s days
for collection. No solvent man of honor failed to settle his account on
"steamer day."

The election of Lincoln, followed by the threat of war, was disquieting,
and the large southern element was out of sympathy with anything like
coercion. But patriotism triumphed. Early in 1861 a mass meeting was
held at the corner of Montgomery and Market streets, and San Francisco
pledged her loyalty.

In November, 1861, I attended the State Fair at Sacramento as
correspondent for the _Humboldt Times_. About the only impression of San
Francisco on my arrival was the disgust I felt for the proprietor of the
hotel at which I stopped, when, in reply to my eager inquiry for war
news, he was only able to say that he believed there had been some
fighting somewhere in Virginia. This to one starving for information
after a week's abstinence was tantalizing.

After a week of absorbing interest, in a fair that seemed enormously
important and impressive, I timed my return so as to spend Sunday in San
Francisco, and it was made memorable by attending, morning and evening,
the Unitarian church, then in Stockton near Sacramento, and hearing
Starr King. He had come from Boston the year before, proposing to fill
the pulpit for a year, and from the first aroused great enthusiasm. I
found the church crowded and was naturally consigned to a back seat,
which I shared with a sewing-machine, for it was war-time and the women
were very active in relief work.

The gifted preacher was thirty-seven years old, but seemed younger. He
was of medium height, had a kindly face with a generous mouth, a full
forehead, and dark, glowing eyes.

In June, 1864, I became a resident of San Francisco, rejoining the
family and becoming a clerk in the office of the Superintendent of
Indian Affairs. The city was about one-fifth its present size, claiming
a population of 110,000.

I want to give an idea of San Francisco's character and life at that
time, and of general conditions in the second decade. It is not easy to
do, and demands the reader's help and sympathy. Let him imagine, if he
will, that he is visiting San Francisco for the first time, and that he
is a personal friend of the writer, who takes a day off to show him the
city. In 1864 one could arrive here only by steamer; there were no
railways. I meet my friend at the gangplank of the steamer on the wharf
at the foot of Broadway. To reach the car on East Street (now the
Embarcadero), we very likely sk