Santa Clara County CA Archives History - Books .....Chapter X 1922
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Book Title: History Of Santa Clara County

CHAPTER X.

Distinguished Visitors to San Jose and the Santa Clara Valley—Bayard Taylor's
Day Dream—Political Orators—George Francis Train—Henry George as a
Detective—Bret Harte—Presidents Hayes and Harrison— The Ovation to General
Grant—Beecher, Ingersoll and the Old-Time Orators—Gen. John C. Fremont—Ned
Buntline.

  Many distinguished men and women have visited Santa Clara County. During the
'50s Gen. John C. Fremont, David C. Broderick, William M. Gwin, Gov. Burnett,
Bayard Taylor, J. Ross Browne and others came to San Jose, sometimes, on
business, sometimes for pleasure. Bayard Taylor, the famous poet, story writer
and traveler, first visited the Valley in the early '50s. In his "Pictures of
California" he thus describes what he saw: "How shall I describe a landscape so
unlike anything else in the world? With a beauty so new and dazzling that all
ordinary comparisons are worthless. A valley ten miles wide through the center
of which winds the dry bed of a winter stream whose course is marked with groups
of giant sycamores, their trunks gleaming like silver through masses of giant
foliage. Over the level floor of this valley park-like groves of oaks, whose
mingled grace and majesty can only be given by the pencil; in the distance
redwoods rising like towers; westward a mountain chain nearly 4,000 feet in
height, showing through the blue haze dark green forests on the background of
blazing gold. Eastward another mountain chain, full-lighted by the sun, rose
color touched with violet shadows, shining with marvelous transparency as if
they were of glass, behind which shone another sun. Overhead, finally, a sky
whose blue luster seemed to fall, mellowed, through an intervening veil of
luminous vapor. No words can describe the fire and force of the coloring—the
daring contrast which the difference of half a tint changed from discord into
harmony. Here the great artist seems to have taken a new palette and painted his
creations with hues unknown elsewhere. Driving through these enchanting scenes,
I indulged in a day dream. It will not be long, I thought,—I may live to see it
before my prime is over—until San Jose is but five days' journey from New York.
Cars, which shall be in fact traveling hotels, will speed, on an unknown line of
rail, from the Mississippi to the Pacific. Then let me purchase a few acres on
the lowest slope of these mountains overlooking the valley and with a distant
view of the bay; let me build a cottage embowered in acacia and eucalyptus and
the tall spires of the Italian cypress; let me leave home when the Christmas
holidays are over and enjoy the balmy Januarys and Februarys, the heavenly
Marches and Aprils, of my remaining years here, returning only when May shall
have brought beauty to the Atlantic shore. There shall my roses outbloom those
of Poestum, there shall my nightingales sing, my orange blossoms sweeten the
air, my children play and my best poem be written. I had another and a grander
dream. One hundred years had passed and I saw the valley, not as now, only
partially tamed, and reveling in the wild magnificence of nature, but from river
bed to mountain summit, humming with human life. I saw the same oaks and
sycamores, but their shadows fell on mansions fair as temples, gleaming with
their white fronts and long colonnades. I saw gardens refreshed by gleaming
fountains, statues peeping from the bloom of laurel bowers; palaces built to
enshrine the new art which will then have blossomed here; culture, plenty, peace
everywhere. I saw a more beautiful race in possession of this paradise—a race in
which the lost symmetry and grace of the Greek was partially restored; the
rough, harsh features of the Oriental type gone; milder manners; better
regulated impulses and a keen appreciation of the arts which enrich and
embellish life. Was it only a dream?"

  J. Ross Browne was a traveler, who wrote descriptive, semi-humorous accounts
of his wanderings for Harper's Monthly. His home was in Oakland, but he loved
San Jose and its people.

Political Orators.

