San Francisco County CA Archives History - Books .....Chapter 1 Eleven United States Senators 1937
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Book Title: Lone Mountain

The United States Senators whose Monuments and Inscriptions are found in Laurel
Hill Cemetery

EDWARD DICKINSON BAKER
BORN IN ENGLAND, FEBRUARY 2, l8ll. KILLED WHILE LEADING THE FORLORN HOPE AT THE
BATTLE OF BALL'S BLUFF, VIRGINIA, OCTOBER 21, 1861. AT THE TIME OF HIS DEATH HE
WAS UNITED STATES SENATOR FROM OREGON AND THOUGH HOLDING AN APPOINTMENT AS MAJOR
GENERAL, WAS ACTING AS COLONEL COMMANDING A BRIGADE OF UNITED STATES FORCES
ENLISTED AND ORGANIZED BY HIMSELF.

DAVID C. BRODERICK 
MECHANIC: SENATOR: BORN WASHINGTON, D.C., FEBRUARY4, 182O

JAMES A. MCDOUGALL 1817 - 1867 

MILTON S. LATHAM MAY 23, 1827 - MARCH 4, 1882

AARON AUGUSTUS SARGENT
SEPTEMBER 17, 1827-AUGUST 14, 1887
PRINTER: LAWYER: SENATOR: MINISTER-PLENIPOTENTIARY

WILLIAM M. GWIN OCTOBER 83 1805 - SEPTEMBER 3, 1885

GENERAL JOHN F. MILLER 1831-1881

JOHN PERCIVAL JONES 1829 – 1912

WILLIAM MORRIS STEWART AUGUST 9, 1827 — APRIL 23, 1909

WILLIAM SHARON JANUARY 9, 182O- NOVEMBER 13, 1885

JAMES GRAHAM FAIR  DECEMBER 3, 1831 — DECEMBER 24, 1894
           


Lone Mountain 
I
Eleven United States Senators
UNDER the most conspicuous monument in Laurel Hill lies the body of David C.
Broderick, who was elected United States Senator from California in 1857.
Tradition says that Broderick once worked as stone cutter on the Capitol where
he afterward sat as legislator. In the life of this man who was a laborer's son,
yet who climbed to the exalted position of United States Senator, there was
written a story of achievement. He worked his way up unaided, until he became
United States Senator from California. But his term in the Senate was not long.
As a result of a quadrangular quarrel involving Broderick, Gwin, Terry, and
Perley, the fates brought about a duel between Broderick and Terry in which
Broderick fell. He was buried in Laurel Hill Cemetery September 18, 1859. At
Senator Broderick's funeral service, held in the plaza, Colonel E. D. Baker made
one of his impassioned speeches. Broderick was his friend. He quoted Broderick's
own words when he fell on the duelling field: "I die because I was opposed to a
corrupt administration, and to the extension of slavery." Baker said his friend
had fallen "tangled in the meshes of the code of honor." He dwelt upon the
horrors of duelling. He said: "The code of honor is a delusion and a snare . . .
The protest is written in indelible characters. It is written in the blood of
Gilbert, in the blood of Ferguson, in the blood of Broderick." After Broderick's
death Judge Terry was arrested by police officer I. W. Lees, who now also rests
at Laurel Hill. The case was set for trial in Marin County; the witnesses' boat
was delayed on the trip across the bay and did not arrive at the hour set, and
the case of the People against Judge David S. Terry for the killing of Senator
David C. Broderick was dismissed.

  Broderick left an estate appraised at a quarter of a million, largely the
result of wise real estate investments. He was a single man with no near
relatives, and as no will was found in California the Court appointed a special
administrator. Subsequently a will was produced in New York City, and for more
than fifteen years the Broderick will case occupied the courts. Thomas H.
Williams, Gregory Yale, and other attorneys now buried at Laurel Hill, were
engaged in the controversy.

  Edward Dickinson Baker was born in England February 2, 1811. When he was five
years old his parents came to Philadelphia to make their home; they belonged to
the Society of Friends. At seventeen Baker went to Illinois. At twenty-one he
had fought in the Black Hawk War and obtained a Major's commission. Of himself
he said: "My real forte is my power to command, to rule and lead men. I feel
that I could lead men anywhere." But Baker's friends thought his special talent
lay in his gift of oratory.

