When the first Chinese came to California the Indians were very curious about them. A dispute arose among them as to what country the strangers might hail from, and whether or not they were Indians.
The Indians, wise as the Puritans of old, would apply the water test. If the accused swam they were witches, if they drowned they were innocent.
One day a party of Indians met a party of Chinamen approaching a little stream.
The strangers approached the bridge and started across. The Indians too filed across and meeting the Chinamen in mid-stream pushed two of them into the angry, spuming current below. The test was conclusive. They could not swim. They were not Indians.
In the fire department are exhibited two queer old engines. One was purchased in New York in 1849 and brought around the Horn. The other is a hand engine a little more modern in make. These engines are carefully guarded and never taken out except on rare occasions.
Down toward the wharf there stands a quaint old building, the material for which was brought around Cape Horn in 1850. This was San Francisco’s first hotel.
In the wild days of the early history of this little adobe city, nestled among the dunes and sand hills, Mount Diablo looked down on weird scenes on the plaza in front of this old hotel. Here the famous vigilance committee meted out justice to rogue and outlaw alike.
In the early history of California the eighth day of July, 1846, stands out conspicuously. On that day the Brooklyn dropped her anchor off the island of Yerba Buena, the “good herb,” and flung the Stars and Stripes to the breeze. At noon Captain Montgomery unfurled the American flag on the plaza.
In that good ship came a party of pseudo Mormons, under the leadership of “Bishop” Brannan, the valiant leader of the Vigilance Society. This colony of Latter Day saints brought stout hearts, keen wits, strong arms, pluck, plenty of money and a printing press. Later they quarreled with their bishop and went to law with him and thus gave up their scheme of Mormon colonization and made sport of Brigham Young himself in their tents on the beach.
But they gave to San Francisco her first newspaper pledged to eschew all sectarian dogmas; her first prayer meeting and her first trial by jury. A wonderfully progressive people, those Mormons of the sand dunes.