  The political campaigns of the 70s brought many distinguished Eastern and
Northern orators to California. San Jose was not slighted and as spell-binding
was the main stock in trade of the stump speaker, the Californians received
their full share of lofty periods and flowery diction. Among the orators who
came to San Jose were Hannibal Hamlin, Vice-President under Lincoln; Julius C.
Burroughs, United States senator and the silver-tongued orator of Michigan; Gen.
W. S. Hancock, Garfield's opponent in the race for the presidency; John A.
Bingham, of Ohio, United States senator and statesman; Ex-Governor George L.
Woods, of Oregon, Thomas Fitch, of Nevada, and several others.

  In politics the things done nowadays are anything but on all fours with the
things done forty, fifty and sixty years ago. In the early days there was
partisanship, pure and simple. The line-up in every campaign showed the
adherents of one party in diametrical opposition to the adherents of the other.
And those were the days of whoop-'er-up, of intense enthusiasm, of excitement,
of deep sustained interest. Street corners were the scenes of animated
discussion. Often the ready fist shot out when word of mouth failed to give
force to the argument. But it was all in the play and when the curtain fell
villain and hero shook hands and all was well as before.

  In San Jose the very strenuous political period began in 1865 and ended in
1884. In 1868 Grant and Seymour were the opposing candidates. Meetings were
held, not in halls, but on the street where men could congregate and where the
best places could not be occupied by the women, who were then non-voters. The
idea in those days was not to give a theatrical performance to which one must
procure a reserved seat, but to talk to the people without any other accessories
than an improvised stand, an American flag and a row of tallow candles. On one
occasion—in 1865—no stand was used, but at the intersection of Santa Clara and
First streets, mounted on a dry goods box, the late lamented Thomas H. Laine,
afterwards law partner of John H. Moore, D. M. Delmas, S. F. Leib and W. A.
Johnston, eloquently enunciated the principles of Democracy, while the yellow
torches on the corners flared, their offensive residuum permeating the air.

  George C. Gorham, then a recently defeated candidate for governor, afterwards
secretary of the United States Senate and author of "The Life of Edwin M.
Stanton," was California's most remarkable stump speaker. His voice was often
heard in San Jose. He had a most remarkable command of vituperative language and
a sledge-hammer style possessed by no other orator in the State. He was the
first to advocate upon the stump the "Fatherhood of God, Brotherhood of Man"
principle.

  Citizen George Francis Train was, in his time the best-known American and the
strangest man in existence. He started forty clipper ships to California in
1849, organized the Credit Mobilier which built the Union Pacific Railway,
constructed the first street railway in England, organized the French Commune in
1870, was the business partner of kings, queens and emperors, was in jail eleven
times, and, to wind up, broke the world's around-the-world record three times,
the first time in eighty days, a feat that gave Jules Verne the idea for his
captivating story.

  In the early '70s he came to California on a lecturing tour. San Jose was
visited and the lecture was given in the Opera House, which at the time of
opening was crowded to the doors. The historian will never forget either the
occasion or the man. His head was much too large for his short, stoutly-built
body, but physical appearance was forgotten as one watched his movements and
listened to his talk. Active as a cat and charged with dynamic force, he was
never still for a moment, but moved from one end of the stage to the other,
waving his chubby hands and uttering disconnected, choppy sentences in a manner
that compelled interest and admiration. He was called a mountebank, a poseur and
man with a screw loose in his upper story, but he cared not the snap of a finger
for what was said about him, but seemed to delight in the caustic criticisms
that followed him while he was in the limelight.

