph Shipbuilding Company, and the James Rolph Company.
He was asked to run for mayor in June 1909, but declined, choosing to run in the 1911 election.
For the next 19 years Rolph was "Sunny Jim" to San Franciscans with "There are Smiles That Make You Happy" as his theme song.
Along with his job as mayor and his private shipping interests he also served as director of the Ship Owners & Merchants Tugboat Company, the San Francisco Chamber of Commerce, president of the Merchants' Exchange, and vice-president of the 1915 Panama-Pacific International Exposition.
In November 1930, James Rolph, Jr. won the California gubernatorial election, with his resignation as mayor effective simultaneously with his inauguration as governor, on Tuesday, January 6, 1931.
On November 9, 1933, Brooke Hart, son of a wealthy San Jose merchant was kidnapped. The two men responsible were caught, later forcibly removed from jail and hanged by a vigilante committee in San Jose's St. James Park.
Governor Rolph, by condoning the lynching, was nicknamed "Governor Lynch" and received extremely bad publicity across the nation.
Following this episode, he suffered several heart attacks and died at Riverside Farm, Santa Clara County, on June 2, 1934.
Joaquin Garay was a well-known San Francisco radio and night club entertainer from the 1940s into the 1960s, and operated the glamorous Copacabana night club, 2215 Powell Street at Bay, during World War II. The club, which opened September 1941, was popular with Hollywood stars who frequented San Francisco. Humphrey Bogart and Lauren Bacall frequented the "Copa" during their honeymoon stay here.
"San Francisco Independent" columnist Jack Rosenbaum, in 1995, said Joaquin Garay later moved to Los Angeles.
Garay recorded at least one album in the mid-1940s, apparently for sale at the "Copa," which gives a few details about the career of the entertainer. Liner notes from the 78-RPM album, "A Night at Joaquin Garay's Copacabana," read:
Joaquin Garay had been a well-known radio personality in San Francisco and starred on KFRC's broadcast "Feminine Fancies" in the 1940s. He also helped the war effort in San Francisco by entertaining at USO functions.
Job Titles:
- First Woman Sporting Writer
Job Titles:
- Fire Chief Engineer Dennis T. Sullivan
Johnnie Heenan was a prize fighter. He had thick, black hair; heavy, black eyebrows; a thick, black mustache, and a brutal punch. He was born in the small California town of Benicia and was known around the world as the Benicia Boy. He fought, as was the custom of his times, with bare fists. He was the boxing champion of America. He met Tom Sayers, the international champion, in London, and after they had fought for more than two hours and thirty seven rounds during which Johnnie knocked Sayers down twenty times-the British fight promoters, afraid that Johnnie would kill Sayers, called the fight off and naïvely called it a draw.
Now, this is not to be the story of the Benicia Boy. But he is important here because he married the lady who was destined to be the most sensational actress-not the greatest but the most sensational actress-San Francisco had ever seen. She was Mrs. John C. Heenan. She was also Mrs. Robert Henry Newell. She was also Mrs. James Barkley, and she was Mrs. Alexander Isaac Menken. At birth she was named Adah Bertha Theodore. To the world she was the notorious, glamorous, beautiful, and infamous "Mazeppa."
Job Titles:
- Captain in the U. S. Army
Joseph Libby Folsom, captain in the U. S. Army and at one time collector of the port, set himself the task of finding the Leidesdorff heirs and securing from them the right and title to their kinsman's California estate. He journeyed all the way to the Virgin Islands in search of Anna Marie Spark, the mother, who still lived in the islands with her other children. Folsom paid her the sum of $75,000, which gave him absolute title to the whole of the Leidesdorff property. The various business transactions that followed in the ultimate sale and disposition of this property became a cause celebre straight through to the end of the century.
But Folsom himself lived only a short time to enjoy the wealth obtained from the Leidesdorff estate. He died at Mission San Jose, in July, 1855, at the same age as Leidesdorff, at the time of his death. His memorial was the town of Folsom, which stood on the site of "Rio De Los Americanos" ranch, and the old Montgomery Block in San Francisco, built by Halleck in 1863, on a very small portion of the property owned by Leidesdorff, and later by Folsom.
There is magic in the names of the streets in San Francisco. "Larkin," "Stockton," "Sutter," "Leidesdorff," "Folsom." Streets, which as "men in the flesh" were once closely associated. Some of them run parallel or across each other, as the blending of a dream. They serve to remind the city of those men who gave it its beginning. Robert Ernest Cowan connects two of them in a brilliant comparison of Leidesdorff and Folsom, published in the Quarterly of the California: Historical Society, June, 1928:
Attorney Matt Tobriner reported that Jack Shelley for Senator Lawyers' Committee is "going to town" among the more progressive members of the legal profession.
