turned our horses back to Sutter’s Fort.  Crossing the Sacramento again by swimming our horses, and ferrying their loads in that solitary canoe, we took our back track as far as the Napa, and then turned to Benicia, on Carquinez Straits.  We found there a solitary adobe-house, occupied by Mr. Hastings and his family, embracing Dr. Semple, the proprietor of the ferry.  This ferry was a ship’s-boat, with a latteen-sail, which could carry across at one time six or eight horses.

It took us several days to cross over, and during that time we got well acquainted with the doctor, who was quite a character.  He had come to California from Illinois, and was brother to Senator Semple.  He was about seven feet high, and very intelligent.  When we first reached Monterey, he had a printing-press, which belonged to the United States, having been captured at the custom-house, and had been used to print custom-house blanks.  With this Dr. Semple, as editor, published the Californian, a small sheet of news, once a week; and it was a curiosity in its line, using two v’s for a w, and other combinations of letters, made necessary by want of type.  After some time he removed to Yerba Buena with his paper, and it grew up to be the Alta California of today.  Foreseeing, as he thought, the growth of a great city somewhere on the Bay of San Francisco, he selected Carquinez Straits as its location, and obtained from General Vallejo a title to a league of land, on condition of building up a city thereon to bear the name of Vallejo’s wife.  This was Francisca Benicia; accordingly, the new city was named “Francisca.”  At this time, the town near the mouth of the bay was known universally as Yerba Buena; but that name was not known abroad, although San Francisco was familiar to the whole civilized world.  Now, some of the chief men of Yerba Buena, Folsom, Howard, Leidesdorf, and others, knowing the importance of a name, saw their danger, and, by some action of the ayuntamiento, or town council, changed the name of Yerba Buena to “San Francisco.”  Dr. Semple was outraged at their changing the name to one so like his of Francisca, and he in turn changed his town to the other name of Mrs. 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.  The name of “San Francisco,” however, fixed the city where it now is; for every ship in 1848-’49, which cleared from any part of the world, knew the name of San Francisco, but not Yerba Buena or Benicia; and, accordingly, ships consigned to California came pouring in with their contents, and were anchored in front of Yerba Buena, the first town.  Captains and crews deserted for the gold-mines, and now half the city in front of Montgomery Street is built over the hulks thus abandoned.  But Dr. Semple, at that time, was all there was of Benicia; he was captain and crew of his ferry boat, and managed to pass our party to the south side of Carquinez Straits in about two days.