In 1855 St. Mary's Cathedral was the handsomest house of worship in the
city. For the most part, the churches of all denominations were of the
plainest, not to say cheapest, order of architecture. As a youth, I sat
in the family pew in the First Presbyterian Church, situated on Stockton
Street, near Broadway. Well I remember my father, with others of the
congregation--all members of the Vigilance Committee,--at the sound of
the alarm-bell, rising in the midst of the sermon and striding out of
the house to take arms in defence of law and order.

Perhaps the saddest sights in those early days were the neglected
cemeteries. There was one at North Beach, where before 1850 there were
eight hundred and forty interments. It was on the slope of Telegraph
Hill. The place was neglected; a street had been cut through it, and on
the banks of this street we could, at intervals, see the ends of coffins
protruding. Some were broken and falling apart; some were still sound.
It was a gruesome sight.

There were a few Russian graves on Russian Hill, a forlorn spot in those
days; but perhaps the forlornest of all was Yerba Buena cemetery, where
previous to 1854 four thousand and five hundred bodies had been buried.
It was half-way between Happy Valley and the Mission Dolores. The sand
there was tossed in hillocks like the waves of a sandy sea. There the
chaparral grew thickest; and there the scrub-oaks shrugged their
shoulders and turned their backs to the wind, and grew all lopsided,
with leafage as dense as moss.

No fence enclosed this weird spot. The sand sifted into it and through
it and out on the other, side; it made graves and uncovered them; it had
ever a new surprise for us. We boys haunted it in ghoulish pairs, and
whispered to each other as we found one more coffin coming to the