  Before beginning his San Jose lecture he said to the audience: "They say I am
incoherent and that I wander from my subject. Maybe these gentle critics of mine
are right, but I can talk coherently, and I will give you something that will be
to the point. First, I will present a sample of coherent lecturing and,
following that, a sample of what they call incoherent lecturing. At the finish
you shall say what style you wish me to use tonight." Now came the samples. The
coherent one was dry and uninteresting and was received in silence. But after
the sample of incoherent the applause shook the building. When quiet had been
restored Train shouted: "Now, what will you have?" "Incoherent," was the
unanimous reply. "All right," Train said, "incoherent it shall be." Then the
circus opened. The lecturer jumped from one subject to another, bursts of
eloquence were followed by clownish jokes, points at times were driven home with
sledge-hammer force, gems of poetry were sandwiched in between lines of
exquisite prose and at intervals came epigrams charged with scorn and
bitterness, for in that distempered brain of his burned the fire of genius.
Indeed Train was wonderful as well as strange, and it was easy to understand why
he was such a success as a platform lecturer. After leaving California he
returned to New York, ran as independent candidate for the presidency, defended
Victoria Woodhull by publishing extracts from the Bible, an act that landed him
in the Tombs; threw away his money, behaved more extravagantly than ever, and
then one day closed his lips and for fourteen years never spoke to man or woman.
Every day during this period he sat on a bench in Madison Square, feeding the
birds and petting little children. At last speech and activity came back. He
made another around-the-world trip, completing it in sixty days, and then
settled down to a humdrum existence in the top story of a New York hotel. While
there he defended his position in the following characteristic style: "They say
I talk as one out of his head. Why should I not do so? How can a peanut
convention know about a cocoanut? The peanuts composing it have never seen a
cocoanut. They don't know what it is. The peanut convention considers the
cocoanut, deliberates wisely and passes a resolution that the cocoanut is a
large peanut. And how can a cocoanut find out what it is like until it has seen
another cocoanut like itself? I am a cocoanut." Train died in 1903, at the age
of seventy-four years.

  Henry George, the formulator and exponent of the single-tax theory, wrote
"Progress and Poverty" while acting as editor of the San Francisco Post. In
abbreviated form the matter was first used as meat for a lecture, and after San
Francisco had been favored with the radical views of the great editor, George
came to San Jose with his manuscript. Patrick W. Murphy, city editor of the
Post, was the business manager and the lecture was delivered in the San Jose
Opera House to a small audience. But the expenses were light and no money was
lost. George took the situation good-naturedly, for he was a jovial, big-hearted
man, and declared that he was satisfied with the sowing of the seed and would
serenely await the verdict of time.

  While in San Jose, George was the guest of J. J. Owen, the veteran editor and
philosopher. On the afternoon preceding the lecture George was in Owen's office.
Among other things they discussed the local sensation, which was of absorbing
interest to Owen, who was an avowed spiritualist. Strange, unaccountable
manifestations had been reported from a small, one-story house on Fourth Street
near St. John. Spooks, no less, so it was claimed and generally believed, had
repeatedly broken windows, thrown stones against the building and cut up other
queer and devilish pranks. The lessee of the house was a well-known citizen (now
deceased), who was utterly unable to understand why he, of all men, should be
singled out for these Satanic manifestations. His standing in the community was
high, he had led an upright life and he was not aware that he had any enemies.
The spooks—admitting that malignant spirits from the other world had been at
work—had operated at all hours, day and night. George listened to the story,
asked a few questions, and then said: "Let's go down to the house and
investigate. We may stumble upon a clew. I don't take any stock in this spook
business." Owen smiled but did not express any opinion. The historian, who was
then doing reportorial work for Owen, accompanied the two editors to the house
of mystery. The lessee was not at home, but his daughter was there. She smiled
cynically as she bade the trio enter the living room, which fronted on the
street. It was noticed on entering that some of the panes in the two front
windows were broken. George examined the breaks and then addressed himself to
the girl, who sat, sullen and defiant, near the door opening into the kitchen.
The door was closed and there was no sound to indicate the presence of any other
person in the house. Owen asked if the mother was at home. The girl shook her
head. She was rather attractive, with her black hair and eyes, pale cheeks and
tip-tilted nose. But her expression registered resentment rather than pleasure,
over the coming of the investigators. Her story tallied with that given by her
father. The mysterious manifestations had occurred at all hours of the day and
night. She had no theory to advance. The stones might have been thrown by evil
spirits or by some human enemy cunning enough to escape detection.

