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California '46 to '88

These are excerpts from the book by Jacob Wright Harlan of his memories as a California pioneer.

CHAPTER 16: LIFE IN SAN FRANCISCO. 1846 

We landed at Yerba Buena on Oct. 24th. Since then the name has been changed to San Francisco. At that time">

Special Sale, America Hurrah postcard sets of ten, $1.00 postage to U. S included.

California '46 to '88 These are excerpts from the book by Jacob Wright Harlan of his memories as a California pioneer. CHAPTER 16: LIFE IN SAN FRANCISCO. 1846  We landed at Yerba Buena on Oct. 24th. Since then the name has been changed to San Francisco. At that time, what is now a great city was a little, dirty looking village of, probably, 100 houses. About a dozen vessels were lying in the harbor. We were not charmed with the appearance of the place, and we liked it the less from our being hungry, and John having but half a dollar, and I, as the boys say, "nary red." We went to a small bakery and bought the half dollar's worth of bread. In going about I met James Savage, of whom I have spoken as having lost his wife on the Humboldt desert. In our talk he learned that we were flat broke, and that we had to go to Santa Clara Mission. He said that he needed a pistol, and offered me $2.50 for one of mine. I gladly sold it to him, and thanked him besides. We then set off on our journey. On arriving at the Mission Dolores, we met Daniel Murphy, who was gathering horses for Fremont. He told us that he could give us horses to ride on, but he had no saddles. Finally, he some way got an old saddle tree for me, and John not being able to get one, had to ride bare back. In this way we traveled until we arrived at San Francisquito creek, where we halted for the night, at Secundino Robles' rancho. The men of this rancho had all gone to the war and the house was full of women, who made supper for us all. We were twelve in number. We had tortillas, frijoles, and carne seca, stewed up, with chile colorado. My readers may translate these terms for themselves. To me, it was all very delicious till I helped myself to what I thought was a dish of tomatoes. It was pure chile--red pepper. It was fire itself. I was burning all the way down and up and every other way. I jumped from the table and ran for the creek. Finally, by copious use of  the cold water, I quenched the heat, and went back to the house to find all the women laughing at me.  After supper a Spaniard took to playing on the guitar, and set Dan Murphy and his men to dancing and waltzing with the women of the house, which they kept up till two or three o'clock in the morning, when John and I fell asleep. Next morning we were too sore to ride without saddles; so went on foot the rest of the distance to Santa Clara, where we found a number of emigrants, who had come by way of Fort Hall. We then continued around the head of San Francisco bay to the San Jose mission. When about where Milpitas now is our odd appearance attracted the observation of a large body of wild Spanish cattle. They appeared curious to investigate John with his blankets on his back, and me with the buffalo robe heaped up on mine. The cattle charged us on the run, and we also ran. I climbed a tree quickly, but John was very tired, and was slow about it. They came near catching him, when I cried out to him to shoot and scare them away. He did so, and killed one of them, and the rest were frightened by the report and fled. He joins Fremont's Battalion