in the bay in front of it, though the whalers usually went
to Sausalito to get wood from the hills and to fill their water-casks
at a large spring. From early Mission times the Spanish name of Yerba
Buena was given to that part of San Francisco's peninsula between
Black Point and Rincon Point. Ship-captains and sailors soon found out
that the cove or bay east of Yerba Buena was the best and least windy
place to anchor their vessels, and later on hundreds of ships found
a safe harbor there. The name Yerba Buena, or good herb, was given
on account of a little creeping vine with sweet-smelling leaves which
covered the ground and is still found on the sand-dunes and Presidio
hills.

For many years the small settlements made no progress, and the rest
of the peninsula was covered with thick woods, where the grizzly bear,
wolf, and coyote roamed, while deer were plenty at the Presidio. Then
in 1835 Governor Figueroa, the Mexican ruler of California, directed
that a new town should be started at Yerba Buena cove. The first
street, called the "foundation-street," was laid out from Pine and
Kearny streets, as they are called to-day, to North Beach. The first
house was built by Captain Richardson on what is now Dupont Street,
between Clay and Washington. The next year a trader named Jacob Leese
built a store. It was finished on the Fourth of July, and in honor of
the day he gave a feast and a fandango, or dance, at which the company
danced that night and all the next day. This was the first Fourth
celebrated in the place.

Two or three years later a new survey laid out streets between
Broadway and California, Montgomery and Powell. A fresh-water lagoon,
or lake, was near the present corner of Montgomery and Sacramento,
and an Indian temescal, or sweat-house, beside it. The bay came up
to Montgomery Street then, with five feet of water at Sansome, and
mudflats to the east. During the gold excitement of '49, when hundreds
of ships dropped anchor in the bay, many sailors deserted to go to the
mines, and some of the old vessels were hauled in on these mud-flats
and made into storehouses. All that part of the city east of
Montgomery Street is filled or made ground, and when new buildings are
to be started wooden piles or cement piers must go down to get a firm
foundation.

Until 1846 only about thirty families lived at Yerba Buena. Then a
shipload of Mormon emigrants arrived and pitched their tents in the
sand-hills. Samuel Branna