  In the political field Baker speedily came into prominence in Illinois as a
leader of the Whigs. The proposed construction of a transcontinental railway was
a project very dear to his heart. While he was in the United States Congress,
representing the Springfield, Illinois, district, war with Mexico was declared.
Without resigning his seat in Congress, he hastened back to Illinois, obtained a
Colonel's commission, and raised a regiment which was accepted by President Polk
and sent to the front. In the fighting near Mexico City, at the head of the 4th
Illinois Regiment, he won distinction, and at the close of the war the State of
Illinois presented him with a sword.

  In 1852 Baker came to California. Here he soon became known for his charm of
speech as well as for his ability as a lawyer. One of his most famous addresses
was that delivered on the completion of the Atlantic cable, September 27, 1858.
"Thought has bridged the Atlantic," he said, "and cleaves its unfettered path
across the sea."

  On May 30, 1854, Lone Mountain was dedicated as a cemetery, and Colonel E. D.
Baker delivered the dedication address to the people of San Francisco. "In a
tender and thrilling speech," said Rev. Thomas Starr King some seven years
later, "Colonel Baker devoted this cemetery to its hallowed purposes." He dwelt
upon the great fact of immortality, and said: "The truth peals like thunder in
our ears—thou shall live forever!" The keynote of his theme was the idea that in
this peaceful spot the pioneers would rest forever.

  In 1859, in California, Baker ran for the United States Senate, but was
defeated. When he had been retained to defend Charles Cora, who shot United
States Marshal Richardson, his closing argument so greatly impressed the jury—in
spite of the loudly voiced verdict of the press, that the homicide was
murder—that the jury were unable to agree upon a verdict. Two stood for
acquittal, six for manslaughter, and only four for murder in the first degree.
But before the date set for a second trial both Casey and Cora were taken from
the jail by the Vigilance Committee, tried and convicted by them, and hanged. In
the course of his speech before Judge Hager and the jury, Colonel Baker defended
his stand in a tribute to the legal profession:

  "The profession to which we belong," he said, "is of all others, fearless of
public opinion. It has ever stood up against the tyranny of monarchs on the one
hand, and the tyranny of public opinion on the other; and if, as the humblest
among them, it becomes me to instance myself, I may say with a bold heart, and I
do say it with a bold heart, that there is not in all this world a wretch so
humble, so guilty, so despairing, so torn with avenging furies, so pursued by
the arm of the law, so hunted to cities of refuge, so fearful of life, so afraid
of death — there is no wretch so steeped in all the agonies of vice and crime,
that I would not have a heart to listen to his cry, and a tongue to speak in his
defense, though around his head all the wrath of public opinion should gather,
and rage, and roar, and roll, as the ocean rolls around the rock. And if I ever
forget, if I ever deny, that highest duty of my profession, may God palsy this
arm and hush my voice forever."

  When Baker was defeated for the United States Senate in California he moved to
Oregon, where he was at once elected to fill an unexpired term. En route to
Washington he stopped over in San Francisco and delivered a political speech on
October 26, 1860. "We are running a man now by the name of Lincoln," he said.
"He is an honest, good, simple-minded, true man, who is a hero without knowing
it. If he recommends a railroad—and he will — he won't twaddle about it." This
pleased the people of California, for the Western States at that time were
becoming more and more eager to obtain an appropriation from Congress for the
completion of the proposed Pacific Railroad, from the Atlantic to the Pacific
Coast. It was on the occasion of this political speech that Baker won loud and
long applause when he uttered his oft-quoted words: "Long years ago, I took my
stand by Freedom, and where in youth my feet were planted, there my manhood and
my age shall march."

  The Civil War came on. Baker left his seat in the United States Senate, raised
a regiment in Illinois, and went again to the front. In his first fight, at
Bull's Bluff, Virginia, October 21, 1861, he fell. In 1861 the transcontinental
telegraph had just been completed, and the melancholy news of Baker's death in
Virginia was sent by telegraph to San Francisco. The message was read by Junius
Brutus Booth, from the stage of the American Theatre, and was received by the
audience with a demonstration of genuine grief.

  On the day of President Lincoln's inauguration at Washington, in the east
portico of the unfinished Capitol, it was Colonel E. D. Baker, then Senator from
Oregon, who introduced Lincoln to the audience. A warm friendship existed
between President Lincoln and Colonel Baker, and President Lincoln's second son,
born in 1846, was named Edward Baker Lincoln.