  After the inquisition Owen and George, with this historian at their heels,
looked into and examined every room in the house. Nothing of value as a clew
having been discovered, the three newspaper men returned to the living room, the
girl following them. She resumed her former seat and listened with an amused
smile while George and Owen discussed spooks, politics and religion. At last
George, changing the subject, said to Owen: "Have you made up your mind?" Owen
was about to answer when there came a noise as of the shattering of glass. The
investigators, quickly getting to their feet, saw that another pane had been
broken. "Well," ejaculated George, "his spookship is considerate. That show was
given for our benefit. Thank you, Spooky. Maybe"—he smiled at the girl, who sat
staring at the window with her hands concealed in her apron—"Maybe this is a
case of hoisting by one's own petard." Walking over to the window, he examined
thoroughly pane, sash and floor, then opened the front door and stepped outside.
He was gone but a few moments. Returning, he looked at the girl steadily,
accusingly. She stood the scrutiny half a minute, then cast down her eyes and
fumbled nervously with her hands, still concealed under her apron. She did not
lift her eyes while George was speaking. "Miss _____," he said, gravely, "the
stone was thrown from this room, therefore—" He paused and the girl burst out:
"It's no use trying to fool you. How did you find it out?" "Easy enough. The
glass broken by the smash is on the ground outside and not in this room." Then
he added, "Why did you do it? You must have had some strong reason." "I had,"
was the low reply. Her story was soon told. She hated the house and had been
trying for months to induce her father to move to another place. Unable to
influence him, she had hit upon the device of scaring him into compliance. The
scheme might have succeeded but for Henry George's astuteness.

  The story ended, the girl fell to crying. Her father would never forgive her.
She had a mind to run away and never come back. Her life was ruined, and so
forth, and so forth. George was kind and sympathetic. His soothing words soon
dried her tears. There was a way out of the tangle and he promised to find it
before he left town. He was as good as his word. The father was seen and after
much persuasion agreed to take another house, and also never to reproach his
daughter for what she had done. That ended the matter. The manifestations ceased
and Henry George left town in a satisfied frame of mind. He had not made any
money in San Jose, but he had had a fine time.

  Bret Harte made several visits to San Jose while he was editor of the Overland
Monthly. One visit lasted several days. It was shortly after the publication of
his first book of poems, "The Lost Galleon." He is remembered as a small,
dapper, elegantly clothed person, with black mustachios and "burnsides" and a
pockmarked face.

  Mark Twain was in San Jose a few days before his lecture. This was in 1866.
His controversy with W. Frank Stewart, the earthquake philosopher, has been
referred to in an earlier chapter.

  In the Society chapter reference was made to the visits to San Jose of
Presidents McKinley and Roosevelt. Other Presidents who came before them were
Hayes, Grant and Harrison. Hayes was in the middle of his term when he made the
overland trip to California. There was not much fuss made over his arrival,
though a large crowd gathered to listen to his address, made from the balcony of
the Auzerais House. He was accompanied by Gen. W. T. Sherman.

  President Harrison's visit was a flying one. He alighted from the train at the
Market Street depot, was driven rapidly about town and then back to the train.
He made one speech, short and to the point, like all his public utterances.

  The great ovation was given to Gen. U. S. Grant on September 26, 1879. In
honor of the event business houses generally were closed, the courts took a
half-holiday, and the city was given an attractive gala-day appearance. Nearly
all the public structures and business blocks were profusely and handsomely
decorated with flags, shields and festoonings of red, white and blue, while
private dwellings along the line of march were similarly arrayed and bedecked.
It was estimated at the time that more than 20,000 people, in holiday attire,
awaited the coming of the man who had reflected such honor upon his country.
Military and civic organizations took part in the parade, the late W. T. Adel
acting as grand marshal, with Capt. Ira Moore and A. P. Murgotten as aids. The
former residents of Galena, Ill., Grant's old home, were represented by Judge
Chas. G. Thomas, G. J. Overshiner, C. O. Rogers, O. C. Wells and C. Bellingall.
At the depot Mayor Lawrence Archer delivered the address of welcome. The
reception committee consisted of W. D. Tisdale, T. Ellard Beans, Rev. M. S.
Levy, Capt. C. H. Maddox and J. J. Owen. The torn, tattered and faded battle
flag carried by D. C. Vestal, as color-bearer of Phil Sheridan Post, excited
much comment, and its history would not be out of place here. It belonged in
1864 to the Twenty-first Regiment, South Carolina Colored Volunteers, commanded
by Col. A. G. Bennett, afterwards of San Jose, and was the first Union flag
raised in Charleston after that city's surrender to and occupation by the Union
forces. Five color-bearers were shot down while carrying it, and every hole in
it was made by a Confederate bullet.