Job Titles:
- Mayor Cornelius Kingsland Garrison / Mayor John White Geary
Job Titles:
- Mayor Cornelius Kingsland Garrison / Mayor John White Geary
Meredith Willson was best known as author and composer of "The Music Man," which premiered on Broadway in 1957.
Willson was born in Mason City, Iowa, and played the flute in John Philip Sousa's famous band from 1921 to 1923. He then joined the New York Philharmonic Orchestra from 1924 to 1929.
He came to San Francisco, served as concert director for KFRC, and rose to prominence in the early 1930s as a musical director at NBC, San Francisco.
In the late 1930s he moved to NBC, Hollywood, and was musical director on many of the famous radio shows of that era. He also composed for motion pictures and, in the 1940s, was twice nominated for the Academy Award.
During World War II he served as a Major in the U.S. Army, involved in operation of the Armed Forces Radio Service.
The California Historical Society holds the Abstract of Title for a parcel of property Lotta owned at Fair Oaks and 22nd streets in 1885.
Mrs. Eliza Dodge, mother of Dr. Dodge, received a letter from him in Berkeley about three weeks ago, saying that it was not his intention to sail for thirty days.
Job Titles:
- Police Chief Patrick Crowley
Taylor, a social scientist and prolific writer, wrote "Organization and policies of the Sailors' Union of the Pacific," in 1922 as his UC Berkeley Ph. D. thesis.
If he is not already a member of the Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals, Mayor Rolph should be given some sort of an honorary membership.
He has starred of late in a little play all his own which might be entitled, "The Animals Shall Not Die."
Buffalo and fish he has saved from death during the past week or two and this he did under more or less difficulty.
When the Park Commissioners decided that half a dozen aged buffalo must die to save the cost of feed, Mayor Rolph promptly came to their rescue to save them from the executioner. He has replied that these survivors of the great herds which once roamed the American plains must not go and, in consequence, efforts are being made to place them in the Yosemite Valley or in some other national park.
Job Titles:
- President of the First National Bank
Job Titles:
- Fairmont Hotel Orchestra Leader
Job Titles:
- General Manager of the York Hotel
Russ Alley (General Manager of the York Hotel and Plush Room 1980-1983) produced more than 500 performances of Pierce at the York Hotel's Plush Room. Alley later went to work at the Fairmont, as director of Public Relations and Entertainment, for Rick Swig. It was there that Alley convinced Swig to hire Charles Pierce, by showing him how Pierce's revenue had "saved" the Plush Room from closing. Alley remarked, "I had been trying to sell Charles to [the Fairmont] for years. I showed Swig the numbers , and told him 'Herb Caen will love it.'" And he did.
Alley told me yesterday, "No matter how many friends we have lost over the years, it is always hard to picture this place without them. There will never be another Charles...or a better Katharine Hepburn as 'Eleanor of Acquitaine' (turkey waddle!) Maria Ouspenskaya (one of his Turban Ladies) Bette, Tallulah, those ratty foxes of his from way back... Dietrich 'I was on a fwight fwom pawwis to Los Angewis and both of my wegs were on the fwight wif me; one in first cwass and the other in coach...', and of course Jeanette MacDonald and that swing. So many great memories."
John Epperson (The Fabulous Lypsinka) upon hearing of Pierce's death, remarked, "Charles Pierce, the self-described 'male actress,' was one of the funniest people in the world. He was also incredibly generous. He had many successes at The Ballroom, a nightclub in New York City. In 1991, when the management asked him to please come back again, he said, 'Call Lypsinka instead.' He was sorely missed by all of his fans for the last several years in all the venues where he was so popular. I know he will be greatly missed by his good friend Bea Arthur. When I saw Charles at The Plush Room many years ago, he acknowledged Bea, in the audience, as having the greatest comic timing in the world. He should know: Charles had the second best. Years later, I was performing in Los Angeles, and he brought Bea to my dressing room door and she intoned, 'You're mad, darling. Simply mad.' (Thank you for that, Charles!) A couple of years ago I saw Bea at a Bob Mackie fashion show in New York. She said, 'Is there anything you want me to tell Charles?' I said, 'Please tell him hello.' I wish I had said, 'Tell him he's an inspiration.' For the name 'Charles Pierce' meant 'magic' and what he would call 'madness.' People who never saw him as Tallulah and Bette Davis-at the same time-don't know what they've missed. (People who don't know Tallulah and Bette don't know what they're missing!) People who did see Charles' act know they saw a comic mastermind."
