California’s Early Anglo Settlers

As everyone knows, the first English speakers to set foot in California were Francis Drake (the Sir came later) and his crew aboard the Golden Hind in 1579. Drake had plundered Spanish ships along the west coast of South America, filling his hold with Spanish gold and was ready to return to England.

Knowing there were a lot of angry Spaniards looking for him the way he’d come, he realized he’d have to circle the globe to get home, and that meant beaching his ship to prepare it for a long and hazardous voyage. He put in (probably) at Drake’s Bay in Point Reyes, completely missing the entrance to San Francisco Bay, no doubt because of what his ship’s log referred to as a “stynking fogge.”  He made friends with the local Miwoks, named the land New Albion, and claimed it for Queen Elizabeth. After thirty-six days, he set sail for London where a knighthood awaited him. But this article is about settlers, not tourists.

The Nineteenth Century

The first Anglo to settle in San Francisco has a street named for him. It’s not a big street—only about six blocks long—but it leads to one of the city’s nicest locations, the Palace of Fine Arts. The street is Richardson Avenue, the link between Lombard Street and Doyle Drive. It was named for William A. Richardson, an Englishman who came here as first mate on the whaler Orion in 1822. There are various stories about why he remained when the Orion departed. Some say he jumped ship, others that he was dismissed. Whatever the reason, he was the first English speaker to establish a permanent residence in the city. He applied to the Mexican authorities at the Presidio for permission to stay there and teach navigation and carpentry to the local Indians, effectively becoming California’s first ESL teacher. The following year, he was baptized a Catholic and changed his middle name from Anthony to Antonio. Two years later, he married Maria Antonia Martinez, the daughter of the Presidio’s commanding officer.

In 1835, General Mariano Vallejo appointed Richardson San Francisco’s Captain of the Port, making him the first pilot for the Bay. At that time, Richardson erected a tent at what is now Portsmouth Square. The tent was soon replaced by a wooden structure, and that was followed by an adobe building he called Casa Grande. It was the beginning of the settlement called Yerba Buena, a name that would remain until Washington Bartlett, alcalde of Yerba Buena, changed it to San Francisco in 1847.

Piloting, caulking ships, and cattle raising proved profitable, and Richardson did what many later successful San Franciscans would do: he bought property in Marin County. His Rancho Sausalito included what are now the towns of Sausalito and Tiburon. He lived a comfortable life there until his death at the age of sixty-three. The bay that bordered his ranch still bears his name.

Richardson was the first Anglo in San Francisco but not the first in California. That honor goes to a couple of American sailors on the Albatross who deserted in Monterey in 1816. One of them was Thomas Doak, and the other was a free black shipmate whose name was Bob, just Bob. Doak and Bob were welcomed by the Mexican Californios. They both embraced the Catholic faith and were rebaptized. Doak became Felipe Santiago, and Bob became Juan Cristóbal. They each married local girls and prospered in their new home.

Two years later, another ship arrived in Monterey. Hippolyte de Bouchard, a French privateer, came, but not in peace. Bouchard was working for the government of Argentina, which had recently gained its independence from Spain, and was engaged in trying to push Spain out of the Americas. Bouchard was assigned to attack Spanish holdings, and Monterey was one of them. After an hour of combat, the Monterey fort was taken, and the Argentine flag was raised there. Bouchard claimed the area for Argentina, and after six days of burning the fort and stealing the local cattle, he departed.

Aboard Bouchard’s ship, Santa Rosa, was an American named Joseph Chapman, originally from Maine. For some reason, he happened to be in Hawaii when Bouchard arrived there and ended up a crew member on the Santa Rosa. During the battle at Monterey, several of Bouchard’s men, including Chapman, were captured. Bouchard negotiated for their release, but Chapman did not return to the ship. (Perhaps he preferred being a prisoner in Monterey to being a sailor with Bouchard.) He convinced the fort commander that he could be useful as a free man and made good on his word. He built the second ship to be launched in California, and a wool-processing mill. Like Doak and Bob, he became a Catholic; he was baptized Jose-Juan Chapman and married a girl named Guadelupe Ortega. For his bride, he built a house in Los Angeles in 1824 and planted four thousand vines, constituting the state’s first commercial vineyard. Twelve years later, he moved his family to a spacious rancho near Santa Barbara and lived a long and comfortable life.