  General Grant and party, which included Mrs. Grant and Ulysses S. Grant, Jr.,
received a pleasant surprise when the procession approached the Court House.
Upon the steps and platform were congregated some 500 children, each one
tastefully arrayed in white with red and blue ornamentations and bearing a small
flag and a bouquet of flowers. The general's carriage was driven to the edge of
the sidewalk and halted. Then the children, under the direction of Professor
Elwood, struck up the National anthem, "America," singing the four stanzas with
such spirit and feeling as made the welkin ring. At the close three cheers were
given to General Grant and then came a shower of bouquets thrown at the
carriage. After the procession had disbanded the general was driven to the Fair
Grounds on the Alameda, where a running horse race, against time, had been
arranged for his benefit. In the evening a banquet was given at the Auzerais
House. Mayor Archer presided and Col. J. P. Jackson of San Francisco made the
response for General Grant. The following were present:

  Ladies—Mrs. U. S. Grant, Mrs. Mayor Bryant of San Francisco, Mrs. Mayor
Archer, Mrs. S. O. Houghton, Mrs. T. Ellard Beans, Mrs. B. D. Murphy, Mrs. C. H.
Maddox, Mrs. H. W. Seale, Mrs. Knox-Goodrich, Mrs. Ira Moore, Mrs. G. R. Baker,
Mrs. F. E. Spencer, Mrs. J. J. Owen, Mrs. Gov. Irwin, Mrs. Coleman Younger, Mrs.
J. A. Moultrie, Mrs. J. W. Cook, Mrs. W. T. Adel Mrs. Johnson, Mrs. A. L.
Rhodes, Mrs. I. H. Moore.

  Gentlemen—L. Archer, W. D. Tisdale, W. L. Tisdale, T. E. Beans, E. McLaughlin,
C. T. Ryland, J. M. Braley, E. McLaughlin, H. H. Hoffmann, H. B. Alvord, C. T.
Parks. W. Erkson, J. J. Burt, L. G. Nesmith, John T. Ma-lone, H. L. Cutter, C.
C. Stephens, Martin Murphy, T. W. Spring, D. C. Vestal, W. S. Thorne, A.
McMahon, W. L. Coombs, L. Finigan, H. M. Leonard, J. P. Pierce, M. Byrne, Ira
Moore, R. F. Peckham, J. W. Cook, W. F. Ellis. W. M. Lovell, S. O. Houghton, C.
H. Maddox, S. W. Boring, S. A. Clark, Levi Goodrich, J. H. Flickinger, L. Lion,
D. Belden, B. D. Murphy, P. W. Murphy. E. C. Singletary, E. P. Reed, James A.
Clayton, D. C. Bailey, S. F. Leib, Geo. L. Woods, G. F. Baker, A. E. Pomeroy, H.
W. Seale, J. J. Sontheimer, J. J. Owen, Miles Hills, N. R. Harris, N. B.
Edwards, J. N. Hammond, J. R. Lowe, S. A. Barker, C. G. Thomas, J. S. Seely, C.
X. Hobbs, B. B. Thayer, L. J. Hanchett, J. P. Sargent, C. E. White, W. S. Clark,
Wilson Hays, J. B. Randol, W. T. Adel, A. Whitton, Coleman Younger, M. J.
Ashmore, Jesse D. Carr, J. C. Zuck, F. E. Spencer, C. C. Hayward, A. W. Saxe, A.
L. Rhodes, Geo. Rutherford, J. T. Murphy and C. G. Harrison.

