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CREATED:20230523T203800Z
DESCRIPTION:Edited from Sue Bailey Thurman:  Pioneers of Negro Origin\n\nWith the name 
 of William Alexander Leidesdorff, we begin the documentary history of 
 pioneers of Negro origin in California.  No nationality or racial minority 
 migrating to the state could wish to have a more distinguished antecedent.  
 Born in the Virgin Islands, the gifted son of William Leidesdorff, a Danish 
 sugar planter, and Anna Marie Spark, a native woman having Negro blood, 
 Leidesdorff found his way to California as early as 1841.\n\nHe left the 
 Virgin Islands as a youth, journeying to New Orleans, to engage in maritime 
 trade. With time, his fortunes increasing, he became a master of vessels, 
 sailing between New Orleans and New York.  However, he soon felt the lure 
 of the West, and selling his personal effects in New Orleans, bought the 
 106-ton schooner, "Julia Ann," in which he would make the now famous 
 trading voyage to the Pacific.  After long months in passage, he brought 
 his vessel into San Francisco Bay, landing at the point known as Yerba 
 Buena Cove.  Leidesdorff came ashore and the sleepy little town that 
 awaited him was never the same again.\n\nFor the intrepid newcomer threw 
 himself into the making of California history, finding the innumerable 
 demands of a community experiencing birth pains completely to his liking.  
 Among the several business ventures claiming his attention, he has the 
 distinction of launching the first steamboat to sail on San Francisco 
 Bay.\n\nBancroft, the recognized historian of the period, refers to this 
 event in Volume 4 of his celebrated History of California: "In maritime 
 annals of this period, the appearance of the first steamer in California's 
 waters merits a passing notice. The steamer had no name but has ever since 
 been called the Sitka.  Her dimensions were: length, 37 feet; breadth of 
 bow, 9 feet; depth of hold, 3 1/2 feet; drawing, 18 inches of water, and 
 having side wheels moved by a miniature engine. She was built by an 
 American at Sitka, Alaska as a pleasure boat for the officers of the 
 Russian American Fur Company and was purchased by Leidesdorff, being 
 brought down to San Francisco in October 1847.  \n\nShe made a trial trip 
 on November 15 and returned later to Santa Clara and then to Sonoma. 
 Finally on the 28th of November she started on the great voyage of her 
 career to Sacramento, carrying ten or a dozen souls, including George 
 McKinstry, L. W. Hastings, and the owner as far as Monterey.  \n\nShe 
 returned to Yerba Buena and was wrecked at her anchorage in a gale but was 
 saved, hauled inland by oxen and transformed into a launch or 
 schooner.\n\nFROM "SITKA" TO "RAINBOW"\nAs the "Rainbow" she ran on the 
 Sacramento River even after the discovery of gold.  A notice of arrival 
 from Sitka is even found in the San Francisco, California Star, October 23, 
 1847, also a notice of the steamer at Sonoma, November 25, when there was a 
 celebration with toasts to the rival towns of Sonoma and San Francisco, 
 December 1, 1847.\n\nBut the owner of the "Sitka" had engaged in a half 
 dozen other fascinating pursuits since becoming a California citizen.  He 
 was naturalized in 1844 and obtained thereafter a grant of thirty-five 
 thousand, five hundred acres of land, to which he gave the name the "Rio De 
 Los Americanos" ranch, located on the left bank of the American river. 
