Black Fire (22 page)

As Sawyer returned home, he thought of the seven volunteer companies formed after Broderick One, Social Three, Big Six, and the rest. Volunteer Seven had not a shred of personality. Vigilant Nine had even less. Admittedly, Pacific Eight, popularly called Sailor Eight, had a striking persona. Because their firehouse was by the water—near Pacific Wharf on the west side of Front Street between the Jackson and Broadway Street wharves—they fought fire as if they were at sea. Their members wore white cotton duck, swaggered like sailors, and operated the pumps of their New York–style engine as if pumping bilge water. They hauled at hoses and ropes as if raising sails and sang rousing sea chanteys as they battled flames.

Crescent Ten showed a strong Cajun identity. Most of its members were from New Orleans. Because Ten marched looking straight ahead, people began calling them
Proud
Ten. Proud Ten, the most athletic in town, except for the acrobatic all-German St. Francis Company, rejoiced in their supremacy of strength, quickness of perception, and fleetness of foot. When the Council set the date of the next Firemen’s Parade as May 4, the anniversary of the second great fire, the swiftest was selected to hold the tongue and roll their New York side-lever engine downhill in the trial run the day before. Because Proud Ten’s engine house on the north side of Pacific Street between Kearny and Montgomery streets was close to many of the big fires, they usually got to the blaze first. One day Ten arrived so prematurely, they had extinguished the flames and were returning home before any other company got under way. As each passed, Ten razzed the latecomers. “Clean sweep, fellows!” they whooped. “We’ve made a clean sweep!” Ten’s foreman mounted a broom on top of their engine to stand for a clean sweep and carried it to every
call to taunt the others, but eventually it proved cumbersome. “Let’s replace the broom with a foxtail,” Ten’s steward, “Cockeyed Frank,” suggested, “and put the foxtail up as a trophy. Any volunteer company that beats all the others to a fire can fly it on their engine.” Soon a tug-of-war began among the volunteers for the foxtail, a highly sought prize. The most intense competition was between Proud Ten and Manhattan Two. Winning the foxtail encouraged dishonest practices among the smoke eaters, who laid elaborate plots and counterplots, sent men ahead to guard any available hydrants against rival brigades until their own engine arrived, or overtook an engine and ran it into a wall. There were three bell ringers at City Hall, each elected for one year by a board of delegates. Two and Ten tried to engineer their own man’s appointment to tilt the odds in their favor.

A contradiction in a fireman’s life was the frequent use of fire to fight fire—backfires, torches to light their way, and burning lanterns in their windows to inform comrades they were on the way to the blaze or to signal all was well. They staged their fake fires, usually empty shacks set aflame, when their firehouse was filled with men and their engine ready to roll. Most fake fires were staged in the Seventh District in the direction of Bush or Rincon Hill and beyond because it would promise a downhill trip. In staging a fire they needed a bright blaze; otherwise the bell ringer might be “called up” and “broke.” Ten staged several fires to draw Two into a losing race. In response, Two planted fresh relief runners along a predetermined route to take over for exhausted firemen pulling their engine. They slowed just enough for the fresh runner to jump under the rope, take hold, and be off without missing a beat.

As Two made a good run to the Seventh District ahead of everyone, a fireman cried, “Up Jackson to Kearny. I don’t care where the fire is. Up Jackson Street!” The regular run was down Montgomery. At Kearny, Two met Ten coming down Kearny straight for them. Both engines halted—side by side—and refused to budge while the building burned down. Another day an alarm sounded—a minor warehouse fire in Happy Valley. “Everybody out! Fire. Start her lively, boys,” called the Engine Four chief to his hose boys. Strapping long trumpets over their shoulders, they dashed to Battery and Sacramento streets. Simultaneously Four’s engines turned into a narrow alley and ran alongside a rival, rubbing hubs while the men hurled curses and traded blows. Then one engine hit a bump and crashed into the other; thus began a three-hour battle with ax handles and spanners. Four Company, suspended
for actions against another company, was ordered to “turn tongue in,” forbidden to answer alarms until the suspension was removed.

New volunteer companies followed: Empire Company Number Eleven housed their Van Ness piano box engine with patented running gear in their firehouse on the north side of Bush Street. Pennsylvania Twelve was called the High-toned Twelve because the men wore expensive frock coats, plug hats, and flashy jewelry on their red shirts. Despite muddy roads, they wore patent leather boots and approached any blaze as if sneaking up on it. Afraid to wet their boots, they dropped their rope at the sight of any puddle. Two, Three, and Ten companies held Company Twelve in contempt, calling them the Featherbed Firemen and Patent Leather Firemen. The well-dressed Philadelphians battled flames in spotless brocades yet barely raised a sweat. They threw fancy dress balls and soirees at every opportunity. On the day of a ball, the dandies drove the town barbers mad with their demands for the closest shaves, precise haircuts, and perfect curls. Their guests got high-toned, too, buying expensive outfits and filling the bathhouses and steam rooms on the day of the ball. Who looked classier: the swaggering Twelve in white gloves and claw-hammer evening suits or their fashionable supporters? Twelve decorated their engine house with flowers and moved their engines into the street so their guests could dance. As the night wore on, everyone was dancing in the streets.

