extent and value of that service so nobly rendered. It is gratifying,
however, to recall that Californians of his own time, and the years
immediately following, paid ample tribute to his work and his memory.
Extraordinary honors, such as never have been given to any private
citizen, were freely and lovingly accorded the patriot-preacher.

On the evening of March 4, 1864, the day of King's death, the San
Francisco Bulletin, then, as now, one of the leading papers of the city,
contained the following tribute:

"The announcement of the death of Rev. Thomas Starr King startles the
community, and shocks it like the loss of a great battle or tidings of a
sudden and undreamed of public calamity. Certainly no other man on the
Pacific Coast would be missed so much. San Francisco has lost one of her
chief attractions; the State, its noblest orator; the country one of her
ablest defenders."

Scarcely forty years of age, a Californian only from 1860 to 1864, he
had in this brief period so won the hearts of men that in honor of his
funeral the legislature and all the courts adjourned, the national
authorities fired minute guns in the bay, while all the flags in the
city and on the ships hung at half-mast, including those of the foreign
consuls and those on the vessels of England, Russia, Hamburg, Columbia
and France. It is believed that in American history no private
individual has been so honored by the federal army and by foreign
nations.

That Starr King's tomb might serve as a daily reminder to the people of
his unique devotion to Union and Liberty, a city ordinance forbidding
burials within certain districts of the city was set aside, and to this