Overland Travelers

Not all of California’s early Anglos were runaway sailors. Jedediah Smith, mountain man, explorer, fur trapper, and devout Christian, arrived at Mission San Gabriel in 1826, completing the first recorded journey from the Missouri River to California. Governor Echeandía, suspecting he was a Yankee spy, ran him and his fellow trappers off. The following year, ten of Smith’s party were killed by Mohave Indians. The governor ousted him again, and on an expedition to Oregon, all but Smith and two of his men were massacred by Umpqua Indians. In 1831, Smith was killed by Comanches in New Mexico. Despite his poor relations with Native Americans, a California river and state park are named for him in honor of his early explorations.

John Sutter, another early arrival was originally from Switzerland. He lived in New York, St. Louis, Santa Fe, and Honolulu before coming to San Francisco in 1839. He became a Mexican citizen and convinced Governor Juan Alvarado to give him forty-eight thousand acres of land at the junction of the Sacramento and American rivers. There he planted crops and built an impregnable fort where he began a trading center for incoming American settlers. By all rights, Sutter should have been the world’s wealthiest man: it was on his property that gold was discovered in January 1848. His efforts to keep the discovery secret were in vain, and gold-seeking squatters overran his territory. By 1852 he was bankrupt and died broke in 1880.

Of all the early English speakers, none had a more romantic career than John Charles Frémont. As an officer in the U.S. Army and a son-in-law of a U.S. senator, Frémont entered California in 1843 on a senate-sponsored expedition. His report of the trip fanned the flames of Manifest Destiny and war with Mexico. He returned in 1846 on a second expedition with sixty armed men. Mexican authorities ordered them out. Instead of out, Frémont went to Sutter’s Fort, stirred up the settlers there, and led the Bear Flag Revolt—a siege which held the town of Sonoma until the start of the Mexican War. Commissioned a major, Frémont took San Diego and Santa Barbara and was named California’s military governor. As such, he refused to obey General Stephen Kearny’s orders and was court-martialed for mutiny. President James Knox Polk pardoned him, and Frémont began surveying a route for a transcontinental railroad. When gold was discovered on his Mariposa property, Frémont became wealthy and was soon one of California’s U.S. senators. In 1856, he ran for president on the anti-slavery Republican ticket but lost to James Buchanan. During the Civil War, he served as a major general in the Union Army. Neglect of his property during the war caused him to lose it. However, his final years were spent in California. Fremont Street in San Francisco is named for him, but his principal legacy for the city is the name he gave to the passageway between San Francisco and Marin County: Chrysopylae, the Golden Gate.

Equal Rights

All right, ladies, I hear you. Who was the first English-speaking woman in California? That would be Rachel Holmes. In 1832, she was aboard a ship headed for Monterey where she was to join her husband, a Danish sea captain. Also aboard that ship was Thomas Larkin, a businessman who would become U.S. consul to California. The voyage was long and dull, and Mrs. Holmes and Mr. Larkin began a relationship. Later, in Monterey, Rachel discovered she was carrying Larkin’s child and discreetly moved to Santa Barbara, dreading the impending reunion with her husband. Soon after, however, she learned that Captain Holmes had died at sea. She and Larkin married, and their child, Isabel Ann, was the first child of U.S. parents born in California. After California became a state, Larkin moved to San Francisco and built the city’s first brick building at 1116 Stockton Street in 1850. He bought land extensively in Benicia (which he founded) and San Francisco and died one of the richest men in America in 1858. Rachel survived him for fifteen years.

George Rathmell is a free-lance writer and frequent contributor to the Nob Hill Gazette. His information is available at georgerathmell.com