San Bruno, a village near San Francisco, was named for St. Bruno, the founder and first abbot of the Carthusian Order. This order of monks is among the most severe in its rules, requiring almost perpetual silence of its members. Its devotees are only permitted to speak together once a week. They never eat flesh, and are compelled to labor constantly.
San Gerónimo (St. Jerome), is the saint usually pictured as accompanied by a lion, in commemoration of the well-known story of the removal of a thorn from the foot of one of those beasts by Jerome, and the devotion of the lion to him afterwards. San Gerónimo is the name of a small stream in Marin County, noted for its salmon fisheries.
San Gregorio (St. Gregory), is in San Matéo County, twenty-four miles southwest of Redwood City. St. Gregory was a noble Roman who devoted his wealth to charity, and turned his home into a hospital and monastery. He was elected to the high office of Pope, and became the composer of what is called from him the “Gregorian Chant.”
San Leandro (St. Leander), is in Alameda County, on San Leandro Creek, sixteen miles southeast of San Francisco. St. Leander was at one time Bishop of Seville, and is one of the patron saints of that city.
San Lorenzo (St. Lawrence), was a saint who suffered martyrdom by being roasted on a gridiron. The legend relates that he said to his tormentors, “I am now sufficiently cooked on this side, turn me over and roast me on the other.” San Lorenzo is in Alameda County, twenty miles southeast of San Francisco.
San Matéo (St. Matthew), is the name of a county bordering on San Francisco Bay, and of a town on the west shore of the bay, twenty-one miles south of San Francisco. St. Matthew was a Hebrew by birth, and the author of the book of the Scriptures that bears his name.
San Pablo (St. Paul), is in Contra Costa County, on San Pablo Bay, fifteen miles northeast of San Francisco. One of the legends concerning St. Paul is that “the church called ‘San Paolo delle Tre Fontane,’ near Rome, is built over three fountains which are said to have sprung up at the three places where the head of St. Paul fell and bounded, after being cut off by the executioner. It is said that the fountains vary in the warmth of the water,—the first, or the one where the head fell, being the hottest; the next, or that of the first bound, cooler; and the third still cooler.”
San Quentin (properly San Quintín) is a village in Marin County, on the west shore of San Francisco Bay, eleven miles north of San Francisco. This place, where the forbidding walls of the State’s Prison shut out the light of California’s glorious sun from the unfortunates enclosed there, very fittingly bears the name of a saint whose gloomy story runs thus: “San Quintín was the son of Zeno. He became converted and gave up a high command which he held in the Roman army, in order to preach. He labored especially in Belgium, and suffered death by being impaled on an iron spit.”—(Stories of the Saints.) It is probable, however, that the town was not directly named for this saint, but received the name indirectly from Point Quintín, on the Marin coast, which was so-called from an Indian chief of that region who had been thus christened by the Spaniards.