street near Powell.  In order to accommodate the demands of trade an “L” was extended eastward from the end of his wharf.  About this time he got into financial troubles.  In October, 1854, he departed with his family for Chili between two days and passed out through the Golden Gate, and no more was heard of him for a long time.  It finally became known that he was in Peru, engaged in building bridges for that government.  He took contracts and was very successful and became well off in a few years.  He sent an agent to San Francisco to hunt up all his creditors and pay them, dollar for dollar with interest.  I knew a widow in San Francisco in the late ’60s by the name of Rogers who was a creditor, who married a man by the name of Allen; I think that was in 1867.  They went to Peru and saw Mr. Meiggs.  He paid all she demanded, about $300.  Allen returned and reported to the children that their mother died while in Peru of fever, but they never got a cent of the money.

Mr. Meiggs was born in New York in 1811 and died in Peru in 1877.

San Francisco’s First Town Clock.

The first public clock ever erected in San Francisco was placed on the frontage of the upper story of a four-story building at Nos. 425-427 Montgomery street, that was being built by Alexander Austin.  This was in 1852.  The clock was ordered by him and brought via the “Panama Route” from New York, arriving in San Francisco on the steamer Panama.

Mr. Austin occupied the ground floor as a retail dry goods establishment and it was one of the first, if not the first, of any prominence in the city.  He afterwards moved to the southeast corner of Sutter and Montgomery streets and continued there until 1869 when he was elected city and county tax collector.

The clock remained on the building until January 20th, 1886, when the then owner of the building, Mr. D. F. Walker, had it removed so as to arrange for the remodeling of the interior.

Mr. W. H. Wharff, the architect in charge of the remodeling, purchased the clock and retained it in his possession until November 24, 1911, when he presented it to the Memorial Museum of the Golden Gate Park, where the curator, Mr. G. H. Barron, placed it in the “Pioneer Room.”  It is to be seen there now.

Admission Day Flag.

Here is an interesting fact that has never been given publicity before, and I simply relate it as told me by Sarah Connell, the daughter of the man that carried it.

“Mr. D. S. Haskell, manager of the express and banking business of Adams & Co., conceiving the patriotic idea of having an American flag carried in the division of which his firm was to be a part, endeavored to procure an American flag, but found that nothing but flags of the size for ships or poles were to be had.  He then started to find material from which to have one made, but in this he was unsuccessful also.  So, undaunted, he at last found a dressmaker who lived somewhere in the neighborhood of Washington and Dupont streets, who found in her ‘piece-bag’ that she had brought from New York, enough pieces of silk and satin (they were not all alike) to make a flag three feet by two feet.  He was so delighted with her handiwork that he gave her a $50 slug for her work[6].