  San Francisco—U. S. Grant, A. J. Bryant, J. H. Smith, W. W. Dodge, A. M.
Scott, M. L. McDonald, J. P. Jackson, E. Danforth, M. D. Bornck, H. Brickwedel,
John Wise and Henry Pierce.

  Lecturers from over the sea who came to San Jose were T. P. O'Connor, Michael
Davitt and Timothy Healey, Irish patriots. From the East came Robert G.
Ingersoll, Henry Ward Beecher, Theodore Tilton, Col. E. Z. C. Jud-son, Elizabeth
Cady Stanton, Dr. Mary Walker, Anna Howard Shaw, Anna Dickinson Mrs. Mary A.
Livermore, Dr. Mary Walker and Oscar Wilde. The lectures of Beecher and
Ingersoll were not far apart, but their speaking styles were as far apart as the
poles. Beecher was ornate, flowery and serious. He was eloquent in a lofty way
and his voice was a volume of musical sound. But he never thrilled an audience
as Ingersoll thrilled it. Ingersoll possessed a personal magnetism more
seductive than any speaker who ever visited San Jose. At his first lecture,
given in Music Hall on First Street, the front bench was occupied mainly by
ministers of the local Protestant churches, gathered there out of curiosity.
Before and after the lecture they called Ingersoll a sophist, one who touched
insignificant errors but failed to sound the depths of Christian philosophy as
revealed in the pages of the Bible. But that night they were so carried away by
the great agnostic's quips and quirks that their laughter, chuckles and
unconscious movements broke down the bench upon which they were sitting, thus
creating a diversion that greatly amused the lecturer and caused a laughable
commotion in other parts of the hall.

  Theodore Tilton was stiff, stilted and self-conscious. He had a fine command
of language, but his mannerisms, his posings and his conceit combined to create
an unfavorable impression. He came to San Jose just after the celebrated trial
in Brooklyn of the renowned Tabernacle preacher, and his notoriety —not his fame
as a public speaker—had the effect of drawing to his lecture a very large audience.

  Mrs. Stanton produced an altogether different impression. She was easy,
graceful and earnest, spoke without effort and made her points without artifice.
Anna Howard Shaw and Anna Dickinson were polished speakers. Miss Dickinson was
the more dramatic.

  Of the Irish lecturers, Healey and Davitt were serious and impassioned.
O'Connor (Tay Pay) was serious and witty by turns, and his talk was therefore
more entertaining than that of his fellow-workers in the Irish cause.

  In the '80s the annual encampment of the National Grand Army of the Republic
was held in California. After the session San Jose was visited by a large number
of delegates, the number including Gens. John A. Logan, C. S. Fairchild, and
George Stoneman. At the time Stoneman was Governor of California. Before this
event Gen. W. S. Hancock had been in San Jose. Of the warriors, Logan, as a
speaker, was eloquent, impressive and forceful. With his long hair, once
raven-black but now streaked with gray, his flashing black eyes and handsome
features, he made a picture that was pleasing to look upon. General Hancock was
not an orator. He was over six feet in height, ponderous and heavy, and moved
slowly, as if he found it an effort to lift his feet. He spoke haltingly, but
made a good impression on account of his transparent honesty and unaffected manner.


  In later days came Josh Billings, Opie Read, James Whitcomb Riley, Bill Nye,
Geo. W. Cable, Geo. Alfred Townsend, Jack London, Joaquin Miller, Mrs. Mary
Austen, King Kalakaua, of the Hawaiian Islands, Gen. John C. Fremont, William 
J. Bryan, Booker Washington, Thomas B. Reed, and several other notables whose
names cannot be recalled. Bryan's first visit to San Jose was made in 1897, the
year after he was defeated for the presidency by William McKinley. There was
quite a demonstration when he arrived with James G. Maguire, congressman from
the San Francisco district. He spoke at the Fair Grounds before a large audience
and afterwards held a reception at the Hotel Vendome.