Samuel Dickson was a prolific magazine writer in the 1920's and early 30's, and became an NBC feature writer in the late 1930's. He wrote the NBC-KPO/KNBC series "This is Your Home," sponsored by W. and J. Sloane, then one of San Francisco's leading furniture stores. The series was narrated by NBC-KPO/KNBC (now KNBR) announcer Budd Heyde, and broadcast during the late 1940's and into the 1950's at 10:30 Sunday mornings. This Isadora Duncan chapter was originally one of the KPO/KNBC radio scripts, later printed in "San Francisco Kaleidoscope," Stanford University Press, 1949.
Tom Sawyer is quite typical of the thousands of men who came to the West during the Gold Rush. He settled in San Francisco and held several jobs and minor political positions. He would have died in relative obscurity except that he is reputed to have known Samuel Clemens when the author was a reporter for the "Daily Morning Call" newspaper, writing under the name Mark Twain. Twain is supposed to have named his book, "Tom Sawyer" after his San Francisco acquaintence. Twain scholars, including Barbara Schmidt of Tarleton University have been unable to verify any claim that Mark Twain named his book for this particular Tom Sawyer.
Curiously, the claim was published in 1900 when all of the principals were alive, including Twain, Sawyer, and probably several hundred San Franciscans who knew them both, and could have authenticated or challenged the claim.
To write the biography of the subject of this sketch is a simple but long task, for the life of Tom Sawyer is replete with stirring scenes and adventures in many parts of the country. He was born in New York City on January 1, 1832.
His first duty was in a bakery, from which employment he soon graduated and went to opening oysters in Washington market, where he remained until the first rumor of the new El Dorado in California struck New York; then the roaming spirit born in him came to the front, and he was soon on his way to the gold diggings in a staunch ship that safely weathered the storms that were so fatal to many vessels that rounded the Horn at that time. he arrived in San Francisco Bay in February, 1850, with $11.50 in his pockets, and immediately went to steam shipping, running as a fireman between this port and San Juan and Panama. He continued at this occupation for some years during which time his vessel, the steamer Independence, was wrecked on a reef off the Southern coast and burned to the water line and sunk.
Through his ingenuity and heroism he saved the lives of ninety people aboard, among them being Jas. L. Freeborn, the banker, and Jason Collins, the chief engineer, both of whom had lost consciousness in the water and were rescued by his diving down and bring them up and swimming ashore with them on his back. When nearly exhausted with the great task of swimming ashore with each passenger on his back, his great mind came to his rescue. By putting the rest of them in life preservers he towed them ashore and landed in the boiling surf safe and sound.
After returning from a long trip on the water he concluded to try his fortune in the mines, where he was associated with John W. Mackay. But "Dame Fortune" failed to smile upon his efforts, and he soon returned to a life upon the surging billows, where he remained until 1859 when he left the ocean for good and became a special patrolman, for which position he filled with ability until 1863, when he was appointed Inspector at the Custom House, where he remained until 1884, at which time he retired from public life and opened up the saloon at No. 935 Mission street [the southwest corner of Mission and Mary streets], where he has lived with his estimable wife for forty-three years. His place is fitted out with pictures and momentoes of Volunteer Firemen's days.
Tom Sawyer's fire record dates back to his boyhood days in New York, when he was a member of Columbian Engine Company No. 14. Before that time he was signal boy for Hudson, No. 1, under Cornelius Ruderson, afterwards Chief Engineer of the New York Department. After coming to San Francisco, he assisted in organizing Liberty Hose Company, No. 2, and was elected foreman, which position he held for three terms. He was a member of the Board of Delegates, and when the Veteran Fireman's Association was organized in 1888 he was elected vice-president. When Sam Clemens was a reporter on one of the daily papers in San Francisco he was an associate of Tom Sawyer and dedicated his first book to his old time friend who had been the inspiration for his best work.
It was a source of much gratification to look back upon a life so well spent and treasure up the marks of esteem tendered him by his fellow men. At one time Mr. Sawyer held the highest office in the gift of the people, bell-ringer in the tower, forty yards above the mayor.
Job Titles:
- Life Member of San Francisco Musicians' Union
Wally Rose was one of three sons born to Janet Pecansu and Manuel Rodrigues (The family changed its name to Rose before Wally's birth). He was born at home in Oakland, California, October 2, 1913. His parents were of Portuguese descent and natives of Hawaii, so the Rose family sailed to Honolulu many times during his childhood. Rose attended the first through third grades in Honolulu before settling with his family in San Francisco. His family's home was on the southwest corner of 20th and Diamond Streets in the Eureka Valley, not far from the schools of Mission Dolores and Most Holy Redeemer Church, which he also attended.
