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It was a simple open square, around which were some adobe-houses, that of General Vallejo occupying one side. On another was an unfinished two-story adobe building, occupied as a barrack by Bracken's company. We soon found Captain Brackett, and I told him that I intended to take Nash a prisoner and convey him back to Monterey to answer for his mutinous behavior.
Vallejo, viz., "Benicia;" and Benicia it has remained to this day. I am convinced that this little circumstance was big with consequences. That Benicia has the best natural site for a commercial city, I am, satisfied; and had half the money and half the labor since bestowed upon San Francisco been expended at Benicia, we should have at this day a city of palaces on the Carquinez Straits.
He had a glimpse of her on the Vallejo steps in swallow-swift silhouette and then heard the bang of the door. In her room Pancha moved about mechanically, doing the accustomed things. She lighted the light, took off her hat and jacket, brought the milk from the window sill. Then, with the bottle on the table beside her, she sat down, her hands in her lap, her eyes on space.
Schwabacher's house gone, all in the block would have gone; the fire would have crossed to the north, up Pacific, Broadway, and Vallejo, and probably over to Fillmore, when very little would have been left of the residence portion of the city. Now again another danger came. Another tier of blocks, from Leavenworth to Van Ness, between Jackson and Pacific, had taken fire.
Succeeding this we have a domestic scene fruits and wheat and a reaper in 1848. We then note bronze-medallions of Sutter, James Lick, Fremont, Drake, the American Flag, and Serra. Moreover on this central monument we have the names of Stockton, Castro, Vallejo, Marshall, Sloat, Larkin, Cabrillo-Portalo. Then the date, "Erected A.D. 1894. Dedicated to the City of San Francisco by James Lick."
There are no public schools in the country at least I never heard of one. There are but few books. General Valléjo has a library with many valuable books, and this is the only one I saw, although there are others; but they are rare, and confined to a few families. The men are almost constantly on horseback, and as horsemen excel any I have seen in other parts of the world.
Vallejo supported the presidial company, mainly at his own expense, and made friends with the native chief, Solano, who aided him materially in keeping the Indians peaceful. The general statistics of the Mission for the eleven years of its existence, 1823-34, are as follows: baptisms 1315, marriages 278, deaths 651. The largest population was 996 in 1832.
The waves tossed them on high, flung them against the rocks and ground them there, playing with them like a lion with its victim, then buried them. "God of my soul! Do not speak of hope to me. Hope? For what are those three frigates, swarming with a horde of foreign bandits, creeping about our bay? For what have the persons of General Vallejo and Judge Leese been seized and imprisoned?
And had I not heard lonely miners tell of times when they gladly would have walked ten miles to shake hands and talk a few moments with a child? Captain Frisbie spent much time in Sonoma after Company H was disbanded, and observing ones remarked that the attraction was Miss Fannie Vallejo. Yet, not until 1851 did the General consent to part with his first-born daughter.
Excited men, women, and children rushed to town in quest of information. It was furnished by Alcalde Boggs and General Vallejo, who had been called away privately two weeks earlier, and had just returned in a state of great enthusiasm, declaring that gold, "in dust, grains, and chunks had been discovered at Coloma, not more than a day's journey from Sutter's Fort."
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