ANNALS OF SAN FRANCISCO.

PART FIRST.

CHAPTER I.

Proposed Treatment of the Work-Etymology of the name California-Lower or Old CaliforniaGrixalva and Mendoza-First Discovery-Expeditions of Cortez-Cabrillo-Ferrelo-DrakeDrake's Description of the Natives-Bodega and San Francisco Bays-Sir Francis Drake's BayCavendish-Captain Woodes Rogers-His Description of the Natives-The English Buccaneering Expeditions along the West Coasts of the Americas-Political Reasons why the Spanish Government strenuously prosecuted the Discovery and Settlement of the Californias.

Ir appears expedient, before entering upon the annals of San Francisco proper, to give a short review of the first discovery, settlement, and progress of California itself, including an account of the aboriginal inhabitants, and of the first establishment, rise, and decline of the priest class, their sovereigns, whose domination forms a most peculiar and interesting phase in the general history of the country. The subject indeed comprehends, or naturally demands, some notice of these points; for, up to a recent period, San Francisco, from its being the "golden gate" to the wealth of the State, and from its many physical advantages, its population, the rapidity and grandeur of its wondrous rise and progress, the energy of its citizens, the extent of its home and foreign commerce, its universal fame, arising chiefly from its being associated in the minds of men,

Americans as well as foreigners, with the first discovery and subsequent astonishing produce of gold-San Francisco, from these and other causes, has been in a great measure identified with California itself. No history, therefore, of the city, could be complete, unless it included some account of the circumstances which preceded and immediately accompanied its rise, and which have made it what it almost already is, but which it will more plainly soon become, the greatest and most magnificent, wealthy and powerful maritime city in the Pacific-a city which is destined, one day, to be, in riches, grandeur and influence, like Tyre or Carthage of the olden time, or like Liverpool or New York of modern days.

We propose to embody in a succinct and continuous narrative, the subjects already particularly noticed—a general account of the causes, progress, and consequences of the war of 1846, between the Mexican and American States-the cession of California to the latter-the first discovery of gold, and the immediate results of that discovery upon the prosperity and population of the country-its admission as a State into the American Union-and a description of its physical geography, and of its commercial, agricultural, pastoral, and mineral wealth, and capabilities to receive and satisfy millions of additional inhabit

These matters will form PART FIRST of the work.

We shall afterwards, at somewhat greater length, describe, in a similar continuous narrative, the progress and the various incidents which happened, year by year, and month by month, in San Francisco itself, from the period when California was ceded by the Mexicans, and State and town became American, up to the present time, and which, properly speaking, alone constitute the "ANNALS" of the city. This subject will constitute PART SECOND.

In the subsequent portion of the volume, we shall devote special chapters, in no particular order, to the more minute details of whatever things were most peculiar and interesting-physical and intellectual, social and moral, and their causes and consequences-which marked the progress of the city, and gave it a world-wide reputation for good or for evil. In this division of the work will be included biographical and personal sketches,

and anecdotes of the more prominent and distinguished actors in the bustling scenes of the time, and whose names are closely associated either with the general history of California, or with the particular rise and progress of San Francisco itself. These topics will be comprehended in and constitute PART THIRD.

The remembrance of these matters is still fresh in the minds of our people; but, in the silent lapse of years, many of them must gradually fade away. It would then be well, that after the present generation disappears, our posterity should know something of the early history and triumphant progress of their glorious city, and of its worthiest or most noted sons, and the exciting, troublous scenes of the last seven or eight years, all drawn from the fullest and most accurate sources that are still to be had. We propose then to make this book an original record of the subjects alluded to.

The etymology of the name CALIFORNIA is uncertain. Some writers have pretended that it is derived from the two Latin words calida fornax, or, in the Spanish language, caliente fornalla --a hot furnace. This, however, is doubted by Michael Venegas, a Mexican Jesuit, in his "Natural and Civil History of California" (2 vols. Madrid, 1758), a work of much research and high authority. In his opinion, the early Spanish discoverers did not name their new-found lands in this pedantic fashion. "I am therefore inclined to think," he says, "that this name owed its origin to some accident; possibly to some words spoken by the Indians, and misunderstood by the Spaniards," as happened in several other cases.

The name California is first found in Bernal Diaz del Castillo, an officer who served under Hernando Cortez, in the conquest of Mexico, and who published a history of that extraordinary expedition; and is by him limited to a single bay on the coast. On the other hand, Jean Bleau, the celebrated geographer (Amsterdam, 1662), includes under the term all those immense tracks of country lying west of New Spain and New Galicia, comprehending the whole coast line from the northern parts of South America to the Straits of Anian (Behring's Straits). In this larger sense of the word, Jean Bleau is followed by several other geographers.

However, whatever be the limits of the country, the name has occasionally changed. In some English maps it is called NEW ALBION, because Sir Francis Drake, the well known English admiral, who touched on the coast in 1579, so styled it. About a century later, it is denominated ISLAS CAROLINAS (the peninsula of California being then supposed to be an island), in honor of Charles II. of Spain; and this designation was adopted by several writers and geographers of repute. After a time, the original name of California was revived, and soon silently and universally adopted.

California—meaning the existing Lower, or Old California, was known to be a peninsula so early as 1541, when a map drawn up at Madrid, by Castillo, already mentioned, represents the direction of the coasts nearly as they are known at present. Yet this fact was unaccountably forgotten for one hundred and sixty. years, when Father Kühn (Kino, of the Spaniards) seemed, for the first time, to prove that California was not an island, but a peninsula. In the early part of the sixteenth century, dreams of a direct western opening to the Indias filled men's minds, as later did those of a north-west passage. This was the first idea of Columbus, which led to his great discoveries, and which he held till death. In 1523, Charles V., in a letter, dated from Valladolid, recommended to Cortez to seek on the eastern and western coasts of New Spain, for such a passage. Cortez, in his answer to the emperor, speaks with the greatest enthusiasm of the probability of such a discovery, "which," he adds, "will render your majesty master of so many kingdoms that you will be considered as the monarch of the world ;" and seems to have undertaken several voyages for the purpose of ascertaining the fact.

In 1534, Cortez fitted out two ships under the command of Hernando Grixalva and Diego Becerra de Mendoza, a relation of his own, partly to learn the fate of a missing vessel of a previous expedition, but chiefly to continue the coast discoveries. These two ships happened to separate the first night following their departure from Tehuantepec, and did not meet again. Grixalva, after sailing three hundred leagues, came to a desert island, which he called Santa Thome, believed to lie near the point of Califor