  Colonel Baker had three brothers, who remained in Illinois. There was one
sister, born in Philadelphia, who died in Sausalito, California, at the age of
seventy-three. She was the wife of Theodore Jerome, a California pioneer of
1849. Both are buried at Laurel Hill. Their son, Edward Baker Jerome, was for
many years chief deputy collector of customs at San Francisco. He died in
Oakland in 1902. Colonel Baker's son Alfred, a lieutenant and aide to his father
at Ball's Bluff, was a clerk in the San Francisco Postoffice for a number of
years. He never married.

  Not far from the grave of Senator Baker stands the stately monument erected by
Milton S. Latham, United States Senator from California. Elected Governor of
California in the fall of 1859 ne served for five days only and then resigned to
fill the office of United States Senator, left vacant by the death of Broderick.
At the expiration of his three years' term in the United States Senate he went
to London, where he interested men of capital in the establishment of the London
and San Francisco Bank, of which he served as president for many years.

  California's first United States Senators were John C. Fremont, who drew the
short term, and William M. Gwin, who served from 1850 to 1855 and was re-elected
in 1857. William McKendree Gwin was born in Sumner County, Tennessee. He died in
New York City, and was first buried at Laurel Hill.

Prior to coming to California in 1849 he lived for a time in New Orleans, where
he was engaged in superintending the construction of the new custom house. He
was twice married; two daughters and a son survived him. At twenty-three he had
taken a degree in medicine, and from that time throughout his long life as a
politician he was generally called Dr. Gwin. In his later years he was also
known as "Duke Gwin of Sonora," although his colonization plan, which had taken
him twice to Mexico, and also to France to confer with Napoleon, was a failure.

  Dr. Gwin was one of the delegates to the Constitutional Convention which met
at Monterey in September, 1849, to frame California's first Constitution.

  Only seven days after the convention had begun its deliberations, the article
prohibiting slavery in the new state was adopted by unanimous vote. Earlier in
the year in Sacramento, San Jos6, San Francisco, and even in the mining
districts, anti-slavery meetings had been held by the pioneers with the end in
view of instructing their representatives to the Provisional Government
Convention to oppose any incipient act that tends to promote the introduction of
negro slavery into the Territory of California.

  The anti-slavery meetings in San Francisco had been presided over by Capt.
Joseph L. Folsom and William S. Clark, and the proceedings were reported in the
Alta California (March 22, 1849) by Edward Gilbert. The graves of these three
men are also at Laurel Hill.

  James A. McDougall was elected United States Senator from California by a
combination of Republicans and Douglas Democrats. He had a natural bent for
engineering and his first work as a boy was to help in the survey of the
railroad between Albany and Schenectady, but he soon turned his attention to the
study of law. During ten years spent in law practice in Illinois he became the
warm friend of Colonel E. D. Baker. They were associated in the trial of Charles
Cora, who killed United States Marshal William H. Richardson November 17, 1855.

  Soon after the discovery of gold McDougall brought his family to California.
October 7, 1850, he was elected attorney-general of the State; in 1852 he was
elected a member of the lower house of Congress, where he was able to urge the
construction of a Pacific railroad with the practical knowledge of engineering
he had acquired as a boy. In San Francisco the McDougall family resided at 40
South Park. McDougall's law partners were Solomon A. Sharp and Reuben H. Lloyd.
On the day of Colonel Baker's funeral at Laurel Hill Cemetery, December 11,
1861, Senator McDougall delivered an address in the Senate Chamber on the
subject of his friend's accomplishments and untimely death. He said of Baker:
"He was an orator . . . he was a leader ... he loved fame, glory, honorable
renown. He thirsted for it with an ardent thirst, as did Cicero and Caesar."

  At the expiration of his term in the Senate, March 4,1867, it was General
McDougall's intention to return to California and take up his law practice again
on the Pacific Coast; but he died while visiting at the home of his sister, Mrs.
Campbell, in Albany, New York, September 3, 1867. His death, wrote his friend
Oscar Shuck, "was hastened by his indulgence in the bowl ..."

  A letter written to a friend in San Francisco by Senator Cornelius Cole, who
attended Senator McDougall's funeral in Albany, explains why McDougall was
buried at Lone Mountain Cemetery in San Francisco.