When Twelve lost $500 in an engine-pull race with Big Six, they refused to accept their award of second place and ordered the fanciest engine available. Their huge advance payment more than paid for it, but they sent extra money to speed things along. The Philadelphia manufacturer was baffled. “What is this for,” he wrote back. “How shall we apply this generous second payment to the construction of your new engine?” Back flashed an answer from the fashion plate firemen, “Spend the excess on abundant silver and gold ornamentation. Lay it on lavishly as possible. Our mighty engine must be as elegant and stylish as ourselves. We understand that may not be possible, but do your best.” Twelve’s engine order distracted all volunteers from the rugged occupation of fighting fire. “Sam Brannan wants paintings on his silver machine,” Sawyer said. “Now Twelve wants silver and gold ornaments. Doesn’t any firehouse just want an efficient firefighting machine?”

On January 6, 1851, the volunteers met to take stock of their first year fighting fire. After extinguishing a blaze, several foremen had coffee and muffins at the Clipper Restaurant, their customary meeting place.
The low-ceilinged eatery above the Custom House and post office was built entirely of ship’s timbers. Waiters carried out coffee in two huge tin pots with wooden handles and poured from both spouts simultaneously. A toy railway running the length of the restaurant delivered the food. The miniature flatcars, operated by a handle like the crank of a hand organ, rattled down tracks from the kitchen carrying muffins to the firefighters. It circled back to the kitchen and returned, whistling, with hot dishes at three for a quarter. It took dexterity to grab tureens of soup and plates of fish, game, and beef cuts as they rolled past. The supervisors, still wearing their helmets, tied napkins around their necks and began to eat.

Outside the window in front of Flood & O’Brien’s Saloon, people plunged through the thick mud along Washington Street. Ashes and debris from the fires had produced more mud than ever before. From the Point to the sandy, eastern suburbs stretched a vast mud sea filled with potato parings, onion tops, eggshells, cabbage leaves, and fish bones. From the cove’s edge to the Square, the city literally floated on a bog. Man and horse floundered, splashed, and struggled for dry land. “Mud is the element in which we are now compelled to exist,” the papers reported. “It is in every street, and a man is crossed by it at every crossing.” San Francisco was not a town, but a “quagmire” and “chaos!” a visiting Frenchman complained. “When one finally chances it, one either walks somewhat in advance or else copies those who have preceded you or follows the pedestrians who know the way, putting one’s foot where they put theirs.” “It was proposed to cross the street on a hewn timber,” wrote a local woman about a bridge built over mud for pedestrians, “which was nearly one hundred feet and at a height of twelve feet, I should think, from the green slimy mud. I succeeded pretty well until about halfway over when, finding myself dizzy, I was obliged to stop and get down on my knees, and hold on to the timber.… I was afraid to proceed lest I should fall into the mud and water below, and, for the same reason unable to retrace my steps.… That was my introduction to the town of San Francisco in 1851.”

Outside, Sawyer trudged through the bog, studying each alley. He was always hearing of a bold robbery or attempted murder by the organized bands of criminals, but could walk every night and at all hours from the Square to the head of Clay Street and never see a policeman or watchman. A policeman was scarcely found even by day. With so few cops, the Hounds and Ducks always knew their whereabouts and pursued their crimes without fear of exposure. Thus the Lightkeeper
was able to move about unimpeded. Where he would strike next obsessed everyone, especially Sawyer. All through February, San Franciscans listened with dread for the first sharp tap of the Monumental fire bell and howl of the rising wind. The next time it rang its long, steady strokes would certainly play a funeral dirge. During the first half of the month, small fires caused havoc. Not a single night passed that the warning bell did not peal of a small suburban fire. Questioning, alarmed, feeling their way in the unlit streets, citizens wondered if San Francisco could survive the next big fire and were so nervous that the striking note of any bell cleared a theater in an instant. On March 2, the
Alta
judged the volunteers’ occupation a good and grand one and lauded their “skill and courage under circumstances involving great personal danger, and often much inconvenience and pecuniary loss to individuals, who, at the call of duty, cheerfully forsook their own private business to save the community from a terrible calamity.” Fine words, but while everyone counted on the volunteers, they still needed more fire-resistant dwellings. A New England prefab wooden house was raised at the north end of Taylor Street, its precut sections assembled in such a confused manner, the second story didn’t fit over the first.

On March 4, 1851, at 4:00
A.M.
, a cry of fire went up. Two steamboats at Central Wharf between Clay Street Wharf and Howison’s Wharf burst into flame and threatened other vessels at anchor. That evening someone set a fire in a store. A strong wind scattered the cinders and burned down ten other buildings. Other near misses led the volunteers to believe they had the situation under control. Near the end of April, someone set fire to dry grass at the rear of a building. Every day police heard rumors of a plot to burn down the city. On April 23 a false alarm sounded in the dead of night. In the confusion eight prisoners escaped the city prison. During visits, their spouses had smuggled in augers and other tools used to dig a passage through the thin brick wall that formed the foundation of City Hall. “We live in such a cauldron of excitement in this town,” a citizen said, “that it is impossible to collect our ideas to write a letter: thefts, robberies, murders, and fires follow each other in such rapid succession that we hardly recover from the effects of one horrible tragedy before another piece of unmitigated villainy demands our attention.”

That the May 1851 fire fell exactly on the anniversary of the May 1850 blaze shattered any doubts the earlier fires had been anything but arson and that the Lightkeeper still walked among them.

DIAGRAM OF THE BURNT DISTRICT, MAY 4, 1851

The Melting House