Mr. Rose always gave credit to his mother for the encouragement to learn the piano. After attending Oakland's Lockwood Junior High School, Rose attended Castlemont High School. He first studied piano with Miss Alice Eggers, a distinguished music teacher at Castlemont High School. In the 1930s piano studies were continued with Miss Elizabeth Simpson, who had studios in Berkeley and San Francisco.
After graduation from Castlemont High School he played in dance bands aboard ships around the world in the early 1930s, including a sea-going unit of the Anson Weeks Orchestra. In 1938, Rose was pianist in the dance band of Harry Barris, composer of "I Surrender Dear" and formerly of The Rhythm Boys. He also performed as soloist in many restaurants before he joined Lu Watters in 1940. Rose's recording of George Botsford's "Black And White Rag" [Jazz Man Record No. 1, recorded in San Francisco, March 22, 1942] initiated the premier revival of ragtime which raged worldwide during the 1940s and '50s.
Wally is also a life member of San Francisco Musicians' Union, Local 6, and former member of Bohemian Club.
Job Titles:
- NBC San Francisco Orchestra Leader
The magic baton of Walt Roesner takes to the air! Thousands of western radio listeners thrilled to the music of Roesner's great concert symphony orchestra as it made its first studio broadcast Monday via the microphones of the Shell Happytime. But if music lovers were thrilled at this single presentation of that nation-famous aggregation, they were doubly thrilled at the announcement which followed. Roesner is to be a weekly feature of the Shell Oil Company's Monday morning Shell Happytime conducted by Captain Dobbsie! [Hugh Barrett Dobbs]
This announcement was the signal for a deluge of telegrams and telephone calls from thousands of grateful fans throughout the Pacific Coast. The immediate and enthusiastic response could leave little doubt in the minds of Shell executives tht the tremendous expense in bringing Walt Roesner and his musicians to the radio audience would be justified a hundred fold.
The signing of Roesner for weekly programs over the Shell Happytime amounted to little short of a "scoop," for Roesner is undoubtedly the most popular and able conductor in the West today. His production overtures, in which he arranges the opera classics in a modern tempo, have won him acclaim among theater-goers and music lovers throughout the United States. From those who like their music in the lighter vein, Roesner has gained great popularity for his symphonical and jazz presentations of the present day dance tunes.
Born and raised in San Francisco, Roesner left school at an early age to follow the urge of music which had surged within him from his youngest days. His first job was playing the trombone and, occasionally, the violin, in the Santa Cruz Civic Band and at the age of 17 he had risen to the post of orchestra leader.
But still surging within him was the desire to express himself yet further in music. This took him to Los Angeles to study the 'cello and while there he earned his way by paying in various cafe orchestras. Completion of his studies found him in San Francisco, his home town, as musical conductor and master of ceremonies at several of the city's theaters.
In 1914 he joined Art Hickman and made two trips to New York, where the band proved an overnight sensation and quickly spread his fame throughout the nation. Roesner remained with Hickman until 1921, when he again returned to San Francisco to join Paul Ash's famous musical organization at the Granada Theater. Within a short time his music ability won him a position as director of his own band at the T & D Theater in Oakland. A year later he was again back at the Granada, but this time was master of ceremonies and conductor of his own musical organization.
So tremendous was his popularity that he soon found himself in New York, leading the orchestra at the Capitol Theater in that city. Here he remained for two years, setting an all time record for sustained popularity among New York's Great White Way.
With the completion of the million dollar Fox Theater in San Francisco, Roesner was prevailed upon to return here as conductor of that theater's grand concert orchestra. Here he has remained, and from here comes the great musical aggregtion which the radio audience of the Shell Happytime will hear each Monday morning from 8 to 9 o'clock over the Pacific Coast network of the National Broadcasting Company, including Stations KPO, KFI, KGW, KOMO, KHQ and KSL.
Job Titles:
- Andrew Smith Hallidie - Cable Car Inventor
The death of any truly good man is a blow to the community to which he belongs, and very often to the large area of country where his influence has been felt. Men's works live after them, and there is always consolation in the reflection that they have fulfilled their mission in this little world nobly, and are gone to their eternal and everlasting reward. It is difficult to write worthily about any good man who is dead, for the reason that bad men die every day and are eulogized to the skies. And so, in writing about the demise of the late William G. Fargo, it is natural that one should approach the subject with a perfectly clear feeling that what the News Letter says about him is out of its heart, and no mere empty compliment to the memory of an ordinary man.