                                      Albany, September 6, 1867.
  . . . Senator McDougall died at the house where he was brought up. I saw him
there two weeks ago and he was then prostrate and did not know me at first. He
took me for the doctor . . . Mrs. McDougall says it was his wish often expressed
to be buried at Lone Mountain where he provided a family vault in which to rest
the remains of an only son. Only a few days before, he had alluded often to his
poor boy as sleeping alone on the distant Pacific shore . . .

  On Sunday afternoon, May 24, 1868, funeral services for Senator James A.
McDougall were held at Grace Church, San Francisco. "The attendance at the
church was large," said the Morning Call of Tuesday, "proving that time and
absence had not weakened the respect, esteem and memory of the friends and
acquaintances of the talented and noble-hearted departed. He was buried under
the auspices of Mt. Moriah Lodge of Masons, of which order he was an old and
high-ranking member ..." In the family vault at Laurel Hill all that was mortal
of Senator James A. McDougall was laid to rest beside the casket of his little
son, James A. McDougall, Jr., who died April 26, 1855, at two years of age.

  A white marble tomb at Laurel Hill marks the resting place of Aaron Augustus
Sargent. A California pioneer of '49, he first engaged in mining; later served
as district attorney, and took an active part in the formation of the Republican
party. Elected United States Senator in 1871, he labored for California for many
years. He had been a representative in the House in 1861 and in 1868; he once
wrote a history of the bar of Nevada County; in 1882 he was appointed minister
to Germany. Aaron M. Sargent, son of the late George Clark Sargent, is his
grandson.

  General John F. Miller, born in Indiana in 1831, was a California pioneer of
'53, and was elected United States Senator from California in 1881. He served in
the Union Army from 1861 to 1865. He was collector of the port in San Francisco
for four years, and president of the Alaska Commercial Company. He was first
buried at Laurel Hill, but when his daughter, wife of Rear-Admiral Richardson
Clover, went to reside in Washington, D. C., his body was moved from Laurel Hill
to Arlington National Cemetery. His monument still stands at Laurel Hill.

  One of the United States Senators from Nevada, whose home was in California
for many years, was Senator John Percival Jones. He arrived at San Francisco by
way of Cape Horn in 1850. On the bark Eureka he made the entire trip from his
home in Cleveland, Ohio, to California, through the Great Lakes, the Welland
Canal, down the St. Lawrence River, across the Atlantic, around Cape Horn and up
the Pacific Coast to San Francisco Bay. He served in the California State
Legislature from 1863 to 1867. He was elected United States Senator from Nevada
in 1873 and was re-elected in 1879. He was born in England; he was twice
married. Mrs. Frederick MacMonnies, wife of the sculptor, and Mrs. Robert
Farquhar are his daughters. He died November 27, 1912, and his ashes were placed
in the costly vault of Colfax marble which he had erected in Lone Mountain
Cemetery some fifty years before his death.

  The ashes of William Morris Stewart, another United States Senator from
Nevada, were also brought to Laurel Hill Cemetery for burial in his family plot.
His boyhood was spent in helping to clear his father's farm in Ohio, but his
education was not neglected. He entered Yale, and remained in college until the
gold rush brought him to California. He arrived in San Francisco by way of
Panama, in May, 1850, and after digging for gold for a time he began the study
of law. He was first elected United States Senator in 1864, and was re-elected
in 1869, in 1886, in 1892, and in 1898. Oscar T. Shuck was his law clerk during
the period when he was one of the leading operators on the Comstock and was also
investing largely in San Francisco real estate. Of his printed argument in the
Sharon will case Oscar Shuck said: "It reads like a novel and is well worth
perusing, not only for the argument, but for its humorous and racy style."

  William M. Stewart was one of the original trustees of Stanford University,
named in the founding grant November 11, 1885; he resigned in 1904. His
daughter, Bessie, married Richard C. Hooker, lieutenant in the United States
Navy. Their infant son, who died in 1878, is buried in the family plot at Laurel
Hill. On resigning from the Navy, Hooker became a stockbroker. It may not be
said that Steuart Street in San Francisco was named for Senator Stewart. There
was a William M. Stewart (also spelled Steuart) who came to California on the
Ohio; made a trip to the mines with Walter Colton; was a member of the
ayuntamiento in 1849-50, and served as a delegate to the Constitutional
Convention at Monterey in September, 1849. It was for him that Steuart Street
was named.