 \n\nThe decree confirming the boundary of this tract reads: "Beginning at 
 an oak tree on the bank of the American river, marked as a boundary to the 
 land granted to John A. Sutter, and running thence South to the line of 
 Sutter's two leagues, thence easterly by lines parallel to the general 
 direction of the American river and at a distance of as near as maybe two 
 leagues therefrom: thence along the southerly bank of said river and 
 boundary thereon to the place of beginning."\n\nWith such vast holdings he 
 continued to establish himself as a businessman of amazing acumen when he 
 bought a lot on the corner of Clay and Kearny and built the town's first 
 hotel, which with prophetic insight, he called the "City Hotel." Later, 
 extending his import-export trade (particularly in tallow and hides), he 
 built a warehouse on the corner of California and Leidesdorff streets, the 
 latter being the short street on the waterfront of the Embarcadero of the 
 day, which was named for him.\n\nHe had a flair for politics, and in 1845 
 was appointed Vice Consul to Mexico by US Consul Thomas Oliver Larkin, 
 serving under the jurisdiction of Commodore Stockton, then military 
 governor of California. \n\nIn this capacity Leidesdorff gave aid to 
 Fremont and the Americans raising the Bear flag in the historic rebellion 
 at Sonoma in 1846.  His official report of this incident to Consul Larkin, 
 not published until 1939, remains an important document of the period.\n\nA 
 bachelor to the end of his days, Leidesdorff nevertheless established 
 himself in a commodious home on the corner of California and Montgomery 
 Streets, a step from the present high-storied Russ Building, and from this 
 vantage point won international fame as one of the cities most genial 
 hosts. \n\nWhenever government officials, American or Mexican, came to 
 town, Leidesdorff(r)s home, the largest and most impressive in the area, 
 was always chosen as the scene for lavish state entertainment. He had the 
 urbanity of a seasoned diplomat, politician, and man of affairs. His 
 cuisine offered the finest foods and wines and he could boast the only 
 flower garden in all Yerba Buena.\n\nOn the local level, he held civic 
 positions of honor and trust. He was a member of the towns first council; 
 he was town treasurer, and one of the three members of the first school 
 board which supervised the building of the first public school erected for 
 children in the community.\n\nIn a lighter vein, he found occasion in the 
 field of sports, to indulge the lively spirit of speculation and daring 
 which he brought with him into California.  Among his last ventures, in 
 1847, was the staging of the state's first horse race, on a "meadow" near 
 Mission Dolores, especially improvised for this unprecedented 
 event.\n\nLeidesdorff died of brain fever in 1848 at the early age of 
 thirty-eight. \n\nIn his death he was accorded the highest recognition a 
 bereaved community could tender a beloved and honored citizen. Flags hung 
 at half-mast from all military barracks and vessels in the port.  Minute 
 guns were fired as the funeral procession made its way through the winding 
 streets to Mission Dolores, where with imposing ceremonies his body was 
 laid to rest.\n\nBut the Leidesdorff story did not end here.  For years 
 afterward, the history of the man was linked with the history of his 
 estate. At the time of his death, his property was encumbered with debts 
 amounting to some $50,000, but the discovery of gold in that same year, 
 later increased its value to nearly a million dollars.\n\n\nJoseph Libby 
 Folsom, captain in the U. S. Army and at one time collector of the port, 
 set himself the task of finding the Leidesdorff heirs and securing from 
 them the right and title to their kinsman's California estate. \n\nHe 
 journeyed all the way to the Virgin Islands in search of Anna Marie Spark, 
 the mother, who still lived in the islands with her other children.  Folsom 
 paid her the sum of $75,000, which gave him absolute title to the whole of 
 the Leidesdorff property. The various business transactions that followed 
 in the ultimate sale and disposition of this property became a cause 
 Celebre straight through to the end of the century.\n\nBut Folsom himself 
 lived only a short time to enjoy the wealth obtained from the Leidesdorff 
 estate.  He died at Mission San Jose, in July 1855, at the same age as 
 Leidesdorff, at the time of his death.\n\nHis memorial was the town of 
 Folsom, which stood on the site of "Rio De Los Americanos" ranch, and the 
 old Montgomery Block in San Francisco, built by Halleck in 1863, on a very 
 small portion of the property owned by Leidesdorff, and later by 
 Folsom.\n\nThere is magic in the names of the streets in San Francisco. 
 "Larkin," "Stockton," "Sutter," "Leidesdorff," "Folsom."  Streets, which as 
 "men in the flesh" were once closely associated. Some of them run parallel 
 or across each other, as the blending of a dream.  They serve to remind the 
 city of those men who gave it its beginning.  Robert Ernest Cowan connects 
 two of them in a brilliant comparison of Leidesdorff and Folsom, published 
 in the Quarterly of the California: Historical Society, June 1928:\n\nBoth 
 men were ambitious, venturesome, clear in vision, wide in mental 
 perspective, firm in their conviction, and capable in their many 
 undertakings. Both had an unbounded faith in the future of the beloved 
 city, wherein they had lived and toiled and died."\n\nGreater tribute may 
 not be given the first pioneer of Negro origin who came to San Francisco, 
 made his contribution and passed on.  But the citizen of today-of whatever 
 racial, creed or national origin, migrant like himself-may walk "The 
 City's" streets with dignity, knowing that Leidesdorff helped immeasurably 
 to establish this right, a hundred years ago.\n\nPioneers of Negro Origin 
 in California by Sue Bailey Thurman.\nSan Francisco : Acme Pub. Co., 
 1952.\nCourtesy of the San Francisco African American Historical 
 Society.\n\n\n https://www.indybay.org/newsitems/2023/05/23/18856292.php
SUMMARY:2023 Leidesdorff Plaza Plans for Rededication - California Pioneers of Negro Origin
LOCATION:Leidesdorff Plaza - Historic  Folsom Lite Rail Station
URL:https://www.indybay.org/newsitems/2023/05/23/18856292.php
DTSTART:20230526T183000Z
DTEND:20230526T203000Z
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