William G. Fargo, one of the founders of Wells, Fargo & Company, died at his house in Buffalo on the 4th of August, 1881, after an illness of several months. He was sixty-four years of age, having been born at Pompey Hill, Onondaga County, N.Y., on May 20, 1817. He was the eldest of twelve children of William C. Fargo, formerly of New London. His early education consisted only of the rudiments taught in a country school.
At 13 he left school and was employed by Daniel Butts to carry the mail for his native village. Until the year 1835 he was in the employ of various persons, but worked the greater part of the time for Ira Curtis, a storekeeper at Watervale. In the winter of 1838 he was engaged by Hough & Gilchrist, grocers, of Syracuse, and remained with them the year, and with Roswell and Willett Hinman, grocers, remaining with them three years. At the expiration of that time he got a clerkship in the forwarding house of Dunford & Co., Syracuse. In 1840 he married Anna H. Williams, of Pompey. Eight children were born to them, only two of whom are living, Georgia and Helen.
Mr. Fargo was a pioneer among expressmen. On the 1st of April, 1845, the Western Express, from Buffalo to Cincinnati, St. Louis, Chicago and intermediate points, was commenced by Henry Wells, William G. Fargo and Daniel Dunning, under the name of Wells & Co. There were no railroad facilities west of Buffalo, and Mr. Fargo, who had charge of the business, made use of steamboats and wagons. Mr. Fargo had been in the employ of the Auburn and Syracuse Railroad for a year when he entered into the service of Livingston, Wells & Co., as messenger, in which capacity he have great satisfaction, because of his fidelity, energy and good judgment. He was just the man, Henry Wells thought, to overcome the difficulties in the way of establishing a remunerative express business in that untrodden field west of Buffalo. Mr. Fargo worked with extraordinary force, industry and tact to accomplish what proved to have been "his mission," and after some years of persevering effort he succeeded in founding a Western express upon a permanent basis. In 1846 Mr. Wells sold out his interest in this concern to William A. Livingston, who became Mr. Fargo's partner. In 1850 three express companies were consolidated under the style of the American Express Company, with Mr. Wells as President and Mr. Fargo as Secretary. In 1866, upon the resignation of Mr. Henry Wells, Mr. Fargo was elected President of the American Express Company.
Our space will not permit of a very close analysis of his many ventures, most of which were successful, but the main principle that ran through his life was constant perseverance and undeviating well-directed energy, from the keeping of a provision store up to his long Presidency of the American Express Company, and a 30 years Directorship of Wells, Fargo & Co.
It is impossible to allude to his death without also speaking of the wonderful institutions with which he was connected. When it is taken into consideration that the American Express Company has 2,700 offices today and employs over 5,000 men, besides covering 25,000 miles of line, and that Wells, Fargo & Co. have 700 offices, 1,200 men, and cover over 15,000 miles of line, the magnitude of these express companies are at once understood. We are told that when the Western lines were first established there were only 30 offices between Chicago and New York. The company proper of Wells, Fargo & Co. was organized in 1851 by Mr. Fargo, Mr. Wells, Barney Livingston and others, and they extended their business from New York to San Francisco by way of the isthmus.
This express route was, of course, the shortest and best chain of communication until the overland railroad was completed. Then, "growing as doth the sturdy oak," Wells, Fargo & Co. branched out and established their agencies for the convenience of the dwellers west of the Mississippi. Mr. Fargo, at the time of his death, was President and one of the Directors of the American Express Company, also of Wells, Fargo & Co. He was at one time a Director and Vice-President of the New York Central Railroad Company, and had an interest in the Northern Pacific Railroad. He was a Director of the Buffalo, New York and Philadelphia Railroad Company, and was interested in the Buffalo Coal Company and the McKean and Buffalo Railroad Company. He was, besides, a stockholder in several large manufacturing establishments in Buffalo, of which city he was Mayor for four years, from 1862 to 1866.
In private life Mr. Fargo gave unostentatious but very generous aid to charitable and benevolent institutions of every kind, who were frequent recipients of his bounty. For he was a man of such broad mind that he knew no distinction between creeds, and only recognized what might be termed the polar difference between what is good and what is bad. The breadth of his nature and his clear foresight are exemplified in the extent of the enterprises which he helped to found, and which are now national institutions. Patient work and excellent judgment amassed for him a large fortune, which he used generously and judiciously.
He lived to see the American Express Co. and Wells, Fargo & Co. two of the first express companies in the world; greater than he ever dreamed of when organizing them thirty years ago; his work is done, his labor over, and he died the death of the just mowed down by the sickle of the Reaper to enjoy the harvest of eternal felicity.
A superb engraving of Mr. Fargo is offered to the readers of the News Letter with the present number. It will serve to recall his features to those who knew him and be a memento to all his friends, both n the West and in the East.