  A massive table-tomb at Laurel Hill marks the grave of William Sharon, who was
born in Ohio and died in San Francisco. He was generally spoken of as a
Californian although he was United States Senator from Nevada from 1875 to 1881.
William C. Ralston, who was born January n, 1826, and died August 27, 1875, was
associated with Sharon in many enterprises. In 1864 he organized the Bank of
California, of which he remained president until the day of its failure and of
his tragic death. Of Ralston, Bancroft wrote: "Pity, sympathy and gratitude took
him tenderly and laid him gently in Lone Mountain." The Bank of California was
reorganized by D. O. Mills and Sharon, with the help of some forty other
capitalists. Sharon took over the Ralston properties, and at Ralston's spacious
country estate at Belmont Senator Sharon gave a reception for General Grant and
his party in 1878 that has become historic in the annals of the state.

  A daughter of William Sharon married United States Senator Francis G.
Newlands. She died in 1883 and was buried at Calvary Cemetery by her mother's
side. Newlands was one of the executors of William Sharon's will, and before the
distribution of the estate Park Commissioner Pixley went to Newlands and asked
Newlands to arrange for $25,000 from Senator Sharon's estate to be turned over
to the park commissioners for the establishment and maintenance of a children's
playground in Golden Gate Park. After considerable urging the matter was
arranged, and the Argonaut, edited by Jerome A. Hart, in frequent editorials
about the children's playground repeatedly gave credit to the Sharon estate for
its munificent gift to the children of San Francisco.

  Similar to Senator Sharon's table-tomb at Laurel Hill, is the monument which
was erected at Arlington in memory of Major Pierre Charles L'Enfant, the gifted
French engineer who came to America with Lafayette to join the American Army at
the time of the Revolutionary War. There is no authentic portrait of him in
existence, and he left no descendants; but his map remains, out of which has
grown the capital city — "city of magnificent distances" — planned by him more
than a hundred and thirty years ago. L'Enfant was first employed by President
Washington, each time the seat of the Federal Government was moved, to remodel a
building for governmental use; and, finally, when Congress decided to build a
city on the Potomac, it was L'Enfant who drew the plan — envisioned the city of
Washington as it stands today. He died forgotten and for nearly a century his
grave remained unmarked. But his dream was realized. The city grew to fit his
plan, and today the grave of L'Enfant is marked by a splendid monument at
Arlington National Cemetery.

  James G. Fair was born in the north of Ireland of Scotch parents. He was known
as the highly successful superintendent of the Ophir mine, the Hale & Norcross,
and the still larger Consolidated Virginia and California mining properties. He
was chosen in 1880 United States Senator from Nevada to succeed William Sharon.
He served six years, until March 4, 1887, and returned to San Francisco, where
he lived at the Lick House until his death. For many years the Fair estate was
in litigation. One of the points at issue was to determine the validity of the
trust clause contained in his will. It was decided by the presiding judge,
Charles W. Slack, to be invalid. This decision on appeal was set aside; but on a
rehearing the Supreme Court reversed its decision and sustained the decision of
Judge Slack. Under this decree the estate was distributed to the heirs, thus
invalidating the trust, in accordance with Judge Slack's original ruling.

  In addition to large holdings of real estate and mining properties, there were
railroads to be handled, and thousands of tons of wheat, and the involved
affairs of the estate of James G. Fair dragged through the courts for many
years. As Fair had succeeded William Sharon in the senatorship, so the
litigation in connection with his estate followed the Sharon estate cases in the
California courts. Senator Fair was first buried at Laurel Hill. His beautiful
mausoleum, crowning a hilltop, in the richness of its ornamentation, in height
and design, recalls that gem of mediaeval Gothic architecture, the Sainte
Chapelle of the Palace of Justice in Paris.


Additional Comments:
Extracted from:

Lone Mountain
The Most Revered of San Francisco's Hills

ANNALS OF THE PIONEERS COPIED FROM HEADSTONES AND OTHER OLD RECORDS
By ANN CLARK HART

SAN FRANCISCO
THE PIONEER PRESS PUBLISHERS MCMXXXVII


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