Note: This post was recovered from the Sh.org archive.Username: jd755Date: 2019-05-29 10:39:10Reaction Score: 7
Aah San Francisco the place that had to be settled, or so it seems.
The hills abound with mercury actually way more than gold. Maybe important maybe not. I'll add more when I remember the links but I do remember this one to the sixth 'general fire'.
An eye witness account supposedly, no way to establish veracity, is there ever?
Eyewitness to the Sixth Great Fire - 1851
Rev. Albert Williams (1809-1893) was founder of San Francisco’s First Presbyterian Church. He resigned his pastorship October 8, 1854. This account of the sixth Great Fire comes from his book "A Pioneer Pastorate and Times..." published in 1879.
On the anniversary of the fire of the 4th of May, 1850, came another on the 4th of May, 1851, the fifth general fire.
Whats the chances?
And more, it began to be a confirmed conviction that they were not accidental, but incendiary. On the 22d of June, 1851, the sixth, and, happily the last general fire, and severest of all, occurred. The fact that the point of the beginning of this fire was in a locality quite destitute of water facilities, with other attending circumstances, left hardly a remaining doubt of its incendiary character.
It's as if they were planned in advance hence the low casualty numbers, the people were moved out prior?
The fire began in a small frame house on Pacific street, between Stockton and Powell streets, in the rear of the church, on the same block on which it was situated. When first discovered, a bucket of water might have extinguished the fire, but the preventive was not at command, or timely efforts to apply it were neglected. The time was Sunday morning.
Interesting isn't it how good the fire 'investigators' of the day were at identifying the root of the fire. Especially skillful given the lack of a fire department.
The time was Sunday morning. At the first bell-ringing for the eleven o’clock service, looking out of my north study window, from my residence on California street, I saw a dark cloud of smoke rising from the region of the church. In anxious haste I left for the threatening scene. On Stockton street I met a friend, who reported the fire as already beyond control, and our church beyond the power of preservation.
Surely a Reverend would be 'at church' prior to the summoning of his congregation not sat at home eating toast and spotting smoke signals along with the verger, choir, organist, church wardens etc. And meeting an unnamed friend, not a verger or a member of the congregation just a friend, does that strike anyone as a bit odd, apart from me obviously?
Very many of the congregation were on the way to the church service at the beginning of the fire. The choir had made special preparation for the music of that day. I reached the church in time to assist members of the congregation in saving the books, organ, and other moveable articles, and last of all, helped to detach the pulpit and bear it to a place of safety.
Amazing isn't it what was deemed so valuable to risk life and limb to save from an out of control fire, a pulpit for crying out loud. So loads of people in the doomed church then, not fighting the fire but saving religious paraphernalia. It just gets dafter and dafter.
Meanwhile the fire had begun its destructive work upon the west pulpit end of the building, and from the burning masses around had gained such power that in a few minutes the entire structure was enveloped in the consuming flames. The eastern Stockton street front, supporting the belfry, last gave way, and the bell loosened from its lofty height fell into the street and was broken in the fall. In so brief a space of time, the church for which we had waited so long, and in the use of which so much gratification had been derived, was entirely destroyed.
So is that one pulpit saved whilst the other burned no way to tell which one was saved from the flames. Enveloped in a few minutes and a brief space of time who in their right mind would go anywhere near a building so completely engulfed or about to be engulfed in flame IF there were no lives to be saved?
Our friends, De Witt and Harrison, saved their large warehouse on Sansome street, with its valuable contents, protecting it with blankets saturated with many thousand gallons of vinegar. Others of our people lost their all. Late in the afternoon, I went outside of the burnt district, seeking such of my congregation as had been extreme sufferers.
So vinegar saves wooden buildings from flames, who knew?
I traced one family, consisting of a father, mother, and two daughters, to their place of retreat, a small room, in the middle of which was the small remnant of articles contained in a blanket, saved from a fully stocked store and a dwelling pleasantly furnished, together with much prized heirlooms from former generations. Only on the previous day, an additional supply of goods had been added to the stock of the store, all of which, according to wont, was fully paid for, but all in a moment was lost.
Why does the 'fully paid for' merit a mention in this tale? Had they not heard of vinegar fire protection devices aka blankets?
With the impression of risks from incendiaries, and the fear of repetitions of what was believed to be villainous incendiary work, hundreds of citizens were organized as a corps for patrolling the city, especially in May and June, 1852, as a precautionary and preventive measure against incendiarism.
See no fire corps, department or anything but fire investigation still established the root of the fire.
Mechanical labor, building materials, and many other articles of merchandise, rose to greatly enhanced values as a consequence, as had been the case in other preceding fires. Rents were greatly advanced, alike for stores and residences. In the case of the latter, dwellings in the vicinity of, and less commodious than my own residence, readily commanded $300 per month.
And is this the real reason for these fires?
These tales of yore really do beggar belief if one can suspend the silly idea, the one we are told or sold, that its a real historical document and look at what is actually written. Have to say a big thank you to this site as its only through being here I have come to realise this.
Found a picture of the church that burnt on pinterest through duckduckgo so no link.
A few things.
How did they manage to build it so close to those surrounding buildings without destroying them?
Was it actually an empty site then "squatters" moved in as the buildings on the left are little more than shacks or are they the builders buildings?
This doesn't explain the proximity of the building on the right nor the tall building at the rear left which completely blocks a window of the church.
Looks like stone but must be render over brick or wood, can't find a big enough picture to see more clearly.
What is that strange 'mini spire' on the roof of the small building to the right abutting the church?
Found just one other reference to this Albert Williams on a blog about Hawaii.
Seems Hawaiians were yet another 'nationality' knocking about in San Francisco and its hills.
The Reverend Albert WIlliams, founder of the First Presbyterian Church of San Francisco, and the Reverend Joseph Rowell discovered Kanui in 1861, living in San Francisco. The two ministers rescued him from a down-hill plunge his life was beginning to take after the $6,000 he had made in the mines was wiped out by a bank failure.
And thats it.
