competition, had excelled in every field, especially marksmanship. Broderick, though only a middling-to-fair shot, had organized a crack musket company to compete for awards with the other departments. His rifle team, a military organization called the Empire Guards (after the Empire State), grew to 125 members. On field trips they competed publicly with their muskets for prizes in target shooting. They were still tops in pumping, singing, dancing, and organized bare-knuckle fisticuffs. Fighting was a way of life to the New Yorkers and battles at minor fire scenes became commonplace.
Senator Broderick returned from the capital to check with Kohler about the worsening conflict between the engine companies and cautioned him to defuse the situation. Unheeded, their discord could destroy everything they had worked for. But winning battles didn’t establish the magnificence of any firehouse; its engine did. In this, Broderick One was not deficient, but hampered by the Mankiller’s age. To them the old New York side-lever pumper’s clean lines and graceful curves were beautiful. Their hearts leaped as the dilapidated machine rattled over newly planked streets peaked in the center to facilitate water runoff. It tookall their skill to keep the engine on the straight and narrow. Beloved as their antique fire wagon was, it was not “the King of All Fire Engines” that Sam Brannan yearned to make his own. No one doubted any volunteer company possessing the invincible king would reign supreme. While no engine house could afford such a machine, Brannan could. With his deep pockets and crooked schemes, the man who had built a terrible floating prison, salted the muddy streets with gold, and fleeced the miners could buy anything he desired. And he desired everything.
Harsh winds whipped sand off an eighty-foot dune and into the streets. A storm provided the water to turn sand to mud. Ocean wind set clapboards banging, doors slamming, gates rattling, and shingles soaring over Sawyer’s head. From the abandoned ships he heard squeaking blocks and yards and spars snapping. Feeling the first few drops, he ran onto a piazza running alongside a house. Two fashionably dressed women were huddled in conversation beneath the overhang as a downpour began. In the slanting rain, launches sped from the anchored ships to the rude, fire-damaged adobe near the lower end of the town, the Custom House. Men rowed for the Merchant’s Exchange and gambling houses. Carriages and drays flew pell-mell. Teamsters in sugarloaf hats lashed their horses, only sinking deeper. Rolling wheels cut deep trenches in the mud. Across the street huddled “the Fountain Head Man,” who kept a tray of horehound and peppermint candy tied around his neck. Another vender tried to keep his armload of China silk handkerchiefs dry. “Only half a dollar each,” he hawked without hope.
The rain turned all of San Francisco into a slough of liquid mud, a bog that ruled their lives. It ranged from ankle deep to “off soundings,” ensnared grown men up to their knees, and sucked down small boys. Sawyer rolled up his trousers and plunged on. The rain poured with little interruption until March 22, when it stopped altogether and the city dried to tinder overnight, ready for its next burning. During the following days strong winds and dust kept everyone dirty. Anyone who escaped the mudpits still became filthy in the hard labor that was everyone’s lot. All their work was for nothing. Soon afterward the second great fire completely destroyed San Francisco.
Sawyer turned restlessly in his bunk and listened to the heart of the city beating—church bells chiming, the crack of a pistol, volunteers serenading a favorite actress at her hotel. In the shallow cove he heard rotted sails flapping. Out there somewhere was a man who could reduce it all to ruin. On Wednesday, May 1, 1850, voters formally elected JohnWhite Geary as the city’s first mayor and Malachi Fallon as the first
Senator Broderick returned from the capital to check with Kohler about the worsening conflict between the engine companies and cautioned him to defuse the situation. Unheeded, their discord could destroy everything they had worked for. But winning battles didn’t establish the magnificence of any firehouse; its engine did. In this, Broderick One was not deficient, but hampered by the Mankiller’s age. To them the old New York side-lever pumper’s clean lines and graceful curves were beautiful. Their hearts leaped as the dilapidated machine rattled over newly planked streets peaked in the center to facilitate water runoff. It tookall their skill to keep the engine on the straight and narrow. Beloved as their antique fire wagon was, it was not “the King of All Fire Engines” that Sam Brannan yearned to make his own. No one doubted any volunteer company possessing the invincible king would reign supreme. While no engine house could afford such a machine, Brannan could. With his deep pockets and crooked schemes, the man who had built a terrible floating prison, salted the muddy streets with gold, and fleeced the miners could buy anything he desired. And he desired everything.
Harsh winds whipped sand off an eighty-foot dune and into the streets. A storm provided the water to turn sand to mud. Ocean wind set clapboards banging, doors slamming, gates rattling, and shingles soaring over Sawyer’s head. From the abandoned ships he heard squeaking blocks and yards and spars snapping. Feeling the first few drops, he ran onto a piazza running alongside a house. Two fashionably dressed women were huddled in conversation beneath the overhang as a downpour began. In the slanting rain, launches sped from the anchored ships to the rude, fire-damaged adobe near the lower end of the town, the Custom House. Men rowed for the Merchant’s Exchange and gambling houses. Carriages and drays flew pell-mell. Teamsters in sugarloaf hats lashed their horses, only sinking deeper. Rolling wheels cut deep trenches in the mud. Across the street huddled “the Fountain Head Man,” who kept a tray of horehound and peppermint candy tied around his neck. Another vender tried to keep his armload of China silk handkerchiefs dry. “Only half a dollar each,” he hawked without hope.
The rain turned all of San Francisco into a slough of liquid mud, a bog that ruled their lives. It ranged from ankle deep to “off soundings,” ensnared grown men up to their knees, and sucked down small boys. Sawyer rolled up his trousers and plunged on. The rain poured with little interruption until March 22, when it stopped altogether and the city dried to tinder overnight, ready for its next burning. During the following days strong winds and dust kept everyone dirty. Anyone who escaped the mudpits still became filthy in the hard labor that was everyone’s lot. All their work was for nothing. Soon afterward the second great fire completely destroyed San Francisco.
Sawyer turned restlessly in his bunk and listened to the heart of the city beating—church bells chiming, the crack of a pistol, volunteers serenading a favorite actress at her hotel. In the shallow cove he heard rotted sails flapping. Out there somewhere was a man who could reduce it all to ruin. On Wednesday, May 1, 1850, voters formally elected JohnWhite Geary as the city’s first mayor and Malachi Fallon as the first
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