little barley, but no hay. At that time nobody fed a horse, but he
was usually turned out to pick such scanty grass as he could find
on the side-hills. The few government horses used in town were
usually sent out to the Presidio, where the grass was somewhat
better. At that time (July, 1847), what is now called San
Francisco was called Yerba Buena. A naval officer, Lieutenant
Washington A. Bartlett, its first alcalde, had caused it to be
surveyed and laid out into blocks and lots, which were being sold
at sixteen dollars a lot of fifty vuras square; the understanding
being that no single person could purchase of the alcalde more than
one in-lot of fifty varas, and one out-lot of a hundred varas.
Folsom, however, had got his clerks, orderlies, etc., to buy lots,
and they, for a small consideration, conveyed them to him, so that
he was nominally the owner of a good many lots. Lieutenant Halleck
had bought one of each kind, and so had Warner. Many naval
officers had also invested, and Captain Folsom advised me to buy
some, but I felt actually insulted that he should think me such a
fool as to pay money for property in such a horrid place as Yerba
Buena, especially ridiculing his quarter of the city, then called
Happy Valley. At that day Montgomery Street was, as now, the
business street, extending from Jackson to Sacramento, the water of
the bay leaving barely room for a few houses on its east side, and
the public warehouses were on a sandy beach about where the Bank of
California now stands, viz., near the intersection of Sansome and
California, Streets. Along Montgomery Street were the stores of
Howard & Mellus, Frank Ward, Sherman & Ruckel, Ross & Co., and it
may be one or two others. Around the Plaza were a few houses,
among them the City Hotel and the Custom-House, single-story adobes
with tiled roofs, and they were by far the most substantial and
best houses in the place. The population was estimated at about