After a week of absorbing interest, in a fair that seemed enormously important and impressive, I timed my return so as to spend Sunday in San Francisco, and it was made memorable by attending, morning and evening, the Unitarian church, then in Stockton near Sacramento, and hearing Starr King.  He had come from Boston the year before, proposing to fill the pulpit for a year, and from the first aroused great enthusiasm.  I found the church crowded and was naturally consigned to a back seat, which I shared with a sewing-machine, for it was war-time and the women were very active in relief work.

The gifted preacher was thirty-seven years old, but seemed younger.  He was of medium height, had a kindly face with a generous mouth, a full forehead, and dark, glowing eyes.

In June, 1864, I became a resident of San Francisco, rejoining the family and becoming a clerk in the office of the Superintendent of Indian Affairs.  The city was about one-fifth its present size, claiming a population of 110,000.

I want to give an idea of San Francisco’s character and life at that time, and of general conditions in the second decade.  It is not easy to do, and demands the reader’s help and sympathy.  Let him imagine, if he will, that he is visiting San Francisco for the first time, and that he is a personal friend of the writer, who takes a day off to show him the city.  In 1864 one could arrive here only by steamer; there were no railways.  I meet my friend at the gangplank of the steamer on the wharf at the foot of Broadway.  To reach the car on East Street (now the Embarcadero), we very likely skirt gaping holes in the planked wharf, exposing the dark water lapping the supporting piles, and are assailed by bilge-like odors that escape.  Two dejected horses await us.  Entering the car we find two lengthwise seats upholstered in red plush.  If it be winter, the floor is liberally covered by straw, to mitigate the mud.  If it be summer, the trade winds are liberally charged with fine sand and infinitesimal splinters from the planks which are utilized for both streets and sidewalks.  We rattle along East and intersecting streets until we reach Sansome, upon which we proceed to Bush, which practically bounds the business district on the south, thence we meander by a circuitous route to Laurel Hill Cemetery near Lone Mountain.  A guide is almost necessary.  An incoming stranger once asked the conductor to let him off at the American Exchange, which the car passed.  He was surprised at the distance to his destination.  At the cemetery end of the line he discovered that the conductor had forgotten him, but was assured that he would stop at the hotel on the way back.  The next thing he knew he reached the wharf; the conductor had again forgotten him.  His confidence exhausted, he insisted on walking, following the track until he reached the hotel.