The United States of America - 1860 - 1875
San Francisco, California, 1870's
1873 Street Map - This is the
San Francisco that Charles and William Barth and their families saw when they
moved there.
San Francisco was a booming city. The gold rush had brought in huge
numbers of people with plenty of money to spend. They left behind a
booming economy with much to offer the visitor or resident. Opera,
theatre, saloons, anything one could desire was found there.
Charles and William were master craftsmen who worked as cornice makers and
sheet metal workers. It wasn't long before Charles started his own sheet
metal business, Barth's Iron Works. As his sons grew up, he provided
training and work for them. He also trained his nephew Charles Sporman who
came all the way from Ohio, stayed two years to learn the trade, and started up
his own business when he returned to Ohio.
Cemeteries Previously In San Francisco, California
From the "San Louis Obispo Co. Genealogical Society
Quarterly." Winter 1990. They reported the information was found in the TV
schedule sent out by the PBS station in San Francisco.
Until 1850, vacant lots were used to bury
bodies or they were left on the beach or under a bush.
1850 City designated 15 acres, one
mile out on market Street as the official cemetery, named Yerba Buena
Cemetery. (Lasted for 20 years)
1852 An informal burial ground at
Second & market Street was closed and the bodies were moved to Yerba
Buena Cemetery.
1854 City itself reaching the Yerba
Buena Cemetery, so Lone Mountain Cemetery was established, a safe
three miles west of downtown. It was later renamed Laurel Hill.
1860 Catholics established the Calvary
Cemetery to the east of Lone Mountain Cemetery.
1864 Masonic Cemetery
established to the South of Lone Mountain Cemetery.
1865 Odd Fellows Cemetery
established to the west of Lone Mountain Cemetery. Lone Mountain
Cemetery was surrounded on all sides by burial grounds that were called the Big
Four.
- - - Jews moved their bodies from Cow Hollow to
two cemeteries near Mission Dolores.
1868 City purchased 200 acres for
new cemetery on bluffs above Land’s End.
1860's to 1870's Western addition
filled with Italian row houses and Laurel Hill Cemetery was twice reduced
for new building sites.
1870 Three thousand bodies were
removed from Yerba Buena Cemetery to the new Golden Gate Cemetery.
1870 Yerba Buena Cemetery
became more of Market Street. (Lone Mountain Cemeteries were not safe
either.)
1880 City prohibited further burials
in the Mission Dolores and Jewish Cemeteries.
1880's Public outcry for land used
up by cemeteries.
1887 Catholics established Holy
Cross as the first cemetery in Colma, south of the city line.
1889 Jews followed suit and
established Home of Peace to receive bodies from old cemetery. (It was
later named Dolores Park.)
1892 Nondenominational cemetery, Cypress
Lawn, established between the above two cemeteries by prominent San
Francisco businessman.
1901 City supervisors outlawed
further burials in city limits.
1909 Supervisors secured consent to
use Golden Gate Cemetery as a park. Mausoleums and tombstones were
removed and dumped down a convenient ravine at Land’s End. Those bodies not
removed were carpeted with the Lincoln Park Golf Course.
1914 Supervisors ordered ALL bodies
out of the city.
1920's Masonic Cemetery
purchased for the University of San Francisco. Odd Fellows Cemetery
vacated. Calvary and Laurel Hill Cemeteries resisted, but with no
income, both reverted to sand and scrub. The vaults were vandalized and the
mausoleums occupied by tramps.
1937 Supervisors again demanded
bodies be evacuated and voters upheld the decision.
1939 Task completed. WPA records
show Charles Harvey, contractor (who later built Candlestick Park) was paid 80
cents a ton to dump walls, crypts, and markers into the Bay, later to become the
Marina Yacht Harbor jetty. Other smashed tombstones made fine retaining walls in
Buena Vista Park. Calvary Cemetery was covered by a Sears building, a
Kaiser Hospital, and housing. Laurel Hill Cemetery was covered by more
housing, a shopping center, and the Fireman’s Fund Building.
TODAY only two small cemeteries
remain inside the city limits: Mission Dolores and Presidio. Colma is the
final resting place for 1.5 million San Franciscans. Cypress Lawn Cemetery
is a mass grave for 35,000 nameless pioneers removed from Laurel Hill
Cemetery. Levi Strauss is buried at Home of Peace. Wyatt Earp is buried at
Hills of Eternity. Emperor Norton is at Woodlawn Cemetery. Ishi is at Olivet
Cemetery. There are eighteen cemeteries in Colma.
Historically
 | 1860 - Abraham Lincoln elected 16th President; S Carolina secedes from the
Union in protest |
| 1861 - Kansas becomes a state |
| 1861 - Washington Peace Convention tries to preserve Union, but Congress
of Montgomery forms Confederate States of America with S. Carolina, Georgia,
Alabama, Mississippi, Florida, and Lousiana |
| 1861 - Abraham Lincoln inaugurated as 16th President |
| 1861 - Confederates take Fort Sumter, Charleston, April 12 outbreak of
Civil War |
| 1861 - Lincoln calls for militia to suppress Confederacy |
| 1861 - Confederate victory at Bull Run; Union forces later capture Forts
Clark and Hatteras |
| 1862 - Union Forces capture Fort Henry, Roanoke Island, Fort Donelson,
Jacksonville, and New Orleans; they are defeated at second Battle of Bull
Run and Fredericksburg |
| 1862 - "Emancipation Proclamation" - effective January 1, 1863,
all slaves held in rebelling territory declared free |
| 1863 - Arizona and Idaho organized as U.S. territories; West Virginia
becomes a stare |
| 1863 - Lincoln issues Emancipation Proclamation January 1 |
| 1863 - Confederate victory at Chancellorsville, Virginia; defeats at
Gettysburg, Pennsylvania, and Vicksburg, Mississippi; surrender at Fort
Hudson; further defeat at Chattanooga, Tennessee; victory at Chickamauga,
Georgia |
| 1863 - Lincoln's "Gettysburg Address" at the dedication of
military cemetery |
| 1864 - General Ulysses S. Grand succeeds General Halleck as
Commander-in-Chief of Union armies |
| 1864 - General Sherman marches his army from Chattanooga, Tennessee,
through Georgia; defeats Confederate army at Atlanta, and occupies Savannah |
| 1864 - Abraham Lincoln re-elected President |
| 1864 - Massacre of the Cheyenne and Arapahoe Indians at Sand Creek,
Colorado |
| 1864 - Territory of Montana organized; Nevada becomes a state |
| 1864 - Confederate agents set Barnum Museum and Astor House afire in
attempt to burn New York City |
| 1865 - Union fleet takes Charleston |
| 1865 - Richmond, Virginia, surrenders to Grant |
| 1865 - Jefferson Davis appoints General Robert E. Lee General-in-Chief of
Confederate Army |
| 1865 - Confederate States of America formally surrender at Appomattox
April 9 |
| 1865 - Abraham Lincoln assassinated April 14; succeeded as president by
Andrew Johnson |
| 1868 - Jefferson Davis, President of Confederacy, captured and imprisoned |
| 1865 - Civil War ends May 26 (surrender of last Confederate army at
Shreveport, Louisiana) |
| 1865 - Thirteenth Amendment to Constitution abolishes slavery |
| 1865 - Warren G. Harding, Born (d. 1923), President from 1921-1923 |
