BENICIA
Benicia (a surname), is the name of a town in Solano County, on the north side of Carquínez Strait, twenty-eight miles northeast of San Francisco. Its story may best be told in the words of General Sherman, in the following quotation from his Memoirs: “We found a solitary adobe house, occupied by Mr. Hastings and his family, embracing Dr. Semple, the proprietor of the ferry. The ferry was a ship’s boat, with a lateen sail, which could carry six or eight horses. It took us several days to cross over, and during that time we got well acquainted with the doctor, who was quite a character. He was about seven feet high. Foreseeing, as he thought, a great city on the bay somewhere, he selected Carquínez Straits as its location, and obtained from General Vallejo title to a league of land, on condition of building a city to bear the name of General Vallejo’s wife, Francisca Benicia. Accordingly, the city was first called Francisca. At this time, where San Francisco now is was known as Yerba Buena; now some of the chief men of that place, knowing the importance of a name, saw their danger, and so changed the name to San Francisco. Dr. Semple was so outraged at their changing the name to one so nearly like his town that he, in turn, changed his town’s name to the other name of Mrs. Vallejo, and Benicia it has been to this day.”