  General Fremont visited San Jose a few years before his death. He was the
guest of the Santa Clara County Pioneers, and after sightseeing in San Jose the
General and his wife were taken to the Big Trees in Santa Cruz County, where an
old-fashioned entertainment was provided.

  One whose career was one series of sensational adventures and whose reputation
during the '50s and '60s was world-wide, stayed in San Jose for several weeks in
1868. The man was Col. E. Z. C. Judson (Ned Buntline), who was the originator in
the United States of the dime novel. He was also the pioneer in the writing of
lurid fiction. He was a graduate of the Annapolis Naval Academy and was
commissioned midshipman for bravery in rescuing a boat's crew from drowning in
New York harbor. While in the navy he fought seven duels. His fellow-middies
refused to associate themselves with him because he had been a common sailor. To
enforce their respect he challenged all of them, thirteen in number, to mortal
combat. Only seven agreed to fight, and he worsted them all in quick succession
without receiving a scratch himself. One of his opponents was afterwards an
admiral in the navy. He was an active participant in the Florida (Indian) and
Mexican wars, and in the Civil War was the colonel of a regiment of
mountaineers. He was a crack shot and in the 70s, in a trial of skill with
Buffalo Bill, Texas Jack and a number of Indian chiefs, he easily proved his
superiority.

  He began to write fiction in the early '40s. In 1848 he started a paper in New
York in order to further the cause of Know-Nothing-ism, of which he was an
ardent and reckless supporter. In that same year he was sentenced to one year's
confinement in prison as one of the leaders in the Astor House riots when the
adherents of Edwin Forrest, the great American tragedian, attempted to mob W. C.
Macready, the English tragedian, as a reprisal for insults heaped upon Forrest
by Macready's English friends while Forrest was filling" a London engagement. He
was one of the pioneers in waging war against the publication and circulation of
immoral literature. In 1852, long before Anthony Comstock was in the field, he
made complaint against an offending publisher. The place was raided by the
police and tons of objectionable literature were seized and burned in City Hall
Park.

  Ned Buntline's first serial story appeared in 1857, and for over twenty years
bear and Indian stories, war and sea romances, local novels—in fact every
variety of sensational fiction —flowed in constant stream from his pen. In 1868
he came to California as a temperance lecturer. He had been a hard drinker, but
had reformed. During his stay in San Jose he delivered one of his lectures under
the auspices of the local Good Templar lodge. Of the committee of introduction
only one member is now living (1922), the veteran lawyer, J. C. Black, who
afterwards served as district attorney and was special prosecutor in several
notable criminal cases.

  After leaving San Jose Buntline started eastward, but laid over several months
in Laramie, Wyo., in order to obtain material for a new series of wild west
stories. Here he met Buffalo Bill, who had just completed a contract to supply
buffalo meat for the tracklayers of the Kansas Pacific Railway, and whose
reputation then was mainly local. The two men became fast friends and a short
time after their meeting Buntline sent the first Buffalo Bill romance to a New
York story paper. Other stories quickly followed, and within a year Buffalo Bill
became the most talked-of personage in America. Not content with newspaper
exploitation, Buntline wrote a play called "Buffalo Bill, the King of Scouts,"
and induced Bill to appear in the titular role. The first performance was given
in a Western city. Other plays starring Buffalo Bill were written, a company was
formed. Wild Bill, and Texas Jack becoming members, and a tour of the country
was made, San Jose being visited in 1877. After parting with Buffalo Bill,
Buntline resumed his temperance crusade, but still kept up his story-writing. A
large portion of the money he earned was spent in improving his country place in
Westchester County, New York. He married late in life and died in 1886.


Additional Comments:
Extracted from:

HISTORY OF SANTA CLARA COUNTY CALIFORNIA
WITH
Biographical Sketches
OF
The Leading Men and Women of the County Who Have Been Identified With Its Growth
and Development From the Early Days to the Present

HISTORY BY
EUGENE T. SAWYER

ILLUSTRATED COMPLETE IN ONE VOLUME

HISTORIC RECORD COMPANY
LOS ANGELES, CALIFORNIA 
1922


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