But I Had A Relish-Maker Which My
Friends At Table Did Not Suspect - The Remembrance Of The Forecastle
Dinners I Ate Here Twenty-Four Years Before.
August 17th.
The customs of California are free; and any person who
knows about my book speaks to me. The newspapers have announced the
arrival of the veteran pioneer of all. I hardly walk out without
meeting or making acquaintances. I have already been invited to
deliver the anniversary oration before the Pioneer Society, to
celebrate the settlement of San Francisco. Any man is qualified
for election into the society who came to California before 1853.
What moderns they are! I tell them of the time when Richardson's
shanty of 1835 - not his adobe house of 1836 - was the only human
habitation between the Mission and the Presidio, and when the vast
bay, with all its tributaries and recesses, was a solitude, - and
yet I am but little past forty years of age. They point out the
place where Richardson's adobe house stood, and tell me that the
first court and first town council were convened in it, the first
Protestant worship performed in it, and in it the first capital
trial by the Vigilance Committee held. I am taken down to
the wharves, by antiquaries of a ten or twelve years' range,
to identify the two points, now known as Clark's and Rincon,
which formed the little cove of Yerba Buena, where we used to
beach our boats, - now filled up and built upon.
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